Boom I.T. Group — Local services in St. John's

Can't recommend in good conscience. Sometimes they're good, overall very hit-and-miss. Prices are somewhat marked up so little reason not to buy online, standard for NL there. The real issue is the inconsistency in customer service. I've been here numerous times over the years, and almost every time I end up kicking myself for it. Staff promise to get back to you with relevant updates, and let you know when its done but in reality it's a coin toss whether this happens. Multiple times I've brought my machine in for routine part-swaps that should take a few hours at most and been out of a computer for days with little to no feedback or updates.

The real kicker was when I recently brought my computer in to have a new motherboard installed. When I dropped my machine off in the morning at open, the staff assured me there was no other machines in the 'queue' so the work should be completable by the end of the day, but were quick to try and upsell me on the 'Priority Service' charge for 50% more, to 'guarantee' that it would be done. Fast forward to a few hours before close when I call to check on it and I'm told my machine hasn't even been looked at yet, since they'd had some business jobs come in that were apparently more important than me. Of course he was quick to note that I could still pay a 50% surcharge for them to make sure it was finished that day. This is a pretty clear indication of their priorities for consumer clients, and it left a bad taste in my mouth, so I chose not to pay the extra. As it turns out, it wasn't until 5pm the subsequent day that I finally got a call back that the work was done. I figured that was that, and didn't think too much of it, irritations aside.

It was only after I had gotten home that I realized my PC no longer recognizes my installation of Windows as legitimate (which I purchased and had installed AT BoomIT some years prior) as a result of the hardware change. At no point during the work was this mentioned to me as a potential issue, and I'm struggling to fathom that nobody checked on this during the 2 days my computer spent on the bench, and if they did they certainly neglected to inform me. (Though they did ask if I wanted Windows11 while performing a bunch of other Windows updates I never asked for) It was only after spending hours on the phone with Microsoft support that I found out I now have to effectively re-do the work I paid BoomIT for twice over in order to properly reactivate my Windows installation.

When I called the store to inform them of this, the only options I was given was to purchase an entirely new copy of windows for 150$+, or I could bring the computer in and have them charge me hourly for an indeterminate period of time to fix the problem they caused. Needless to say I'll be doing my own computer...

They built me a $2000 computer six months ago and I had some trouble with it initially getting the Wi-Fi to work. It was something they forgot to tell me about so it was a whole thing. Last week I started seeing a watermarked notification on windows saying that I need to activate my version of Windows before I can personalize my computer. This includes the audio from the browser, I’ve tried everything to troubleshoot the issue. I work with audio, I need sound on my computer. It wouldn’t even let me adjust sound settings (greyed out) I purchased windows 11 when I bought this computer and everything was working fine until last week. It starts to tell me that it’s not registered and I need to sign in to my Microsoft account and put in the product key which I wasn’t sure exactly where it was. I tried to sign into my Microsoft account, but was unable to because of the when they were sending me a new password to my email. It never arrived. The few times that I tried it didn’t work. So I called Boom it to try and figure out what was going on because I knew I had purchased windows, but I just needed help figuring this out. A guy named Adam answered the phone and was stand offish right away. I explained the situation to him and his solution was for me to bring in my tower so they could help me with it. I said how much will that cost? He said starting at $75 plus. There shouldn’t be any charge for this. All he cared about was getting more money from me. When I asked him is there anyway we could fix this without me bringing in my work machine he said no and just wanted to get me off the phone. Not only was this guy arrogant and short on patience, he affected my mood for a couple of hours, I was stressed because of him. I have a serious mood disorder (bipolar) and him being so rude triggered me and put me over the edge for a while. It was totally unnecessary. I couldn’t work for a couple of hours. That’s not ok. I don’t know who thought it was a good idea to have this guy answer the phone but it was a bad decision and has caused me to take my business elsewhere. I won’t be giving them anymore money and I’m going to make sure my team knows about this so they can go to a place that actually cares about their customers. I’d like to also point out that when I had the WiFi issue a few months ago I spoke with Kira, who was awesome. She helped me until my issue was fixed. That’s how it is supposed to be. They need to have techies doing technical stuff and get someone answering the phones who understands customer service. Boom is definitely losing customers because of this. I won’t buy another...

Don't even think to walk in there. I wish I could rate it "zero" stars, like the place never existed. A bunch of basic amatuer "IT" rookies will meet you right the way and try to get and make the most buck they can ,living the dream that you have no choice and knowledge of computers as a customer. Wrong approach right the way. BE VERY AWARE!!$57.50 is their regardless "Hi" and "Bye" fee on any computer repair or diagnostic that needs to be done as soon as you agree to their policy agreement. I hope they're not living, relying and surviving as business on that matter. Shame on you !!! Keep reading if you don't want to be the next victim. I'm professional and well educated "IT" guy with more than 30 years of experience on doing diagnostics, repairs, programming and software development in the same field and decided to test the ground in that business and share the awful customer service and experience i had. I brought my daughter's 2 years old $1400 laptop that failed to boot after Bios update. All it needed is the Bios to be flashed and the chip reprogrammed with the original bin file version. It only takes 15-20 minutes for that to be done with the proper knowledge and equipment. I was assured that they can do that and fix the problem. Also I've been told they'll give me a call in the next 2 days. A week passed by and no call back unfortunately. I stopped by on the way home to check on it and I've got a "friendly" advice they're still working on it and the technician wasn't there, so they'll give me a call later on or the next day, but it probably needs a new motherboard for $699 plus repair cost. I went "very happy " home and checked the price on a new one, it was listed for $250-$300. Also checked on the actual chip, software and programming usb adaptor needed to flash the Bios myself and the price was $2.78 for the chip(that don't even need replacement) and $24.99 for the Bios adapter and software to program it . Well, folks for $700-$800 you can buy probably 2 used laptops our days. I went and picked up my laptop today and ordered the necessary parts to fix it myself for less than $30. Good luck on your future BOOM...