Geek Squad — Local services in Clearwater

I'm a HUGE fan of Best Buy and have used their products and services most of my adult life, but this Geek Squad was a total bust and could have cost me ALL of my hard drive data if I weren't tech savvy enough to find my own answers and seek professional help (aka NOT Geek Squad). Here's what happened:

After my hard drive (bought at best buy) fell on the tile floor, during hurricane Ian, my computer wouldn't read it. Fearing a serious failure and potentially causing more damage, I hoped it was an issue with the cable and not the drive (as my computer USB ports occasionally won't read as they are loose). I brought the drive to this Geek Squad and asked if they could check to see if they could read the drive on their computer. He took it in the back and came back 10 minutes later, handed it to me and said "I'm sorry, but the drive is useless, it couldn't even be read when we tried to reformat it, but it's basically just a brick now and can be thrown out."

O.M.G. Had they successfully reformatted it, they would have deleted 20 YEARS worth of personal and business data. What tech person would EVER try to reformat a disc that a person is trying to have read???? I nearly puked.

Beyond that, telling me that the hard drive was useless and couldn't be read or recovered and should be thrown out would have left me without any data from the drive at all but there ARE data recovery centers that CAN read data even if a drive fails:

Many drives are now made with safety devices even in the case of drops, so a lot of data CAN still be recovered by people who actually know what they're doing. It was EXTREMELY irresponsible, not to mention incorrect, of the Geek Squad to say the drive was "trash." What they should have said was "we're unable to read it. Which means there must be internal damage which can only be serviced by a professional data recovery company - we do not offer this service."

Was it expensive? YUP. Most expensive mistake I've made in a while and a life lesson for future backup plans. But the truth is, the data recovery service cost me $3k, Geek Squad's response to throw it out would have cost me every piece of my important personal and professional data from nearly 1/2 of my life...which was NOT actually lost! It was simply inaccessible due to a mechanical failure in the drive which CAN BE REPAIRED to save the data!

Note to anyone out there with hard drives:

1. if you drop a hard drive, they are VERY fragile and even if they still work, they have probably been affected and will eventually fail so you should get a new drive and back everything up
2. always have a cloud backup AND a hard drive backup (preferably solid state)
3. IF you try to use a dropped drive instead of sending to get reviewed first, but it won't read on the FIRST time, send it to a data recovery immediately before you do any more damage (aka lose any more of your precious info)
4. Never take this Geek...

I need to mention first that I do not take pleasure in leaving this review. I normally don't even do these and only write the positive feedbacks. But the service on my issue was just so bad, it would almost be a disservice of mine to not let other customers be aware of my experience. To try and keep this long story short. I brought my laptop for repair around mid September ish. Charged me a $85 deposit (give or take) for the repair. Shipped my laptop to some facility in Tennessee, which added about 3-4 days of waiting. Once over there, received a notification saying they received the parts and that my computer was being repaired, estimated at $117 for the repair. But then a couple days later, received a phone call saying the part needed to repair my laptop was on backorder and that if they would not receive it within 30 days, they would ship back my laptop unrepaired. Followed up with them about 4-5 times during that time, no change. I even found the part myself online and told them I could send it to them, they refused saying it has to come only from their supplier. I tried to cancel the repair maybe a week before the deadline, to be told that if I did this, I would lose my deposit. Then Oct. 24th they FINALLY shipped back my laptop to me. As of today, I am still waiting on the refund of my deposit. But the worst part of it all, is that the famous "backorder" piece, I was able to get it from a reputable manufacturer in less than a week. And then once I got the piece, I brought my laptop to a small shop in Tampa that does repair, and it literally took them 55 minutes to fix my computer!! There is just no way, NO WAY that you can justify such poor service. All the people I spoke with were nice and (somewhat) helpful. But this company is ab..so..lu..tely not geared towards getting results. I will avoid them at all cost...

The apple website made the appointment process so confusing. They didn’t give an option to set an appointment so I wrongly assumed you could just show up. Went in on a Sunday, nobody in line and was told I couldn’t be helped without an appointment. I’m just trying to get my AirPods fixed which aren’t charging. Said “sorry need an appointment”. Okay scheduled for Tuesday 6:40-7, my email says 6:40-7. Because Of work I got to Best Buy around 6:45ish on Tuesday, waiting in line and got to counter around 6:50. I was told since it was 7 minutes past 6:40 THEY COULDNT HELP ME. Meanwhile i told them my email says i have between 6:40-7 and they said NOTHING WE CAN DO NOW since you were late. Didn’t offer to help make another appointment or anything. I checked the emails I received from Best Buy and it says NOTHING about showing up late. Ridiculous!!! I was told I had to come back another day…… they were also not helpful to my questions at all. SO I scheduled for the next day 6:40 made it on time just to be told BUY A NEW PAIR. Frankly the 3rd time, the gentlemen were way more pleasant and explained it thoroughly. I’m not upset that I have to buy a new pair but that fact it took 3 different days to drives over, 20 mins, to get this answer. So unhelpful, waste of time. 1 star + 1 extra to the friendly gentlemen who helped me...