Best Buy — Local services in Mechanicsville

The store is fairly clean and the staff are generally friendly.

I went to the geek square for a broken laptop. I have a fair amount of IT experience. I had determined a few weeks prior one of the graphics card was failing. The Nvidia GPU, not the integrated intel. Recently the computer failed to start at all.

They did a brief free 15 minute check on it and basically told me nothing I didn't already know. The system wouldn't boot even in safe mode and always stopped on a particular error code. (Classpnp.sys) which typically meant there was a hardware problem. They said it could be the HD, the Ram, the GPU, Mobo or basically any of the major hardware.

They could have easily pegged it down to the mobo/GPU as the most likely cause based on what I told them. The fact that from initial boot onward there were visible graphical errors on the screen. I also told them I had done recent bios / windows programs tests on things like the hard drive / Ram recently and they were fine. The system had no performance slow down, the hard drive had not been clicking..etc. They also could have easily played 'musical chairs' by systematically changing which ram was in which slot during boot to find that it was likely not the ram. They also said it could be a software problem. Again possible, but unlikely in this scenario.

They constantly pushed for a $70 diagnosis to identify the problem. Then constantly pushed for a $200 1-year service plan which covered all diagnosis and software fixes, but not parts. I told them I was quite confident it was a GPU and/or motherboard failure (which are together and essentially one part in many laptops). I asked them how much it would be for a new motherboard to be installed. They couldn't give me a quote because they had to send it to their service center. I asked them to contact the service center for a quote, I was told they couldn't! I left and returned the next day and agreed to pay the $35 just to have it shipped off. Low and behold, they magically came up with a quote of $100 (+$35 shipping) at that time with an estimated 2 week return time. They also encouraged an unnecessary data backup. For the low low price of.. $100!!!

Days later I get an email saying the repairs were re-estimated by a technician to be higher than the store predicted. They needed authorization to proceed. A call center rep then estimated the repairs at over $1,000! $150 for the labor and the rest was for part(s). She also could not tell me what was being repaired or why. I then was transferred and put on hold several times while the left and right hand tried to figure out who diagnosed my PC and why.

Now granted the prices will vary between a laptop and desktop somewhat. So that was $850 for a motherboard essentially. Go look on newegg and their average desktop mobos are normally $50 - $250 with the upper end being around $500.

With no recurring cost, they should be able to rotate my ram or swap out their own ram sticks to verify the others are good or faulty. They should have handful of hard drives with clean operating systems they can plug in and verify quickly if the hard drive or OS has a problem. They essentially want $70 for 5 minutes of work. $35 shipping that likely costs them all of about $10. If the operating system is running, there are a vast number of tools, both paid and free available to diagnose hardware. Most of which simply require them to click start and let it run without user interaction for an hour or less.

I have every confidence they are capable of returning a working computer to me. I also have equal confidence it will cost me 5x more than it should and that all of their advice is biased towards...

Lets be clear, their motive is to trap you in insanely high interest charges. They encourage you to make automated payments and receive paperless statements. However, the "paperless statement" you receive in your e-mail is NOT your statement. It is a notification that your payment is due and the option to waste quite a bit of your time trying to figure out how to log in to their website to find your statement. Of course since I conveniently set up my automated payments, why would I go through all that trouble to find my statement. It is NOT important to Best Buy to offer clear notifications of soon ending promotional periods, this option is only offered to you after you close your account and obviously unhelpful at that point.

I work for a retailer who has promotional deferred interest offers, our company makes it very easy to access our paperless statements. They offer a 6 month promotional period and allow you to schedule 6 payments at once, what a convenient way to help your customers pay off their account before interest is accrued. Even better, if you could not afford to pay it off in that 6 month period, they only charge interest on the remaining balance from the start date, not the balance as a whole.

There are honest companies out there, this is not one. Customer service does not even pretend to suggest they make any efforts to help their customers avoid the interest. They are very clear that they intend this to be solely your responsibility in hopes that we will screw it up. 10+ years a card holder. Several thousand dollars spent. Not another dime, I can assure...

I went in the store to pay to have a 75" TV installed on Oct 8, 2018. A couple of days after the install, my wife noticed physical damaged while standing on a 4' ladder while she was painting. The Greek Squad did not bring the damaged to our attention. They either saw or damaged it during the installation process. They were the ones that unboxed the TV and hauled away the trash. I reached out to the store and spoke with several managers including Store Manager Josh. No one address the issue with a sense of urgency. 2 weeks past and I decided to reach out to the cooperate office. I was directed to file a claim with Best Buy Sedgwick. It has been literally a month and I have not gotten a response after forwarding documentation and photos per Claims Adjuster request. I have called the adjuster at least 3 time per day and yet to receive a return call. I reach back out to Store Manager Josh who once again seemed to not care about how poorly I am being treated as his customer. In addition, Best Buy Cooperate Office was not able to provide any assistance. This is totally unacceptable and the worse experience I have had as a customer and recommend no one to shop at the Mechanicsville (Va)Best Buy and will soon recommend not shopping at Best Buy period,. The customer service is...