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so so so so angry

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I was just at Best Buy in Ballwin, MO, if you live near here, DON'T GO THERE!

I saw an elderly man screwed out of his money, blatantly taken advantage of by the sales associate. The sales associate took down his info and questions which were: I have a computer I bought 10 years ago, it has a pentium 1 and a 10 gb hd and 64 mb ram and its running boggy and slow. Sales associate says, well here let me hook you up with a deal on this 300gb hd (a piece of crap for 349$, internal hd) this will take care of the lack of space, and buy this too (shows customer a 2gb stick of ram) this will speed up your computer! Then you should probably upgrade here to Windows XP (hands over to customer a copy of xp pro 199$). Customer is very grateful and thanks over and over. Then the customer says now will this erase my documents on my computer. The employee responds "Noooo! of course not XP has a file save feature and will port everything to your new hd...

For those who didn't understand... The guy was running a pentium 1, a very slowwww processor, no 2 gbs of ram would have brought that sucker out the of the dust. The hd was a crappy offbrand 300gb for 349$. Besides that the ram he stuck him with was expensive as heck. The guy is going to lose all of his documents, xp can't perform miracles...

I tried to help the guy out but the sales associate kept dragging him off for more expensive stuff and I had to go home I couldn't wait forever to talk to the guy besides the salesperson insisted the guy make the sale right there in the computers area.

Obviously this elderly guy is going to get someone or himself to put all this in his computer and their going to lose all their files. He's probably going to think he has done something wrong and never return the stuff he bought (probably totaling about 600+ dollars) He'll go back and talk to the same sales associate about just purchasing a new computer. The sales associate will probably talk this guy that knows nothing and doesn't do much with computer into upgrading and spending a ton of money on the top of the line computer. He will of course buy it and never realize he has been swindled all for +rep by the bosses for the employee and possibly making a commision on it (not sure if they do commision at best buy). Oh besides that they the employee I've just found out by a friend that works for best buy will recieve higher employee discounts for making the sales.

I was greatly angered by witnessing this, I can't believe it happened and I hope I remember to go to the Better Business Bureau...
 
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Bestbuy isnt even on commission so its just a stupid kid.
 

dtravis7


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That makes me so MAD. I have seen that a few times and tried to stop them. In a few cases I was successful. A Pentium 1's motherboard will not run a 300GB Hard Drive without an Overlay or PCI Hard Drive controller card. That motherboard will not take 2GB no matter what you do. Most of the old Pentium boards were 72-Pin and some had a Dimm Slot or two. They would at most take 256 Meg Dimms (on the boards with the Dimm slot's). XP on that machine? Even if the other stuff would work and trust me, any RAM he sold him at Best Buy would never work on that old board, XP would drag. What about his probably 2-4 Meg PCI Video Card? Could be AGP but still.

I do this for a living and have back before the Pentium 66. Amazing.
 
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corporate electronic stores like best buy and circuit city are ridiculous.............that's all i care to say without going off about them.
 
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milessthomas
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I wasn't sure of the exact logistics of his pc but I was fairly sure it wouldn't work if at all. I just felt bad, I should have yelled at the best buy employee right there and stopped that guy from swindling an unknowing elderly man.

If only I had done more, it pains me to see stuff like that. I usually help people in any computer store I'm in even if I don't work there. I'm glad to give anyone advice free of charge, and without swindling you.
 

dtravis7


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I wasn't sure of the exact logistics of his pc but I was fairly sure it wouldn't work if at all. I just felt bad, I should have yelled at the best buy employee right there and stopped that guy from swindling an unknowing elderly man.

If only I had done more, it pains me to see stuff like that. I usually help people in any computer store I'm in even if I don't work there. I'm glad to give anyone advice free of charge, and without swindling you.

Yelling at the BB dood might get you kicked out. If you had more time, what I would have done it catch him as he was going out the door and at least warn him. Just to be sure you know this, nothing I said was directed at you. Salespeople like that just get to me.
 
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milessthomas
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Yelling at the BB dood might get you kicked out. If you had more time, what I would have done it catch him as he was going out the door and at least warn him.

Well I thought about catching him outside but we're having crime issues here right now and I thought that may have scared him.

And honestly I don't care if I got kicked out, I won't be shopping there any longer. I'm not from here anyway, I live in NC, so it would only be 2 x's out of the year I would be Best Buy free, and honestly I don't go there enough to care.
 
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I probably would have run an got a manager to take care of it. If he refused, I'd tell him I'd make a call to the local news station. They're always hungry for those consumer rip-off stories. I'm sure the situation could have been resolved.

At least you tried, most people don't even make an effort. I'm sure the elderly guy has some family that knows a little something and will help him out. It'd be funny if he brought it all in the the Geek Squad to install!!
 
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milessthomas
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hahaha Geek Squad...that would make my day, Thank you for bringing humor into this.
 
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if i ever saw something like that i'd definately be saying something.
if you still feel strongly enough about the issue then you should call the bb and let them know what you saw
-chris
 
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...I'm sure the elderly guy has some family that knows a little something and will help him out...
That's my hope, that someone he knows may help him back up his documents and sort out what he should return. It's comforting to imagine, thank you, fleurya!
 
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milessthomas
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I should say something I might stop by or make a call tomorrow
 
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geek squad is the stupidest thing on the planet,"sure we'll install this anti virus program for you for $40!" i could find much better, and free, anti virus programs than the dribble they install (norton, etc.) and it would take less than 5 minutes to install too. 5 minutes for $40? are you serious? when i saw them advertising it i laughed.
 
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I got a real nice Alpine CD deck for my birthday a couple years ago and Geek Squad offered to install it. I said "What are the charges?" and they explained it to me, I told them to shove it, went home and did a little research and long story short I have a fine, self installed perfect working CD player in my truck. I could have even taken it to an Audio store here and they would have done it for half of that price (though still more than I was wanting to pay...)
 
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This is ridiciulos, that poor old man has been con'd out of 600+$, it's not lke he has money to throw away!!
 
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i part time work at a small computer store. and i was helping this lady set up her old system (HDD crashed). and my boss told me, if i hook her up with xp, it would cost her around 300$ and i would get 60$. however, if i hook her up with ubuntu. it will cost her 45$ and i get 15$. ubuntu was a much better option for her situation, and that's what i installed for her.
 
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I have to say that Geek Squad and Fire Dog (what kind of name is that?) are the most worthless service providers out there. They do only the most basic tasks and charge ridiculous money for it.

The most recent Geek Squad commercials are terrible, showing people who have home engineered crazy things like transporting technology, but can't seem to be about to install a virus program that's pretty much automatic after you put the CD in!
 
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I have to say that Geek Squad and Fire Dog (what kind of name is that?) are the most worthless service providers out there. They do only the most basic tasks and charge ridiculous money for it.

The most recent Geek Squad commercials are terrible, showing people who have home engineered crazy things like transporting technology, but can't seem to be about to install a virus program that's pretty much automatic after you put the CD in!

exactly what im sprayin'
 
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That's terrible. When I see or hear something like that in person, I have to step in and help those people out. I hate when people are taken advantage of.
 
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milessthomas
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I called Best Buy today and the manager thanked me for my input and hung up.

Next call will obviously be to Better Business Bureau.
 

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