Think bigger is better? Another way Geek Squad is designed to take your money
We all know Best Buy’s Geek Squad has had questionable tactics in the past. We have recently investigated yet another troubling practice by the Geek Squad: “in-store optimization” of new laptops. You might think your shiny new laptop from Best Buy is straight from the manufacturer, and you’re going to get the deal you saw advertised. In fact, an in-store optimized computer is by definition used, and might be slower than had it been direct from the manufacturer. In an identical study in January, the Consumerist.com performed yet another secret shopper study:
Here’s the common scenario: You walk into Best Buy to purchase a computer at $750. When you try to pay, your subtotal becomes $790. Why? You are paying for a useless, and often harmful “in-store optimization” that was performed on your new laptop without your consent. We have at least three issues with this questionable practice:
1) You are paying for a computer that is by definition used, but paying the new-computer price. A Geek Squad agent has taken the computer out of the box from the factory, messed around with some of the settings, and repackaged it. You should be paying a reduced price for the used laptop, and certainly not $40 more.
2) You have no option in the matter. What if you don’t want the optimization service? Too bad. You’re gonna pay for it, unless you want to buy another laptop, because they probably won’t have the one you want without the “optimization” service.
3) Talking with Geek Squad’s employees, it quickly becomes unclear what exactly the optimization service is. We have found no evidence of true optimization on the two laptops that we investigated, and our findings concur with those of the Consumerist.com’s study. The latter study actually found a DECREASE in performance in some catagories.
Although the scale of our study pales in comparison with that of the Consumerist.com (18 Best Buy locations vs our 2), the bottom line is the same. Do your research before throwing your money away. And once you have bought your new laptop, do your own REAL optimizations with a simple Google search.
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The situation explained above happened to me about a year ago. I wanted to buy a laptop and get rid of windows, because I work practically only in Unix/Linux system. I had no other option than paying additionally for the (doubtful) Windows optimization, which I didn’t want at all.
My personal opinion about Best Buy / Geek Squad combo is that they try to sell refurbished laptops as new for the higher price. Otherwise the customer should be able to decide whether he/she needs “optimization” or not.