On Sat, 7 Jul 2007 13:21:20 -0500, "Vanguard" <no@mail.invalid> wrote:
>"Gary Walker" wrote in message
>> I had a Geek Squad experience that I'll share. It wasn't
>> like your description, but I'll just relate the details, and
>> you can be the judge.
>> I purchased a new Gateway desktop from Best Buy
Mistake #1: Buying branded PCs through resellers that don't build 'em.
>> and 7-8 months later it failed to boot. Well, I didn't know
>> what was wrong with it
That value would be added by your service dudes, and would be paid for
as such unless the same dudes built and warrantied the PC.
>> I don't know how this retailer operates,
Reseller = mark-up and push-through.
Which means warranty fulfilment is the same in reverse; you give the
PC to them and they just push it through to wherever they bought it.
There's "lag" in there, so:
- you buy yesterday's stock
- your warranty turnaround time sucks
That's why it's better to buy from a system builder.
>> Then, they told me the box would have to be sent off to
>> somewhere in Georgia for repair. I was livid that BB or
>> Gateway would just not fix it there, or provide another.
A system builder would do one of two things:
- send the HD off and await replacement, then fix it
- fix it with a "courtesy drive" for quick turnaround, then etc.
What no-one will do, is replace the failed HD from new stock. This is
because even when the warranty replacement is a new HD, the serial
number is linked to the old HD so that the warranty period is reduced
to the balance of the original HD's warranty.
Think about this. If your replacement started a new warranty cycle -
which is 3 years on non-sucky HDs, 5 years on Seagate - a user could
secure a lifetime of free HDs by "creatively failing" them towards the
end of each HD's warranty period. So, etc.
>> They tried to charge for the repair
If the tech fixing the PC is not the one who benefited from the markup
on selling the PC to you, then you bet your ass you'd have to pay
labor. Unscrupulous techs might also sell you a replacement HD and
then claim back the warranty replacement for themselves. REALLY
unscrupulous techs will then resell that HD as new stock, even though
the warranty period is foreshortened.
As you'd prolly guess,. I'm a tech who builds the PCs I sell (and I
don't sell laptops). And I get fed up with clients who buy cheap junk
somewhere else, expect me to get thier junk working properly, and then
go back to hte junk merchant when they need to replace the old junk.
Some of these morons don't even plug in all the cables (hence "my CD
doesn't work"), don't install the drivers that come with the kit they
sell ("why does the screen flicker? Oh, there are no display card
drivers), don't give the bundled disks to the client, etc.
Am I going to be "cheap" when finishing off the "value" these
"value-added resellers" were supposed to provide? Am I going to do
the basic construction work the VAR's markup was supposed to buy?
>> But, they insisted that the warranty work would require
>> this send off.
It depends on warranty policy.
Here, all WD and Seagate HDs come through importers who replace failed
HDs irrespective of which chain of resellers they passed through - but
replacement stock arrives from another city about 3 days later.
So clients who want a fast turnaround, can either use a "courtesy"
HD (if I have one) and bring the system back to swap HDs when the
replacement arrives, or they can buy another HD and keep the old one's
replacement as an extra (or buy an external enclosure for it).
Clients often choose the latter approach where the old HD is small and
old. A new larger HD (when combined with sensible partitioning)
generally improves performance++
OTOH, if you buy a branded "sealed" PC from dumb retail wityh no
in-house tech facilities, then every time it blinks, it will be passed
back to The Factory Center. These techs don't know you, and care less
about your data. Sometimes they will attempt to "just" wipe and
rebuild, and only if that fails, will they "escalate" to someone who
actually tests components for hardware failures etc.
Compare this...
http://cquirke.mvps.org/reinst.htm
....with this client-data-first approach:
http://cquirke.mvps.org/9x/bthink.htm (for users)
http://cquirke.mvps.org/9x/badpc.htm (for tech trainees)
http://cquirke.mvps.org/pccrisis.htm (current practice)
>How is it BB's fault that you chose to delay getting back the computer
>because you chose to get a free repair under the warranty?
The HD's warranty replaces the defective HD.
The system builder's warranty replaces the HD irrespective of whether
the HD warrantor replaces the HD, unless a refusal applies to both
parties (e.g. signs the HD had been damaged by client, e.g. where the
client has opened up the sealed unit). The warranty also covers the
cost of labour to detect the fault and replace the HD.
The system builder's warranty may not include additional labour
required to backup and restore your data, or fix other problems that
are not a matter of hardware failure (e.g. malware cleanup).
If you brought that PC to me, I'd have called the HD importers, who
would say "that HD wasn't imported by us; are you sure it isn't part
of a fully-imported 'brand name' PC? If so, call them".
So I'd call the 'brand name' ppl and ask for a tech email address (I
prefer to log correspondence in matters that may become contentuous).
I'd give a tech report on what's wrong and what appears to be needed,
e.g. "if I bring in the HD with a log from HD Tune, will you give me a
replacement then and there or would I have to come back later for it?"
If the 'brand name' policies are particularly sphincteric, the
response will be "no, we won't replace the HD; you need to bring in
the whole system and we'll send it back to the factory, turnaround
time will be about 6 weeks".
This then informs answers on what brands to particularly avoid.
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