I generally hate writing negative shit on my blog. I think the purpose of a blog is to share great things and hopefully inspire people (as cheesy as that sounds), not to wallow in your own anger or to hate on anyone or any brand.

That said, the photo posted above that I found through googling ‘best buy sucks’ showed me I’m not alone in how Best Buy cunningly screwed me up the ass with a metal fist, and it would be nice if maybe somehow my little rant combined with others horrible experiences gets them to be a bit more transparent with their warranty’s – or at the very least – prevents others from throwing away hundreds of dollars on them as I foolishly did.

I Decided To Buy My Laptop At Best Buy

I bought an HP laptop about a year and half ago – my crappy desktop had finally shit the bed months prior and I saved my pennies from my first few paychecks of my new job to finally get with the times and get myself a laptop. Of course, I figured to be safe I should purchase the warranty, thinking that would let me avoid any bullshit should it crap out early on as laptops tend to do. I agreed to the 3 year warranty which meant another almost $300 added onto the price of the computer. For me that was, and still is, a lot of money, but I figured it would be worth it should anything happen.

Random Hinge Explosion = “Physical Damages”

Fast forward about a year, and I am leisurely opening up my laptop as I always have – and the hinge EXPLODES in my face – I did nothing out of the ordinary. It was closed – I opened it – and it just immediately came completely undone and some of the metal snapped off. Horrified, I thought – thank GOD I bought that damn warranty – and breathed a sigh of relief knowing that I could just take it back to Best Buy’s trusty ‘Geek Squad’ and have it fixed in no time.

That was TWO MONTHS ago (if you’ve been wondering why my blog’s been quiet – my lack of a functioning computer at home since before Christmas is the big reason).

I took it in, and the worker asked me what was wrong – I told him how the hinge busted out of nowhere, and it was also overheating here and there, and the screen was starting to go a little red.

He filled out all the forms and had me fill out all the forms, then tried to sell me data recovery, you know, in case they delete all my files while fixing it – and then told me that HP may not cover it because it is a physical damage. I explained to him that I didn’t drop the laptop – in fact I rarely ever moved it from my desk where I used it – and had done nothing to cause this damage. He said they would do some kind of test to ‘check’ if it was my fault or not, and go from there.

The next day, they call me and leave a message asking me to call back. I try to call a couple times and no one answers, so I figured it wasn’t important.

Physical Damage = VOID WARRANTY!!!

Three weeks pass by and I’m starting to wonder what the hell is happening so I try calling again, and again, and again. No one answers, and when someone finally does, he puts me on hold as soon as he picks up, and then the call gets rerouted to the front desk where they tell me they can’t help me, but they will give my number to the Geek Squad guys to call me back when they get a chance. At this point I decided to just go all the way to Best Buy, where maybe I would actually be able to talk to someone who knows what’s going on.

I get there and ask about my computer, and he looks in the back and brings it out to me telling me they would not fix it because it had a physical damage – therefore VOIDING the warranty I spent $300 on. This means they wouldn’t even fix the fact that it was overheating or that the screen was going red. I paid all that extra money, literally, for absolutely nothing.

This is the trick with buying these “warranty’s”. They make you think you need it, but there are all these little fine print rules they make up and conveniently forget to mention when pushing it on you, that make sure they never have to actually fix it – they just get to keep your money and increase their profit.

The ‘Geek Squad’ Doesn’t Answer The Phone, Or Call You Back

Worst is the fact that they kept it for that long knowing it wouldn’t be fixed – and never even bothered to call me to come pick it up. Who knows when I would have ever heard from them had I not went in. The people at Best Buy Yonge/Dundas are probably pretty busy, but not to busy to do their job, or you know, maybe pick up the phone one of the 20 times I tried calling.

So when he tells me this I immediately freak out – as I think anyone who just lost their job and writes online for a living would. I don’t have any extra money to get it fixed, and I can’t believe that they won’t even fix at the very least the non physical problems with this piece of junk they sold me. I ask to talk to the manager, and the manager brings out another guy, and eventually after I publicly humiliated myself and shed some tears feeling all the stress hit me at once, they say that they can have their people take a look at it for me – but that they can’t make any promises. Their people? Why were they sending it back to HP and blaming it on them for rejecting it when I thought I bought a warranty from Best Buy in the first place – not HP?

Anyway I was happy that they seemed to be at least trying to help me out.

$1400 To Fix a $700 Computer… Umm

But then, a few weeks back, I get a call from the Best Buy repair place quoting me $1400 to fix it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT. THE. FUCK. I could buy a MacBook Pro for that price, or two new HPs. My head almost exploded, again.

So I rejected the charges, and asked when my computer would be available to pick up. They said in a few days, so I waited to get the call that I can finally come and pick up my computer. Of course, days and weeks passed, and no call. Yet again I had to call and call, and be ignored. Yesterday they FINALLY called me back and said I could come get it. Had I not hassled them I can’t help but think they would have just kept it indefinitely.

The Lesson Learned = Avoid Best Buy At All Costs

Apparently hinge problems are incredibly common for laptops, so this nice little excuse they have of voiding the warranty if any physical damages happen must mean they get out of actually having to fix it at least 70% of the time.

I guess I have learned my lesson – I won’t be wasting money on a useless warranty in the future and I sure as shit won’t be buying anything from Best Buy ever again. I highly recommend you avoid them as well. What a nightmare.

Best Buy goes ON AND ON about how their people are not on commission (remember all those annoying commercials?), but, you should know that the BB stores are rated based on how many warranty’s they sell and employees that sell more are scheduled for more hours – hence all this bullshit. Stores that don’t sell enough get in line to be cut. The salespeople are still trained and pushed just as hard as Future Shop to push that garbage on you in fear of losing their hours, so be strong and say no.

Now that I finally have my laptop back I have duck taped up the hinge, and can only hope the other side doesn’t explode too. At least I can still use it until it completely dies.

Have you ever been screwed by a useless warranty, or one of these big box tech stores that upsell you useless shit they know is useless? Please share your story below. I hate wallowing alone.

And if you’ve ever had a problem with Best Buy, please join me in tweeting them @BBYCanada with the hashtag: #bestbuyworstbuy. Even brands as clueless and careless as them pay attention to social media – it’s the fastest way to create change.