Lazy Man and Money

Best Buy Follow-Up

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As I reported previously, I had a little trouble with Best Buy’s Geek Squad getting a computer fixed. I’d like to report that shortly after the post, I went back to get the result of the diagnosis and they found the error and agreed to do an exchange for a brand new one.

Ka-ching – or so I thought… The computer we (it’s my fiancee’s computer, but I’m the software engineer) originally got was $829 after a bunch of rebates. After paying the $199 extended warranty, we are talking $1000+ dollars. They only gave us $600 towards the replacement computer due to depreciation. While I can somewhat understand that, we had to pay another $199 for another warranty on the new computer. They said that the exchange fulfilled the agreement. So in reality, we ended up getting something like $400 worth from the exchange ($600-$200 warranty) to get back to where we were.

In the end, we did get an upgrade to the computer we had before, but I felt like we really paid for it in time and cost of the new warranty. I’m not so sure the warranty is the best deal, but it’s hard to turn it down after it saves you from buying a new one entirely.

Best Buy Extended Warranty

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About a year and a half ago, my fiancee bought a laptop and decided to protect it with the extended warranty. I know that usually they aren’t good investments, but when I did my research, getting one for a laptop seemed to be the right thing to do. When it failed to work in early September, she was happy she had gotten the protection.

However, since then, it’s been a nightmare. Best Buy sent it out for repairs and four weeks later it returned with a new motherboard that, without the protection, would have cost more than what we paid for the computer. We hadn’t been home for 15 minutes, before the monitor failed, a new side-effect of the fix, I surmise. We brought it back to Best Buy and again they confirmed the problem and sent it out for repairs. Just yesterday, it was ready for the second time. We had it home for about 20 minutes this time before it froze on us… three times. I’m a software engineer, so I know this just isn’t normal. On reboot it gives a blank screen for 10-15 minutes before it decides to get to the initial Windows loading screen. It’s funny because when we took it back to Best Buy that’s about exactly how long it took for the technician to get the manager. Just when the manager shows up it works, go figure.

He wanted to run an overnight diagnostic on it, but at this point, I think it’s time to honor the extended warranty and replace it. Even if he does it get to work at this point, I want them to extend the extended warranty because at this point, I’ve lost a lot of confidence that it’s going to continue working. I expect it’s going to die the day after the warranty is done. The most frustrating part of this is that for 6 weeks now she’s been without her computer. Someone needs to come up with a loaner plan like they do with cars.

Sprint Billing “Error”

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[While I’m still waiting to see if I’m moving to San Francisco…]

Back when I bought my Treo 700P, I had a feeling that somehow I’d be forced to give up my grandfathered $10 all-you-can-use data plan. Word was, that with the increased high-speed data network, a new phone would make you get a new plan. I didn’t believe that to be the case. My rationale was that if I buy a new TV (even an HDTV), I don’t have to pay the cable company more per month.

It appears that Sprint’s computers might disagree even though the customer service representative told me that I’d be able to keep the plan I’ve had for 6 years. The computers have conveniently gotten rid of that plan and left me with nothing. So I have about $70+ dollars in data plan charges.

I might be fighting this one for some time.

P.S. By the way, Sprint rebates suck.