PanningForGold

Awhile ago we sent my father-in-law some blue ray movies only to find out he couldn’t watch them because his blue ray player needed a software update and because he doesn’t have ‘the internet’ he couldn’t update it.  So this Christmas we sent him a new blue ray player.  We found one that would meet all his needs meaning it would simply play blue ray movies.  It was not expensive and was basically plug and play.  We purchased the player from our local Best Buy and they shipped it to him in California. My father-in-law was very appreciative but he could not hook it up because he has a fancy universal remote.  When he bought his new TV he got the remote with it.  The catch was that the Geek-Squad came to his house hooked everything up to this remote.  Basically his whole house is connected to this stupid remote.  He told us that if he hooked up the new blue ray player he would void the warranty on the remote. 

So we called the Geek Squad.  They looked up his account and sure enough my father-in-law was correct and to have somebody come out and install the blue ray player would cost fifty dollars.  To hook it up to his existing remote would cost an additional one hundred dollars.  On the upside that would reset his warranty.  Yup, we had to spend one hundred and fifty dollars so he could use a blue ray player that cost less than one hundred dollars.  So we went over it again with geek squad guy and confirmed with him a third time.  That if we paid one hundred and fifty dollars somebody would go to my father-in-law’s house hook up the player and program it to his existing remote.  He assured us that would be the case and seeing as they had us over a barrel we grabbed our ankles paid the money and set up a time.

A week later we called my father-in-law to find out if he enjoyed the movies we sent. We found out the geek squad guy showed up, un-hooked his old blue ray player and hooked up the new one but told my father-in-law that we didn’t pay for him to add the new player to the remote, even if my father-in-law wanted to pay the extra this guy couldn’t do it because it wasn’t on the work order so he didn’t bring the computer he needed to program the remote to the player.  So my father-in-law had him unhook the new player, plug in the old one and he (my father-in-law) would hook up the new player to his old TV and watch it that way.  BACK THE TRUCK UP! He said we didn’t pay to hook up the player to the remote, so he did nothing? 

My wife called up the Geek squad and the lady explained to us that the technician was correct we had not paid for home networking and that is what we were asking them to do.   My wife then asked exactly what we paid $150.00 for.  The lady never answered the question.  Instead she informed us that if we wanted to pay sixty dollars on top of the 150.00 we had already paid they could then hook up the new equipment to the remote.   

My wife explained, (in four part harmony) that we were told that the $150.00 was for the programming the remote and the hook up.   First she started to tell us we were incorrect because that would not cover the programming of the remote.  My wife explained again that we were told that by us paying 150.00 dollars a technician would go to the house hook up the new equipment and program the new equipment to the remote.  Instead what we got was nothing! We paid 150.00 dollars and nothing was done.  NOTHING!  We wanted to know exactly what we got for 150.00 dollars!  The lady apologized and acknowledged that we got the wrong information and if we wanted we could pay an additional 60.00 and the technician would go back and do the job.  This was not acceptable how could we possibly trust them now?  How do we know the tech would go out there again and again do nothing,  and then we could sit on the phone for another hour (yes this took over an hour) only to find out we didn’t pay enough. Personally I’d rather have my father-in-law throw the thing out the window. 

In the end, after a lot of frustration my wife got the hundred and fifty back, and my father hooked up the new player to the old TV.  I’d still like to know what the $150.00 bought us.  When the tech got the order did he really think that somebody would pay that much to plug a blue-ray player into a wall?  I work for Comcast Cable.  I assure you our techs would look at an order like that and go see a supervisor first, knowing that something was wrong.

We learned a lesson.  Don’t buy one of those fancy remotes your house because if you want to buy a new piece of equipment you may as well bend over a grab your ankles if you want it to work with your existing system. 

Two, don’t trust the geek squad further than you can throw them. I do have geek squad protection on this computer and they have helped me out.  When my drive crashed they had a new one installed within a day, didn’t cost a penny.  When I had a problem loading a program I gave them a call and they talked me through it and we had great success.  However they are right here at my local Best Buy store and I can definitely throw them that far, at the very least they have to deal with me live and in person and in those situations I can usually get people to do what is right.  In this instance however I can’t throw them all the way to California from Pennsylvania.