The Wedekings

posted by Michelley on Mar 30

A couple of days before we went to Vegas we dropped Matt’s laptop off at Best Buy for a few of repairs. Actually there were several things that needed to be fixed: the speakers were blown, the CD/DVD burner wasn’t working, the track pad was constantly getting stuck, there were a few pixels that were brighter than others and the hinges were breaking. His laptop was almost 3 years old and the service plan would have expired in May, so we figured we would get it all repaired while we still could.

Saturday morning we got a call from Best Buy saying that the laptop was repaired and ready to be picked up. When we got their we were told they had replaced the speakers, LCD and track pad. We got to looking at it and the entire laptop was filthy. They had replaced the speakers and track pad with USED parts. They told us they were refurbished, but refurbished parts come from the manufacturer and aren’t disgustingly dirty! Then we started looking at the LCD and it was a completely different lid. It looked like it had been spray painted and it didn’t match the rest of the laptop! A supervisor (Jeff) came over and at first laughed when we told him it looked as if it had been painted. He thought we were crazy and told us they don’t take laptops out back and spray paint them. At this point Jeff was being a complete ass. Then he asked what we wanted them to do about the laptop. Matt explained he wanted it to be cleaned and that he didn’t expect it to come back in worse condition than it was when we brought it in! Jeff finally picked the laptop up and discovered for himself that sure enough the top looked as if it had been painted! He was pretty shocked and agreed that it looked horrible. So, he started writing up a new service order to repair the ISSUES they created.

While that was going on Matt and I started to inspect the laptop some more. We flipped it over and noticed that the sticker the serial number was on was completely lifting up and their was a large scratch next to it. Also, missing from the bottom of the laptop was a label we had put on it. By this point Jeff started looking at it again and was pretty much speechless. He started playing with the sticker and pointing out the scratch and even said it looked like someone had used a screw driver to pull the sticker up. All these issues led us to believe that they had swapped the laptop with a different one and pulled the serial number off Matt’s laptop and put it on this shitty one. Jeff immediately stopped processing the new service order and told us to go pick out a new laptop! As far as I know, it is illegal in the state of California to tamper with the serial numbers on laptops. Service centers are not supposed to work on a laptop if the serial number sticker has been tampered with.

The moral of this story is to KNOW your laptop (or anything) you are taking to Best Buy for repair. Or any store for that matter! We had actually taken pictures of the laptop before we took it in because we’ve had similar issues with BB in the past. Also note that we will never buy another laptop or probably any electronic from BB again. Matt is actually on his second “free” laptop from BB…which is another story for another day.

Anyways, Jeff told Matt he could pick out a laptop with similar specs as the one they messed up. My logic is that we paid over $1500 for the one THEY messed up, so we should be able to get one in the same price range. BB, on the other had, tried to get Matt to get a $600 laptop! Yeah, I don’t think so. First of all Vista will not work properly on a $600 laptop; it would be too slow. Second, why should we have to suffer because they screwed up?! Needless to say we pretty much got our way in the end. Matt walked away with a new MacBook!

I really love going into these stores and knowing MORE about computers than the people working there. A girl that was trying to help us said, “you don’t understand, I’ve been around computers a long time.” She was probably 18. Matt and I had to snicker to ourselves because you know what? Matt’s a computer genius. He can tell you anything you need to know about them. And I would say I’m pretty well informed myself.

P.S. Shortly after Matt got his MacBook home he had a strong craving for granola. So, he slipped his birkenstocks on and headed to our local co-op in his 1968 VW Bus. Peace out.

Click on picture to go to MacBook gallery.