Several years ago i thought about getting a second job at Best Buy as a hardware tech for a few months to build up my cash reserves. Suprisingly, (and im not making this up) their job performance criteria for tech repair and service is by how many "saves" you make in a week - ie., how many times you convice people NOT to take their products in for repair. Now there is some logic to this; the old grandmother whom can't figure her remote out, or the mom of 4 who doesn't know reformat from spagetti. But its mainly because B&M computer hardware stores run on a very tight profit margins, usually 10% for computers ( but up to 50% on cell phones and stereos). Take a 2,000$ computer sale, and they make a gross (before their taxes) 200$ profit. Add a 200$ service plane and they've DOUBLED their profit margins. So it behooves them, in every way possible, NOT to 'return' any of that 200$ to the customer by any and every means possible. Outsourcing support is one way (deters returns, economies of scale (no need for trained employees at every store)); but the main is by actually actively discouraging customers from returning their products by their service representatives.
Moral is, of course: Best Buy = SUCK.