I'm Boycotting CompUSA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jalapeno]

Don't ever buy a "extended warranty"! They are one of the biggest scams, ever.

It makes me sick to the stomach to go to CompUSA and listen to the sales guys, selling innocent, computer illiterate people all the "stuff they really need" to go along with the "awesome" system they are buying. I might be wrong, but I always thought the sales staff is there to "help" the customer instead of pulling a con on them.

I know those guys have to make a living, too, but not in a shameless, untruthful way.

What the heck is wrong with letting him take home the drive to copy the files himself? They have his credit card.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Having been a CrapUSA tech, I can tell you the only thing they care about is a tech's productivity. I was one of those @ss that fought tooth and nail to not do any free labor. If I had to do free work I can guaranty that I would find something wrong that I can charge you for.


I do believe that those extended warranties are a load of crap. I've seen management tell people that they won't replace something that a 1-year replacement warranty was purchased for. They tell the customer that the item was bought at a discouned price and not eligible for the warranty. Thing is, it was that manager that sold the warranty to the customer because the higher ups force people to sell those warranties.

I've been told to lie to people to get them to buy those warranties and thats one of the many reasons I left.




Fryes is so much better about extended warranties. Most of the time the sales person doesn't know english so you don't have to listen to the spiel, or you don't even see a sales person.

 

[rich1er]

lol. just burn it cdrs are soo cheap anyways. umm...1 cent

 

[josphstalinator]

on a similar note an ex girlfriend of mine was charged $90 by best buy to instal a cdrw drive, i couldnt believe it when she told me, it would have taken me 2 minutes to instal the dirve and i wouldnt have charged her a dime
those places rip you off, compusa, best buy are suck. they should allow you to take both drives home so you can transfer the data, maybe if you throw a fit and talk to the really high up people you might get your way

 

[jacobnero6918]

I didnt actually buy the extra warranty they put it on without my knowledge. I noticed it later, if I remember I was in a hurry the day I bought it so I didnt notice it on the reciept til later. I should gone back and made them take it off but didn't.

I never buy the extra warranty because they all suck!

 

[Deeko]

Those of you who think the extended warrenty you can buy aren't completely right. I got a $300 reciever at best buy, and got the 3 year warrenty. This thing has blown on me 4 times, and I just take it back and get a new one. And the last time, they didn't carry that model anymore, probably because of problems that occured all the time, like in mine. So, I get to pick out a new one of the same price as mine was. Well, apparantly reciever prices have gone down since then, so i got one that used to cost $400, and now is $300. All this for a littlr $20 warrenty. Definitly was worth it for me.

 

[bonkers325]

deja vu i heard this story back in 2000 from somebody

 

[Recneps]

Umm why not just buy the most expansive drive they have and ghost the back up of the old harddrive and return it in the nice new harddrive box and get a few bunos gigs of storage space.



We do not like thieves here
Consider this a warning


Anandtech Moderator

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Deeko,
Maybe youshould stop playing your music through your reciever. Thats probably what killing the poor things.

 

[Gunbuster]

Recneps cuz that is against the law

I hope you get the 1gig POS drive when you try to buy a 80 gig

 

[Marcvs]

Jacob,

hard drive failures are often a result of brown outs (when the line voltage drops below 100v). I highly recommend you pick up a ups (costco and sams club have them cheap) when you get a new hard drive.

 

[nippyjun]

Generally extended warrantees and replacement warrantees are useless. A lot of credit cards today extend your warrantee automatically. Many manufacturers have good RMA policies. The only extended warrantees I've purchased are for a $2500 exercise bike that I paid $1500 for. I figured that the $150 5 year on-site warrantee was worth it since I got such a good deal. But you know, the 5 years is up and I never had a tech guy come out to repair it, so I guess it wasn't worth it after all.

 

[mechBgon]

Hey, go to www.maxtor.com and head for the support area. You can advance-RMA a drive, I got mine two days ago. If they don't get your old drive back in 30 days, they'll charge your credit card. Just pay attention to the instructions for labelling the box and including a slip with such-and-such info. When your new drive comes, get your data, put the old one in the packaging, and send it back UPS Ground. $6.47 for me.

 

[jacobnero6918]

I have UPS...bought it before I bought the new hard drive. It's a big 650VA by APC.

 

[mechBgon]

No no no... UPS is United Parcel Service, the guys with the brown delivery trucks.

 

[mechBgon]

Go here to RMA your Maxtor hard drive and chose the Advance RMA option. They will send you a new drive before you have to send back your old one, so you can salvage your data.

edit: I made a bad link... trying again...

 

[Celstar]

If you think Compusa is going to transfer your data onto a new drive without fvcking things up, be prepared for a rude surprise. I'd go with RMAing with maxtor like everyone's suggesting.

 

[classy]

ride 525 gave you the best advice. And yes Maxtor still sends out the replacement and won't charge your credit card as long as you send back the old one within 30 days. And let me add that Maxtor's return policy is excellent. You should have checked first before spending extra money on a hard drive from Comp USA.

 

[CQuinn]

I'm not taking CompUSA's side in this, but...

They have no idea of your real level of expertise, and whether or not
you can do it yourself, they know that the vast majority of their
customers cannot.

Their solution, as crappy as it sounds, protects them from fraud and
users who think they are owed some free ride by making a "good deal"
with the manager.

Telling US to boycott them won't make a difference, because we know better
(most of the time) than to get into situations where we would have to
rely on "extended warranties" to pull our butts out of the sling.

 

[madthumbs]

I'm already boycotting CompUSA;

One of their brand power supplies smoked up my apt, could have started a fire, and they would not replace it by mail. I bought it while I was out traveling, and it would cost me as much to return it to the store in person as it would to buy another. They refused to replace it through the mail. The Salesperson also misled me into thinking I needed more power for the V5 which he was wrong.

 

While I think CompUSA sucks, they charge $50 to run VirusScan on a computer, you should have never bought the in-store warranty. Like most people have been saying, just have Maxtor send you a new one against your CC and do the transfer yourself. I have done it with Maxtor and Quantum about three times before.

I would never trust some $7/hr monkeyboys with my data. Other than the fear of them screwing everything up, I don't trust that they won't have a field day rifling through my personal files, copying my mp3s and games, and reading all my email.

 

[Ornery]

You should have a second physical HDD to back up to in the first place. Buy a decent drive like IBM or Quantum. Ghost the current Maxtor to it and make it your main drive, then RMA the Maxtor. I'd never run my machine with only one drive.

 

[phantasm]

Jacobnero6918,
If I were in your position, I'd be pretty upset too at the outrageous prices. But from a business perpective, COMPUSA has every right to charge you any amount they'd want to. They only must honor the TOR with the warranty statement. With diminishing profit margins on goods, companies look to make money in the services arena. Charging outrageous amounts is certainly their right but they are making a huge mistake. Look at the effect. You are pissed so you post on this board to boycott COMPUSA. Probably a few people will agree with you and not go to COMPUSA anymore. The result is that the $70 they would have made is lost in additional sales.

As a small business owner, I try to be "fair" in all situations. I won't have the customer screw me but when I can help out in these type of situations, I do.

I think that if you can deal directly with Maxtor, that'll be your best bet. I have had nothing but excellent experiences dealing with hard drive manufacturers. Also, Maxtor WILL NOT accept any returns unless you run the Maxblast software and write down the error code.

 

[jacobnero6918]

What if the problem is a mechanical one such as clunking and a grinding noise ?


Don't think the PowerBlast will detect that.

 

[mechBgon]

jacobnero6918, if you bothered to go to the link that I gave you, you would see that there is a checkbox for "Drive is noisy." RMA your drive! You do not need a receipt either.

Maxtor's RMA form

BTW, that was why I RMA'ed mine; it was making an annoying, abnormal whine.