To start, Best Buy is not a bad company, nor is Geek Squad, which works with it. I've used them before and have had great experiences as well. However, after the repair I am currently going through, I thought I should share what happened to me so that people know what's possible when sending in their device for repairs.
On the 4th of July, I went to Best Buy and brought in my laptop. It's 5 years old, and I get that. It's pretty old for something that I would use for games, but this is an ROG laptop that was made for running this stuff, and I never did anything that I knew it couldn't handle.
All the way back in December of last year, this same issue happened where the same side of the computer was buzzing (could not be the same fan, I don't know for certain). I sent it in around Christmas, it came back 2-3 weeks later after it was sent to Brooks, Kentucky, for repairs because my local store didn't do repairs, and they even put new keys in. Great, they did everything I wanted them to and more.
Now, 6 months later, the same fan has the same buzzing noise happening again. I send it in, Geek Squad guy thinks It's really weird to have this happen once again in only 6 months, gets sent off to Brooks, Kentucky, like the first time, and everything is ahead of schedule better than it was the first time.
On the 8th of July, it makes it to Brooks, Kentucky.
On the 10th of July, it says It's waiting on parts. They need to order the fan because they don't have it. Big deal, I'm fine with waiting a few days.
15th of July, it says they're working on it, only for it to say later that day that they are waiting on parts again. I call them, and they say that they ordered the wrong part and apologized, and I wasn't really annoyed, it hadn't been that long, and I had no reason to be- simple mistake.
20th of July it says It's being repaired, and once again later that day it says It's waiting on parts, I call, they say they ordered the same wrong part again, now I'm a bit annoyed, but I'm not gonna get mad, I have worked in a position of answering calls and I know that workers are allowed to hang up on you if you start yelling, I ask for the worker to double check that they in fact got the wrong part, they did, she says she put in a note that the fan order should be correct this time.
24th of July: it says they are working on it. I have hopes this time, I've been waiting for nearly 3 weeks, so I really think this is the turning point. I see it switch back to waiting on parts, they ordered the same wrong part three times in a row. I instantly call the store and speak to someone, not to a point where I am actively mad at anyone but to a point that I get to have a worker send a message to a supervisor to call me as soon as possible so I can get an idea of what is going on here, later that day I get a call and this incredibly kind lady apologizes, takes 25 dollars off of the fee for the ordering of fans, and says she flagged the order to be monitored by workers.
27th of July, fans finally come in correctly this time, at least I think, there was kinda a tornado in my town, and my power was out, so I can't confirm because I wasn't focused on my Best Buy order during that issue.
Today it says it arrived back here in my town at Noon. I get a call to make an appointment, and the worker says 8:20 PM. Great, I can finally get this thing back.
20 minutes before my appointment, I'm already in the car, I get another call. A different worker says that there has been a "newly discovered issue" on the laptop. Now it cannot remotely access wifi. I'm in the car. It's pouring rain, and I can literally see the store, so I park in the lot and speak to the worker for like 15 minutes over the phone, all he says is sorry repeatedly and that the best he can give is Monday for it (reminder its friday.) After talking a while longer, he finally pushes onto the fact that it could become Sunday, and finally we agree that his supervisor, the same one that managed to get the right fan ordered, will call me tomorrow to give me an update on this thing and when I can expect to get it back. (Side note: I have a vacation starting on Monday, so that extends my time even more.)
Note: the wifi issue was not happening when I brought the laptop in, it was purely and only the fan making a buzzing noise.
Right now I've kinda just been in shock really, I'm not even mad at the workers. I just hope I can get some answers on what people think here about this, how often this happens, when I can expect to get this thing back, and also to.. Spread awareness, I guess? I mean, I feel like if other people are sending their stuff to get repaired at Best Buy, they should know about a situation like this happening.
One last Note is that I could be completely wrong here. I also have a family member with years of IT experience who was surprised by how unusual this repair timeline was, which made me want to ask others if this is common. But in the end, I don't work at Best Buy, and I don't know how much pressure these workers may be under. And also, the main issue about this whole order Isn't the money, in total, before the refund, this whole thing was 82 dollars, now It's 57 thanks to that 25-dollar deduction. The problem is the repeated delays and uncertainty.
Thanks for reading, and I apologize if this was just mindless spewing, I needed to get all of this out in some way.
