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So you bought your computer from Best Buy, you say?
Check out what I just found / read on MaximumPC.com concerning Best Buy...
Investigation Shows What We Already Know: Best Buy's "Optimization" is a Scam | Maximum PC
Investigation Shows What We Already Know: Best Buy's "Optimization" is a Scam
Posted 01/05/10 at 03:09:18 PM by Bart Salisbury
It’s shameful, really. And it’s a glaringly obvious reason why computer retail is dying. (R.I.P Future Shop, CompUSA, and Circuit City.) And it’s a sure sign that some of the remaining retailers could give a rat’s patootie about their customers. It’s really not a big surprise that Best Buy’s “optimization” isn’t worth the $39.99 they charge for it. Rather it’s Best Buy’s attitude about you, the computer buying public--you’re nothing but a flock of sheep to be fleeced, so let the shearing begin.
Meg Marco at The Consumerist walks us through the whole scam. Best Buy sells optimization for its computers. Optimization, it turns out, is little more than Best Buy opening the box, removing some desktop shortcuts, tweaking bits of the browser interface, and downloading/installing OS updates (which the OS is normally takes care of by itself). All-in-all, nothing your average user can’t do on their own. And, after testing unoptimized and optimized systems--surprise, surprise--optimization doesn’t do a thing to speed the computer up. (In one instance, on a Asus laptop, optimization actually slowed the system down 32 percent.)
Great, fine, it’s like extended warranties--so much money thrown down the drain--just skip it. But, in many cases you can’t. It seems that Best Buy ties attractive sales prices to pre-optimized machines. And, magically, no unoptimized machines are available. You want the sale price, then pony up the optimization fee. (Getting it waived, from buyer experiences related by Marco, is next to impossible.) Not only do you have to pay more than the advertised price if you want the advertised price, some unknown “geek” at Best Buy has opened your box and fiddled around with your computer. (Experience here suggest checking the box’s contents before leaving the store.)
This is not just hard sell. With hard sell you have a choice. But Best Buy has stacked the deck against you. And do they feel bad about promising the moon with optimization (some sales reps claiming up to 200% speed improvements), without delivering anything of tangible value? Nope, instead Best Buy blames you, the consumer. “This is about the choice," a Best Buy spokesman said. "If you don't want it, you don't have to get it." See, it’s you that’s to blame, not Best Buy and its deceptive pushing of a worthless service.
Savvy computer users/buyers don’t fall for this, of course. (Savvy computer users/buyers also don’t shop at Best Buy.) Which means Best Buy is preying upon the novice, the uninitiated. Scare tactics or trumped up, empty promises work best with this crowd. Which makes the practice all the more loathsome. Even worse, it makes no sense for Best Buy to engage in this. Best Buy purportedly wants to make more money off its service business. To make this work you have to not only treat customers right at point-of-sale, but give them a reason to come back again and again. Once people realize they were scammed, you’ve lost them (and then some). Hard to see how you build a repeat-business with this approach.
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