Best Buy 'Geek Squad' Accused of Pirating Software

Alien54 writes "Texas software company Winternals Software LP has sued Best Buy Co. Inc. in federal court, alleging that the nation's largest consumer electronics retailer was using unlicensed versions of its diagnostic equipment. Best Buy's Geek Squad, is alleged to be using pirated versions of the software since talks on a commercial licensing agreement broke off. A restraining order has been granted."

Comments

Bust Buy creates business for others

[IntelliAdmin]

A slightly related comment - I used to work at a PC repair shop next to Best Buy. We would get a constant stream of customers that would be sent from Best Buy to our store after *they* broke the machine! Sometimes they would even walk right out after getting a machine from the customer and bring it to us. I laughed out loud when I started to see these geek squad commercials. I can just imagine now the peeps at geek squad that use format and reload as their way tp fix any problem the computer has.

Re:Bust Buy creates business for others

[LunaticTippy]

This brings up a point, which I've usually ignored.

Say you're fixing someone's winbox, and you need to reinstall something. The user nearly always "lost" the original discs, regkey, etc. What is expected of us? Buy a new version of all software so the user can lose it again?

I usually pirate my way through it, no other option really. But how would a reputable shop deal with this? I hope geek squad isn't expected to buy another windows license every time a user lost their docs.

Re:Bust Buy creates business for others

[asynchronous13]

A friend of mine bought her laptop from Best Buy and took it back for repairs. After weeks of getting the run-around, someone in the geek squad finally admitted the laptop had been compromised -- translation, somebody stole it. They acted as if it weren't their problem until she showed up with some cops. Then it quickly became, "yes ma'am, how much would you like refunded?" But I can't imagine shopping there again based on how they treated the situation prior to having a cop walk through the door.

Re:Bust Buy creates business for others

[Monkelectric]

The industry seems to be filled with low grade college techs who think there is money in IT or wannabe geeks who think they know what they are doing but do more harm then good.

Thats not the problem at all ... the problem is someone with the brains to be a good PC repair person has the ability to make *MORE* money than anyone will pay for PC repair.

In other words, people are unwilling to pay enough to attract smart people.

An Example: I used to be a consultant, one client was a friend of a friend and I gave her a super sweetheart deal, $35/hr where the going rates were $100-$150. I was basically loosing money working for her ... I was working a long term contract, and she calls up and asks if I'm avaliable and I tell her no, and to call my friend whose rate is only $150/hr. She pleads poor and could I please come out and help her, so I do the stupid thing and take pitty. While I'm down there -- she's telling me how her husband had blown 100k on a tractor she knew was a scam -- and the previous weekend she had blown 12k in Vegas.

My point is, she wasn't willing to pay $150/hr to have someone come out and fix the computers for her business, but was willing to blow 100x the cost of that on frivilous things. It was the last time I took a call from her.

Re:Bust Buy creates business for others

[Lando]

Actually, you were treated like your time was not valuable because you didn't charge enough. It has been my experience that as a consultant in the computer industry at least, people don't have enough knowledge of the work you are doing. Therefore, they judge people by how much they charge.

** moved this line up because this is what I originally set out to write, but didn't. It is duplicated after the Disclaimer:

If you don't charge much and you run into a problem, that's because you don't have experience and so you have to take jobs that pay nothing, but if you charge an arm and a leg, by god, if you have a problem than wow, it must be a really hard problem.

Doesn't matter what the facts are, the guy that charges little and knows more is not given the respect that the other guy earns just by charging enormous sums.

Disclamer::
What follows actually diverged into a story about how by charging more I was actually able to do "fun" stuff and probably is quite boring. Fear not that it may actually support the above statment, after a while it begins to diverge and there is no reason for the reader to continue unless he/she finds it entertaining. I'm planning on coming back sometime and massaging it into a coherant article for posting with my cv, but frankly it's likely to be extremely rough and prone to many spelling errors, runon sentences, subject jumping and becomes just an ego boosting looking back on how by getting over the fact that I am not worth 6 figures, by asking for it, I've actually gotten more respect than when I "gave it away for free". The more you charge the more people respect you in this line of business it seems. Or to put it another way.

If you don't charge much and you run into a problem, that's because you don't have experience and so you have to take jobs that pay nothing, but if you charge an arm and a leg, by god, if you have a problem than wow, it must be a really hard problem.

Doesn't matter what the facts are, the guy that charges little and knows more is not given the respect that the other guy earns just by charging enormous sums.

Consider: When I stared out doing windows consulting, 1992 or so? I charged $20.00/hour for my services before that just helping people out. At this time, because of the need for command line experience, occassionally needing to gopher, fido, or bbs for drivers or hopefully less often write your own drivers my skills we a bit more extensive that today's "tech". I eventually got to the point where I said, hey lets try to do this full time, I should be able to squeeze by until I build a customer base.

Now that I was doing it full time and spending a bit of money for tools and such I felt justified in raising my rates to $45 an hour. The strange thing was that I immediately started to get a lot more customers, too many to handle really. So I raised my rates to $65 thinking that I would lose customers, but that I would have some time off work. Within 2 months my business volume doubled. Wouldn't it be nice if I was a businessman rather than some geek just having fun.

The fact is that while I was astute enough to understand that to customers my competence level was directly proportional to how much they were paying me, I couldn't see charging that much, it was more than I felt I was worth and I was worried about people paying too much. My company eventually folded a few years later when I tried to be fair to a customer by not overcharging them and I ended up having to pay several weeks of salary to employees without being compensated. But as I said before I am not a business man.

After the business collapsed I tried to get a job as a computer tech at what was then "average" wages 30-40k a year (roughly 199[56]). Let's say it went rather poorly. By accident I applied for a job that paid 80k/year more than twice the price guys with a few years of experience and college degrees were making, I was hired on the spot. Partially because the position paid well, I was considered for the job.

Not Surprising

[aallmighty]

a friend of mine works at geek squad, and apparently they have some "geek squad only" forum that has tons of pirated software on it. i don't know it to be true for sure, but that's what he tells me.

Trustworthy

[Joebert]

$20 says there's a story about "Geek Squad" employees being suspected of installing spyware/keyloggers on customer computers within the next 6 months...

Re:Trustworthy

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt that, but I'll tell you this now - I work at a Geek Squad in-store precinct (not saying which, since if I say anything, I will get my ass fired, then sued for "divulging confidential company information) - and any customer whose data is backed up gets their data dumped onto the precinct PC, then burned to disc.

That data, though, _DOESN'T GET DELETED_ from the GS machines after they're done.

I have, on multiple occasions, seen managers (especially the PCAM at my store) rifle through customer backups and take what they want, or ogle at the porn and whatnot in there - especially if the customer's female, and there's pictures of her in the My Pictures folder.

Geek Squad used to be good - then BBY bought 'em and made everything go straight to hell.

- CIA02** (last two numbers omitted in order to preserve anonymity)

Worked for a GeekSquad back home...

[HaloZero]

...for about two weeks. Most disorganized bunch of fu*k-ups I've ever seen.

Yes, the unlicensed software usage is true, and widespread.
The keylogger thing mentioned above happened once, and the tech was summarily fired. I'm pretty sure the customer got a completely new machine, too, because of it.
Our supervisor was a douche, complete and total jerk. When I confronted him about the issue of pirated hardware, he held sort of the 'BestBuy is like Wal*Mart' attitude, with the assumption that the corporation could just strong-arm the publisher into submission.

I guess he was wrong.

From my time in the silicon mines..

[Anonymous Coward]

Having worked computer service in the past, my 2 cents..

Piracy was absolutely rampant behind the counter. The policy was: so long as the customer doesn't see it, it's all good. Some stuff was frowned on, like copying a customer's key to XP and the like, and we were strict on the MS licensing rules (w/customers) except for the boss's friends, who got whatever they wanted.

We used 3 different diagnostic programs, and the rumour was that we'd paid for one copy of one of them a long time ago. We were encouraged to warez (does anybody still say that?) new apps to make our job go smoother, and we must have had a dozen different pirated data recovery suites lying around. So this is not really surprising, if the enviroment at BB is anything like what I knew.

The biggest problem with the service side of things is that anyone who is any good at the job is qualified for much much better things. Servicing PC's is an entry level job that requires an enourmous working knowledge to do well. Any monkey can run a ram diagnostic and format/reinstall, but anything more complex, like virus/spyware removal, intermittant h/w failure, dealing with customers, even just data backup: These all require a skill set that pays better elsewhere. As a jumping off point for geeks, its a great education, but it don't pay what its worth. Hardly a shock that this leads to less-than-professional conduct...

Re:Ha

[WCD_Thor]

I would work for Best Buy. Why, because I need a god damned job and I don't want to work fast food or shitty retail anymore. As a geek squad guy, I'd at least get to work with computers at work. And because my major is not in computer enginering or computer science, other companies don't want to hire me even if I do spend almost all my free time working with my computers. Otherwise best buy sucks, don't buy stuff from there, they have shitty deals.

MOD PARENT UP INFORMATIVE

[Unlikely_Hero]

This is entirely true. We were often told to "solve the problem however you can" by managers. Why? Because there pretty much =wasn't= a "geek squad" budget. It is treated as an extension of the PC/Home Office department and basically is used to placate customers who have had their machines screwed up at the service centers. We weren't technicians, we were negotiators. We HAD no budget. In fact, Store 323, North Avenue in Chicago uses pirated software for its diagnostics, on every machine that comes in. It is copied and distributed to the technicians, the other employees, their friends, ANYBODY. The passcode to get it to work, is, ironically "323". The "Geek Squad" agents have shitty jobs, utterly shitty. It wasn't "we're provding you with pirated software to do your job because we're cheap" it was "find your own pirated software to do your job because we're too cheap to buy any AND too lazy to even do the pirating"

Why am I not posting anonymous coward when Im giving them such obvious information as to who I am?
Because I'm not afraid of telling the truth.
Fuck you, best buy

Re:Insider's View

[Illbay]

Most of these comments are simply people speculating about what they *think* it *might* be like...

There's more to that story.

People are simply willing to believe that "evil corporations that want only to suck the $$$ out of every bank account they can sink their fangs into are capable of any rumored misdeed because...well, because they're EVIL."

The fact is that, while there are corporate-types who do wrong, that's also true in the small-business world as well (I could tell you stories about a local chain of computer retail stores here in the Houston, Texas area that would make any such 'Best Buy' story pale in comparison).

And the further fact is, our burgeoning free enterprise system, including "evil corporate America," is what has made all this low-priced tech feasible in the first place--not to mention giving jobs to every one of the small-minded punks here and elsewhere who would rather depend on simple-minded stories they can get those puny brains around, than actually THINK with them.

Yeah, I bet you can find several examples of b*stard GeekSquad managers with no integrity--in a chain as big as Best Buy, there're bound to be some of them. But you WON'T hear any stories about the ones that just do their jobs and try to please the customer.

"Man Bites Dog," you know.

Re:Winternals lawsuit

[TheQuantumShift]

"Most stores have a large collection of discs already, if they need a model we have a system in place to order them directly from the manufacturer."

I can testify to that large collection. Not a day went by in the three months I did support for one of the big oems, that I didn't talk to at least three people who were told by Best Buy to call us for their recovery discs. When we told the customer that all of our machines shipped with these discs, they'd start on about how Best Buy tacked on a $20 "optimization" onto their new pc...

From what I could gather, this "optimization" consisted solely of installing several incompatible versions of security software, cd burning software, and crap like weatherbug. Oh, and snagging the recovery cd's. My first day on the phones, I thought it was coincidence, until I mentioned it to a more senior tech.

"Oh, yeah, they take 'em. It's their policy or somethin'"

It still took a couple weeks before I believed it, but soon my script was,

"Do you have the CD's that came with your PC?"
"No, it didn't come with any..."
"So you got it at Best Buy then?"
"OMG, How'd you know?"

And since the item was now an "open box" refunds went right out (unless you were willing to make a big enough scene, I heard a few going on over the phone that made me cringe).

Long rant short, after talking with several people I worked with, my experiance was not unique. Basically, BB was trying it's damndest to make sure the customer came back for an expensive service call. Whether or not this is still common practice, I don't know as it's been a few years. I also stopped shopping there for anything about the time I had 20 different associates tell me how much they loved not working on commision in one visit.

Chrooted Registry

[bill_mcgonigle]

However, the security sucks. It is too easy to change things that shouldn't be changed. It is too easy to hide and bury things where they don't belong.

Is there any reason for a user-level app to not get a 'chrooted' version of the registry that only allows write access under a certain tree node?

I mean, assuming Microsoft cared about security.