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Big Box Store Reps Push Unnecessary Recovery Discs
Ed Albro, PC World writes "At PC World, we've got a story today on salespeople at Best Buy and Circuit City pushing consumers to pay the stores' technicians to create recovery discs for their new laptops. Recovery discs are important to have, of course, but the fact is that they're easy to make yourself. Or you can get them from the manufacturer of your PC, often for half of what Best Buy and Circuit City charge you. The salespeople often tell you that you can buy from the manufacturer — but they claim you'll pay twice as much as the stores charge."
I remember when it was commonplace to get a recovery disc along with your computer; now you have to pay (quite a bit) for software that's already on your system. What happened?
<sig> </sig>
I think this was covered in the story a while back about the ex Circuit City employee who disclosed all their "secrets". It wasn't in the main story, but was in the linked story.
Best Buy and Circuit City are pressuring customers to buy overpriced add ons they don't need? Hogwash!
Cue apologists who think it's moral to screw over the stupid/uninformed because you can make a buck doing it.
Pretty sure that anyone who knows how to make a recovery disk either won't get suckered in, or will purchase it just so they don't have to do it themselves.
The real retail rape is extended warranty.
Never play chicken with a passive aggressive.
If they are lying to the customers, that is bad. But I would imagine most people do not know how to make a recovery CD, painfully easy as it may be. Also, it would be more convenient than contacting the manufacturer for one.
Do they scare you into this before or after they scare you into paying for their special warranty?
Tags != Comments, and -1 (Troll) != -1 (I Would Respond Angrily To This Poster So They Must Be Trolling)
Don't PC makers include a recovery partition for Windows machines?
A salesperson lying to a customer?! That's unpossible!
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
And the sales associate at Fry's, while trying to sell me the extended warranty, said that warranty replacements on the Wii take forever and are expensive because you have to pay to ship to Japan.
He was flat-out lying, as warranties for North American Nintendo sales go through a center in California, and Nintendo pays for the shipping. But the Fry's employee (a department manager nonetheless) insisted that the shipping/replacement costs and delays were a reason to purchase their warranty instead.
Never underestimate the sleazy, underhanded attempts that a salesperson will go through to get your money, especially if they work on any kind of commission. As a corollary, the less knowledge and understanding the salesperson has about the product they are pushing, the more likely they are to be underhanded in their push.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Haha, too late by two posts ;)
for the more tech savvy, i recommend making an image of a harddrive after the OS and whatever other programs have been installed. I did this for my mom's new computer; i reloaded XP (it came with vista home or something along those lines), installed all her favorite programs, set them up, did a virus/spyware scan, etc etc. after everything was said and done, i loaded Acronis True Image, made an image, and burned it to a boot-able DVD using their boot image.
So now, if there is some weird software glitch or she installed / uninstalled too much crap, i just tell her to back up all her personal documents, pop the dvd in, reboot the computer and voila. a few screens and clicks later, she's back to how it was when she first got it.
seriously, that little app has saved me so much work and time. (not a slashvertisement! i don't work for them, i swear!)
This sig contains repetition and redundancy.
I worked at Best Buy 10 years ago in the computer service department. This was before the disaster that is Geek Squad. The sales people would tell you anything you wanted to hear in order to sell you something. They would says that the PSP (performance service plan) covered any problem including software. If people had taken time to read the brochure it clearly stated that it did not. So when the customer came in for service they expected to get their computer fixed for free and were told that it would cost them. Guess who got chewed out by Mr. pissed off customer. The techs did! I refuse to shop at Best Buy no matter how good the deals.
What people buying from them should do, is, upon being told about the disks and the charge for them, DEMAND they be included free, or they will not buy the computer.
If the salesman refuses, raise hell with his manager. Purchaser gets the disks for free, salesman gets reprimanded (or fired).
Heh.
Given that the people who will buy these disks would almost certainly not make their own, let alone request one from the maker, the question is whether the store price is worth the difference between having and not having one. I'd say it is.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
It's been awhile since I bought any computer equipment from a big box store, so excuse any ignorance, but don't the manufacturers include recovery CDs in the packaging?
Are the big box stores removing the manufacturer's CD from the packaging and either tossing it, or re-selling it? I can't imagine the latter would go over very well with the manufacturers.
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
...if you are buying such a disk from them, then you probably don't know how to get one easier/cheaper, so I guess I don't see a problem here. Those with less knowledge in a given domain generally pay more, and are sometimes happy to do so out of convenience.
I was flipping bits on an abacus, newb.
Preface: If they're lying to the customer, saying things like "The manufacturer will charge you more" or "You can't do this without our help", then yes, that's bad and it shouldn't continue.
But it isn't as if it's a horrible thing to charge people to perform mundane tasks, even if they could do it themselves.
Changing the oil in one's car is an altogether trivial matter, but damn if I don't pull in to some quick lube station every 3,000 miles or so to pay someone else to do it. It's a matter of convenience.
back when I used to actually use Windows, there was a critical problem that required a restore but a lot of the recovery files got corrupted, and you can't use any other disk to fix it either, they're tailored to your particular machine- and nto get another disk [a DVD that cost them 2$ at most to make] cost 27$$ and two weeks to ship from wherever the hell they keep their backups. then not only that but there is still trialware on the disks which is bs, you shouldnt get garbageware on a disk you rightfully paid for EVER. which to their credit pissed me off enough to use Linux to begin with and now I couldn't imagine wanting to go back to windows. thanks Circuit city for driving me away from Windows and indirectly helping the FOSS community with every person that isn't putting up with that garbage anymore.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
And if you don't fall for that, they are on to selling you some monster cable.
In other news.. water is wet.
There's a sucker born every minute...and two Circuit City employees to take 'em.
I remember when win95 first came out. My company bought a new Dell or something, and it came with Win95 but no recovery disks. This machine had a pristine 1x or 4x or something CD READER, and a floppy port. I was one of two SW Developers at this company, so I took it upon myself to make recovery disks before corrupting the machine's harddrive with our development environment. The "make recovery media" utility asked for 30 pre-formatted floppy disks. It took me all day to make those things. Then I got yelled at by my boss for wasting a whole day doing nothing.
It is a matter of faith that it costs ten times as much to get a new customer as it does to keep an existing customer.
My question to the marketing department is as follows: Do you know how many people figure out that they've been lied to? My guess is that many of those people won't be back for years. To replace those customers you need to spend ten times as much in advertising as you would have if you'd kept them. How much do you pay per customer for advertising? Was lying really worth it?
When a retailer pisses me off badly enough, I make sure it costs them plenty. BTW, it is also a matter of faith that a pissed off customer will tell ten other people.
Do you know what kind of prices Best Buy charges for basic hardware installations, like putting in a stick of RAM?!
I think it's in the order of $30 or so.
It's pretty difficult removing two case screws and pushing it into the DIMM.
I think it can be done in about 30 seconds, which translates to about $1 per second. That's $3600 per hour!
You're getting a bargain with the recovery discs!
I worked for geeksquad for 2 years before I finally realized that I was wasting my life away. The job was a hell hole, but the reasoning behind pushing the restore disc creation was sound. I'd say about 8/10 customers who purchase a pc from bestbuy have no idea what a restore disc is or believe the discs that come with current computers (usually vista upgrade discs, or even blank media) are the recovery discs. I've had countless occasions when a customer comes back with a failed hdd, gets it replaced under warranty, and then has to buy restore discs for $15-40 from the manufacturer. This in turn makes them pissed off at me for making them pay more money and wait even longer for the repair to be completed, then the customer says the good old line, "I'm never going to shop here again", and then demanding to speak to a manager, causing the 10-20 other people in line wait to get mad while they wait 20mins for the person to finish throwing their hissy fit.
So all in all, its more of a pre-emptive strategy than a sales strategy.
It's been a long time since I bought a computer at a retail store, but don't they already come with a restore CD most of the time? Every computer I did buy had restore CD's included.
You should get the full os install disks for free you are paying for them and M$ should have them up for download as ISO images that need the key on the system.
I had to download a torrent of XP media center 2005 to run a repair install on a system that I was fixing for some one and they did not get a install disk / restore disk with there system.
Some recovery disks wipe out all of your data.
Is that, correct me if I'm wrong, don't those extended warranties only kick in *after* the manufacturer's warranty expires? So if the Wii comes with a 2 year warranty, and you buy a 3 year extended warranty, for the first 2 years, if Nintendo *did* make you ship them to Japan, wouldn't you still have to do that?
So, the guy is trying to sell you the warranty based on the 'convenience' of using their warranty system instead. . . but if you bought it, they'd tell you it was still under mfr's warranty, and to go to hell, wouldn't they?
The thing of it is, 95% of the people that get machines like this don't ever bother creating their restore disks on their own. Granted, it would be better if they did, better still if the OEM's would actually press you a restore disk for the OS you paid for, but unfortunately neither one of those things is likely to happen. Even if the customer ends up paying more on their bottom line for their puchase (hopefully not more than $20), at least they actually have a set of disks. What usually happens is they have nothing, and then when their hard drive dies (remember, not if, but when), they have nothing to restore their machine with, and they end up paying for the restore disks, the shipping costs, and their repair time is delayed by a couple of days at least.
I remember when it was commonplace to get a recovery disc along with your computer; now you have to pay (quite a bit) for software that's already on your system. What happened?
It's one more trick, like extended warrantees, to fleece the consumer and add to the bottom line for the store. (I remember being offered an extended warrantee on something years ago and having to point out to the salesman that the item already came with a 5 year warrantee. Dar!
I will say this, however. It is a good idea to make Recovery Discs or get them from the manufacturer ASAP, because often I find you can't get get them a couple years later.
"Support for that old thing?!? We haven't made that for almost 16 months. I don't think you'll be able to find anything for that now."
It's all part of Just-In-Time (JIT) delivery, to elminate warehousing. JIT means all the bits arrive at the distribtion center at the same time to go out to stores. The closest thing they see to a warehouse is a container. This means the parent corporation stores virtually nothing. Once the model is out of production you have to find service and support through servicing companies, not too many of them like to keep warehouses either.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
IANAA (apologist) but I don't see it as screwing over, in exchange for some of my time to perform for you a service you deem to have value you give me some of your cash in proportion to the value you perceive. The fact that you see no value in buying the disks because you are educated enough to make them for yourself and you have the time/interest to doesn't mean that everyone else is. One can easily change the oil in their car and I often encourage/train friends how to but I don't see places that offer to change it for you in exchange for a fee as ripping you off.
I bought myself a very nice HP Pavilion, my first home computer with a dual core processor and I'm very happy with it. As I was leaving, the Geek Squad guys asked if I wanted them to make the recovery disks for me. I said, "How much?" I believe the price was $28. I said no thanks.
I got home, turned the computer on, and it did a bunch of self-setup, including asking me to put in several CD-Rs so it could make its own recovery disks. I did, labelled them the way the setup program told me to, and voila -- recovery disks. So there does seem to be some kind of scam going on here.
This is a bunch of hogwash. First of all, even if your PC didn't come with a recovery disk, you can order one from the manufacturer for around $20. Gateway provides this service to their customers. Secondly, when I purchased my computer back in October of 2006 at Best Buy, the idiot Geek Squadder (what I call them, they are morons) asked me if I needed them to set it up for me, to make sure the PC was running right.
... and that service is free through the one year limited warranty.
Well, little did he know, and I didn't give out any information, that I knew what I was doing. I've been building computers from the ground up for the past 20 years and knowing how to fix them. While I declined, I looked at my receipt and realized that I would've been charged for the service. I actually think that the FTC should charge them for acting deceitful when it comes to customers.
At any rate, even if you don't know how to create a restore disk, it is so easy just to call up the toll free customer service line for the manufacturer and they walk you through stpe by step. The folks at Gateway have always been helpful and they can even help you through live chat through their website
I always say, do your research and know what you're looking for and don't go in to buy a computer with no knowledge. Because, Best Buy and Circuit City will always try to sell you services that you don't need. The 1 year year manufacturer warranty is all that's neccessary because if anything happens to your PC, it'll be within that year.
How do I get hired at one of these places, I'm tired of making peanuts.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
you go to the store to look at the laptops, but then return home, get on the trusty ol' Internet and order it at the same store's site, from the comfort of your own chair, choosing the "pick up at the store" delivery option. The girl at the pick-up and service window will not try to foist anything upon you - she's not being paid for that. I was in and out in under 5 minutes with a new Toshiba in a factory-sealed box under my arm, and not 2 complete sentences said to me in the process.
I can assure you, the best way to get rid of dragons is to have one of your own.
Check out this blog post about 27 Confessions of a Former Circuit City Worker.
There's lots of insights about what the deal really is behind extended warranties, backup discs, and such. For example:
10. When buying a PC you will be asked to have a backup DVD made for a charge of $30. This is done through an application found on all computers, sometimes hidden. You could do it yourself for free. Also, it was very common to sell this on Toshiba laptops. Little do the customers know, it's already in the box. So we would charge, and do nothing.
> One thing that slashdotters forget is with MS Windows, don't underestimate the stupidity of the average user.
> Most probably don't even know what a recovery disk is.
I honestly had no idea what a "recovery disk" was until I just googled for it. I've been using computers for over 20 years, and have made a career as a software engineer for the last 12. I've always just had the full OS on disk. I guess that makes me stupid.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
The whole argument about _who_ should make restore discs is misconceived. *No-one* should have to make restore disks.
If a machine does not come with an operating system CD/DVD, then the buyer is being sold short. The most bizarre thing of all is that people still flock like sheep into these places and buy Windows machines after this -- and after so much more. You'd think they'd go and buy a Mac or at least if they must buy a Windows machine and support the whole corrupt Microsoft edifice, wipe off Windows and put Linux on there. Heck, Canonical will not only supply free Ubuntu CDs but pay the postage to ship them to you. But, no: people still herd into these places like a flock of sheep and buy whatever is put in front of them no matter how unfit for purpose.
Depends on the intent, I guess.
1. If you intend to shaft someone, and feed them mis-information and FUD to that end, it's immoral, yeah.
2. On the other hand, I don't see anything wrong with telling people that it's a damn good idea to have one recovery disk. And if you want the shop to do that for you, it will cost money, because their employees, time, space, etc, still cost money. It's providing a service, for a cost. It's how capitalism works.
Some shops will do #1, some shops will do #2, and some won't do it at all and deal with the fallout of the clients coming back with a thoroughly screwed up system and demanding it fixed for free because it's still under warranty.
In other words, the question is where you set the bar. _If_ for you anything other than doing unpaid charity work is "screwing over the stupid for a buck", you might have some unrealistic expectations. It's not how the economy works. If you're too stupid to do a task, or can't be arsed to learn how, or your time is too valuable to do it personally, you pay someone to do that service for you.
Heck, I'm too "stupid" to know all laws and precedents, so I pay a lawyer when I need that kind of knowledge. I'm too "stupid" to know all diseases and antibiotics/antivirals/etc, so I pay a doctor. Etc. Is it "screwing me over for a buck"? No, it's just providing a service for adequate remuneration.
Sure, the doctor could take the time and teach me medicine for free instead, but chances are it would be a waste of both my time and his anyway. Ditto for the lawyer.
I fail to see why the same wouldn't apply to a shop's techies. If you're too stupid to do your own recovery CD, and want someone else to do it for you, you pay for that service.
Again, I do draw the line at telling the customer lies to get them to pay for something they don't need. That's unethical. But offering a paid service, even an overpriced one? What's wrong with that?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"Oh woe is me"
I got a PC and it is full of crapware
"Oh woe is me"
My computer is slow
"Oh woe is me"
I didn't get a intall CD
"Oh woe is me"
My computer is dead after one year. I have to go back and get me another one
"Oh woe is me"
Why don't just buy a from someone else
Because I like saying, "Oh woe is me"
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
After the recent birth of our son, my wife's parents bought us a digital camcorder so we could record the little spud doing his thing. I discovered that although the camera supports Firewire, it didn't come with a cable. I poked around online and saw that I could order such a cable for about $5 plus shipping. Not wanting to wait the several days it would take to get it, I drove to Circuit City to just "suck it up and buy one."
They were charging $35 for something I could get for $5 online. I thought for a bit, and realized that $30 was worth the extra few days I would have to wait, so I went ahead and bought it. But it still pissed me off.
Most modern PC manufacturers have a hidden Recovery partition on the hard drive
/DVD's with the new PC's?
:)
which contains the factory image and an install program.
You notice how they do not ship recovery cd's
Try hitting F11 or another F key during bootup. IBM has had this for years.
Others do this too. Easier for tech support and users who lose discs far
too often.
Neener neener. Yep, they saved a few pennies
Every time I check out of one of these places -- which is not often at all -- I'm invariably offered some kind of extended warranty. When I initially refuse, the cashier usually says something like "You'd really be wise to buy it, these things break all the time."
I respond, "So what you're saying is, this product is a piece of shit and I shouldn't buy it. Check." The look on the cashier's face is always priceless. For a big-ticket item, it's also great to see the sales associate foaming at the mouth because the dumbshit cashier just tanked a sale.
And yeah, I walk right out without buying it. Half the time I never intended to anyway. Hours of amusement, kids!
I remember when you got the whole OS in it full retail box... With manuals no less. Heckpirate., I remember when MS was spouting that getting your manuals was a primary reason not to illegally copy your software.
Duh, it's all about money. Companies and people are greedy! :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
When I bought my new HP laptop last October, the first thing I did (before loading Linux) was to create the recovery CDs. I didn't spring for the DVD burner, so the total number of disks I had to burn was 15. This was pre-Vista, a rather simple Windows XP install totally cluttered in stuff that HP loads on. This took at least an hour and was quite annoying. Though I wanted to load Linux, I still wanted to dual-boot Windows. The hard drive's recovery partition worked fine for that, but getting those backup disks was darned annoying.
Strangely enough, reloading the OS fixed a problem I was having with the touchpad's scroll area not working (despite telling the driver about the area), so the image in the restore partition must not have exactly matched that which shipped.
So if I had to go back and do it over, I might be willing to pay $10 or $20 to get a few known-good DVDs for my recovery partition. That'd save me an hour of my time and the potential for any one of the 15 CDs to become unreadable. The article says $30, which seems a bit steep (it took an hour, but I could work on other things while occasionally swapping disks).
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
With my 1505n, Dell included a standard Canonical "ship it" Ubuntu CD right along with the laptop, and it still has a very well done recovery setup on the hard drive.
load "$",8,1
Uninformed is simply not knowing about something, that MAYBE you should know, maybe not.
STUPIDITY is not knowing about something when you really should have already made it your business to know about it and/or refusing to see something for what it is.
A retailer pushing unneeded, unnecessary, and overpriced accessories on a customer? Surely, this is a new tactic that has never been attempted before in the history of commerce.....
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
I haven't been their for 4 years, since I never got my rebate on my laptop. (the manufacturer sent one, but not best-buy). But now I want to go back, especially since in Oregon, only 1 person in the conversation needs to know it is being recorded. Or hell, don't bother hiding it, just grab one they sell off the shelf, pop a battery in it, and buy both of them.. They won't even notice I have it turned on when I'm holding it..
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Ever hear of capitalism, comrad?
I hope someone mods this up, especially since there are a lot of folks like me that have ACs auto-modded down.
You're right on the mark. Here's the thing. If you buy warranties on everything you buy that they're offered on, at some point, you will come out ahead on some particular item. A laptop, a refrigerator, a microwave oven, a television, an iPod... Something. And, as the parent post noted, good for you.
However, that thing that you came out ahead on has a nasty way of ingraining itself into your selective memory. You remember that thing that you came out ahead on, because wow, you saved hundreds of dollars. You tend to forget the thousands of dollars you lose $50 to $100 at a time by buying extended warranties that you never need or use.
It's simple psychology, and retail stores are taking advantage of it, along with people's lack of knowledge about computers and their tendency to react to fear, to make billions of dollars a year. Ask any financial expert or consumer advocate and they'll all say the same thing: The only time you should ever purchase a warranty is if you literally cannot function without whatever it is you're buying the warranty for.
Plus, that doesn't take into account the fact that most of the time, it's a lot harder to actually get companies to follow through on their warranties than the salespeople claim it will be. Keep in mind that when companies have to pay out warranties, that's taking money away from them that they had considered pure profit. It's very likely that they'll avoid fulfilling the terms based on some technicality. For example, did you keep all of the original packaging? Even the driver CD? My dad got burned on that one once. He tried to claim an extended warranty repair, and they wouldn't fulfill the warranty because he had thrown away a three-year-old driver disc.
Last, but not least, it may seem like a bargain to buy a $200 five-year extended warranty on a $2000 computer. But in five years, what will that computer really be worth? If you're lucky, maybe $100 on eBay. You can get a replacement cheaper than you can ship the durn thing.
Just don't do it. Take all money you would have spent on extended warranties and put it in a savings account. You'll earn interest on it, and in no time, you'll have enough money in the bank to replace anything like that that you would buy and you'll never need another warranty again.
I for one welcome our evil retail upsellers...
"At least at Best Buy, however, sales reps are rewarded for selling more products and services through what is informally called a "score card" system, according to a Best Buy employee who asked not to be identified. The employee told me that sales teams that score well receive the opportunity to work longer shifts (and thus make more money)."
Wow I really wish where I worked I had to earn my overtime. Damn that would be sweet. Now I just get overtime for well being just short staffed. Damn I am glad I never took that job at Best Buy, and went for the less lucrative and rewarding job in the IT department.
Selex
As soon as you get a new PC you should call the manufacturer and request recovery media. If they tell you "it's in the recovery partition" or "you can make a set with our BIOS/Windows utility" demand that you want the recovery media. The worst scenario to be in involves a wrecked partition or hard drive, or burned (not pressed) CDs/DVDs that have disintegrated over time. I was able to get recovery media with my Thinkpad free of charge after I received it; I just called, they confirmed that the laptop was in warranty, and I got it a few days later.
Paying someone for a service .i.e make the disks for you, isn't a scam. For someone of your IT knowledge it wouldn't be a value to do so, but to other it would.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
When anyone can download or order it for free.
On average, you lose money when you buy insurance regardless of scale. That's, in fact, the whole point of insurance: you pay slightly more than your expected costs up front to negate the risk of unexpected costs greatly in excess of either your expected costs or the insurance cost.
It doesn't make a lot of sense to insure a computer if you are fairly certain (1) you are going to replace it eventually, and (2) you will always have the reserves to replace it at need in an emergency.
OTOH, if may be essential to replace it, and you may not be able to do so out of cash, it may be worth insuring.
on average, that's true of every kind of insurance, regardless of scale. Insurance is worth it (if it is at all) based on the consequences of the potential unexpected downside it protects you against and the degree to which it mitigates that risk, not because you will on average save money with it. Risk is a real cost, even though its monetary value may be highly subjective.
They don't try to force the customers to pay for this, they offer it as a service. Just like the service of installing antivirus software. Yes to us it's easy to do, but to j6p, doing this for them is making things easier. The reason you charge, is because it takes time, actually, this takes more time than updating the operating system, installing AV, removing the crapware and anything else. The main reason it's offered, is because 9 out of 10 of these customers will just ignore the dialog asking them to make the discs and then all of the sudden, they are ate up with viruses and spyware from downloading from LimeWire. And, since they didn't get the antivirus and antispyware installed, that's been expired. Anyway, start bashing BestBuy, seems to be a close second place to bashing microsoft around here.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
some do include recovery disk other have a recovery partation but you can make disk from that tools are normaly included. others simply have the os key printed on the back my pc did and a full os disk. point is no matter the company they always have some form of the disk included be it a tied to your machine type on the harddrive or a full os disk. the only time this does not apply is on a machine you built.
I have one of those 'Universal Recovery Disks', it helps against spyware, virusses, malware or just plain broken hardware and you can still save your data:
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
I worked for CompUSA for years (until they got shut down by Best Buy :Grrrr:), and 95% of all computers we sold came without a recovery disk. There was just a bigass screen that came up prompting you to burn one. In fact, for 5 dollars, we'd make you a disc, sit through the asinine setup procedure for you, install the Microsoft updates, and run benchmarks on your PC. Pretty damn good deal, if you ask me.
You, my friend, have obviously not been charged $40+ for an oil change.
just got the fraction wrong? (on purpose?)
'the manufacturer's charge 1/2 what we charge'
"the manufacturer's charge 2/1 what we charge!"
sounds like something that would happen on Myspace or AOL
there are 10 types of people in this world; those who get this joke, and those who don't
Stores are always overcharging for doing simple things for clueless or busy people. It's not "news". If the market didn't support it, they would lower their price or stop offering it.
/. agenda. That's why these stories keep showing up. No one else cares.
Pissing on the big retailers is part of the
Good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!
I know YMMV, but it seems strange to me when people start talking about hard drive failures. In the past 15 years, out of a total of about 10 computers I had control of, only one had a hard drive failure, and that was a 6 month old Dell desktop. I had a seven year old Quantum 12GB hard drive which worked fine until I replaced it with a bigger one. I doubt the average computer user would even want to deal with fixing a 5 year old computer rather then buying a new one, even if they had recovery disks.
Keep in mind these customers don't realize that something better is available for free. A fool and his money are soon parted...
- PCs used to come with operating system install discs.
- Then they removed the operating system install disc and gave you a "recovery" disc instead.
- Now they don't give you anything.
Is that correct? It's been so six years since I bought a PC in a store, and even then the hard drive was wiped almost immediately, after a cursory check with the preinstalled OS to make sure the computer was working properly.What has *science* done?!? -- Dr. Weird (ATHF)
Ahh but I have that's why I change my own, but the $40 oil change is a perfect example of capitalism. The reason it isn't a $50 oil change is because you won't sell enough to offset the price increase and the $30 oil change doesn't exist because there will be excess demand so the market has decided that $40 is the correct price for that service. I tend to agree when I change the oil in my car myself it usually costs me about $30 (5 qts full synthetic oil and a GOOD filter) + about 10 minutes of my time rolling around on the ground at home getting oil on me and having to properly dispose of the waste, I believe Jiffy Lube charges approximately $60 for a full synthetic oil change during which time I get to wait in an air conditioned waiting room, and can do it during my lunch break at work. So the value proposition is in exchange for an extra $30 of my money I get to wait in a waiting room which is heated/cooled instead of on the ground in the hot/cold and I can do it during work instead of having to find time on my weekend. To me the tradeoff isn't worth the extra cash but to many it is which is why the market bears the expense. This is the same for the restore disks originally referred to, some see paying the $30 for a bunch of CDs at delivery time of their PC to be worth it. Afterall the cost of the media to make the restore disks has some cost, and there is some usage of my time which to me has value.
We see quite a few customers bring in their computers with crashed hard drives. They did not receive recovery disks. Instead, the vendor has a "recovery partition" aka "hidden partition" on the hard drive that you can do something special (like hold down certain keys at boot) to boot from and recover (reformat and reinstall) your hard drive.
That's lovely and convenient, no disks to lose, fast, etc. But what happens when your HD crashes? you're outa luck. Some of those recovery partitions come with windows pre-activated, and there is no license key included with the computer. So if you don't have the recovery partition, you're screwed.
For those customers I would say it's a very wise idea to have a tech make a set of recovery disks from the recovery partition, in case of HD failure.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Hopefully, next spring they will stop doing that since:
e rvice-pack-1-analyzed/
http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/13/leaked-vista-s
"...new feature is an option to create a recovery disk..."
One the employee will not get in trouble for denying you something that you want for free that is normally charged for,they will just say what you want to hear to appease you so you'll just leave. If it's not included take it up with the manufacturer. Some manufacturers include the recovery discs Toshiba, some Sony laptops, and ASUS etc. One manufacturer even disables the built-in windows recovery disc creation utility. If the manufacturer disabled it Best Buy won't make the recovery disc for you and you have to go to the manufacturer, or know how to do it by other means. I worked for Best Buy in computer sales and the Geek Squad I never lied to any customer. Most of my sales of recovery discs were to people that just wanted the convenience of not having to do it themselves. Most employees also think it's really funny when customers make demands keep it up you are the bright spot in an otherwise boring day. If you get really pissed we hand you off to management and then we laugh at you and management.
You should always go for the lowest price, when having disks made to reinstall the crapware, adware, and trialware that came with it.
That way you can tell the world that you're an empowered and enlightened consumer.
You got a hex listing which you entered using toggle switches... and counted yourself lucky!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
My son worked at the local Best Buy during his last year of high school.. he did floor sales in the home electronics and computer departments. He finally quit because he got too much shit from his bosses for telling the customers the truth. Additionally, if a manager overheard a sales person "working a customer" without pushing extras (extended warranties, restore discs, etc) it meant a bitching out for that sales person. From his experiences, the only extras worth buying are extended warranties on items that are likely to break down (DVD players, camcorders, etc)... you can essentially get a new one for nothing after a few years if yours has an accident near the end of the extended warranty.
Every laptop that I have purchased have always had recovery disks included in the box. Some of the stores must be opening the boxes and removing the disks. That, or the customers are completely clueless.
[Casablanca] Gambling? HERE? No!
/dev/video with an application. Once again, a forehead slap. If it works at all, it'll work easy on Linux. Even though it wasn't designed with Linux in mind.
I don't know if it's still the same, but back in the Windows98 era, vendors used to pick-n-choose system DLLs, making life very tough. I took a single, USB, Creative Webcam 3 and pluggeed it into a Compaq. After three hours of drivers searching, replacing, using the various disks available to me, I gave up.
The webcam was designed for Windows, not Linux. Everything about it was supposed to work, yet the CD that came with it bumped heads with the installed software AND the Compaq disk. How does this happen?
Meanwhile on Linux, I plugged it in, and spent an hour learning all I had to do was open
Is it too much to ask this of Microsoft, whom we're _paying_?
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Price to install ram, yeah 29.99. Did i ever recommend that we do it? No. Our store had some of most consistent performance across the nation. sure we didn't meet some sales goals set by eggheads at cooperate based on the top 10 percent of the company's national average, but who cares. We had customers, loyal customers, who knew our store was different. We had wonderful tech sales because people trusted us with computers. The repeat sales we had keeps the place going.
The fact that we were successful shows a few different things. The big box retailers have some flawed business models, and they are measuring success with the wrong metrics.I'd like to see how many repeat computer buyers best buy and circuit city have on their PC's.
as far as recovery disks being a profit center, i think that in itself is stupid, bu if a tech actually gave some care to set up a computer for that particular customer, with some attention to detail and not just being an assembly line operation, well, it's be worth it.
"10001110101 - periodic table with a centerpiece of mind" -Clutch
If you have the money, why not just bank some $2000 towards replacing the computer? You know you're going to have to replace it at some point, and that Moore's Law dictates that $2000 will pretty much always buy you a decent computer -- more than decent, top-of-the-line, really.
Then again, I usually get a warranty because I tend to abuse my computers more than most, and I also tend to not have enough money on hand, because if I have $2k, I won't buy a $1k computer and save $1k for later. I'll buy a $2k computer.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Dell provides Ubuntu now. You can also build your own and get no OS on it.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I used to work for Geek Squad. The Restore CD service is really a matter of the convenience. That said, however, they are sold by idiots. I've see some salespeople sell restore cd's when the computer comes with them or cannot be made (toshiba's come with them and certain sony laptops don't allow you to make them). Best Buy does not have commission, it just has idiots. We are pressured to sell every fuckin' thing to the point of making sure the customer is not satisfied. We are chastised for fixing simple problems for free. I had a manager once that said "if it turns on, it's $199." Geek Squad agents are now salespeople, not computer technicians or even tech savvy. Agent Jonny Utah, Geek Squad's remote connection tool, is used for everything to the point of making the in-store agent obsolete at the expense of the customer. Virus removal and other common tasks are becomming more and more automated. I'm trying to get out and I recommend the customers do the same. I can't wait for the day when Geek Squad goes away but as long as that "I'd rather pay someone to do it than learn anything" market continues to come into the store everyday, it's here to stay and most customers will never know that difference. I have so many bad things to say about Geek Squad that I wish I never worked there. It's a bad line on my resume.
It's just negotiating, normal stuff the bulk of the planet does when approaching a reasonably expensive purchase. Do you take the first offered price at the used car lot or buying from a new dealer or from a private party? Are auctions wrong and immoral? Ever go to a yardsale and make counter offer on some junk? Ever buy a house? It is along those lines "OK, computer looks cool, throw in some burned disks with the recovery software, like we *used* to get no questions asked with the computers for like decades, and it's a deal".
Heck man, we used to get freaking shop manuals with computers, hardware specs, schematics, the whole nine yards. I still do this all the time, last week I go to the produce manager at the grocery store and saisd "see those two watermelons with the dents? gimme a real good price and I'll take both, cuz you know they are gonna sit there and get picked over. Result from a short negotiation is I got around 1 3/4s perfectly good melon for less than the price of one "new" one, and the store got rid of some questionable stuff that was just gonna sit there. A few months ago I needed a new engine for my mower, saw the price at the hardware store, told the guy, make it such and such for the display model, I don't need it in a box, and it's a deal, saved around 30 bucks.
Anyway, examples abound. What folks are asking for isn't "free stuff", it's stuff we used to get all the time, and it is perfectly acceptable to negotiate, these stores WILL haggle on prices, it is part of their policy, I've gotten at least one display model much cheaper from one of the stores mentioned in TFA.
Anyway, part two, try metamucil, you won't be so uptight maybe...
I work for geek squad, and while I agree that they are easy to make, and that they do cost more (Considerably) than the cost to the consumer, Some of those options are hidden in minute places in the start menu. Not only that, but I have had laptops that have FUBAR'd 9 DVD's because they wouldn't pass the Unit's own Disc Verification. HP Laptops take 2 DVD's and 3 hours, probably not the first three hours that customer wants to spend with his/her new laptop... Just my 2 Nickels
This is why Mexicans and Asians try to haggle at Wal-Mart. In their world, everything is negotiable. As it is in professional America.
-OJ
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The reason why stores offer this service is that manufacturer's no longer include these disks if the machine comes with a recovery partition. People are too lazy to create them, so stores offer to do this, in the event that the machines hard drive tanks.
Many people still bitch and moan that even though the machine prompted them to create those disks every two weeks... that they neglected to... and had to order recovery disks from the manufacturer. We even had people complain, "You don't have these!"
No lady... The vendors will not let us have the master disks for every system(Except HP which seems to be pretty nice of them.)
People here assume that every person will take the proper time to make these.. which on the most part... they don't.
Stores don't offer it on machines that come with them. People bitch that the store came up with the idea to not include them.
Which they didn't. It's a great thing that machines come with recovery partitions.. it's for those that lose disks... or never care to keep original equipment together. Plus, when you want to donate the machine, you can recover it without having to track down the disks. But if that hard drive fails... you need some way to prep a new one without having to buy a new copy of windows.
Hence, make the backup recovery disks. Most people never care to do this though, so why not offer a service to take the responsibility of the hassle off your time, and on our time.
So don't whine conspiracy. Make them yourself, or convince others to do so for themselves as well.
-Just stop acting like it's a crime against humanity that they offer a service for you.
John Walsh once found me while looking for some other kid. He was not amused.
Well, count me in the lucky fews. I still have my own original, Sord comp. co. branded, DRI copyrighted, CP/M 68K manuals, both user's and programmer's parts. It is in a nice, white binder. Oh, and in the binder there is a complete C reference too, k&r compatible [cp/m 68K was much more advanced than x80/86 versions, obviously lurking toward unix. As they put it, C was only missing a few unusual calls like fork() :-)].
"Almost nobody, anywhere, ever had a CP/M Manual. I don't doubt it is slightly possible you had one, but it's not likely."
I have to call Bullshit on this oe.
I had three different CP/M machines (Kaypro, BBC Micro add-on box, and I can't remember what the other one was) They all came with very complete manuals, even including driver sections of code, ASCII tables and all kinds of stuff that even then was seldom needed.
Copying the operating system wasn't really an issue, since the hardware address map was never fully standard - driver sections of the code were always customized.
Basic point, back then paper was cheap, hardware wasn't. - A typical CP/M machine was a couple thousand dollars or more at 1980 prices. - not too far off the cost of a cheap car.
It's all pretty simple and boils down to relative profit margins. Whatever people might think, the actual operating profit to a Wal-Mart or Best Buy on PC hardware is not more than 2-3%, i.e. about $15 maximum for the majority of PCs sold. The profit margin on a $40 recovery CD is pretty much $40. Therefore, they should push the recovery CD as strongly as possible, until the point where they are so aggressive that they are losing 1 in 3 PC sales due SOLELY to their pushing of the CD. They haven't reached that point yet.
You're getting what you paid for. For a PC: - High performance - Low Price - High Quality Pick 2. Those $400 pieces of shit are so cheap because they use the cheapest parts they can find and slap it together as cheaply as possible. Best Buy makes 0 profit off of the unit (but they're either contractually obligated to sell it, or because they know what a piece of shit is and they'll just make money off of upgrades and repair costs). These are the same jackasses that try to sell you gold plated digital cables and service plans for video game discs -- why does anyone trust them anyway?
...misquoting going on here! You should be more careful. Not only did you get the quote wrong, but you left your Casablanca tag open!
Every "recovery" disk I've ever seen wipes all your data and user-installed apps, restoring the PC to its out-of-the-box condition. Why would I pay someone to destroy all my hard-won warez?
I can't tell you what province or city but I can tell you that Staples is known for this also. As an insider I know that our tech services mostly come from "in store setups"... An $80.00 charge for 1 hours worth of work that the customer could have done for free. I am not defending such actions but you have to keep in mind that a lot of customers aren't comfortable with Vista and have no idea how to use it let alone make recovery discs or setup a printer.
It shocks and saddens me to see how these big box retailers take advantage of the unknowing consumers. Up here in Canada, we don't have Circuit City and Fry's and stuff (at least not in Nova Scotia), but we do have Future Shop, which is similar, I believe (and I think owned by Circuit City now).
One of the worst trends lately is the non-inclusion of USB cables in printers, which I'm sure was due to pressure, or to entice retailers to sell that brand, due to the add-on of selling a USB cable. A USB cable should be a throwaway dirt cheap part, but they want to charge you $20-$40 extra for a freakin' cable! I stopped one elderly gentleman from being talked into this a few months ago, letting him know you can get a gold plate GE brand USB 2.0 cable at the dollar store! (That's where I get most of my cables now, and I've never had a problem.)
Stores that make a policy of gouging consumers with USB cables, extended warrantees, and other extras, really sicken me. Why can't there be a big box retailer that doesn't do this, yet still has the selection? As much as Future Shop bugs me, it is often the only place to get certain items, with a great selection, and *usually* the best prices on the core items. Sigh...
-dale
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
I still don't understand how you can buy a computer, that comes with software, like Windows, and not be given the CD for it. You are not only buying a computer, but also a Windows license with it. Everyone who buys a Windows license (other then VLK customers), should get a CD with their license.
A salesperson suggesting someone buy something they don't need? That's inconceivable!!
[Inigo Montoya whispers in your ear] "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means"
Error:
You make a very good point. People working retail are so untrusted by their supervisors that they are given a non-negotiation policy. After all, you wouldn't want a Walmart salesman to have that kind of *power*! He'd be giving discounts to all his friends!
The saddest thing, though, is that the workers don't *realize* that. Instead, they believe their managers' speeches about how tight the margins are and that giving discounts is immoral because it takes away their profit and raises prices for everyone else.
And if Best Buy/PC World/Whomever have taken this opportunity to crowbar more money out of you, then good luck to them.
"A fool and his money are easily parted."
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Most of the retail purchased PC, dont come with Restore CD's. They haven't for about 4 year, now. HP charges $14-$15 dollars for CD's. Dell will charge you at the time of purchase I think around $10, but will send you a set for free if you request them with in a week or two of recieving the PC. I think Gateway/emachines were sending CD's Most have a hidden Partition to restore the PC, which works great as long as your HArd drive doesn't go bad. What is the saying a fool and his money are soon parted. I would say about 80% of PC users are either lazy or plain dumb
fscking affirmative.
Instead of people wanting oversight of MS, they should look at manufacturers charging for an OS and not giving people the discs. At worst you should have to pay $1.00 for the media, you've already paid for the OS.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Which is why it SUCKS to "negotiate" on a corporate level with some business people that are from other lands - such as for a salary. Treat me with respect and offer me a salary that is in line with industry, and don't treat me like a street vendor in Delhi / Cairo. I don't want to have to haggle over every little thing. I want to be able to pay a fair price for goods and services at the outset.
Growing up in the West does not change the definition. A negotiated settlement is one where both parties agree, given that you are on your toes to the game.
Oh, and respect is not given, it is earned. Perhaps by savvy negotiating...
-OJ
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I guess I'm talking about the CP/M 2.2 manual as published by Digital Research, not the third-party manuals bundled by OEMs. The DR manual is an 8-1/2 x 11 bound manual and comes from back when people who wanted to run CP/M bought the Digital Research binaries and had to patch in their own BIOS for their particular machine. The 'bundled with commercial hardware' releases came later. I, in fact, have a CP/M-86 manual set for the version that just runs on any common IBM-PC (a multi-thousand dollar machine in it's day, of course, especially if you sprung for two floppy drives and more than the default 16K of ram on the first generation motherboard.) So I am in fact wrong. Cheap common CP/M manuals published by the OEM hardware distributors are fairly common.
Not just the hardware was expensive back in '79 or so. The 8" floppy diskettes were very expensive, on the order of $10 each.
Microsoft says legacy (serial/parallel) ports are bad. They don't obfuscate the hardware enough.
As a tech at compusa, most people that needed their OS reinstalled didnt have their recovery cds even if they came with the PC. We started offering to burn them since 90% of them never would for a small fee, like $20 and try to bundle it into something they already bought.
This isnt just a try for more money, its really needed because people just dont burn them the vast majority of the time.