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Best Buy Unapologetic About Charging For PS3 Firmware Updates
donniebaseball23 writes "After discovering that electronics retailer Best Buy was charging ignorant customers $30 for the 'service' of installing updated firmware on PS3s, IndustryGamers got word from the company on its policy. Best Buy sees no problem with charging for this convenience, even though it's something Sony provides to PS3 owners completely free. 'While many gamers can handle firmware upgrades easily on their own, those customers who do want help can get it from Geek Squad, and we continue to evaluate this offering to ensure it meets their needs. The service goes beyond a firmware updates, and includes user account setup, parental control setup and other components,' a representative said."
hey retards, you're paying for labor
if you pay for a firmware update, you deserve to have $30 taken away from you
sony will do it for free if you send it in for 6-8 weeks. eat that
A company making a killing on a service sees no problem with offering it? I am shocked. Shocked, I say!
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Are you appalled by the charging or the ignorance? The entire IT service industry works on this principle.
Anyone who paid for this deserves to lose their money. They can think of it as a teaching moment, and will ultimately be better off for it. The worst thing we can do for people like this is have some nanny-state government agency force Best Buy to refund them. This will ensure they learn nothing and continue making stupid idiotic decisions.
Seriously, if you own an electronic product and can't even handle installing simple updates just take it back to the store and be done with it. It's 2010 already: no more excuses.
So, if my grandma took in her computer to pay to have them do a defrag and update some drivers, maybe run a q-tip across the DVD drive laser--all things that she could do for free at home--she's getting robbed?
I don't get the controversy here, unless BB was lying about what they were doing.
My debut novel AMITY now available: http://jeremydbrooks.c
How is this different from paying someone to install/upgrade an OS or applications, remove viruses, install a hard drive, add RAM, upgrade a video card, etc? All of these things can be simply done by an end user with a small amount of instruction.
Or changing the oil in your car, or washing your car, or the many simple things we pay other people to do for us?
but best buy is pre loading it and forcing you to buy it with work done and non pre loading ones are out of stock.
and then when you try to buy they push a $50-$80 monster HDMI cable on you.
so go to another store, let best buy charge whatever they want, and let consumers and the market show them their sins.
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As someone who has worked for Geek Squad in the past, I have to say that we do not enjoy charging people for this kind of nonsense, but you would not believe how many people come into the store wanting a firmware update on their Blu-Ray player, XBox, or even their iPod. Since it is a business obviously we are not going to step away from a paying customer to set up a machine and download a firmware update for free, so we charge them our lowest service cost, $29.99 for a 1/2 hour labor. Best Buy eventually realized this was a service we were performing on a regular basis and created a "Firmware Update" service for that $29.99 cost.
I really have to stress how many people come in requesting a service like this. I tried to convince people many times just to go home, plug in their device and simply head to the 'download updates' section, but I would constantly get responses like "I don't have internet", "Its just too confusing" and "I don't want to do it myself". Its idiots like this that create a market for a simple service downloading updates, and Best Buy would be even dumber to turn away potential revenue from customers that are willing to pay for something this simple.
Wasn't there an article on here about how Denon only carried $15 HDMI cables at one time, but then created a $150 HDMI cable when their high end customers were demanding a better cable just because they wanted to spend more? I think its kind of the same principle. You cater to your clients and Best Buy's are just one step above Wal-Mart's.
Really this is just another bump on the road that leads to the crumbling of brick & mortar stores. Best Buy is trying to squeeze as much cash out of their customers as they possibly can.
A couple days ago I went in to my local Best Buy to buy a hard drive that they had listed for $129.99 on their website. I got to the store, and it was $165 on the shelf. In the past, it's been no problem to price match things that were on their site. However, this policy has apparently changed in the last few weeks, as they informed me that they no longer match prices on their site. The tag on the shelf wasn't one of the standard corporate tags, (the font was different, and the background of the tag was different) so it looks like they purposely jacked the prices of some items up. Anyway, I proceeded to stand in front of their customer service desk and order the drive off of their website with my phone using the "pick up at store" option. As I walked around for 15 minutes while I waited for the order to "go through" I noticed a lot of tags that were similar to the one I described. When comparing them to the website, all the tags had a significant markup compared to the Best Buy website. Other tags with the standard background matched the price on the website.
The girl at the customer service counter that I talked to said that this was "a new policy that went into effect a few weeks ago." She then proceeded to tell me that they did some sort of study that showed they were losing a ton of money by matching prices on their website. Personally I just see this as a huge death knell for, if not all best buys, at least my best buy.
In the pre-installation case? They're selling open-box hardware at premium prices? And yes, it should be considered open-box, because who knows what they did once it was opened? They could have dropped it, lost cables and manuals, swiped free software/coupons, etc. Once the manufacturer's seal is broken, you can't be 100% sure what you're getting and thus the merchandise should be discounted appropriately.
I don't hate Best Buy for preying on stupid people. I hate them for thinking of it first.
OMG! How dare a money making company actually charge people money for providing a service to people who can do it for free!! /sarcasm
Is that kind of response expected by the submitter?
Seriously, for a site filled with geeks who think they are smarter than the general populace, this article FAIL on so many aspects. Just to name a few
1. Economics 101 - price is determined by supply and demand. If there are people who are willing to pay $30 for someone to do something for them, it is not a company being evil for providing said service for $30, even if it cost the company nothing. Cost does not determine the price, the cost of business only determines how much profit the company can make. If you are pissed about that, go ahead and start your own company to offer this service for free. (much in the same spirit of "write your own patch" in OSS)
2. Business has a fixed cost, in rent, in salary, in opportunity costs. So it is never really free to help people to install updates.
3. Guess what? Some people value their time at more than $30 for half-hour, and will be willing to pay $30 to someone if it will save 30mins time and headache. Not everyone is living in their mom's basement with nothing to do and no money to spend most of the day.
4. Grow up. Most "service industry" is based doing things for people that they can do for themselves, in some cases for free, and that includes a large portion of the IT industry.
5. From the comments so far, most /.er are more intelligent than the submitter.
Oliver.
It gets worse! There's places that charge you for making dinner! That's right! There's actually people who go out to these places to have meals made FOR them! WHAT FOOLS!
You probably never worked in the IT industry catering to the consumer. I used to work as an onsite computer tech and our customers would gladly pay a few so that we would do the "complicated computer stuff" for them. One guy payed me $95/hr to come out to his house every few weeks just to install Windows updates. He watched me every time and knew how to do it but he still did not want to do it himself.
BestBuy is providing a service which some consumers appreciate. If you are not one of them then shop somewhere else.
Everyone who buys Wild Hunt will receive 16 specially prepared DLCs absolutely for free, regardless of platform.
Or better yet -- the few times I've had to go to Best Buy to buy something (trust me, I avoid them like the plauge), and they pull this crap, I go to their website while in the store, and order it there. The website dosen't know about the "Geek Squad Markups", and will charge me the normal amount. I can even check the box to do an in-store pickup.
The manager usually gets real pissed at me when he knows I know there are no untouched boxes, and I'm getting their GeekSquad service for free. I usually explain that I'd rather not have it.
I used to work for the neurology department. I was, literally, working for brain surgeons. Smart, smart people. They did high end research, in addition to surgery, they all held joint positions at the hospital and university. However only one of them knew anything more than basics about computers. They rest just didn't care. Computers were a tool to get their job done, that was all. They didn't learn about them because they didn't want or need to, that's what they paid me for. Also because of this they did whatever I said, easy bunch of people to work with. I'd say "You need X," and the answer was "Buy it." I told them "With the new system do things this way," and they all did. They were used to the idea that in medicine, when an expert tells you what it to be done, you do it. I was the computer expert, in that small domain my word was law.
None of them were stupid by any stretch of the imagination, just very, very focused. They did what they did well, and relied on others to do what they did well.
I do think too many computer people decide that anyone without computer skills is an "idiot" as though we should all have the same skill set. Can't deal with a command line? Can't compile a program from source? Can't write your own scripts? Oh you are a moron. EVERYONE should do that... Of course the person saying that is often unable to cook even a simple meal from base ingredients for themselves, or explain the basics of colour matching and so on. They've decided that their field is the important one, and everything else is irrelevant.