Big Box Store Reps Push Unnecessary Recovery Discs 380
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."
What happened? (Score:5, Interesting)
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And, if you dont create one and then have your PC crash they might even get a service call out of you too.
Turnabout! (Score:2, Interesting)
If the salesman refuses, raise hell with his manager. Purchaser gets the disks for free, salesman gets reprimanded (or fired).
Heh.
Re:Turnabout! (Score:5, Insightful)
But once you find out that its now NOT fixable because they were too cheap to give you a 25 cent to make recovery disk with your $400+ PC you WILL be pissed at them.
Its just bad business practice to me.
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Step 1) Insert "Magic Computer Fixing" Restore Disk
Step 2) Turn on computer and hope it works
Granted restore disks aren't a cure all, but for most users its the one and only shot they have
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Sure, I've heard that some people, for example, who bought a monitor could go in and get a brand new monitor even better because the models changed so fast.
However, for each one of those stories, I've heard a horror story about how they'd hold a computer near expiration until the warranty expired and hand it back without doing anything, telling the consumer it was fixed, or about how some little specific thing (like "throwing it against the
So why'd you buy it with Vista? (Score:3)
Re:Turnabout! (Score:5, Insightful)
You forget the managers job. His job is to ensure his staff have the tools and pliable morals to sell you things. He won't be reprimanded or fired instead he's be "coached" on how to sell it to you without getting you angry. Perhaps he'll be told a better lie to use.
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Re:Turnabout! (Score:4, Insightful)
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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).
That's just retarded. Consumer PCs come with some kind of recovery manager that allows you to make recovery CDs. Big Box stores charge something like 20 dollars to make the recovery CDs, which can take an hour or
Re:Turnabout! (Score:5, Insightful)
1. That the manager will give them to you for free.
2. That just because you complain, a salesman who is following company policy will get reprimanded or fired?
While I agree that you should get OS installation media at no charge with your computer (and refuse to buy one that doesn't come with any) why do you think you are entitled to demand it? You are not. Your recourses are: buy it, haggle or don't buy it.
You may end up getting the media for free, however more than likely the salesman and his manager will talk later on that day about that "whacko customer" they had earlier.
Re:Turnabout! (Score:5, Insightful)
I would love to discuss the mindset trend in North America where people think it is OK to "get free stuff" by creating complete asses of themselves. The very notion that if one were to act childishly and annoying enough that people will just throw stuff at them to make them go away seems completely crazy to me. Why and how do you think this trend started? More importantly do you think this trend can be reversed before our populace is filled with hyper selfish middle agers with an inflated sense of entitlement who refuse to work? This could very well be our empires lead poisoning.
They're just following orders from higher-up, and if they don't have any moral qualms with it, they're assholes, so who cares what they say amongst themselves?
How about the moral qualm of working for a living? Feeding your family? Supporting yourself? The way I see it is this: they are offering goods and services for a price. You do not have to buy it. What is immoral about that? As long as they are up front with you, tell you "yes, you can make the discs yourself" then there is no problem. I am always wary of someone who invokes "morals" but insists that anyone who doesn't agree with him is wrong. Because you belive it to be "immoral" you are willing to make an asshole of yourself in an attempt to get items you did not pay for? Remember, the cost of those recovery CDs are not included with the price of the computer. Who is the asshole now?
Re:Turnabout! (Score:5, Insightful)
There are a few things you must understand: you can create the recovery discs yourself, and the cost of the recovery media is not included in the price of the PC.
On top of that, things change. What you believe "should be given in the first place" is not fact. Simply because you believe that to be so, does not mean others have to abide by it.
That being said, your statement "that they should have been given in the first place" denotes that they accepted the terms of sale already, in which case, as long as the sellers were up front about what was being sold, and did not use any form of deceit, then yes, I believe it is not as bad as someone "raising hell" to get recovery discs for free.
They can make their own discs, discs were not part of the sale agreement nor included in the price, and "raising hell" to get what you want for free is something a child does, not something an adult does.
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Go bitch to HP for not including the discs, or spend the $0.50 on 2 blank DVD-Rs and do it yourself, but don't raise hell with a salesperson ju
Re:Turnabout! (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not a "right", and the copy that you purchased is on the hard drive. The copy that you purchased also has built in capabilities to duplicate itself for backup purposes. If you bothered to RTFA you'll notice that most sellers DID inform the buyers that they can make the backup themselves.
Again, if you don't like the terms of sale, don't buy it. You do not have some magical "right" to a recovery disc.
Personal responsibility, where art thou?
Re:Turnabout! (Score:5, Informative)
If the salesman refuses, raise hell with his manager. Purchaser gets the disks for free, salesman gets reprimanded (or fired).
I hate to break this to you, but that's not the way it works. I worked for Best Buy for four years, at three different locations across two different states, so I say this with some authority.
See, you seem to think we (I don't work for them anymore, but I'm going to call them "we" anyway) make a lot of money off the computer, but we don't. In fact, when you count my wages, electricity and heating, and all the other costs associated, we're breaking even if we're lucky. More likely, the store is losing a few bucks on the purchase. And me personally? I'm not on commission, and I'm not rated on how many computers I sell, so I don't really give a crap.
So, I look at the other stuff you're buying, to see if we're making any sort of profit on you at all. If you're loaded up with stuff that we actually make money on, I'd be happy to do you the favor. Otherwise, I'd be more than happy to sell that computer to someone we'll make a profit on instead.
Go ahead, threaten to take your business elsewhere. We'd much rather you buy the computer somewhere else, and cause a competitor to lose money. Raise hell with my manager if you want. He'll promise you that I'll be "dealt with" just to make you go away, and then he'll come over and say to me, "man, that guy was a total asshole." I can't even tell you how many times I saw that happen.
There are exceptions, of course. If it's a slow day (meaning the techs aren't busy with customers who actually paid them), and if you were nice to us, we might just do it anyway. We're people too, after all. So many people don't treat retail salesmen like people. If you do, they recognize that, and will do you all sorts of favors. If you're a prick, forget about it.
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I used to live near a Best Buy store and went there fairly frequently. Because it was nearby and on my way home, I nearly always just went in there for a specific item. I'd buy it and leave. If I needed something else the next day, I'd go over there for that item.
The only store that was closer was a Circuit
Re:Turnabout! (Score:5, Informative)
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So, I look at the other stuff you're buying, to see if we're making any sort of profit on you at all. If you're loaded up with stuff that we actually make money on, I'd be happy to do you the favor. Otherwise, I'd be more than happy to sell that computer to someone we'll make a profit on instead.
Go ahead, threaten to take your business elsewhere. We'd much rather you buy the computer somewhere else, and cause a competitor to lose money. Raise hell with my manager if you want. He'll promise you that I'll be "dealt with" just to make you go away, and then he'll come over and say to me, "man, that guy was a total asshole." I can't even tell you how many times I saw that happen.
I've worked at Best Buy as well, for both the computer and Geek Squad departments. While it is true that Best Buy does not make much money off a computer sale alone, you forget that a non-sale of a computer is still lost revenue.
Pick a scenario:
1. Make an immediate sale, but with less profit.
2. Deny the sale because of the "measly" profit and have the computer sit there for a few more weeks.
From a business perspective, you've already lost money on wages, electricity, rent, products, etc. By havin
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In fact, when you count my wages, electricity and heating, and all the other costs associated, we're breaking even if we're lucky.
Oh no! It's so sad that the store can sell a product and pay for all of the associated costs, including salaries... and your CEO probably made a couple million dollars last year. Why don't you ask HIM if it's worthwhile sel
Re:What happened? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What happened? (Score:4, Interesting)
My question is, when you buy a top of the line system are you treated the same way? I'm not talking about the corporate 'buying experience' which is a whole different game...
Ahhh.... Young'uns.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ahhh.... Young'uns.... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Doughs!! (Score:2)
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What has changed is they went from providing install disks (DOS and Windows 3.1) to Hard Driver image disks (Windows 98 SE and newer, to no recovery disks but a hidden recovery partition. Then the reliability of the hard drives bombed so the warrenties went from 3 years to 1 year for most hard drives. This made the recovery partitio
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Re:RECOVERY PARTITION (Score:5, Informative)
Funny, I always just cracked open the case and taped the recovery cd(s) to the inside of the case. Always seemed to save me a lot of headaches finding the exact right installer for that paticular revision machine.
Old Dupe? (Score:3, Interesting)
Say it ain't so (Score:5, Funny)
extended warranty (Score:4, Insightful)
The real retail rape is extended warranty.
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Not that Comp USA was a great place for management. I had 1 manager who was skim
Kinda reactionary... (Score:3, Insightful)
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I'm inclined to agree. I'm not ready to wave my pitchfork at Best Buy or Circuit City over this, I'd rather have a go at the manufacturers that don't include these discs as standard operating procedure. Heck, I'm annoyed at Toshiba about it. I bought a TabletPC a few years ago. I l
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If they can't follow the prompts on the welcome screen, they are going to have an almost impossible time if they are considering to networking with any older SMB share with a password or connecting with any printer using the IPP protocol.
Question... (Score:2)
Are they really important? (Score:2, Insightful)
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What happens if the drive gives up its magical go smoke ? How does one recover after that ?
I have had multiple customers come to me with HP's just out of warranty with HDD that failed. I had to order the dvd's for my customers and they were very unhappy about it. What I would do was get an oem install disc off the local piracy sites and just use the oem cd key off the side of the system and when the discs came in I would go deliver them their discs.
I hate that they don
What?! (Score:5, Funny)
No suprise (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Of course he was lying. The real reason those console warranties are so expensive is because of the widely publicized (guestimates of 25-33%) failure rates of Microsoft's Xbox 360. A number of stores, including GameStop, increased their silly third-party warranty prices for all game consoles. These stores obviously have dollar-signs spinning in their eyes, and floo
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Here's what you do next time a salesdroid won't stop pushing the extended warranty on an expensive item. Say this: "Oh, so you're telling me this product will probably break before I'm done with it? NEVER MIND THEN."
Then watch carefully for the look of total, helpless panic. It's totally worth it.
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To those of you still under the delusion that insurance on small-cost items is the same as insurance on high-cost items: it isn't. The reason it
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Re:No suprise (Score:5, Informative)
However, just because in this particular case you came out on top (replacement costs were higher than insurance costs) doesn't change the fact that, on average, you lose money when you buy small-scale insurance. If this were not true, statistically, then the insurance company would be losing money.
So, unless you know ahead of time that the thing you are buying is in some way defective, it's best not to get the insurance. This will lead, on average, to more money in your pocket at the end of the year.
But otherwise: winning once on a slot machine doesn't mean that the house doesn't win on average.
100% correct. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Point of insurance (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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Well, yeah, that's kinda how insurance works. The thing is, people are risk averse; we're often willing to pay money to not face paying out large sums when something really bad happens. Insurance companies can pool the risk of large numbers of peop
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-nB
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However, in today's era of Internet purchases, this usually partially/fully disconnects you with the stuff you bought on the console. For example, if you replace your 360 in Best Bu
screw 'factory' recovery disks (Score:5, Informative)
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!)
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Note: Before we begin, know that 1.) there is command line work ahead, and 2.) partitioning an existing hard drive is a risky undertaking that could go all kinds of wrong. Make sure your hard drive is well backed up before you begin.
when the point of the instructions is to help you make that first backup.
It's a better idea to use the systemrescuecd in combination with a usb drive, and have partimage write the image to the usb drive, rather than try to repartition the image on the first go.
Another caveat with any of these backup tools is that they may have issu
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It's less likely that a virus will stay (and be easily triggered) on the document folders, and it'll save you a lot of headaches the first time she forgets one file she wanted to keep.
Besides if the problem persists, you can back up, delete all files and do the reset again. This extra hassle is worth
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Ghost (v.7) worked great, but Symantec has not been improving that product in a while.
On the other hand... (Score:4, Insightful)
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I agree with you that it's a worthwhile convenience, although 30 bucks seems a little steep to me. I'm not at all opposed to little timesaving addons like this being charged for though.
When I bought my PC parts from Fry's, one of the services they offered was to hook my CPU, heatsink, fan, motherboard, and RAM together to make sure it all worked together. Cost 12 bucks. I
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What happened to the Manufacturer's disks? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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Not necessarily. The T61 I bought from Lenovo came with a tool to create recovery disks which, I assume, are based off the recovery partition present on the hard disk. 6 CDs later, and I had a freshly minted set of disks which are now safely stored with the rest of the documentation for the laptop.
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2) Because I didn't have any DVR-Rs on-hand, and I had a stack of spare CD-Rs lying around.
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The "good" news is the recovery partition is live and usable (ie, you don't need to make discs to use it), the bad news is that you're fscked if you don't and the HDD goes south.
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...the bad news is that you're fscked if you don't and the HDD goes south.
Here you've hit on why the whole "recovery partition" routine drives me fragging crazy. We get failed drives on a regular basis, and o' course the clients never made a backup/recovery set. Just another way for them to eke the last buck from you.
I've seen more than one manufacturer try to sell those recovery disks at *$80*, while another sells theirs at 12.50. Yet another insists that they have no recovery disks, instead insisting you buy a new "recovery hard drive" with the image already ON it...at a HE
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Oh and some will only let you make 1 set of recovery disks (which is ok since CD-R's last forever)
Odds are... (Score:3, Insightful)
dont remind me... (Score:2)
You should get the full os install disks for free (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Job (Score:2)
An employee's perspective (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Oh woe is me (Score:2)
"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"
I love checking out (Score:5, Funny)
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!
Re:I love checking out (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow, I get the feeling from the content of this post, that you've never done this, but wish you had. Especially for a high-ticket item that you can't, in reality, afford.
I call shenanigans!
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Somehow, I get the feeling from the content of this post, that you've never done this, but wish you had. Especially for a high-ticket item that you can't, in reality, afford.
It's happened twice. Once with an ink jet printer worth about $100, once with a cheap LCD television worth about 10 times that. With the LCD, I really did intend to play this prank -- luckily, it worked. So yeah, technically that's "half the time" :-)
But hey, I got my +5 Funny, right?
Easy but time consuming (Score:2)
Dell (Score:2)
No!! (Score:2)
What we all truly missing in this article (Score:2, Insightful)
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 ne
Get a Universal Recovery Disk (Score:3, Funny)
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download [ubuntu.com]
Everyone's got an agenda. (Score:3, Insightful)
Pissing on the big retailers is part of the
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Re:stupid people (Score:4, Insightful)
Depends on intent, I guess (Score:2)
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
I is stupid people (Score:4, Informative)
> 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.
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A quick call might get you the CDs (Score:3, Informative)
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