Geek Squad in North Bethesda | Best Phone, Laptop, and Computer Repair Services at Affordable Prices | Quick Fixes

I went to the Geek squad area at this Best Buy location recently about 15 minutes after they were supposed to have started work. There is a very clear “start line here” sign that led to a desk with some monitors. I stood there for a minute or two wondering where the Geek squad employee was. Another customer came up behind me and started to wait in line but then realized there was no employee there too. He went to look for someone in the store and I decided to go take a peek in the work area to see if someone was there. I thought maybe they didn’t realize that there were customers now. I looked into the work area and saw no one. I did not actually enter the work area and there were no obvious signs saying that this was forbidden anyway, but regardless I didn’t go behind the curtain. When I come back to the line a geek squad employee is coming back with the customer who was behind me in line. I say “Hi, that guy was actually behind me in line, I was here first and no one was here taking customers.” Silence from the guy who skipped me in line. But shockingly, instead of helping me first, the Geek Squad employee continued helping the line jumper and scolded me for going behind the desk area to look in the employee area for someone to help. I stated that I was first in line and no one was here a second time and he scolded me for a second time. There’s nothing better than getting yelled at instead of helped so I left without using their service. After reading the other reviews it may have been a blessing in disguise that this happened before they took my device.

WOW do they try to upsell you. I wanted to buy and install one fan for my computer. They told me I should not only do that, but had room for “three to four more fans” in addition and should pay to buy and install all of those as well. If you missed it, they wanted me to pay for five fans instead of one. They’re hoping I’m stupid enough to think that would be helpful.

And before I’m even allowed to buy all of that, they *require* me to sign up for a membership at $200 PER YEAR. As if I’m going to need multiple PC repairs every year, and not one every 4-5 years. I asked them if they had a one-time price, and they said no. Can you think of a reason for that policy, other than bilking money from customers? I can’t.

Anyway if money is no object, and you just want the job done, I can see going to Geek Squad, but if you would prefer not to pay 6x the market value of the repairs you actually need, I’d encourage you to take your PC basically anywhere else.

(Oh, and the icing on the cake, they stole my power cable on my way out.)

My computer no longer recognized my external hard drive and it contained some important files. So I took it to Geek Squad in the hopes that they could help me. They spent 5 minutes looking at it and then told me it was basically dead. They said they could send it out to try to have the files recovered but there was no guarantee the files could be retrieved. Plus it would cost me between $500 to $1000 to do the process. I told them I would think about it.

A few days later I took it to the Best Buy on Shady Grove Road to have the Geek Squad there take a look at it. They changed a few of the settings and then showed me all my files were fine and undamaged. I took it home and made back ups of all my files.

Go to the team at the Shady Grove location. They are great.