Rants

Hard Rock Hotel asked for free advertising

Last week I was in Las Vegas for a trade show that was being held at the Hard Rock Hotel. While I have a place in Vegas, my girlfriend likes the pillows at the Hard Rock so when business calls me to Vegas and the event is held at the Hard Rock Hotel, we opt to stay there rather than a mile away at my place. Within a couple days of my arrival, I received an email from their “media specialist” who had seen links to one of my other blogs on several other websites. He wanted me to “spread the word” about their hotel and casino. When I responded with an extremely reasonable request in exchange for this promotion, it was ignored. I guess the only good publicity is free publicity. Well, now they will get that.

On Saturday, as I was unpacking, I realized that in my haste to get back home I left some items in the closet of the hotel room. These items were a pair of slacks with a belt, a dress shirt, three ties and a tie clasp. I immediately called the Hard Rock’s Lost and Found Department and sure enough, they had my items. I gave them my contact info and address and was told to call back on Monday, June 14 to find out when the items would be sent out and by what means. I told them I did not have a problem covering the costs for the return of my property. Monday morning I was told that the items would go out later that day or Tuesday. I was appreciative and prepared to give the Hard Rock Hotel the advertising they requested.

Wednesday morning I received a package from the Hard Rock. I was surprised when I opened the package. While the slacks, shirt and ties were enclosed, the belt and tie clasp were missing. I suppose it is possible that the tie clasp broke and fell off the tie as they moved the tie from the coat hanger it was on to the bag they put it in, but it is impossible for the belt to just fall off. With both items missing, there is no question that someone decided that they could use the belt and tie clasp. I can only guess that they did not appreciate my taste in ties as each of them had more value than the items they decided to keep.

After making the post on my blog, I shared it on my Facebook account. It was then that the plot thickened. Within a few hours of my posting about it on Facebook, I began hearing of multiple instances of credit card theft happening to people attending our conference. Between four and six people have said that their credit cards compromised! I guess some people think that it is easier to hit a conference than individuals as many people use expense accounts, so less likelihood of it being noticed. Of course, that is just speculation. However, I know that my property was stolen, not lost. I do know that there are several people from our group that are suggesting their credit card numbers were compromised. To me, where there is smoke there is a good chance that there is a fire.

So, pursuant to James Cooley’s request, I will spread the word about the Hard Rock Hotel. That word is to make sure you check your credit card closely after staying there. Also, make sure you check your room three times before leaving and there seems to be a 50-50 chance of you recovering your property should you mistakenly leave it behind.

Geek Squad Mafia

The most difficult part of this post was coming up with a title that reflected how I feel about the Geek Squad or Best Buy. Another contender was “Best Buy Is Not.” You might get the impression that I am a little pissed off by Best Buy and their Geek Squad, and you would be correct. Here is the tale of my impressions of Best Buy and their team of nerds.

A little over a year ago, I purchased an H-P laptop for my assistant to use for company related tasks. I thought it would be a good idea if I went ahead and purchased their “black tie” warranty that basically covered everything, including accidental damage, for two years. The main reason I got it was so if anything went wrong with it, we could bring it to their nerds and they would fix it for us with no downtime. I was pretty much misled with this presumption.

It was a matter of months before parts started falling off the H-P. Time to use the warranty. We brought it back to Best Buy under the impression that they would fix it and my assistant would be back in business. Wrong.

They informed me that they could not fix it there and would have to send it back to H-P, so we would be without the laptop for a couple weeks. It was not a convenient time to go without the use of it, so I said forget it and we just dealt with a laptop that was sans a few keys.

As time went on, more parts fell off, we got indications of the monitor going bad and RAM failure forced us into backing up our data and bringing the H-P back to Best Buy, knowing that they would be holding onto it for a couple weeks. This was really my first up close and personal interaction with these geeks, and I soon determined that these guys were not geeks at all; they were impostors. I know geeks. My girlfriend is a geek. I have friends that are geeks. These guys were wannabees.

While standing around, waiting for service I took a closer look at my surroundings. Best Buy puts up a lot of poster sized photographs of a bunch of nerdy looking guys that looked like they worked as FBI agents in the 60′s. White shirts, black ties, glasses. I then took a closer look at the employees behind the counter and it was obvious that if you looked like a nerd, you were immediately qualified to be part of the Geek Squad Mafia. This was further verified when we realized that my assistant had failed to back up her Thunderbird email. I figured that I would just buy a flash drive, back the emails onto it and let them take the laptop. Sounded easy in theory anyway.

I have never even looked at Thunderbird, so I could only guess how to back up the mail folders. My guesses were wrong. But hey, there were a slew of geeks behind the counter, one of them should know. Wrong again. Supposedly, there is not one Geek Squad member that does not own a Mac. Fine, but you mean to tell me all your customers are on Macs? You have only used a Mac? Give me a break! A real geek would know what they were doing instead of giving the lame, “I use a Mac” excuse.

We ended up taking the broken H-P back from them so I could go home and figure out how to backup the mail. After this was done, my assistant brought it back to the store. Then the fun began.

Geek Squad Victim

A couple days later, we received a telephone call informing us that the laptop could not be fixed and we should come back to the store for a replacement. When we arrived, I was informed that it was not “cost effective” for them to repair the laptop. They would give me a replacement that was “comparable”. Now, comparable does not mean they will just give me another of the same model, because according to them, laptops are only in the store for about three months. They also do not feel that comparable has anything to do with the cost of the laptop. They just find what they feel is close to monitor size, drive size, RAM and processor. While I was not entirely convinced this was the “Best” way to handle a customer that spends as much as I do there, it is what it is.

My assistant asked them if the warranty would transfer to the new laptop. I had not bothered asking because I naturally presumed it would. I was batting 1.000 this day. I was wrong with every presumption. Their contention was that they had honored the two year warranty by just replacing the laptop. I suggested that I still had a year left on the warranty and that they should at least prorate me for coverage on the new laptop we were stuck with. They disagreed.

So, in a nutshell, it was not cost effective for them to fix the laptop I purchased. It was more cost effective for them to give me a cheaper model than I had purchased originally, then charge me a couple hundred dollars for a new warranty. To me, this is theft. And bad business. I can not imagine the situation that would help me feel justified treating a customer like this. I know one thing for sure; the next time I have to get some warranty work done, I am going to accidentally drop kick the laptop across the parking lot. If it is going to be a matter of cost effectiveness, I might as well get a little pleasure out of the screwing I know I am going to get.

Now, if you have had similar experiences with the Geek Squad Mafia and took the time to read this entire post, I have an offer for you. Like I mentioned earlier, I know geeks. The geeks I know can work on PCs or Macs, and they have better rates than Best Buy’s nerd mafia. Go Go Techs will give you $50 off your service charge if you bring in a receipt showing that you have tried using the Geek Squad. Not a bad deal. The nice thing is these guys are able to do many things remotely. They are also quite knowledgeable about home and office networks, and they are not going to give you the same runaround with the “it will cost $xx.xx for us to look” b.s. that you get with the geek Squad Mafia.