Be careful when purchasing an extended warranty from Best Buy, it usually only covers parts.

I just went through this with one of my customers who had a bad recovery partition, from the very beginning. The customer called them, and was told they would fix the problem, yeah, right. The customer drove 60 miles, and was told they would figure it out and fix it.

Thus, when Best Buy loaded initially loaded windows from that restore partition, it was corrupt. Of course, Best Buy would not fix it, but instead wanted to charge the customer $160 to fix the computer. Instead, the customer ordered a set of recovery disks, from HP, for $15.

I don’t trust extended warranties at all.

thanks for sharing Ron and sorry to read about Mike’s experience with HP. We hope that limited warranty with Dell does the trick to avoiding those sorts of issues

I bought a Dell XPS 420 desktop over the weekend at Best Buy, on a whim. The Dell scan said there were a few problems, I checked the link “tell me” and ended up (immediately) in a chat with dell. I was reprimanded for contacting Dell because– DUH– I had bought the computer from Best Buy. However, I had the printed warranty at my desk and there was absolutely no discussion of Best Buy or Geek Squad. Everything is about Dell support and how long it lasts after purchase.

Eventually the Dell chat support disconnected me and within a few seconds I got a call from Dell support, where a very nice indian lady told me there was nothing she could do for me.

I called back the number and reached somebody stateside and while talking to him I found the page on my Dell account website, based on my service tag, that said I had Dell support for the NEXT 500 DAYS. That’s phone support. Parts support was assigned to Best Buy for a few months, then transferred to Dell.

However, the sympathetic Dell employee told me that his supervisor told him I was the equivalent of an “HP Customer” calling Dell for service.

Well, let me see… I have been buying Dell for years, one of the reasons I picked up this machine was my positive experience with Ma Dell. The Best Buy rep even tried to sell me an addon warranty and I told him I would not need it because I was familiar with Dell’s service and have been very happy with it.

My bad, apparently. I was never even allowed to talk to the supervisor, who continued to insist I was no better than an HP customer asking for Dell support.

I thought Dell was on a mission from Mr. D himself to make service paramount. Where’s the beef?

Hello DB,
Check out this post:
http://www.lockergnome.com/blade/2008/03/11/buying-a-dell-at-best-buy-reader-wants-to-know-who-provides-technical-support/#comment-148294

Teh support from Dell and BestBuy are horrible. We just purchased an Inspiron with Vista64. From day 1 we were unable to view Windows Media files over the web. No problem if they were on a jump drive of HDD.

A slip of paper came with the machine stating that a one year technical support and hardware warranty came with the machine. After being told by a store support person that the problem was a Vista problem, called the tech support line who then told me they wern’t responsible for any operating system problems.

Dell shirks thier responsibility by pushing me off to Best Buy, Best Buy dodges the bullet by passing me off to MicroSoft, and MicroSoft passes the buck to Dell! How convenient to sell garbage to the unsuspecting public and absolve themselves of any responsibility by hiding behind the corporate phone maze.

Important-Disaster Warning- Regarding Dell Computers Purchased At Best Buy
Please be advised that Dell Computer Corp. will not support any Dell Computer purchased from Best Buy Corp. Dell will refer any support requests to the Best Buy Geek Squad, who only occasionally answer their phones, do not know the Dell product, and will tell you to bring it in.

In addition, Best Buy will not give customers warnings about Dell non support.

YOU ARE NOW FORWARNED