Complaint Review: Circut City Best Buy Dell Cust. Service - Wyomissing Pennsylvania

in february 2008, my fiance and i had both a computer and a laptop, both made by dell. we have since returned our computer to where we purchased it (rent a center), and have purchased the laptop from RAC in january 2008.

so as the month of feb. rolls on, i notice the laptop's AC adapter wasnt receiving signal correctly. you had to basically "play" with the wire that plugged into the back of the laptop to have it stay on AC power. after about 2 weeks of this, this stopped working and the AC adapter stopped working all together. i priced AC adapters at different stores, and they were very expensive (100 dollars at one place!), and they werent even dell brands.

while i am at work at the mall, my fiance goes across the street to circut city to speak with a computer salesman to see if he knows what could be wrong. i insist to my fiance it is the AC adapter, that the wires inside probably just went bad and as long as we got a new plug, it would work again. my fiance is very hard-headed and, since i am not a tech, didnt believe me. anyway, he explains whats wrong with the laptop and that his fiance (me) had a insisting theory that it was the AC adapter. this salesman insisted i was wrong, that he never heard of this happening, and that the problem was inside the laptop itself and we should bring it into them to fix, and that it would cost about 500 dollars! my fiance said no, thank you, he'll shop around and see what other people had to say. the salesman would not stop trying to sell him their services, and even offered him a brand-new dell laptop for 1000 dollars. my fiance left.

next, he went to best buy and explained the problem to someone from "the geek squad". they also insisted it wasnt the AC adapter, but it was a firewall set in the laptop blocking the AC adapter from charging. that did NOT sound right. they also said it doesnt just "happen", that someone had to have set a firewall manually against the AC power. once again, they offered to fix it and charge depending on what was wrong. my fiance said no. then he asked how much the AC adapters were. when asked what kind of laptop we had, and my fiance told them, they said they didnt sell that brand anymore. so he left.

next, he called dell cust. service. after being transferred about 3 times, they ALSO insisted it wasnt the AC adapter, but the circut board and that to replace this circut board could cost anywhere between 100-800 dollars. i pulled out the circut board myself when my fiance told me this, and it looked fine. actually, it still looked brand new for being almost 2 years. they also said the warranty on the laptop expired and that we should renew it. he said no, then they said to send in the laptop and have the circut board repaired if we wanted computer access. my fiance said he would think it over.

meanwhile, i used a friends computer and ordered a dell inspiron 2200 AC apapter on ebay for 22 dollars, much cheaper than office max, circut city, and a few other places were charging (anywhere from 100 dollars for "generic" brand to 500 for dell brand!) once we received the adapter, i plugged it in, plugged it into the laptop and guess what? the laptop turned right on. turns out i was right!

so the reason i am posting this is basically to explain not to always trust some stores with electronic problems. they may charge you for things that you dont even need! can you imagine if my fiance had sent the laptop to dell to be fixed? it would have costed him a hundred times what we paid for a new AC adapter, and it STILL wouldnt be fixed! so be very careful out there!

Lainybabi

Reading, Pennsylvania

U.S.A.