Back in Nov-Dec I bought a little Acer Notebook from Future Shop here in Victoria. It just went caput one day earlier this year only a couple of months after I bought it. I took it into Future Shop where their tech department did what they claimed was a diagnostic. They wanted $40 fee to perform this diagnostic. They said that the hard drive had failed and needed to be replaced.. and it would cost us $200 – in parts and labor. We did not have the money to get the repair done and my husband also got upset with them because we were pretty sure that a hard drive failure should be covered under warranty. They said they would waive the $40 diagnostic fee — if we wanted to get the repair done… We said we didn’t have the money… and took the computer home, with the intention of getting it fixed when we did have the money. I came across the manufacturers warranty and my husband called them 6 weeks later and asked them about what they could do to help us out. They did a diagnostic over the phone.
Guess what – the hard drive was FINE… the real problem was that our operating system files had been corrupted and simply needed the OS to be reinstalled.
So – instead of paying $200 – for $25 we simply shipped the computer off to Acer in Ontario and they reinstalled it and sent it back within a week.
So – I really have to wonder just what the heck is going on with the diagnostic team at the future shop here… Do they just make stuff up – and then rip people off? Has this happened to other people? Isn’t it fraud? I think so…
There was nothing wrong with the hard drive of our machine… and the future shop techs were trying to say that there was and charge us to replace it.
I wonder if it’s possible that somebody is just stealing hard drive – charging them to customers and reselling on the side.
When i called the manager to tell them about it – they said they were sorry and that it wouldnt happen again.
But somehow, I wonder if this sort of thing is condoned…
I’m sorry to tell you this, but in this, Futureshop was better than Acer who gave an horrible service.
Maybe the way the tech explained the problem was a little bit weird, i can grasp that. But files on your harddrive dont just get corruped like that. Its created by a bad sector, bad sector happen on defective hard drive. Once you start getting some, your hard drive has a LOT of chances of getting more in a really near future. Its not always 100% defective withing a few weeks but lets say 80% is a good call. Acer flagged the sector and reinstalled the system over it. Returning you a working computer with a patched problem…
Left by Alex1988 on May 3rd, 2010