Al Lustie's Tips and Tricks

We gave Best Buy and HP a month and 2 days, and they finally returned our computer (purchased in June, 2011).  It works, but my wife did not have the use of it for 33 days by the time we got it back up at home.  Best buy replaced 2 mother boards, a CPU, shipped it back east (and back) and said they also put in a new power supply.  So far, for two days, it continues to work.
The Black Tie agreement for which I paid says we get a new comparable computer of a store credit after three tries fail.  What it does not mention is that you have to get the computer back after each try for it to "count" as a try.  This 32 day "try" only counted as ONE attempt to fix it.
  Pretty crummy.  Their business model sucks as well.  They spent well over the amount a store credit would have cost them while making their computer unavailable to the customer.  When I checked it in they estimated having it back in four days.

Meanwhile, we purchased an iMac, VMWare Fusion and Windows 7.  No, we did not purchase from Best Buy, but from a nearby Apple store.  We purchased quality hardware, quality service, and a tested, quality service agreement!

Will we purchase anything from Best Buy again?  Maybe, but probably not.  With the business model they are using, they probably won't be around much longer anyway.

Until recently I have had had a couple years of good experiences with HP computers (in contrast to 4-8 years ago when they were SOOOO bad).  That is all changing.  HP plans to get out of the PC business, and maybe it is about time.  I bought one for my wife in late June.  By mid August the motherboard was shot.  We are on our third motherboard -- still doesn't work -- and it has been sent to another state for further repair.

Oh, we bought the Black Tie protection plan from Best Buy with the computer.  She has been without for about two weeks now.  Best Buy has, in their greed oriented wisdom, decided we still don't qualify for a refund, even if we buy another computer at their store.  So, I am not recommending Best Buy, either.  If you can find the computer you want at Office Depot, and it is not HP or Compaq, our experience and my client's experience with Office Depot has been very good over the years.