Scum Files: Circuit City New Computer "Fixing" Charge Update

In response to yesterday's post about Circuit City charging a customer a ridiculous $40 fee to fix a new computer they had just purchased, an anonymous Circuit City employee has written in to us to give us a little more insight.

We haven't been able to verify their story, so take it with the proverbial grain of salt:

With your Scum Files: Circuit City story I am sure there is more to it than just what was posted.

First, I do work at Circuit City. Second, there was a notebook computer that had a bad bios that did not allow the wireless connection to work. The manufacturer informed us so that we could get this fixed before we sold them to customers so they would work correctly when given to the customers.

Though it is understandable that they may have to boot up the computer and briefly "setup" Vista to update the bios and test that the fix did work, it is completely inappropriate for any store to charge any customer for doing this update / fix unless it was accompanied with other labor, software install / setup, tuning, custom configuration, or what ever you call it.

If any one at my store tried to pull this trick in front of me I would raise a huge stink and do what ever I can to stop it.

So it seems the manufacturer made Circuit City aware of the issue, and a rogue technician decided to take advantage of it and stick an extra charge to the customer.

It's good to see, however, that there's at least one Circuit City employee with a conscience out there who's as upset over this bogus charge as we are.