Geek Squad's "Geeks" Don't Fix Your Computer: Best Buy's Dirty Secret, Agent Jonny Utah

Former "Geek" Reveals the Truth

By Robert Dible, published Sep 27, 2007
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If you are like countless Americans, you have probably had or thought about having your computer serviced or set up by the Geek Squad. Purchased in 2002 by Best Buy, the Geek Squad has become the nation's most visible computer repair business with its ubiquitous advertising, nerdy-but-cool uniforms and supposed technical know-how. Until last month, I was one of them. I wore that fashion disaster of a uniform, sold the services and hid the secret.

Yes, that's right - Best Buy is hiding something from you about the Geek Squad. It's called Agent Jonny Utah, or simply "AJU." Google it, and you find a few scant references on The Consumerist, a longtime Geek Squad hater - but no real details. Dare to ask Best Buy what it is, and you're lucky to get an answer, and you certainly will not get a straight one. So what is it? What is this insidious secretive program that allows Best Buy to employ underpaid and undertrained teenage technicians? It's this:

The employees you talk to at the store don't fix your computer. How could they?: They're expected to spend most of their time on the sales floor pitching Geek Squad setups, moving from customer to customer like some door-to-door insurance salesman. So who fixes it if the "technicians" are actually just selling? Agent Jonny Utah, that's who. Agent Jonny Utah is a program rolled out by Best Buy in 2006 that allows technicians in a remote location to access computers needing repair, and perform software repairs remotely. These remote technicians are located (of course) in India. We would hook the computer up, select the service to be performed, and head out to the sales floor to sell some more services while the laughably incompetent Indian technicians attempted to fix the computer remotely.

 
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Showing Comments 1 - 15 of 15
 
 
Best Buy AJU policies differ by location. At my store we fix 90% of the problems and few computers get hooked up to jonny utah. Simply because many time the computers we get brought in for service can't connect to the internet. Sure AJU is good for working on computers at night while the Agents can't be there. However, AJU is not a "dirty secret" of BBY it's simply a tool that can be used when theres an overwhelming amount of work. If there are Agents out there who hook everything up to AJU and then walk around the salesfloor then they seriously need to be re evaluated because there job is to repair not to hook up computers. If they don't know how to fix computers then they shouldn't be representing the geek squad name.

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Posted on 04/26/2008 at 11:04:22 PM

 
An onsite agent needs to bring in at least $10,000 a month. Last year BestBuy PROFITED 9 Billion from GS. I though Greed was a Sin.

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Posted on 04/19/2008 at 10:04:33 AM

 
Do you really think BestBuy cares about the Indian people or supplying jobs in india, NO. They do it because it makes their sharholders happy and increases profits. Not cause Indians are good technicians. And I don't have a problem with Indians, just the ones that take American Jobs. I'm REALLY sick and tired of talking to Indians whenever I call Linksys or Netgear, Microsoft, or any other company. And I understand that your reading off of cards and that you are told not to transfer anyone to a Level 2 techinician without going through the cards first. Bottom line is AJU saves BestBuy money. I currently work for GS. I'm trying to get out. BestBuy like any other company splits up areas of States into Districts. And I'm in a certain district which is different than the rest. Due to job security I cannot mention where. But, I can tell you that we do overcharge, considerably sometimes. I can also tell you that WE are forced to do this. An onsite agent needs to bring in, dep

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Posted on 04/19/2008 at 10:04:56 AM

 
This is a pathetic article. Calling Indians (or any community) as 'incompetent" is unacceptable. Indians are as good (or as bad) as any other service technicians. Besides these folks are trained by GeekSquad.

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Posted on 04/15/2008 at 4:04:12 AM

 
I've worked for GeekSquad for about a month and I've found AJU to be very handy. More than 75% of AJU is automated without any interaction on the part of the AJU tech. Several cleanup utilities run one after another in sequence that in most cases clean the computer up just fine without any interaction on their part. When control is handed over to them, they just have to run a few final tests to make sure the system is clean. If the computer gets a clean bill of health then they usually load updates on the system. When done, they mark the system complete and we can finish up any other issues that we had on the system. It really helps us optimize the time we have available for more difficult tasks that are outside the scope of AJU.

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Posted on 03/31/2008 at 1:03:59 PM

 
Speaking as a Current GeekSquad Agent, i am glad that those of you who left GeekSquad did. your dislike for "The cooperate machine" is evident and expected from teenagers. if you are going to write and article about something you dislike try being a little more biased, when AJU first release yes there was a push for it. Maybe the managers in your store did try and enforce it. Maybe a lot of things happened. Yes AJU is outsourced, but its also sourced with actual agents from the US. on top of that for the past 2 years that i have used AJU i have never meet a member of AJU that was from India. for any consumer reading this article, if you decide to bring your computer to GeekSquad yes we do have remote agents that repair computers. please rest assured, for the remote agents to repair your computer is no different than my self or any other agent fixing your computer.

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Posted on 03/30/2008 at 7:03:16 AM

 
AJU is powered by a program called Log Me In Rescue, and as for hooking up 60% of computers, thats not accurate, they pay for the service so they want you to use it. It is nothing that is forced, and I can tell you I do 20 times as much work on my bench as AJU does, but it is a good service to have. And if there are any customers who want to complain that we use a remote service, then we will stop using it, making our turn around time 25 days instead of 7, how does that sound?? QUIT COMPLAINING! This is a stupid forum, and a stupid topic, and the person who posted it is retarded. When customers as me what AJU is I explain to them in depth what it is and how it works, its not a secret you freakin idiot! Get a life!

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Posted on 03/14/2008 at 1:03:42 PM

 
This article is pretty biased. I am an in store agent at Best Buy. We have AJU here and I fervently show my lack of support for the service. So do all of the other agents in our store. AJU is for virus and spyware removal, along with pre-setups. AJU is not good at either! I spend my time making sure that I do anything that fits under the AJU category. This way I know it is done right. The only thing that we ever use AJU for, and this is 5% of the time, is to put a computer up on the bench so that we can maximize time efficiency if we are swamped with work. 100% of the time we are babying the AJU computers and making sure they are done correctly. We do a post-op on all of the AJU machines to ensure that the work integrity was there. I can honestly say at least in our store and our district, almost every computer brought to the stores are fixed by in store agent's hands. The author sounds like a disgruntled prior employee.

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Posted on 02/29/2008 at 8:02:28 PM

 
Geeksquad does a great job of branding, but 90% of their techs are incompetent. All of the competent techs leave for higher paying jobs... take your computer to a local business (or a small local chain) they will do a better job, be more flexible, and charge you less.

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Posted on 01/22/2008 at 3:01:05 PM

 
does anyone know what/who powers AJU? Is there a company behind it?

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Posted on 12/28/2007 at 6:12:06 PM

 
I currently work at best buy CIA but let me tell you i have AJU. It worthless it is only there when i cant be there for fix minor problems. Most the CIAs at our store fix computers not AJU. AJU is only for Virus and Spyware removal only because it is time consuming.

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Posted on 12/02/2007 at 10:12:00 PM

 
Alright, AJU is a beautiful thing. Although it may seem like us Geek Squad Employees don't actually fix your computer, it is in truth the only thing that AJU is good for is the mundane and usually time consuming tasks of virus removal and spyware removal. In order for a computer to even connect to AJU it needs to be able to be stable in Windows and connect to the internet. Just a side note, at our precinct, 100% of our new PC setups are done by our agents. We even do a quality check AJU is done to make sure everything checks out. If our precinct is like any of the others AJU simply is a means to allow us more time to work on more difficult problems while someone else can do the time consuming tasks. Only about 30% of our computers that come in even end up connecting to AJU at all. It allows us more time to service customers that are in front of us. No bull$#@% here, I care about the customer, a lot. I used to hate Geek Squad but i now respect it.

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Posted on 10/27/2007 at 10:10:00 AM

 
Hmm, guess there's a length limit on comments...time to write another article, I suppose!

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Posted on 10/02/2007 at 9:10:00 PM

 
Actually, according to senior Black Ops personnel, the agents are not located in the Philippines - but then, they also claim they aren't in India either, so who knows what the truth is? You may very well be right. Every time we hooked up a computer to AJU, it displays a chat window allowing us to communicate with the remote tech - their names were Indian, without exception. I also spoke with an agent who claimed to have done an IP trace on one of the remote techs that led back to New Delhi. I have no proof other than his word on that one, though. Only this is certain: they're not American, they're not competent, and it's near impossible for them to be held accountable to any sort of quality/integrity standards. And 60% is actually a low number from my experience. Also, you are correct that new PC setups are frequently done on AJU - so be careful with buying a new PC from Best Buy, not just bringing an old one. To build on that, the company has started doing pre-setups, where

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Posted on 10/02/2007 at 9:10:00 PM

 
actually, AJU employees are located in the Philipeans. they are paid $4.50 US wages/hour. Bestbuy forces the Geek Squad to hookup 60+% of all computers that come into the tech bench, even new computers that are recieving security packages (for all you know there could be melicious sw installed). Many Geek Squad Agents have already quit to move on to real tech jobs. Bestbuy does not care about the employee OR customer, they only care about thier stock value increasing.

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Posted on 10/02/2007 at 9:10:00 AM

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