Don't Buy Custom-Made Backup Disks from Best Buy and Circuit City

Many of the major electronic retailers have made a fortune off their customers by selling them over-priced software they don't need, rebates that are just about impossible to redeem and un-necessary extended warranties on new computer purchases. Best Buy, Circuit City, and a few other major electronic retailers now have a new over-priced backup 'service' that they are pitching to consumers, and you should just say now.

Best Buy and Circuit City are now playing off consumers fear and playing a game of "what if." They tell the customer about how hard it is to get your computer up and running if your hard-drive crashes or if your operating system melts down for whatever reason. Most consumers will never actually need to use these disks, since by the time it would make sense to restore the original backup image, most people have already purchased their next computer purchase.

A new computer purchase almost always provides you the necessary software and instructions to re-image your computer system if your computer system has major issues and needs to be regenerated to the condition that it came from in the factory. The only difference between the software that comes with your computer and the backup disk that Best Buy or Circuit City will try to pitch you is that the one they make you will have all of the extra software they try to sell you that you probably don't need. You can almost always find free versions of whatever they're trying to pitch to you online.

PC World recently did some research on this topic and sent secret shoppers in to those stores to find out what was really going on. The secret shoppers reported that Circuit City employees did a hard sell to pay an extra $30 to get some store made recovery disks. 3 out of 5 Best Buys they visited told customers that it's not possible to make the recovery disks themselves.

When you're at stores like Best Buy and Circuit City, you will be pelted with a lot of suggestions and additions of things you need to buy in addition to your computer. They will pitch you anti-virus software, anti-spyware software, extended warranties and additional productivity software. Don't buy any of it. If they suggest it to you, chances are you do not need it. Any computer whiz will be able to install these types of software for you for free without you having to pay Best Buy or Circuit City for software that's available online for free.