Slashdot Mirror
Confessions of a Computer Repairman
nk497 writes "What really happens to your PC when it's handed over to computer repair cowboys? We reveal the horror stories from computer repair shops — the dodgy technicians that install pirated software, steal personal photos, lie about hardware upgrades, upsell to the unsavvy, or simply steal your PC to sell on. Plus, we tell you how to avoid such dodgy fixers and find a trustworthy repairman."
If you don't know how to repair it, don't break it.
If you don't know how not to break it, don't use it.
When sweet old nana who just sends emails of cats to everyone and installs everything that pops up has problems, and she gets messed over she kinda asked for it.
I downgrade them to IE6, uninstall firefox/chrome, disable their anti virus, set their search engine to bing and their home page to lemonparty.org. Then I charge them in bitcoin.
Why do they hate the Geek Squad so much?
Does it annoy anyone else that there are more and more articles here on /. that are submissions of an article/store by the author of the story ?
UPS Sucks
You are going to find dishonest people in any profession, and finding someone trustworthy to work on your computer, car, appliances, etc. requires looking at more than just the price tags. Bargain shoppers get screwed quite often, but if you are willing to pay a little more for good service and able to do some research you can find the good providers. (Not Best Buy)
Only just finished checking over my aunt's computer. She'd paid about £80 because a company cold-called her and said Microsoft had detected a virus on her computer... somehow they also had her postcode. Their 'evidence' for this virus was to show her that not all Windows services were running ('it had shut some down'), and that if it wasn't repaired soon, more services would be shut down. They accessed her computer remotely because she willingly visited a site and ran an executable for them.
I was quite surprised she fell for it. Even a Luddite should realize this kind of cold-calling scam. Maybe the Brits are just suckers? :-)
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
I once worked in a computer store for a short while, and when a customer had ordered a custom-built computer with a CPU they didn't have in stock they actually made me put one in that was a lot less powerful. While I didn't personally see the customer get the computer, I'm pretty sure they really did go through with that scam. Since then I've never bought from that place...
And yes, that's why I post anonymously.
It's about time they got an article on here like this!
I know most Slashdotters certainly can't build or fix their own shit. That's why it's "Slashdot... news for nerds".
P.S. Slashdot, FIX THIS FUCKING CSS/JS/etc, half the time things are layered over one another, other times I can't post! In Win 7 running Chrome, not using noscript or similar.
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Even the most ubiquitous repair group - geek squad at best buy - has shown itself numerous times to not be worthy of trust. If you need it repaired, you need to learn to do it yourself. Otherwise you will get screwed worse than a high school girl at a car mechanic.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
It's true that you really shouldn't take your computer to most GS places, but the reasons why might be different than what you think. There's always the chance of getting an idiot who has no clue what they're doing. But more often than not, the GOOD people can't really prove themselves because their hands are so tied by corporate policy. The "Diagnostic & Repair" service is a complete and utter joke unless someone who knows what theyre doing actually does the work (and the actual person doing the work will likely NOT be the one who checked it in). It goes something like this:
So no, even if the tech is competent, they don't want you spending a whole lot of time actually SOLVING the problem. They want you to spend maybe 10 minutes at most of actual touch time on a computer, then either get it on the complete shelf, or sell them a new one. Now of course they don't SAY this, but the pressure is there in the form of departmental budgets, and "revenue per transaction" goals. Basically, it's a matter of "if we can't fix it, we're discouraged from actually looking for a solution instead of upselling to something else."
The sad part is, it didn't used to be this way. But with Geek Squad being seen as just an extension of Customer Service (functionality checks on ALL returns, sending store-stock items for repair, and having to ring up ALL computer sales because corporate doesn't think the actual salespeople are capable of selling the much exalted "complete solution" of computer/software/cables/services), there's also no TIME to give each client the attention they deserve. Best Buy Mobile is actually fairly decent, because they're actually allowed to operate as a "store within a store", so to speak. They can't get pulled to other departments (which ALWAYS happens to GS people), and they're allowed to run their department as they see fit. This is why BBYM is one of the few departments that actually makes money on a consistent basis.
So no, not ALL the problems with Geek Squad are caused by incopmetent "Agents." I'll admit that a lot of them are, but corporate has basically castrated the department into nothing but sales drones who can "speak computers."
... are the deeds of Bicycle Repairman!
It is just me, or is this the dumbest article posted here since Jon Katz' tour of duty ? Yeah, duh, 9 out of 10 PC repair guys are shady, and the article's anecdotes sound like they're from 20 years ago. Zip drive ? come on, guys...
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Yes some even do that *double facepalm*... obviously not mine in this specific case but someone else's.
By most accounts, Geek Squad used to be a class outfit until Best Buy took 'em over; after that, they went downhill fast.
They quoted my father $200 to do a malware cleanup. Unbelievable! (Not sure why he even went there, I've warned him about them before. And yes, he declined the $200 Geek Squad cleanup -- at least he got that right!)
So, we typically pay the guys who handle our massively-complex-bundle-of-personal-information-and-spying-potential about as well as the guys who change our oil and then bad things often happen. The independent ones are subject to basically zero supervision and not infrequently include complete amateurs, some rather dodgy. The chain-store ones are subject to supervision aimed primarily at forcing them to upsell and bill as hard as possible, while working as quickly as possible. Quality results are assured. Wow. Allow me to collect my jaw from the floor.
The only surprise is that anybody is surprised. Even in professions with a very long history of handling personal, highly technical, or discrete matters for their clients, with well developed professional codes, cultural pressures, and often substantially better compensation(think doctors, lawyers, priests) there are innumerable cases of ethical dodginess, laziness, and other issues.
"The trick,” one repair shop owner told us, “is to give the computer a good tune-up to clear any adware or malware that might be slowing down the machine; clean out the cache; perform a spring clean – anything that makes the machine much faster.
“There’s no real need to actually install the strips of RAM that the client has paid for, because they probably won’t know where to look for it. No-one’s going to notice if there’s 3GB or 2GB of RAM in there if it works faster when it comes back from repair, and they’ll probably never look.”
Doesn't it usually take much, much longer to clean up a crapware infested machine than to slap a DIMM into a slot? And isn't ram pretty damn cheap to start with?
Sounds like sort of a silly approach to take.. if the shop just charged for the labor they were actually doing instead of the cheap part they didn't install, they'd make more.
-Lod
lol..
...me.
Seriously, it's not that hard. If you can't be bothered to learn how to change the oil in your car, then you can't really complain when the guys at Jiffy Lube rip you off. The same principle applies here.
Computer repair.. that ain't workin..
It's a shame that there are so many unscrupulous repair men, ripping people off... Most PC repairs are simple, and require very little knowledge, that can usually be obtained with a few Google searches.. for those that can't grasp lefty loosey, righty tighty, well then bite the bullet and either find a geeky friend you trust, or take it to the big chain stores.. (pay for your lameness).. As to software problems, learn the basic "back up things important to you",and realize that a reinstall is the simplest, and often the best solution..
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
It would be helpful if somebody who knew where all the embarrassing stuff exists provided a clear, multi-step manual of how to clean up your machine to a state where it won't embarrass you or worse. There's a lot of places where traces of your nasty, shameful habits are available to people who know where to look for them.
Windows machines might have the most, but I'm quite sure Linux and Apple systems also have their problems.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
"a problem with the power supply unit that we fixed for about a fiver" It doesn't say what was done, but who bills $8 for repairs?
In my experience the problem isn't malicious technicians, just incompetent or lazy ones. Formatting drives with customer's data (no backup or consultation) is probably the biggest one. Pirated Windows installations when there's a COA on the case for the same version (not totally sure what this is about). Days spent troubleshooting a problem that anyone with experience would take five minutes. The list goes on.
make friends with one. Its as simple as that!
Seriously though Im probably one of the shady-ish people because some people say I over charge, but atleast im fair. If you're a family friend/aquaintence i'll do a diagnostic for free. If the problem is as simple as running a few software tools i'll give explicit directions and ask if you'd like to do it. If youre not comfortable doing it i will for a fee. If it's a hardware issue i'll tell you what you need to replace and assess the difficulty. Again, i give explicit directions. If youre uncomfortable I'll do it.
Here's the catch....my time is money. I've been raised by contractors to think that way and im not gonna change now.
1) Yes, there are idiots who do this stuff.
2) Most of these stories are from ten years ago based on the hardware described, but we can assume the same tactics are used today.
3) I service PCs for corporate and home customers - and I don't do any of that crap. I'm not the most hardware-oriented technical support person you'll ever see and I'm not the sort of techie who knows Windows internals forwards and backwards, but I usually fix the problem regardless and I do it in a way that doesn't cause problems down the road.
I also charge a reasonable rate - which means I'm barely paying my rent. So obviously I'm an idiot.
I charge 25 bucks per hour for home users with a maximum charge of $100 - and usually that means I work a couple hours for free on a spyware cleaning and repair - and 50 bucks per hour for business users. Obviously I could charge a lot more. But there's a lot of competition out there from out of work tech people who also charge low. And despite claims from some people that customers will pay tons of money for computer service, the reality is most people REALLY hate paying anything more than what they paid for the computer in the first place and only get support because they're desperate when the machine is unusable (which is why they can be suckered by the unscrupulous).
Another scam that is very common these days is the "remote maintenance" company, who charges you a tiny amount of money per month and who promises to fix your machine remotely from their systems if you have a problem. I've never figured out how they expect to do that when the machine won't even boot because the hard drive has died or the home router doesn't work or the customer doesn't even have Internet. Sure, this can work with a spyware cleaning - IF the spyware will allow you to remote in or the machine isn't running bone slow because of the spyware. And if you've ever done any remote support over the phone, you know what a painful process that is, especially with a naive user.
There's no substitute for a guy standing in front of the machine who can assess what the customer has done wrong and can help the customer do things right from now on, as well as actually physically seeing what is going on with the machine. I've had several clients call me after the "remote maintenance" company either couldn't fix their problem or screwed things up even worse.
It seems to me things would eventually get better if every grammar school and high school in the country had a basic computer course teaching everyone how to buy a machine, something about the innards, and how to use a machine, including proper computer security, and how to fix the most common problems. I don't know if school systems do that these days, but they should - computer savvy is a basic survival trait these days.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I doubt few here would consider Geek Squad a reputable repair group.
1 2 3 4 5 Next
when you find out by accident while fixing your friends computer his wife is using a dating site to cheat on him? Then you realize your friend is hiring and meeting up with hookers he met online? The real kicker is they asked me to figure out what website they were going to that was giving them this virus. The install every pop-up people. I told them to stop installing pop-ups and figured they deserved each other and left it at that no need to embarrass anyone let them figure it out on their own and I stopped associating with them figured they were untrustworthy losers.
By most accounts, Geek Squad used to be a class outfit until Best Buy took 'em over; after that, they went downhill fast.
They quoted my father $200 to do a malware cleanup. Unbelievable! (Not sure why he even went there, I've warned him about them before. And yes, he declined the $200 Geek Squad cleanup -- at least he got that right!)
Computer repair is not an equitable business. Everyone loses.
Either the customer gets ripped off by paying high fees OR the company gets ripped off in labour costs. It just isn't worth it.
In business you need to charge out labour at x3 to cover overhead. If it takes 1.5 hours to fix a computer you need to charge 3 * 1.5h * $20/hr = $90.
And almost every task is going to take 1.5 hours.
Go ahead and spend 10 minutes slapping in that memory upgrade or video card and handing it back. When it comes back with the sound or internet not working you're going to get corn-holed. If you don't do any CYA when it comes in or goes out the general rules of thumb is: the last person who isn't retarded gets full responsibility for all current and future computer problems
To properly clean and tune a system takes me a day or so. Now I will say that our users (university professors) seem unusually good at spywaring their system and of course it isn't like I spend a ton of my time on it it is "Run utility, go do something else, come back later." Still, takes a good bit of time to run badware scans, defrag, uninstall crap and/or tune startup apps and so on.
Installing RAM? Hell that is 10 minutes at most, and that is only for a case that is a pain to open.
Personally I don't get the drive to be dishonest for these places. Do the job you've been paid to do, do it well, and people will want to use you again and recommend you.
Then again, maybe that is why I have a salaried job doing computer support for a large organization and they work at a small shop. Shit like that would be absolutely NOT tolerated at work and would at best get you fired and maybe criminally charged. We do what we say, we respect your privacy, and we ensure data integrity above all else. To me that doesn't seem special, that seems expected.
I do mostly business consulting now but originally did home business and residential work, the biggest contributor to changing my business model was the plethora of scammers advertising cheap rates. Its really hard to charge a reasonable rate for quality work when the scammers are advertising to fix any virus problem or repair any pc for next to nothing...yes you get what you pay for but often you dont find that out until its too late and the result is the customer doesn't trust any "small business" for that sort of thing and usually goes to something like Geek Squad the next time. The last straw for me was a customer that had called to have me fix a problem that a dodgy repairman had screwed up. After completing the job even though I had explained my rates up front she started complaining about how much higher my rates were than the guy that messed up her computer before.
My office charges for "face time" - time spent actually interacting with a machine. So a complete restore (which we frequently do since we work almost exclusively on business machines and the user's critical stuff is, in theory, stored on the server) that takes us 4-6 hours from top to bottom will probably only be billed for an hour or two, and most of that is going to be spent reinstalling their apps. The 3 hours that it sat there with the "HP is installing your software - please wait" and I worked on another project isn't charged at all.
Am I qualified to be a PC technician? I have no certs (yet) and I majored in English. But I'm amazingly good at figuring things out, and I've been tinkering with computers for over a decade. I've met people with half a dozen certs behind their names that know a fraction of what I do. If nothing else, I can always do my own PC repairs and avoid any of these scams.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
You're right. Despite claims to the contrary, home users REALLY hate paying for computer repair and only do it when they're desperate - which is why their machines are in such a mess when we get to them.
In fact, corporate users don't like it either. For some reason, there's some myth that all these boxes with moving parts in the drives and high heat output are supposed to be "un-breakable" for the five years or more people keep them.
I got one client still running a ten-to-fifteen year old Windows 95 box, for God's sakes! He absolutely will not upgrade that box because it runs a specific software he needs and he doesn't want to learn anything newer. It's already burned out at least one power supply and he lucked out that it didn't fry his motherboard.
And it's not just scammers charging low rates. I charge low rates and don't scam anyone. There's just a ton of people doing PC repair work and the competition is fierce. Add that customers don't like paying a lot per hour and it's hard to justify higher rates, especially for poorer home users. It's a bad business model but poor people need PC support, too, and just can't afford Geek Squad rates.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
OK, after reading the article and then reading the thread here I've concluded that I've had enough. Yes, there is fraud. You get that in every field. It is also not very common as most repair folk would rather make a living--few people I know are out to take you for everything at the expense of their reputation which equals their livelihood. Besides, anyone with specialized knowledge could fraud anyone that doesn't have that knowledge. They could just cheat them. Their prices could be out of line with reality.
Everyone feels at least once that they were not given as good a deal as they think they should have. They feel that way about lawyers, from car repair shops, any type of shop that would repair or upgrade your property, anyone with specialized knowledge. Yeah, and even our government.
What this article does is 1) gives examples of a few of the tricks that some fraudsters pull. Anything from outright fraud to just exaggerating their labor. 2) It then goes on this diatribe about the costs associated with repairs as if they are the ones that are the best judge of the costs associated with parts and labor. Much of the article is about this one guy expressing his unhappiness with what he considers to be a fair cost for repair work. This is, frankly, irrelevant, as setting a cost for your services is not a fraud. Setting a fair price is just good business practice. But hell, look at designer jeans from manufacturer to another. Levi Jeans cost much more than the Walmart store brand. Cost is a matter for the owner of the business, not the judgement of some half-baked tech journalist. Long ago someone said to me that you get paid for what you know, not what you do. So, please, cry me a river if you don't like the charges. You can go elsewhere.
A good company will "estimate" up front what the charges are going to be and approximately how long it will take. Customers have addictions to their computers and they want it all done cheap and done yesterday. Let's get real, neither is likely to happen. Generally, the parts of a computer are worth more than the whole.
Consider a fair cost of around $90 to get an OS re-installed on a netbook that might have cost $250. Adding a replacement HDD plus re-installing the OS on a netbook can come close to the value of the book. You don't really expect the repair technician to sell you the hard drive and then toss the OS install in for free, do you? Re-installing the OS can be a time intensive task. Most netbook manufacturers don't make it easy to remove the old and install the new HDDs (sometimes its even difficult to install RAM in those)--time adds up and time is money. Consider then that on top of that your customer wants you to transfer the data from that old defective HDD to the new one--how much labor is involved in trying to get it to be recognized by the OS (clicking, missing partitions, etc), to access the files, to copy those files to an intermediary device and then back onto the new install). Do you really think that it is out of line to have costs nearing the original cost of the netbook? You bought cheap. Don't expect the technician to fix it cheap due to your cheapness.
The technician needs to be clear on what is going to happen. Try to explain it to the customer. The problem is that the customer is often a closed mind. They don't want to hear an explanation. They just want it working again. How many times have I tried to explain to my customers precisely why their computer is slow (they are running XP and have 256mb of RAM and have all the updates done from Microsoft along with a slew of other software products that load at start up eating away at valuable resources). Or try to explain to them that their HDD is failing. That the diagnosis indicates the drive has tons of bad sectors and they screwed up their computer because they had viruses, bad sectors, and they tried to defragment it. Or explain that their nephew wiped out their hard drive by installing a version of Vista that they didn't have a license f
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
people are constantly coming to me and asking me how their computer could possible break. It's a machine, like any other. They don't last for ever. Caps Pop, hard drives wear out, cooling & heating breaks circuit board connections to RAM, shit happens. But they just don't believe it. Gotta be a virus, right?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Why don't people just shell out the extra 20-30% on a software + hardware warranty.
Yup. Anything broken that costs less than $1000 new should probably be put on a ship to a country with cheap labor.
/. looks great to me in Win 7 with Chrome.
Maybe you should take your computer to the GeekSquad.
Please leave your geek card on your way out.
8)
(stolen from DaBum) I am dyslexia of borg - your ass will be laminated.
I'm sorry for all you M$ users that were never warned or told there is a better way -- like e.g. Linux/GNU. There also people who can't avoid Windows, because their companies' IT folks are too stupid to learn Linux.
But many are the lazy type who:
- could have asked themselves: How does it work? What is an OS? Is Windows the only option?
- didn't heed to comments about how M$ sucks;
- wasn't interested in backstage fights, because that is "just Politics";
- have seen Linux and went with the crowd mocking us Linux users, just for the kicks;
- simply ignored our warnings, suspecting Linux folks to have a hidden agenda;
- considered us Linux users as "nerds" or "weird" people;
- thought of a Linux friend as a convenient resource to fix... Windows!
- after being had, still keep on using Windows just to avoid thinking!
My sincere wishes is that wicked tech dudes leave you naked without a dime -- such "techies" are rats, that's for sure, but they certainly do a darwinian task by returning to Windows users all the humiliation we receive everyday -- for trying to help people find Linux! We're treated like a cult, like missionaries (the kind you eat), like single-minded bozos, alienated -- I wouldn't be surprised if they even fear us!
If you have a problem with Windows, or if you wish it had some functionality Linux has had for decades, please count on me to tell you to go fsck your disk and yourself for choosing M$. You deserve to suffer and be explored every minute of your computer life. Go weep at Ballmer's door... maybe he will have pity on you. (sarcasm sign)
I would never do such bad things or lead a person to fall for such schemes, but that's because of my principles and Ethics. I'm also sorry for some innocent victims, but for M$ users since W98, I'd say: What does it take for you to learn? How long? 100 years?
staples easy tech is just high pressure sales with real techs forced out.
The thing is at stapes you better sell.
http://paulrepair.blogspot.com/2009/04/stay-away-from-staples-for-computer.html
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/staples-c276403.html
http://consumerist.com/2008/03/staples-tries-to-charge-senior-citizen-390-for-basic-computer-repair.html
http://consumerist.com/2008/09/why-i-quit-staples-easy-tech.html
http://consumerist.com/2009/12/i-always-look-forward-to.html
I did CompUSA repair work in the late 90's - in fact it was my first tech job so in some respects I'm grateful for it and in others I'm not - This was back in the day when top of the line HD's were 8.4 gigs and memory was sold behind the counter
We always ran an above the board shop but let's face it - that goes from manager to manager - a lot of our guys (myself included) were just young people though we had an antique or two around to fix Apples and Printers -
some of the issues we saw were Operating issues - this got to be a major headache - format/reinstall is what we eventually ended up doing across the board - we can't fix OS problems like that
Viruses were horrible but at the time, most were bootable from floppy and most boot floppies cleaned them out - those were the good ol' days
we would occasionally get some folks wanting to upgrade and we'd often point them to the refurbished computers because to upgrade a 486 to a top of the line pentium would after install fees, cost less then buying a new pc - (kinda still holds true today actually)
we'd have people wanting free advice, drivers, help - we'd do what we could but at the end of the day you can only do so much over the phone - so much of the work was diagnostic/detective work with no easy 1 spot fix...
and we had some fun stories - like the PC that came in for repair with the gay porn desktop wallpaper - which then showed out thru the window of the shop into the main store for a couple minutes before he came back to the pc - and the wife who returned a PC in the AM only to have the husband want the same PC back (with no data lost) that evening - (yep, full of porn, which in dial up days took time to acquire)
my favorite is a virus infected and OS damaged custom built beast our master tech worked on for two days - two weeks later the guy came back complaining of the same issues - we asked if he had done anything to the pc and he pointed out that to get his data back, he restored from the tape backup he made 3 weeks ago - DOH!
I could see where mom and pop shops in the strip malls might be angling for a quick buck, but never saw horror stories like that at my shop
RB
----------
ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
I lot of computer people have a hard time charging for services. It is just so natural and easy for us to fix some problems that we feel bad charging for it. It took me a long time to get in the mind set that my time was worth money and to ask people to pay me. I pay repair men a lot for all kinds of work that I cannot or will not do my self. Plumbers, electricians, mechanics, and even lawn care providers.
I was paying someone $54 a few times a year to fertilize my yard. They would pull up with a truck and a long hose and just spray the yard down. They were in and out in about 10 minutes. When my yard was over ran with weeds, I could justify it. I found that it was cheaper and not all that much work for me to do it myself. I still over pay for someone to change my oil and rotate my tires.
Once I decided that I was done with part time home repair work, I used my prices to drive away work. I would charge higher and higher prices and would be very up front with them. I even had a minimum charge of one hour. I was surprised at how much people were willing to pay. I eventually moved away from the area and was able to call it quits.
My girlfriend's laptop was not booting. In fact, I could not get into BIOS setup so booting from an alternative medium was not an option. The simple things I tried (remove DIMM, remove HDD, reset CMOS, ...) didn't worked. I am a software guy so I figured out that my time was too expensive to continue the investigation and that we'll pay some "professional". Geek Squad was conveniently located so I brought it there. I was really stupid that I have not read their reviews before that.
They asked nearly $100 for a "diagnostic" that looked something like this:
"No signal from keyboard" - read: F1 won't enter BIOS setup (that was why we brought the laptop to them in the first place)
"No signal from CD ROM" - read: our diagnostic CD doesn't boot (again, that was why we brought the laptop to them)
"Hard Drive OK" - strange, we removed HDD before giving the laptop to them
"RAM OK" - the only thing they have done with the laptop was trying another DIMM (if they were not lying on that one too)
"Motherboard error" - they implied that exchanging it would be too expensive and the laptop is not worth repairing.
(BTW I was able to fix the laptop with some help of Google afterward. The problem was short-circuited wires in a broken USB slot. The laptop still works well 1 yr after the "incident".)
I was furious so I spent really long time arguing with them. They repeated several times that they ran "series of diagnostic test" but when I pressed the manager he had to admit that they couldn't run the tests because they couldn't boot their diagnostic CD. At that point, the manager denied they lied to me about the "series of diagnostics" and started calling his technician (who was not there at that point) "a mysterious man who told you something".
My girlfriend never seen her money again. I filled a complaint at their corporate support line. They told me they will handle it but they will not tell me about the outcome (WTF?). All I could do was to call again the next day to check that the complain was in their system and it had assigned a tracking id.
I was seriously considering taking some further steps because I consider this preying on a layman public bordering with a fraud. But at the end I just gave up.
ugh, malware.
I would have no problem quoting someone $200 for a maleware cleanup. Best case its a fresh infection and whatever automated tool you run will clean it up or its a google search away. If that's the case, then you over estimated and only charge $60-$100. Worst case its years of infections that finally broke the computer on a 4 year old computer with too little ram that wont boot from USB.
This stuff is like cancer. Not to bad if you catch it early, but once it spreads you never know if you got it all.
Once I decided that I was done with part time home repair work, I used my prices to drive away work. I would charge higher and higher prices and would be very up front with them. I even had a minimum charge of one hour. I was surprised at how much people were willing to pay. I eventually moved away from the area and was able to call it quits.
Because they're past the "risk premium". They can get some other guy and end up with someone that doesn't know shit or spends forever and bills it or just makes a mess of things or is a plain old scam. If they give this work to you, and know you'll deliver quality work with no fuzz then you are the safe, simple option. Consider it a bit like hiring a plumber, even if it a week later springs a leak and he does immediately take full responsibility (we're well into fairytale land here already) you still have to deal with the leak, damage assessment, insurance agency, repairs and all that paperwork and phone calls and shit. All the time stolen is rarely covered. Or you could call the guy who charges more but does it right. That relationship is strongly personal though, it won't do to send your hireling replacement.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I knew a guy in college who got a new job when he sent his computer in for repair. They liked his resume. He was a Computer Science major and got an interview followed by a job offer after he picked up the computer.
Kriston
I install Linux for free, or $50/hr to clean windows out and still have to do a reinstall that they'll be back in six months for all the 'clicking on pop-ups" problems.
To the point that I fix computers out of pity, not out of income.
That's high, I guess, but I agreed to clean up the laptop of a wife of a best friend, and that shit took six to eight hours to finally set right. They took me to dinner, at least.
And then she manages to infect it with malware again *days* later by doing one of the very things I told her not to do!
Ah well. I got lunch *and* dinner out of that. I told my friend if she does it a third time the price will involved a period of indentured servitude.
Then they got matching Macbooks. No problems since. ;-)
A couple of days ago, I think my laptop got overheated. It shut down automatically a few times and then failed to restart dying almost as soon as I restarted it. So I said what the hell, I've never seen this. I'll let Windows try to repair itself. It warned me it may take a few minutes. You can't cancel this operation either. 20 minutes later it said "Sorry, Bill Gates is an asshole". Okay, it didn't quit say that but it did fail to do anything. Then it died 2 minutes later. I sprayed compressed air all over it, and jacked it up with wine corks to give it some air underneath, turned on the ceiling fan and it's been fine ever since. Thanks a lot Toshiba. Your laptop sucks!
Maybe they have to charge $200 to stay in business... you know kinda like a plumber charges you $200 to unclog your toilet. There is a reason for this, if they could not charge these prices there would be no computer repair men or plumbers for that matter. If you find it so expensive, you clean your dad's pc this week, and the following week, and every week after that cause you know he'll get more.
Pretty much this.
I used to go around and fix people's computers back when I was a kid (in the Bad Old Days of mostly Windows 95/98) before I was old enough to get a "real" job. The problem was and is, anything and everything that happened to that particular user's computer from the time you touched it until eternity automatically becomes "YOUR FAULT!" and good luck arguing with some clueless boob about it when you're only a 14 year old kid. I had one guy start threatening to sue me and everything. No, he didn't succeed -- or actually file the paperwork. But you get the idea. His problem? Something like a year after I fixed some simple Windows configuration problems on his PC, his DSL stopped working because he quit paying his bill. Obviously, I "hacked" his computer. A year prior. Right.
The sad fact is, most users are clueless, helpless, and hopeless. They don't understand and refuse to learn to understand how personal computers work in general, and just lash out with all kinds of hairbrained emotions and responses when things stop going their way.
The ones that really burn me up are the ones that don't listen, and then start sticking their fingers in your face when the inevitable "I told you so" moment comes up. Like one lady for whom I reinstalled Windows about four times for... The first time she didn't have any backups, and she lost her restore CD. So I extricated her precious data, ordered a new restore CD, and reinstalled without losing anything. The second time she didn't have any new backups, lost her new restore CD, and lost the disk of previous backups I made for her. Repeat this process two more times over the course of about three months. And yes, she kept infecting herself with the same virus by clicking on the same popup ads (those fake warning ones) because she continued using IE instead of Firefox with Adblock I installed for her, even though I told her not to use IE and deleted all of her IE icons. Repeatedly! Fifth time, I declined the job. Her data loss became "YOUR FAULT!" Are we sensing the pattern?
I've got a new policy: I don't mess with anyone's PC except for close friends and family, and luckily MOST of those people are either smart enough to do their own repairs, or smart enough to admit when they're in over their heads, and anything I might have to inflict on their PC will be an honest attempt and not a magical guarantee... Especially in regards to data recovery.
Stories of unscrupulous and incompetent people make me fix computers for free. All family members, friends, employees, and ex-employees on good terms get free computer repair. They pay for parts and carry the box to my door/office and I will fix it quickly. I usually get a batch of cookies, cash, or a live chicken in payment, and it is worth it to know they are using a clean system that has reliable antivirus on it (Security essentials and Malwarebytes). I hope I am stealing business away from Best Buy and the Genius bar.
After reading many of these comments, I've come to one conclusion: Windows is basically a scam, with all its vulnerabilities, and others are just piling their scam on top of the basic scam. Then there are the software companies that follow the Windows model (releasing software that still has zero-day defects) and they just make it worse. Add the antivirus companies that can't remove all the viruses and it's just a big mess. It sounds like the corporation where the accountant is stealing from the company because he knows the company is ripping off its customers. Once there is a pattern of misbehavior, you either are very tempted to participate yourself or you find another career and no longer play with the scammers.
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
The funny thing is that Geek Squad does all of these things.
P.T. Barnum underestimated the birth rate.
was when I was called out to a new client's residence after a certain "Nerd" had installed a WiFi setup for the customer's laptop, to find that not only had they improperly installed the CardBus WiFi card drivers -- but that the laptop already had built-in WiFi (that had been disabled in the BIOS)! I can understand honest mistakes (I made more than a few in my day) but... yeah. Selling people hardware they don't need because they already have it could easily be added to that list of mortal sins...
$20/hour.
Fuck, a construction crew I've been working with on our office charges $45/hour per person for skilled labor, $20/hour for menial labor.
Electrician $65/hour.
Plumber $85/hour.
$54 is actually pretty cheap for that sort of service. It does depend a bit on how many houses they're able to do, but it's unlikely that they can do more than 2 an hour, unless they're all fairly close together. Even paying the workers minimum wage, you're still probably talking not much less than that for labor alone, not to mention the costs of providing that labor, the equipment and supplies and whatnot.
Back around the time the Mac II came out, I took one into Sears for repairs. They called me a couple of days later and told me it was ready, and when I got there, I found out that they had cannibalized it for parts, and they said they couldn't get it to me for another week.
I sent Apple a letter about it, and got an apology signed by John Sculley. I don't know if there were any repercussions for Sears.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
ugh, malware.
I would have no problem quoting someone $200 for a maleware cleanup.
Yeah, maleware can be bad, but sometimes femaleware can be even worse! ;)
To
I used to live in a place that had two computer shops. ONLY TWO. If you wanted something done right you did it yourself, or you got ripped off by them. One of them intentionally sabotaged the hardware so that it would keep coming back (grounding a certain pin on the keyboard controller to some other location.) The other one would steal the good parts out of the system and replace it with their worthless stock.
Times have changed, you'd certainly notice if the video card was swapped with a worse model, provided you actually play a game once in a while, but back then, the old ISA cards meant the difference between 256 colors and 16 million colors.
Anyhoo... the common denominator is usually the stores hire children/work-experience from the local high school, and they are only allowed to diagnose X or Y problems, nothing that actually requires thinking. There are some smart kiddies out there, but they don't work for the stores, no they're the ones that you have to know-someone-who-knows-someone. The ones that are working at the store under work experience, are only their to be exploited.
If you really want your system to be repaired properly, get no less than 3 quotes, or buy the factory extended warranty and avoid the shops altogether. Don't bother with the store's product service plan, that is absolutely a rip off for all but the worst grade equipment. These stores (eg best buy) know better, but still sell high-margin-low-quality machines from the asian manufacturers, and the techs aren't allowed to tell customers not to buy the shitty machines since that loses a sale.
I Moved to LA, so my parents called the local "Nerds on Call" for computer help. I looked over the invoice when I was visiting recently. These fucks charged 20 bucks for a fan, 20 bucks for a fan install, 50 bucks for a hard drive install (Just labor, no parts) and $180 for OS reinstall.
Years back I was a auto mechanic for a few years and a rather good one at that. I actually worked for one small reputable shop every other one where complete sharks. I did not last long at the shark companies they flat out ripped of people on nearly every singe job.
Had a boss one time that said hey what did you find?
I told him it was nothing but a bad plug wire which it was. He said nonsense hook the car to the sniffer and I will be right over. He walked over and told me to start the car and pump the gas 6-8 times. Dude presses print on the analyzer as the co shoots off the charts from the accelerator pump dumping fuel in. He marches the print over to the customer and sells her wires, full tune up, carb rebuild and a laundry list of other stuff it did not need.
Engine diagnostics 100$ yep nothing but a paper clip jumper and turn the key to accessory and read the flashes. MAF sensors where awesome, guy says it stumbles sometimes, open the hood rap on the maf sensor with my knuckles, yep stumbles. That is a 15 sec test that is costing a $100 for diagnostics.
Oh and I was paid computer time, computer says it takes 2 hrs to do a brake job. I was so quick I could knock out a 4 wheel brake job in under 15 minutes, you still pay 2 hrs.
Then there is the shops that pay mechanics a 20% commission on parts, like taking candy from a baby.
They also love to advertise systems as being on-sale, but when you get to the store all the unsealed ones are already gone so they will offer you one that has had the Geek Squad "optimizations" done to it, for a hefty price increase. I do not even see how this is legal under bait-and-switch laws.
Maybe they have to charge $200 to stay in business... you know kinda like a plumber charges you $200 to unclog your toilet.
Yeah, or you could be smart and just go buy a drain snake for under $30. They're good for more than just your toilet too.
I used to work in the computer repair shop in college.
Let's just say that our shop computers had the most complete MP3 collection you'll ever see.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/367345/confessions-of-a-computer-repairman/print (will prompt to print though).
Bah to three pages. :P
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Look, good computer repair people, will NOT want to fix your computer. They'll be busy, know what a hassle it is, try to avoid it.
Fake/crappy/untrustworthy repair people will be happy to fix you computer, since they aren't going to do too much and collect money.
and yes, this sounds like a joke, but it's not.
Be seeing you...
This article comes from those shady UK people. And who's going to trust those "cheeky" fellows?
Buy no computer for more than 250 -300Euro (laptops). I made good experiences with refurbished X2x/X4x thinkpads or cheap netbooks, which lasted a few years in average. When buying a computer make sure the hd is easily replacable, replace it by a new one. When its broken, remove the hd and throw away the rest. Dont buy support packs, these are ripoffs. Have done it once, and decided my time is too valuable to go to the procedures for getting a problem not fixed despite staying on the phone for 5 hours.
An ethical computer repair person would never have to worry about child porn on a clients computer, because they would never look over the clients files. I'm not advocating child porn, but I've never searched through the personal files of a clients PC and felt good about it. I hate it when I have to browse their info at all. I've been asked by minions more than once what they should do when they've found questionable material. My suggestion was that they should not have been browsing that information in the first place, but now that they think they've found something, they should follow their conscience. You should never ever have to do this as a professional. It's certainly outside the scope of works...and you should not have been looking over the clients files anyway...you idiot.
You'll find vulnerable and ignorant people everywhere. Wasn't it the Americans who came up with the expression "snake oil salesman"?
I've had problems recently with Sony.
I have a Vaio Z. Nice bit of kit. The fan began to die - getting very loud. I took the SSD out (for data privacy) and sent the laptop off for repair. The fan is replaced. Sony also indicate they have updated the BIOS.
I get the laptop back, put the SSD back in... ...and Windows is SCREWED.
Doesn't recognize the display, can't find the audio chipset, power management software thinks there's an optical drive attached. Oh and my 3G SIM which was in the motherboard has gone. Performance when running a game is now juddery (run - slight pause - run - slight pause) and I get abrupt lock ups about once every two or three days.
Now, you tell me how a fan and BIOS change causes this? I think they changed the motherboard, because the fan is pretty integral to the motherboard; and Windows Does Not Like having the motherboard changed under it.
Sony customer support has been worse than useless. I would have been better if I had never emailed them - I would be up the time I've wasted.
Their response was, I kid you not, "in this situation we recommend you reinstall Windows".
I wanted to get them to check was if the motherboard was actually changed. I couldn't get them to actually *acknowledge that question*. It was flat out ignored.
Just beyond the pale.
I'll warrant that most people (if not all people on ./) probably would never need a computer repair tech to fix a computer. Sure I get that.
My question becomes why does the majority feel that people should work for free or peanuts? Put another way: why should individuals or groups who don't know how to do task or can't be bothered to learn a task be entitled to free service?
First, since a "service" is mostly an intangible, if I look at a computer for free and then inform a victim (not to be snarky) of exactly whats wrong with their computer (or any other product) and then tell them how much it will cost to get it fixed; I am asking for that customer to take their computer back, say thank you, and go to Joe Fixit (another competitor) down the block, with the required information needed to explain the problem and hammer down the cost of repair. Do this enough times and it does not even make sense to stay in business. Additionally, time is money, so for taking time out to look at the client's computer should compensate me for my time used.
I could go on all day with this, but the bottom line is that: if one is ignorant and requires help (and it is not a life-threating situation), they should pay for it, or go purchase a book (or go to a class) and sweat through learning the intricacies of how to fix their problem.
Regards,
MBC1977,
has this same problem. The best way to fight it is with knowledge.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Computer repair is not an equitable business. Everyone loses.
Either the customer gets ripped off by paying high fees OR the company gets ripped off in labour costs. It just isn't worth it.
In business you need to charge out labour at x3 to cover overhead. If it takes 1.5 hours to fix a computer you need to charge 3 * 1.5h * $20/hr = $90.
Yeah, but put ten computers in a row on a bench and fix them all a the same time and it does not take much longer. Clicking OK takes a moment, its the waiting in-between that takes time.
45/3 = $15
65/3 = $22
85/3 = $28/hr
Now you know how much the workers get paid. Welcome to business.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
FWIW, I've owned a computer repair shop for 16 years. We charge a FLAT RATE of $85.00 plus parts. If the repair takes just a few minutes, there is no charge. This includes the process of cleaning malware from the computer over and over again and sticking with the computer until we find a solution. The VERY LAST think we ever do it a wipe-and-reload. Yes, that's the easy way but suck for the client. In short, we work on a client's computer just as we would work on our own. Typical turn-around time is 24 hours.
How do we make money charging a flat $85.00 fee? Well, we enjoy a very good reputation so I have one or two technicians working on 10 computers at a time. His day is spent rotating from one computer to the next all day long. And we LOVE it. 10 computer per day at 85 a pop (plus parts) will buy a lot of beer. I'm opening up a second shop in a couple fo weeks then will cover the state of Alabama assuming that goes well.
Bottom line is treat your customer they way you'd want to be treated and your road will be paved with gold. I am thankful for the scammers and incompent people such as Geek Squad. They make me look even better.
If you're not a pulmonologist, stop breathing.
And vacuum the dust out of your computer before going in for expensive repairs. (Yes I'm punning. And diverging from the thread.)
Had a friend with a computer that was slowing down, especially after running for a bit. Concerned about virii, friend took it to Fry's for a professional cleanout. Also bought a plugin backup drive (and paid to have the machine backed up before de-worming) and a different brand of antivirus software (switching from one major brand to another). Dropped about the cost of a new computer cleaning out the old one.
Turns out nothing suspicious was found on it. As the techie was handing it back (AFTER the bill had been paid) he mentioned that he'd vacuumed a lot of dust out of the CPU's heatsink and to try that again if it slows down again.
Apparently the problem was just that the airflow was restricted by dust and, when the machine got to crunching, the CPU thermal sensors and OS software were turning down the clock speed. B-b This feature (slowing down rather than burning out) has been deployed for years now.
So if the machine is slowing down, be sure to open the covers and give it a pass with the crevice tool before running up a big bill chasing possibly non-existent infections, failures, and configuration inadequacies.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Fixing windows machines is almost too easy these days. About 85%+ of all my computer repairs involve removing rogue antivirus apps with ComboFix and MBAM. Run MyDefrag, CCleaner, TCPOptimizer, PC Decrapifier, Autoruns et al. and the machine is done.
Some "repairs" are even easier than that, involving something as simple as a driver install.
For more serious issues, it's either a repair install (XP), system restore (rarely works properly), or a backup + reinstall. This assumes that the system cannot login at all. If it can, sfc /scannow or any number of existing patches/fixes does the job.
Even the things that I once considered "truly challenging" are anything but. I just rescued a dying hard drive (intermittently clicking) the other day with a Trinity Rescue Kit CD and:
mkdir /smb && mount -t cifs //server/data /smb && cd /smb
dd if=/dev/sda bs=1024K conv=noerror,sync | gzip -c > rescued.dd.gz
I’m not sure why this is news. Dishonest people/companies in the repair services such as auto-repair, HVAC, plumbing, insurance, etc have been doing things like this for a long time. I think the article would have been better if after listing the examples it then gave the common precautions people use to avoid the shysters.
That never occurred to me... is my computer safe in the hands of a computer repair person?
But, lucky for me (a computer nerd who has been building his own PCs since the early 90s, installing his own software, eradicating viruses and spyware himself, etc) I've never had anyone besides myself upgrade or do any other work on my computer. That would be like pest control person not spraying his own house and calling an exterminator... it just wouldn't happen.
The only problem with that is that most computer servicing isn't worth $20/hr, atleast not at the relative level of service. When you're sitting here unraveling a bitch of a virus or replacing their MB I can understand that rate goes but otherwise cut that rate in about half for most services. Especially since most technicians are associate degree holders or just certificate holders, academic degree creep or not most techs aren't that certified to touch PCs. I've had my video card replaced twice in my laptop from Dell due to it being from the faulty Nvidia group. I could easily have replaced it but I had to wait for a tech for warranty reasons. If I had it off warranty it would have cost $100 for him to show up for 15 minutes of work. The prices are exorbitant because it is a young industry still. It's just now creeping over about 10 years old as a real service and people don't understand the value yet. In another 5-10 years the prices and rogue repairmen will calm down I suspect.
Slashdot, really: we ARE real engineers, unlike the Geek Squad type places; we KNOW how to fix computers; so posting yet another article on how lesser engineers are unreliable, immoral and unable to fix problems that we're able to fix... That is basically the ongoing and constant story of our professional lives. Please, editors, keep in mind your audience when you're choosing articles for slashdot. Thank you.
stereotypical scams that he missed. What kind of worthless 'cowboy" did he interview?
So they list worst case scenarios and fail to list real instances or companies. It's a purely sensationalist article that feeds on consumer worries.
Most "nightmares" stem from customer not understanding or not reading the service quote. You can tell them you'll not change the labor estimate and they'll still call back in horror when work has exceeded the estimate (in real time not labor). You can tell them you'll need the MS Office disc and license key and they'll still be shocked when work isn't complete even though the needed items were never brought in. Lastly, do you actually think a computer savvy Technician needs your My Picture folder to find new p0rn? It's an insult to Tech workers everywhere and, frankly, self masturbatory to think we want your pics.
Explain your problem. Listen to the service offered to solve said problem. Ask questions before and immediately after service. Fear not the healer. Fear ignorance.
Generally people aren't willing to pay for skill, so they get none. Competent people aren't going to suffer minimum wage to repair pc's.
What you are left with are incompetents and frauds.
Ever since my mum's computer became useless, I've had no problems either.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
makes you wonder which large national retailer they could all be working for in that area.
Now where in the world.... ?
Haha, I did just this about a month ago. Drain was slow as shit and the liquid plumber didn't work. Got a snake for about $20 and found a bunch of hair wrapped around a bottle cap that fell down the drain. Took less than 5 minutes with the snake, would have cost at least $100 or so for a plumber.
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, though I'm not yet sure about the universe. - A Einstein
After completing the job even though I had explained my rates up front she started complaining about how much higher my rates were than the guy that messed up her computer before.
I explain it like this: The last guy who worked on the machine was incompetent or dishonest and that caused or contributed to the present problem. I now have to discover and undo everything he did before I can even get started actually fixing your current problem, so yes, it's going to take much longer the first time I work on your machine, compared to a machine from a repeat customer that I've worked on in the past.
The corollary to this, which should be obvious, is that if they have the incompetent guy come for something after I've worked on the machine, and he screws everything up again, I will explain that the incompetent guy and I have very different approaches to our trade, and that it's simply not cost effective for them to be using more that one IT person. I let the incompetent guy have these customers--they deserve each other.
Sent from my iPhone
If that was a sink you could have just removed the trap under the sink.
If you're charging to install freeware that's practically the same thing.
Slashdot needs Geekcode | Can anyone recommend any good SCIFI? My tastes: Foundation, Startide Rising, CITY, Ringworld,