Computer Repair/Retail stores ripping people off

[SAMF2000]

After a few visits to local computer repair shops to either Repair or
buy parts, I noticed that these places not only charge an enormous
amount for hardware, but even charge crazy fees for even the simplest
of tasks. A friend of mine was charged $100.00 to put an ethernet card
into his computer, which I told him takes about 5 minutes if he did it
himself.
Another time I had bought in a laptop for a screen that did not turn
on, It ended up being the bulb that was replaced, but to my amazment
the guy charged me $75 to check and clean out viruses and malware.
Something I never told him to do. And recently At another local store
I tried to purchase a dvd burner that I was going to replace my cd-rw
drive. The guy told me the cheapest DVD BURNER he had was $130.00...
being they now run from $30.00-$50.00 I told the guy he was not only a
crook but took advantage of people who don't know any better.

 

[Jan Alter]

After a few visits to local computer repair shops to either Repair or
buy parts, I noticed that these places not only charge an enormous
amount for hardware, but even charge crazy fees for even the simplest
of tasks. A friend of mine was charged $100.00 to put an ethernet card
into his computer, which I told him takes about 5 minutes if he did it
himself.
Another time I had bought in a laptop for a screen that did not turn
on, It ended up being the bulb that was replaced, but to my amazment
the guy charged me $75 to check and clean out viruses and malware.
Something I never told him to do. And recently At another local store
I tried to purchase a dvd burner that I was going to replace my cd-rw
drive. The guy told me the cheapest DVD BURNER he had was $130.00...
being they now run from $30.00-$50.00 I told the guy he was not only a
crook but took advantage of people who don't know any better.

So from this generalized rant we can all concur that ANY local repair shop
is ultimately crooked. Thanks. Now I can go have breakfast.

 

[xxxxxxxxxxx]

After a few visits to local computer repair shops to either Repair or
buy parts, I noticed that these places not only charge an enormous
amount for hardware, but even charge crazy fees for even the simplest
of tasks. A friend of mine was charged $100.00 to put an ethernet card
into his computer, which I told him takes about 5 minutes if he did it
himself.
Another time I had bought in a laptop for a screen that did not turn
on, It ended up being the bulb that was replaced, but to my amazment
the guy charged me $75 to check and clean out viruses and malware.
Something I never told him to do. And recently At another local store
I tried to purchase a dvd burner that I was going to replace my cd-rw
drive. The guy told me the cheapest DVD BURNER he had was $130.00...
being they now run from $30.00-$50.00 I told the guy he was not only a
crook but took advantage of people who don't know any better.

Thats the breaks. Ive always assumed this and its true with many
other things nowadays. Its not just dishonesty or greed. You are
talking about a business that has overhead and has to result in a
livable wage for the guys who work there. Sure I think its ridiculous
but then Im not trying to live off the amounts they make. Chainstores
can sell at lower prices cause they deal in huge volume.

For one thing almost anything involving labor costs a lot. Like my
Olympus camera --- you send it in to have them check it and any repair
is min $150. Usually the 300-400 cams after a few years are about
worth that amount. I ended up buying a new cam after I did a bad flash
on one cause they wanted 150 to reflash the dead camera. I got a
better newer model for 225. You always hear that its cheaper to throw
things away then have them fixed.

The other thing is for people who dont rely on making a living at it
20 bucks or a 6 pack seems fine but they have to make a living at it
and they are usually tiny mom and pop stores. Thats why I never shop
at those places or get any PCs fixed there. The funny thing is
everyone you know , knows how ridiculous the amounts are to fix
things but then they expect you to do everything for free.

 

[Paul]

After a few visits to local computer repair shops to either Repair or
buy parts, I noticed that these places not only charge an enormous
amount for hardware, but even charge crazy fees for even the simplest
of tasks. A friend of mine was charged $100.00 to put an ethernet card
into his computer, which I told him takes about 5 minutes if he did it
himself.
Another time I had bought in a laptop for a screen that did not turn
on, It ended up being the bulb that was replaced, but to my amazment
the guy charged me $75 to check and clean out viruses and malware.
Something I never told him to do. And recently At another local store
I tried to purchase a dvd burner that I was going to replace my cd-rw
drive. The guy told me the cheapest DVD BURNER he had was $130.00...
being they now run from $30.00-$50.00 I told the guy he was not only a
crook but took advantage of people who don't know any better.

That is what USENET is for. One of my local newsgroups, for my
city, contains postings from people who were poorly treated
by local computer shops. You don't have to read too many threads,
to figure out which operations to stay away from.

My local Better Business Bureau has a web site, and I can
search by company name, to see if there are any issues. You
might consider vetting your local computer shops via your
BBB.

On the Internet, www.resellerratings.com is another way to
rate companies that operate online. (Enter the online
retailers name in the green search box.)

Paul

 

[kony]

After a few visits to local computer repair shops to either Repair or
buy parts, I noticed that these places not only charge an enormous
amount for hardware, but even charge crazy fees for even the simplest
of tasks.

Well let's be clear about it- they don't deal in the volume
of, say newegg.com, so they have to make their margins like
anybody else.

Likewise with any skilled labor, it's rather laughable what
some automotive repairs cost too but some people who will
fiddle in a PC won't do that either... so you're paying for
all the associated costs of someone else having to be
available to do it for you (or for whoever).

A friend of mine was charged $100.00 to put an ethernet card
into his computer, which I told him takes about 5 minutes if he did it
himself.

That does seem a bit excessive, but if people are willing to
pay that $100, why would they lower the fee? Same as any
other business, if they had enough people balk at the fee
they might lower it more.

Another time I had bought in a laptop for a screen that did not turn
on, It ended up being the bulb that was replaced, but to my amazment
the guy charged me $75 to check and clean out viruses and malware.

That is illegal. They can't bill you for any services you
don't authorize... but if you had authorized it, AND if you
had a lot of viri/malware installed, $75 was cheap, it
usually costs quite a bit more to guarantee a clean system
rather than just a dumb "run some cleaner utility" bench
fee.

Something I never told him to do.

You should have told him that you'll be on your way to the
local news reporter to see what the general public thinks of
his illegal practices. That is, unless you had signed a
waiver or other document and didn't read the fine print, but
frankly I'd not have any business that tries to sneak in
additional fees to be trustworthy to do any work at all.

And recently At another local store
I tried to purchase a dvd burner that I was going to replace my cd-rw
drive. The guy told me the cheapest DVD BURNER he had was $130.00...
being they now run from $30.00-$50.00 I told the guy he was not only a
crook but took advantage of people who don't know any better.

It's a free market though, they can charge whatever they
like and the customer can accept or decline. There's
probably something you overpay for too, that someone else
would think is silly. I recall a few weeks ago the motor
capacitor on our AC unit failed and a local dealer wanted
over $150 for what was a $25 (at most) part... and that
didn't include the service charge which was fortunately
unnecessary as a swollen cap is pretty easy to diagnose,
especially when the motor isn't starting.

 

[philo]

After a few visits to local computer repair shops to either Repair or
buy parts, I noticed that these places not only charge an enormous
amount for hardware, but even charge crazy fees for even the simplest
of tasks. A friend of mine was charged $100.00 to put an ethernet card
into his computer, which I told him takes about 5 minutes if he did it
himself.

<snip>

you think that's something...
call a plumber.

i once paid $400 for maybe two hours of work...

OTOH: had i done it myself...the job would have taken ten hours
and my house would have been under water...
so to me the $400 was worth it.

now as to the local computer shop:
about a year ago i had an emergency and needed a new HD ASAP...
so i just went over to the store a few block from my house and got the HD.
yep I paid at least $40 or $50 more than it would have cost on line...
but it was worth it

 

[mhaase-at-springmind.com]

That does seem a bit excessive, but if people are willing to
pay that $100, why would they lower the fee? Same as any
other business, if they had enough people balk at the fee
they might lower it more.

A guy I know who is a successful business person once told me, and I
think it's true:

"If nobody complains about your rate, you're not charging enough."

 

[kony]

A guy I know who is a successful business person once told me, and I
think it's true:

"If nobody complains about your rate, you're not charging enough."

Could be... but we don't have an itemized bill either, it's
hard to break down what the charges were. Supposing they
brought the system in for a general diagnostic and
preventive maintenance (cleaning out dust, etc), that's
already a small bench fee, plus the cost of the NIC (could
be upwards of $30 for a 3Com or Intel Gigabit 32bit/33MHz),
and driver installation all total could easily be $100 or
more at a fair market rate.

Some people don't pay it though, they drop off their system
and have the work done then never go to pick it up. I used
to sell parts to a lot of local repair shops and would pick
up a lot of these aging systems for a song... they'd
practically give them to me though they'd require the full
bill settled before they'd give it back to the original
owner... after a period of time of course, but then that
adds on storage fees too.

 

[johns]

Like any business, they need to learn to
adapt to the demand. I worked for a computer
shop in Wisconsin that was on the same
stretch of road with maybe 10 other shops.
9 of them went out of business, while we
were awarded a 6.5 million dollar service
contract with a local industry. I did exactly
the same work for this company that I would
have been doing with any of the other failed
companies, except, my skills went where
they were needed .. to support an industry
which produced high-end hospital electronics
equipment. I never had a slow day. I also
was expected to support all of that equipment
on-site at every hospital within nearly 500
miles. I drove the wheels off my service
truck. I even managed to greatly increase
the business of one company I worked for.
When on-site, I was also a well educated
etech, and I was trained by those hospitals
to support their ER electronics. We expanded
into that business, and had to hire more
employees to meet the demand. Computers
have applications which are "mission critical".
Any company out there just replacing parts
is wasting its time and resources to play
around like that. A hard drive is only worth
the data that is on it. Downtime in many
companies costs about $5000 per hour
or more ... a lot more. I walk in the door at
$200 per hour, and that line supervisor
thinks I'm a hero ... and so do about 50
employees who are just sitting there
waiting for me. I have skills that can keep
an Engineering CAD company up and
running 24/7, or I could work for a moron
boss recovering teenie-bopper email.

johns

 

[Bob]

Like any business, they need to learn to
adapt to the demand. I worked for a computer
shop in Wisconsin that was on the same
stretch of road with maybe 10 other shops.
9 of them went out of business, while we
were awarded a 6.5 million dollar service
contract with a local industry. I did exactly
the same work for this company that I would
have been doing with any of the other failed
companies, except, my skills went where
they were needed .. to support an industry
which produced high-end hospital electronics
equipment. I never had a slow day. I also
was expected to support all of that equipment
on-site at every hospital within nearly 500
miles. I drove the wheels off my service
truck. I even managed to greatly increase
the business of one company I worked for.
When on-site, I was also a well educated
etech, and I was trained by those hospitals
to support their ER electronics. We expanded
into that business, and had to hire more
employees to meet the demand. Computers
have applications which are "mission critical".
Any company out there just replacing parts
is wasting its time and resources to play
around like that. A hard drive is only worth
the data that is on it. Downtime in many
companies costs about $5000 per hour
or more ... a lot more. I walk in the door at
$200 per hour, and that line supervisor
thinks I'm a hero ... and so do about 50
employees who are just sitting there
waiting for me. I have skills that can keep
an Engineering CAD company up and
running 24/7, or I could work for a moron
boss recovering teenie-bopper email.

You sound like the ideal employee,

Lemme guess - the company downsized and got rid of you because you
were costing too much salary.

No good deed goes unpunished.

 

[johns]

Nope. I met a cute girl who was having problems
getting logged in to the campus mainframe where
she was working on her PhD. She loved my
home computer, and I've been following her
career every since all across the USA. I can
get a good job any where I go, and I'm still
out here getting it done for Engineers in
research. There is no downtime on my subnet
of 1200 users. And now we have 2 home
computers ... in our home

johns

 

[CBFalconer]

Nope. I met a cute girl who was having problems
getting logged in to the campus mainframe where
she was working on her PhD. She loved my
home computer, and I've been following her
career every since all across the USA. I can
get a good job any where I go, and I'm still
out here getting it done for Engineers in
research. There is no downtime on my subnet
of 1200 users. And now we have 2 home
computers ... in our home

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[dphillips]

A guy I know who is a successful business person once told me, and I
think it's true:

"If nobody complains about your rate, you're not charging enough."

A friend of mine has been telling me for years I do not charge enough,
and each year I inch my rates up until I hear I am too expensive or
customers stop calling.

Sincerely,


Donald L. Phillips, Jr., P.E.
(e-mail address removed)
(remove NS to send an e-mail)

Worthington Engineering, Inc.
145 Greenglade Ave
Worthington, OH 43085

http://worthingtonengineering.com