Breaking news: 70% of computer repair companies are clueless

[dquan97]

From consumerist.com

Link

CBC Marketplace did a kickass hidden camera investigation into computer repair companies and found only 30% were able to correctly diagnose their problem.

One guy tells them they need to send their computer to a special dust-free room to retrieve the data, which would cost about $2,000. He even copies pictures from the customer's hard drive to his computer, promising he'll delete them later. Geek Squad makes an appearance and they don't do a very good job either, although the Geek's hair is admirably coiffed.

Marketplace's advice is to search online for tech help and fix it yourself, backup your data, keep virus and spyware up to date, and if you do go with a tech repair outfit, get referrals from friends and get multiple quotes from different vendors.

 

[BrokenVisage]

lol, breaking news

 

[IceBergSLiM]

What they don't tell you is that the customer is getting service for what they are willing to pay.

 

[Czar]

obviosly not techy producers

Listening works, identify hard disk problems
Taking things out works, isolating problems

only 2:20 mins in, will be fun

 

[PlatinumGold]

so many different issues.

first of all, those techs are probably trained never to say "i don't know". i say i don't know all the time to my clients, but that's because i have a working relationship with them and have usually been able to fix the problem at hand. fix every problem? no, sometimes the only answer is to replace the product, but enough times that they trust me.

could i say, i don't know to a customer i'm meeting for the first time? probably not, would i give them a bogus answer and bogus estimate, like the guys on that video, no.

but the narrators implication that the ram module being damaged being an easy find is not accurate. first of all, in real life, how often are we going to have ram chips just have pieces break off? solid state parts tend to either work or not work. if they cease to work then there has to be specific problems to cause that, consumer stuck a screw driver in the box and did damage, there was electrical damage, there was heat damage. if the consumer doesn't tell you this kind of information, it is harder to diagnose.

yadda yadda yadda

ok, i'll stop boring you. but frankly that video was almost as much BS as the 7 technicians that gave her a bogus diagnosis.

 

[montypythizzle]

I had a computer that wouldn't turn on or POST, took out one of the RAM modules I am guessing some other person put in, it was DDR400 when the board could only handle DDR333, I admit I then sold the DDR400 module. I made up for that by cleaning all the "stuff" off that you get when you get a new computer.

 

[OutHouse]

I have mixed feelings on this. diagnosing a ram chip with a component snapped off it is not something one would expet to find nor really look for. for the laptop with the curupted system file, all the paces go that right. Also for the 3 techs who did get the bad ram right i have no problem with them charging what they did for the ram. Thats part of doing business, if the consumer wants to buy someplace else then they have that option. that one guy who charged 120 bucks for a stick of RAM that the "expert" found at crucial for 60 bucks is trying to make a living and did not rip off the consumer.

 

[FoBoT]

use the Nerd Herd, they are as good as secret agents

 

[Saulbadguy]

Bad memory is tough to diagnose unless you have a memory tester or a spare DIMM. Plus, no way anyone charges just $25 for a repair.

 

[Saulbadguy]

Now this video is irritating me.

An honest technician comes in and correctly diagnoses the problem and charges $35 for the DIMM. Then the dumbass from the college they consulted said "Duh..in actuality, you can get SIMM on a RAM for half that?" (verbatim, LOL)

Sure, you could probably find the DIMM cheaper than that, but these guys are business to make a profit, and it's not like they are gouging them. Then they complain about the upcharge for same day service. GMAFB.

 

[PlatinumGold]

Originally posted by: Saulbadguy
Now this video is irritating me.

An honest technician comes in and correctly diagnoses the problem and charges $35 for the DIMM. Then the dumbass from the college they consulted said "Duh..in actuality, you can get SIMM on a RAM for half that?" (verbatim, LOL)

Sure, you could probably find the DIMM cheaper than that, but these guys are business to make a profit, and it's not like they are gouging them. Then they complain about the upcharge for same day service. GMAFB.

this industry is the only one where tech people sabotage themselves by telling consumers what the cost of the item is. it's also the only retail business where consumers think there should only be a 10% to 20% margin. you force businesses like compusa to be crooks because that is the only way they can stay afloat (hence they aren't really crooks).

how is anyone supposed to maintain inventory, staff the store with knowledgeable people, provide refunds, provide support services, pay retail leases at 10% to 20% margins.

and the many idiots here on ATOT that are always posting about how best buy and compusa over charges are part of the problem.

do any of you honestly think mechanics, plumbers, electricians etc only charge a 10% to 20% margin on stuff they sell their customers? :roll:

 

[Squisher]

I agree that this not a normal repair. However, coming from a computer neophyte as myself the first thing I usually do with a computer that won't turn on after wiggling wires and disconnecting everything but the mouse and keyboard is to pull a ram module, and keep doing that one at a time and swapping them. Not because I can point to this as a problem, but because it's so easy to do.

 

[Saulbadguy]

These guys are still better than auto mechanics.

 

[m1ldslide1]

I've been tempted to become a vigilante after hearing the stuff that the techs at a local computer store tell people. As an example, right before Vista came out I overheard a customer asking what it would cost to get a computer that would run Vista. The computer store guy tells him that for $2,000 he can build him a computer that will run Vista. Keep in mind that the customer didn't say anything about gaming or high-end functionality, just wanted a stinkin' compy for Vista. The fact that he was even asking for it lets you know his technical expertise, and opens him wide up to be taken for a ride. I still kick myself for not catching this guy in the parking lot and setting him straight - I hope he never spent the money.

Computer repair-people will soon acquire the same types of negative reputations that auto-mechanics have. Just wait and see.

 

[PingSpike]

The trouble with PCs is that they're such cheap commodity items now and people think that since they're so cheap to buy they should be cheap to fix. But they're pretty complicated in so far as the many things that can go wrong with them. And their parts depreciate so fast that if you keep them on hand you pretty much have to mark them way up.

And a broken ram module? I'm assuming they came in with the machine and just said it didn't work right? They didn't say "I dropped it." or "I shipped it across the country and now it won't power on" Why would anyone first think "Oh, I bet the ram module spontaniously broke in half" as the first culprit in that case!

 

[Squisher]

Originally posted by: PlatinumGold
....do any of you honestly think mechanics, plumbers, electricians etc only charge a 10% to 20% margin on stuff they sell their customers? :roll:

They do if they want my business back. They're welcome to charge me for their labor, but when they inflate the cost of a part beyond what is resonable that is when I balk.

 

[Kaspian]

Originally posted by: Saulbadguy
Bad memory is tough to diagnose unless you have a memory tester or a spare DIMM. Plus, no way anyone charges just $25 for a repair.

QFT

 

[Pepsi90919]

Originally posted by: m1ldslide1
I've been tempted to become a vigilante after hearing the stuff that the techs at a local computer store tell people. As an example, right before Vista came out I overheard a customer asking what it would cost to get a computer that would run Vista. The computer store guy tells him that for $2,000 he can build him a computer that will run Vista. Keep in mind that the customer didn't say anything about gaming or high-end functionality, just wanted a stinkin' compy for Vista. The fact that he was even asking for it lets you know his technical expertise, and opens him wide up to be taken for a ride. I still kick myself for not catching this guy in the parking lot and setting him straight - I hope he never spent the money.

Computer repair-people will soon acquire the same types of negative reputations that auto-mechanics have. Just wait and see.

you need a life

 

[randay]

i find 90% of computer techs in general dont know what they are doing, so yeah, no surprise there.

 

[TruePaige]

Originally posted by: Kaspian

Originally posted by: Saulbadguy
Bad memory is tough to diagnose unless you have a memory tester or a spare DIMM. Plus, no way anyone charges just $25 for a repair.

QFT

 

[cubby1223]

The second premise in the video is total bullcrap - purposely remove some system files then ask someone to diagnose & repair that? First of all, you have to figure out what the problem is, then figure out why it happened (because if you don't figure out why it happened, you will have to do the work over again later for free), and once all *logical* reasoning is exhausted, then the last resort is a repair install - but not before a full drive backup is made. Keep in mind, purposely corrupting system files is not a logical reason for the error, even dumb idiots just don't do that to their systems.

I can tell ya this, most people's computers have porn on it, I make it a specific effort to avoid knowing any more about what's on a computer than I absolutely have to to fix, avoid looking at documents like the plague. Although once I was working with another person had an external hard drive brought in where the contents went missing, used recovery tools that copied over all the files it could, but I think it was missing filenames or something, but had the extensions, this was ~3 years ago don't quite remember. Anyways, to just see if the files were in tack, not corrupt, opened the first file over, was a .jpg, and really wished I hadn't opened that file...

 

[pstylesss]

Originally posted by: TruePaige

Originally posted by: Kaspian

Originally posted by: Saulbadguy
Bad memory is tough to diagnose unless you have a memory tester or a spare DIMM. Plus, no way anyone charges just $25 for a repair.

QFT

25 isn't worth the drive to the house.

I couldn't believe the techs I saw on there... Actually, I can - I work with one.

The guy I worked with was hired by one of our coworkers to go home and fix their computer. They would be browsing the internet, playing games, doing anything, and the screen would go black, freeze and restart. He tried to tell them it was their PSU/Mobo/Ram. Took it home with him, didn't fix the problem, told them "I don't know, it's weird" and charged them $25.

Asked them if it was hot in the room, lots of dust in the computer... Took it home, ran a stress test on the video card, same thing happened (big surprise, huh?). I Installed new drivers, ran it through many more stress tests... all better.

Some people are just idiots.

I can't believe they slammed the guy who diagnosed it correctly and padded the RAM. No one is in the business to sell at cost, they wouldn't be in business.

 

[rocadelpunk]

a friend took her sony laptop in to geeksquad

they said the lcd and hardrive were broke and it would cost a ton of money to recover the data. It cost 60-80 dollars just for this diagnosis and they basically convinced her to buy a new laptop.

I found out about this and was like...why didn't you just bring it over to me, so she lets me have a look

took about 5 seconds to realize the lcd was not broken (hinges were quite loose, just needed tightening) and it posted bios so that was fine.

long story short the windows install was corrupt...took all of 3-4 min to go online and look up a few commands for recover console and voila...back into windows. Backed up her data via crossover (later burnt to dvd-r + put back on clean install)...installed free spyware/viruscan, necessary codecs etc

and bam in a couple hrs her computer was like new with all her data back on.

 

[SsupernovaE]

LOL! It's so true. My brother has no formal training in computers or networking and is constantly recruited to fix problems that a professional was supposed to have fixed.

 

[AdamK47]

The problem with computer repair is that the people who would be able to quickly and accurately identify a problem have moved on to much better careers. That leaves people who are less knowledgeable in charge of taking the customers PC apart in an attempt to fix it.