Why can't people just listen!

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Harrison

Harrison

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With computer problems, why is it some people who really don't know what they are doing insist on asking advice and trying in vein to fix their computers themselves instead of just letting me have them to fix for them?

Then keep coming back and asking more questions when it all goes wrong, they make it worse and still won't just hand it over to be fixed. It drives me mad.

Had a friend I work with need to reinstall Windows. He was unsure of doing it so I offered, but he insisted he wanted to do it himself and asked me loads of questions. He came in the next day and said he had decided to upgrade the ram from 4GB to 8GB (no idea why he needs even 4GB as he only plays a few older games, uses the internet and email). Anyway, I said he wouldn't see the extra ram as he was running 32bit XP. So he also decided to upgrade to Win7 64bit.

After the weekend he comes in to say he has had no end of problems. The ram I bought for him, he insisted on taking away and installing himself, as he also did with the OS. But instead of just bringing the PC in for me to sort out (I knew it was just a manual ram setting needing changing in the BIOS) be had already handed over to pay someone else to fix it! :picard
 
I think I am one of those people when it comes to Amiga's ... :D

Plenty of evil pc experience but Amiga was like the woman I met and never truly got to know ... but this time maybe, slowly but surely I will get to know her .. instead of just playing games with her :thumbsup:
 
I feel your pain, last summer I just quit doing windows for anybody, when after I spent a week fighting a virus, and saving all his photos/files he had never backed up, just to get the same virus back within a day of my returning his machine, spending another 3 days fighting, and having to re-instal anyway- for which I received a cup of coffee for all my trouble.. I myself right there and then decided to switched to a Mac, and never been happier. Now, when people come for "Help" I just tell them to buy a Mac. Period. No hassels, headaches or what not. If they don't want to pay me my fees, I will gladly let them pay someone else 3 to 4 times what they would have paid me before my switch.
Yes, I have a lot less clients now, but the clients I do have left, no longer whine and try to get free advice. The gladly pay for my time and knowledge.
 
pretty much why i gave up my business/hobby in Victoria...had a part time business building/repairing PCs and setting up high speed internet(back when the cable company would charge you $100-$150 to come and set you up)/home networks from about 95-05, finally got fed up with people that wanted everything for free....

many many phone calls on a daily basis wanting me to fix thier computer for free, 'just tell me what i need to do' ......brakes go on your car...do you call the garage and just ask 'tell me what to do'?

somehow me spending 45 minutes on the phone explaining exactly what they needed to do constituted *them* fixing it themselves...so no need to pay....
 
Yep, I have been wanting a 900 number charging $50 per call on my cell for over 20 years now, but never could get one.
 
dont worry Harrison i have it all the time i build pcs for guys and bench them for 48hrs at least and work fine for me but i wait at least a week for the phone calls, mainly viruses

but my last problem 1 was it kept turning it self off so i had it back for a week and was fine, they had it back and same problem they said it kept going into safe mode, so reinstalled, then same again so i replaced hd for brand new replacement from wd, same again so replaced ram, then it kept cutting off, so replaced psu then a few weeks later i had a call as they said they took it to a pc shop and they said it was hd and got charged £xxx for a reinstall

then 2 weeks later i got a tx and he said it was the monitor it kept switching off and they had to restart pc thats what the booting in safe mode problem

i never even supplied the dam monitor all my callouts and services were free also

for for a few months trying to sort this pc out it was a dodgy monitor

:double
 
Harrison said:
After the weekend he comes in to say he has had no end of problems. The ram I bought for him, he insisted on taking away and installing himself, as he also did with the OS. But instead of just bringing the PC in for me to sort out (I knew it was just a manual ram setting needing changing in the BIOS) be had already handed over to pay someone else to fix it! :picard
Click to expand...

:double :Doh: :censored: :stick:

I think that about sums it up. My usual line is "You're a damn fool, I could've fixed it for you for free! But if you want to throw money down the toilet, that's your business!"
 
In my younger years I helped a lot of people for small prices. I gave up on that. It does not pay, at the end you end up with close to free service.

They will ask you for a broken dvd drive and when you arrive the pc is completely ****** *****

So I gave up on it many, many years ago :thumbsup:
 
Even if you do manage to fix it, the machine now appears to have magically acquired a lifetime guarantee, so that they can bring it back to you if it needs fixing again.

"But... you fixed it last time..!"

:double
 
robinsonb5 said:
Merlin said:
"But... you fixed it last time..!" :double
Click to expand...

Yup - the unwritten rule of tech support - whoever touched it last owns it.
Click to expand...

I thought it was "don't do it!".

I only ever help out close family. Don't have the time nor inclination to sort out pc's all day :)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
I just charge a reasonably high price.

I figure its Win-Win...

Either they pay me that fee or they take it elsewhere.

Worked well for me all these years.
 
Merlin said:
Even if you do manage to fix it, the machine now appears to have magically acquired a lifetime guarantee, so that they can bring it back to you if it needs fixing again.

"But... you fixed it last time..!"

:double
Click to expand...


:roll: :lol: Right, I forgot that one especially.
 
slk486 said:
I thought it was "don't do it!".

I only ever help out close family. Don't have the time nor inclination to sort out pc's all day :)
Click to expand...

These are the greatest words of wisdom. Heed them well. My close family provide enough irritating computer repair jobs without ever offering the service to anyone else!

:lol:
 
Bad_Ad84 said:
I just charge a reasonably high price.

I figure its Win-Win...

Either they pay me that fee or they take it elsewhere.

Worked well for me all these years.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's a good excuse not to do it. I doubt any private person would pay me what my time is worth anyway :lol:
 
Ahhh this was my nightmare 11 years ago...

No matter how well you put a system together there's always some one whom can manage to break it, it got to the point where I was building 4 or 5 systems on order every month, including networks and probably diagnosing and fixing systems on a daily basis.

I ended up having absolutely NO life outside other people problematic computers - a good 90% down to human error / neglect, the other 10% being an OS / Hardware assorted failures.

Fortunately with the exception of one system I built from the ground up (power supply was spike from dodge home wiring) I never got one of those systems to repair.

In the end it was just to much, I had people phoning me at all hours of the day and my mother was the main culprit, all her friends and people she would know that had this problem or that problem... in the end I said enough as every day I was dealing with three or four issues with PC's

To Think: whom wants to deal with PC problems all day, I would rather be designing something / programming - not another macaffy av that has sucked up the HD or some stupid virus exe thats written into the regs!!!


So I stopped after a couple years of that torment, and kept it family / close friends only. Sadly I can only assume they didn't mean to, but advantages were taken, and yet again I found my self helping friends of friends and friends of family... and the nightmare began again... Soooo I put a stop to that as at the time that was taking time away from my HND studies.

So immediate family only..... and even THAT got abused, being called at 8 or 9 in the evening to help with someones router that they ballsed up... no worried I shall set it up.... 2 weeks later (because their ISP was having problems) they decided to press the button that firmware resets the router.... not once mind..... not a good dozen times... while powered up.... needless to say... they had killed it.

In the end I just stopped, it was things like that was really stressing me out - especially with my college studies at the time.

So now, the only problems PC wise I have are my own... and thats very rarely.

I like it like that.
 
with the exception of your Amiga issues buddy ;)
 
I solved my computer support problems (my dad and his mates) by moving east by over a 1000km's and staying there (Sydney then Melbourne) for ~10 years - even tho I moved back to Adelaide 5 years ago I rarely get bothered by my own family now. :)
 
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