PC repair places ripping off people!

[TheGreatSatan]

A woman came to me to buy a new laptop because her laptop hard drive died. She said Best Buy quoted her $350 to install a new HD and install XP from her own restore disks!

For that price she thought she'd may as well by a new laptop and scrap the old. I told her I can get a laptop HD off of Newegg for $41 and install it for $20, then she can drop in her disks and restore XP on her own.

Where do they get their prices from?

[aintnothang]

They know people will pay.

[BerticusPryme]

exactly. They offer teh serve that people will pay becasue they dont know. Hell a local place charges people 100 bucks for a reload and if they want data recovered off the drive it's an extra 75. it's robbery. It really is.

[killergamer]

Heck yea people are d**ks out there but they will learn that the price they charge will not help them and in the long run hurt them then they will change there price. But we know best buy wont change

[Bopher]

I had a co-worker come to me and ask if $300 was reasonable for anti-virus issues and reinstalling the OS. And he already had gone out and bought XP home to install to his computer. They told him it was because of the extra time in the formatting the drive enough to make sure it was rid of the virus.

[Indybird]

One time when I was at circuit city I heard them tell someone that a RAM replacement on an old computer (I believe it was DDR1 RAM) would cost $240!

This isn't price related but at that same store I heard a Circuit City rep. tell a person that a Acer (I believe) 24" LCD couldn't do 1920x1200 over VGA, and that it could only do up to 1600x1200.

At my business we charge $40 for a windows re-installation. If people want to upgrade their system (Windows) hard drive, we only charge for the windows re-installation and the hard drive. We charge $60 for a system restoration where we restore the system to exactly how it was when they bought it (pre-installed software, default drivers, default settings, fresh windows, bloatware and all).

Me and my friend felt that those are reasonable prices considering the time it takes to restore/reinstall everything.

-Indybird

[Xpirate]

My dad suggested that I open up a business doing PC support like Geek Squad. It is really hard to turn a profit doing something like that. If you drive to someone's house and just spend 10 minutes to resolve their problem, they don't even want to pay you for the $8 of gas that you had to spend to make the round trip to their home.

There is no way you would be able to continue to support your family charging $20 to install a hard drive. $100 would have to be the minimum to make a house call just to cover the overhead of running the business. When you really think about it, you can't compete with the overpriced boys from the more established stores.

[TheGreatSatan]

Plus, I guess because of commercials and such, whenever someone has a PC issue they automatically take it to Best Buy.

These same people will call a few places to get the best price on repairing their car, but not their PC

[halcyonforever]

Here is the thing...

To us it is over-priced. But realize to us, this is stuff we can do, we know how much the parts are, and our labor is not counted.

But think of it as a mechanic. Mechanics get $75 per hour to fix your car. I had a battery cable come loose (not at the battery, the other end). I don't know squat about cars, I may understand some basics, definately understand electricity and could tell you we had a short in a wire...

So I took my car to the mechanic, he looked at it, poked it a bit, tried several things, found the bad wire and replaced it. He charged me $40 for a half hour of work and a $5 cable. To someone who knows cars well (like my Brother-in-Law) that is alot to pay for such a simple fix. But to me who doesn't have the ability to fix that it was money well spent.

It's all a matter of perspective. I myself have taken to charging simmilar rates if people ask me to fix things, because it is never just one problem, I normally give a warranty on what I did, and it discourages people from asking me to do stuff for them.

[b4i7]

you gotta remember, they will be taking a drive off their shelf, which will run somewhere around 150-200. and then there will be the tech work to do it which they will charge near 100?

as halycon said, that is high for someone like us, but if youre in a position where youre just lucky to get your laptop to turn on, because you barely understand it, thats about right

[Ichbin]

Look guys.... I already know im going to hell for working for geeksquad....I just need to pay the bills...You dont need to rub it in lol.

[Luke122]

Here is the thing...

To us it is over-priced. But realize to us, this is stuff we can do, we know how much the parts are, and our labor is not counted.
....
It's all a matter of perspective. I myself have taken to charging simmilar rates if people ask me to fix things, because it is never just one problem, I normally give a warranty on what I did, and it discourages people from asking me to do stuff for them.

I completely agree.. it IS a matter of perspective. Just because we know how to do it, and are capable of doing it ourselves, we dont see the value associated with paying someone to do it.

On the flip side of that, you CANNOT devalue your skills or your time. If you could do it for less, and would be willing to do it for less, then go for it. Personally, I dont do repair work for less than $75/hr, and I charge $100/hr+ for data recovery. (My rates are going to 100 and 150 as of October)

I still have people lined up for my services, because they'd rather have someone do the work in their own home, rather than take the computer to a shop, and drop it off for who knows how long. Plus, if they want to sit and watch me work, thats fine.

I know some techs dont like having people sitting over their should while they work, asking questions the whole time. I used to have customers like that, I've just learned to be more selective in the people I accept work from. I now deal exclusively with small/medium businesses, and VERY FEW home computers.

I think that my time is certainly worth what I charge.

[Xpirate]

But think of it as a mechanic. Mechanics get $75 per hour to fix your car. I had a battery cable come loose (not at the battery, the other end). I don't know squat about cars, I may understand some basics, definately understand electricity and could tell you we had a short in a wire...

halcyon makes a solid point. It takes time to learn how to do PC repair work, and people should pay you for your time you spend to learn the skill.

Ichbin, I have a great respect for you in the work you do for Geed Squad. I have done enough free work for friends, family, and in-laws to fully understand how hard the work is.

[Indybird]

I guess I don't feel like charging a lot for my services because I enjoy doing it. Yes, you heard me right; I enjoy fixing standard errors. I'm even happier after I get paid of course. Its only the epic godly errors, such as what regularly occurs on my own computer, that make me angry/frustrated.

-Indybird

[TheGreatSatan]

Whatever, you guys charge a bit too, but doesn't $350 seem high for a hard drive replacement? Is this what every repair place would charge? I could totally see $200 for the cost of the drive and the 10 minutes to install it.

Installing an OS.......what must you do besides hit enter a couple of times to install it? Most of the time you have to wait for the format with no work at all.

[aintnothang]

I have done enough free work for friends, family, and in-laws to fully understand how hard the work is.
Free work sucks, especially if it involves trying.

[Indybird]

Installing an OS.......what must you do besides hit enter a couple of times to install it? Most of the time you have to wait for the format with no work at all.

Its not the actual OS installation, its finding all of the drivers and getting the computer up to date that is what takes time and effort, at least in my opinion.

-Indybird

[Xpirate]

Its not the actual OS installation, its finding all of the drivers and getting the computer up to date that is what takes time and effort, at least in my opinion.

You hit the nail solid on the head! Most people can not find the original disks that come with their computer hardware. So you have to spend time on Google finding suitable drivers. Then I also have had to use password recovery software for several people who don't understand why it's important to write that kind of stuff down.

I also enjoy working with computers, but I have had a run of problems from everyone lately that has thrown me over the edge. It makes me think that the people who do this kind of thing for a living are grossly underpaid.

[Luke122]

It makes me think that the people who do this kind of thing for a living are grossly underpaid.

*nudge,nudge*

There you go people! ;)

[halcyonforever]

Yeah, doing a re-format is easy if you backup regularly, and like me keep nothing on the computer that you won't be heartbroken to lose..

But for example, I reformatted a family computer and the damn XP home CD decied instead of formatting C and leaving D alone it combined them into a new E: drive. Did you know that numerous programs won't even install without a C: drive (won't even get to the point where you select the installation path, just won't launch the installer).

It is simple if you do it alot but there are lots of things that can go wrong.

I'll agree that the $350 might be a bit steep, but there is alot of value in experience.

(I hate working with people over my shoulder, there are some things that I don't know the exact solution for "I know there is an option around here somewhere that does what I need..." and they will sit there and ask "watcha doing?" "is it fixable" "can you fix it," my wife normally gets told to go away when there is a computer problem.)

[Indybird]

The worst was my first computer repair job (before my business), where I went to a rich guys house to fix his Windows ME Compaq. He watched every single thing I was doing, and being my first job it was kinda nerve-wrecking. After about an hour of tests I found out that his network card (the problem) was dead somehow. Then I had to figure out how to tell my first customer that he needs to buy a new one.

I've done more work for him, and he's eased up a lot, but that first time was a killer.

-Indybird

[TheGreatSatan]

I have Master XP and Vista disks for complete reformats and even with all the driver issues it takes me no longer than 3 hours to do a clean install of everything.

[Xpirate]

The worst repair work I ever did was replacing a modem for someone. I spent about three hours trying to make the dang thing work before I went home and logged into her account from my own computer. It was then that I discovered that she did not pay the bill for her dial-up connection.

Then it still would not work even after she ponied up the cash to pay the bill, so I had to call tech support and tell them that they haven't turned on her access. They gave me an initialization string to use and told me to wait about fifteen minutes because they would not admit to needing to unlock her account. I didn't use that string and waited and her internet access returned.

When you do tech support for some folks, this is the kind of junk you get to face.

[Bopher]

I've had to resort to adding my dad machine to my logmein account because my brother likes to get in there and "fix" things my dad asks about and I have to fix it right from 2000 miles away. Sometimes I use the connection when I'm finished to reset the router because I know he's playing WoW right then. I figure eventually he'll learn to keep hands off.

[blueonblack]

It's funny but this goes right back to the discussion Crimson Sky and I had on an acrylic thread a while back, on how a company could charge what they were charging for the stuff they were selling.

Bottom line, they charge that because they CAN charge that. They can charge that because people will PAY that. A lot has been said about our viewpoint and remembering that many people are simply not qualified to do the things we are talking about being charged to do, and I have to agree. Just as most people can't build acrylic furniture, a great many "end users" cannot install a hard drive. Is it too much? Yeah, I think so, but good business sense says to charge what the market will bear.
________
Universal Health Warehouse (http://uhwh.com/)

[Xpirate]

I still say that it is not too much to charge blueonblack.

Think of it this way: If you could install hard drives and install the OS for $20, you would need to be installing a whole lot of them to maintain the rent on your store, advertising, tools, insurance, etc. If only one person comes in that day for a new hard drive and OS install, you just lost money. This is why you have to charge more than cost for the parts and expect more money for your services.

Trust me, it's hard to keep a business like that going.

[blueonblack]

I still say that it is not too much to charge blueonblack.

Guess I wasn't clear. It's too much to charge ME. :D
________
Jugallette (http://juggalos.org/)