This week I encountered a computer repair job that went bad. I’ve had experience dealing with jobs gone bad in the past and I have learnt how to avoid them in most cases. However, I think this one was unavoidable. Heres my story.

I get a phone call from the client wanting me to go out onsite because computer is running very slow. It explained that it was fast when they first bought it but it has since become unusable. I told them my price per hour and they ask me how long it would take to fix . I said “something like that would usually take 1 – 1.5 hours depending on what is wrong with it”. At this stage I believe the problem is caused by either viruses or too many applications at startup.

I arrive at their house and they show me to their laptop. The laptop is about a year and a half old and in relatively good condition with the exception of two keys missing and a virus infested operating system. They still had the missing keys but the silicon rubber below the key which makes them spring back was also pulled out. I tell them that I will try and put the keys back in as it is so they don’t have to buy a new keyboard, but I’ll have to do it offsite.

I took the laptop back to my workshop and looked into how to get the keys and their silicon springs back on. It turns out that the keyboards silicon springs are all part of one sheet that all keys use and somehow, these springs have been ripped out from that.

To make matters worse, it seems that the actual buttons below the silicon on the keys wouldn’t work correctly so even if I did manage to get them back on, the keys wouldn’t work.
I decided it was time for a new laptop keyboard so I called my client and told them that the damage is too much for me just to put the keys back on and that they would have to buy a new keyboard for it to get it working properly. I gave them a price and they said it would be fine.

I went ahead and installed the new keyboard and it worked great. Since that was fixed, I got to work removing the viruses and spent about 45 minutes or so using the standard virus removal tools like Process Explorer, Hijack This and Autoruns. After removing the active viruses, I installed AVG and did a full scan of the system. It turns out hundreds of critical system files in system32 have viruses attached to them. To make matters worse, the heal option didn’t work – only the Delete/Move to the Vault option.
Given the spread of the virus and the effect on critical system files. I called the client and told them that a format is going to be the best option that will produce the best result.

They agreed reluctantly and I asked whether they have their WindowsXP CD. They said they didn’t didnt have it as far as they knew but they will call their ISP (who supplied the laptop) to see if they had it. The client calls back later and told me that the ISP said that the laptop doesn’t need a CD, but has a recovery partition on the system. I didn’t have time to check it out while on the phone so I said “fair enough, Ill take a look”.

Later, I boot up the system to search for the recovery partition or recovery option and there wasn’t one. I call my client back and tell them it cant be done using a recovery partition and they should double check see that they weren’t given a XP CD. I said the only option left is to buy a Windows XP CD for $XXX or supply me with one.

At this point they just exploded saying that I keep changing what I’m saying and keep increasing the price for the repair.
I tell them that the computer needed a new keyboard to get those keys working and it needs a format to fix those viruses.
It is possible for the laptop not to formatted but it will still be virus infested, many things wont work properly and there is the security risk of those viruses stealing personal information like credit card numbers, passwords etc..

I told them that I have tried to get it done as cheaply as possible to begin with by seeing if I could just put the keys back on and remove the viruses manually. My usual method is to see if a repair is possible first rather than just replace. For example, if there is just one virus on the computer then a format would be overkill, so I tried a repair first on their laptop but it was worse than expected.

They yelled at me a little more and told me to bring the system back to them right now. I said “sure, no problems. As long as I get paid for the work I have done so far” (replaced keyboard).

I got in my car and headed over to there and when I was almost there the wife found out what the husband said to me (who is the one exploded) and asked whether they could pay me the day after I drop it off.

I was thinking “hell no, no pay no laptop” but ended up saying that I only provide accounts to businesses. The chances of me getting paid by a angry home user (who already has their computer back) are very slim.

I arrive at the clients house, drop the computer off, get paid in cash for the work done so far and went on my way.

In their eyes, they probaby think I am a shady computer technician and will most likey say bad things about me to others.

In my eyes, the new keyboard and format is what the computer needed to be fixed. If I didnt do both of them they would have come back to me saying it wasn’t fixed.

I dont think I could have won with this one, regardless of what I did. There are just some jobs you can’t win.

For further reading on jobs gone bad, one of our forum members “Simmy” posted his story about a job (and a client) that went bad. Its a good read which you can check out here.