Comments on: Computer Technician Stories

By: Jimmy James

Jimmy James — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:41:50 +0000

For people who refuse to pay I give them 3 chances. If all 3 times are refused I tell them that according to the terms and conditions, I am now the legal owner of said computer. Then I start unplugging the pc, at which point 99% of people cough up.

Some people are right ***** though… like for a motherboard replacement on say a laptop, you present the with a rather sizable bill and they think you’re ripping them off. Yet what they don’t realise if the new board itself is likely to be 2/3’s of the price, and fitting a new laptop motherboard isn’t exactly my idea of fun.

By: Ian

Ian — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:28:27 +0000

I don’t have any specific stories to tell, but certain patterns are starting to emerge and after six months of working for myself I want a real job where I can build solutions rather than fix junk.
One example is when they get annoyed you didn’t reinstall their illegal copy of MS Office after doing a full reinstall. Another common pattern is when they have a hosed system and they don’t have a restore partition, or a single CD that came with the machine and sometimes not even something with a license sticker on it. While I’m ranting, lol, is it just me or are Symantec products almost as bad as the viruses they are supposed to keep off the system?
I could go on…

By: Boris Said

Boris Said — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 04:40:15 +0000

Oh wow these are some great stories for sure! Oh… and Bryce was one lucky guy! hehe

By: steve

steve — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 03:02:53 +0000

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/dead_beat_customers/?yguid=166457763

Is having a yahoo group for deadbeat customers a good idea?

Or is this web site sufficient?

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 13 May 2008 04:18:20 +0000

Fixed a lady’s computer, and sure enough, 2 weeks later, she calls me back because of more porn.

The virus is xpantivirus.com and takes a lot of time to remove because of all the viruses it brings along….

Anyhow, she was drinking beer at noon, celebrating winning a divorce settlement against her previous husband.

I ignored the drinking, and most of the comments. But then I said ’see this’ and pointed to her computer. She tried to sit on my lap! (That should have told me something, but, I didn’t understand it at the time).

Anyhow, I finish removing all the viruses, present her with a bill and she said “get out”. I said, but you haven’t paid me yet.

She repeated ‘get out’, and I said, ‘well I best remove the programs I left on your computer’. I then removed the anti-virus program (she didn’t pay for it anyway). I was tempted to put back the viruses, but stupidly, I have some pride.

She did call the next day to apologize and promise the cheque is in the mail. It still is in the mail, right? Too bad we are not allowed to post her email address? s_stefnjack@yahoo.com

By: PC ZONE

PC ZONE — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:06:14 +0000

Had a client ring up one day and heres some of the conversation shortened as it was a 15 minutes long and we were polite throughout

Client) Hi i got my computer repaired at your shop recently and you never gave me my disc back

Us)Ok give us your name and tell us what type of disc it was

Client) Mrs Jones and i don’t know what disc it was but you’ve got it

Us) ok can you describe the disc at all was it round or square

Client)I don’t know but you have it and i need it back

Us) ok what do you need the disc for

Client)oh hang on and i’ll find out, ok i need it to reload my computer

Us) Your computer is an HP and has no CD to reload the computer but has a partition on the hard drive which allows you to reload

Client)oh ok but i’ll still need my disc

Us) No you don’t need a disc and if your considering reloading then it’s probably not something you should do yourself

Client)hang on, Nope i’ll still need my disc

Us) Look please bring in the computer so that we can show you what we mean

eventually the clients friend who was in the background and telling the client what was what and how it should be the whole time came in for the explanation which i finished with if you cannot understand the concept of a recovery partition then perhaps he should give up assisting people with wrong advise and told the client not to let him anywhere near the computer in future

By: Shawn

Shawn — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 16:20:56 +0000

All of these stories (except the naked chick) are precisely why I don’t work on home PC’s.

By: Virgil

Virgil — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 17:41:10 +0000

Here”s one:
When I first opened my shop, I would warranty a system for 1 year. (The Entire System, Including SOFTWARE). Needless to say, I was very ignorent of the fact that people are unknowledgeable when it comes to computers. This lady would call me up every other week or so to come fix a (software) problem she had. Short of it, lesson learned, I have never warrantied anything except hardware from that time on….

By: Flextech

Flextech — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:41:50 +0000

Hilarious articles, being a techie myself I haven’t had any situations that have been as wild as the ones mentioned in this article.

By: Bryce W

Bryce W — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 05:48:53 +0000

Steve, the Computer Business Kit has a Backup Checklist that you can go though with your client (helps you remember what to backup too). Down the bottom it has a signoff part that says you dont take any liability if they forgot to tell you about something. This way, they know if they forgot something its their fault.