Comments on: My Story About Doing The Right Thing

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:13:35 +0000

I did look at your picture. At least a blast of air would have been better than giving up and giving it back to the customer. You would have cleaned out some of it.

By: Bryce W

Bryce W — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:06:08 +0000

Scott, it has hair in it and unlike dust, cannot be simply blasted away with compressed air. Look at this picture and you’ll see what I mean:
http://www.technibble.com/articlecontent/2008/09/computer-pet-hair-3.jpg

That hairball is between the Fan and the heatsink and is completely inaccessible if the computer is not opened.

You cant really do a clean out job properly on a laptop without opening it up.

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:49:16 +0000

I hate to be critical of your efforts in attempting to take this laptop apart, but why did you need to do that anyway? Most of the time a good blast of compressed air will clean out fans and clear the airways. But since you did not even do that, you were right not to charge them. Next time take the common sense approach. You can save time that way.

By: Rob Gardner

Rob Gardner — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:46:09 +0000

I’ve been trading for over 6 years now. I come across a few occasions where I’m unable to repair a machine, or a fix I input fails to remedy the problem.

When I visit a house, they normally like to leave me alone “as they don’t want to be seen as hovering, scrutinising every thing I do”, to which I reply that “I honestly don’t mind, grab an extra chair and I’ll explain what I’m doing”.

Charging for not actually achieving anything, to me, doesn’t feel right.

However …

In the event that I can’t fix it, they can see that I have given it a good try, and despite my protests, I normally come away with something.

I reckon that 30% of my business is through personal recommendation.

God, I love this job!
Regards.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 08:07:38 +0000

Definitely the right thing to do. I’m doing the same type of work you are. If something like that happened to me, I would have done exactly the same.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:35:52 +0000

Bryce, what model was it? danc@usalaptoprepair.com I’m curious because I HAVE seen it all

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:49:51 +0000

I think it’s only right to not charge, even you sometimes you really want to. Like you said, look at it from the customers standpoint.I had a laptop that I couldn’t open recently and it turned out (after using a bit of brute force to open it) that there was a sticky residue practically glue-ing everything together! It was Guinness!

By: Hank

Hank — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:50:17 +0000

On-site I can see a minimum charge to cover travel expense but for a drop off/carry in service like in this story you are only out your time spent working. I think its right to waive your charges when you are unable to do anything due to a lack of knowledge. I would like to add as a side note that I was expecting the the customer to say they worked on it and super glued it back together

By: Tampa Computer Repair

Tampa Computer Repair — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 02:06:05 +0000

That’s the way we do it too. It doesn’t happen very often… but when it does, it sure feels better doing the right thing.

By: touch0ph

touch0ph — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 07:51:05 +0000

That’s a good work ethic. I do the same myself all the time. To go a step further I’ve also done some bonehead things which I don’t have the customer pay for. For example I had a customer with a Verizon wireless card that just stopped working all of a sudden. After a few hours of troubleshooting I called tech support and they explained that Verizon’s software had a conflict with Norton’s Firewall and that I should turn the firewall off. Upon hearing this I think to myself “oh…why didn’t I try THAT”.

In any event, I didn’t charge the customer for the couple of hours I was there. I charged them for about 45 min or rather the time I think I should have been able to solve the issue in.