Fixing friends pcs

Duouk2000

Duouk2000

Duouk2000

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Does anyone get roped into doing this on a regular basis? I didn't mind the first time I was asked but it soon got to the point where people were serisouly taking the ****. I had friends of relatives asking if they could get me to come round and fix the mess they'd made, could they be anymore cheeky? These days I say no everyone bar immediate family (just recently refused to fix my cousins wretched pc) and a family that used to live next door to us although I may have to put a stop to the latter if they keep calling me round (5 times over the past three months when it takes an hour and 2 buses to get there). Saying stuff like, "you're going to have to come round to fix this" doesn't help any either >_>.

So anyone else get this sort of treatment? Do you tell them to get stuffed? I swear some people tell themselves I actualy enjoy making my own way round to their houses and then wasting the entire day fixing or formatting\installing all required apps on their damn computers.

Anyway, sorry for the small rant, I'm going round to put Vista on a pc this weekend (they couldn't get the pirated xp they have to work :rolleyes: ) and I'm a little peeved. I may have known them my entire life but I feel I'm going to have to give them the boot in regards to pc repair.
 
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yes, all the time
you need to just make sure that everyone knows you're not going to do it!

ps, don't talk about bad software or your' account will be locked
 
Lay down on them like a ton of bricks if they are going to treat you like ****. They need to know that your wasting your time fixing there computer, doing things for them. If they ask nicely then fine if you want, do it. If they ask like dogs then tell them straight to there face, "no".

G0dfather.
 
The pirated xp wasn't provided by me :) This will be the last time I do this for them, next time (there will be a next time) they'll have to pay for someone to come out or leave it to rot.
 
Tell them your time is precious and charge them tbh. They'll either pay you a minimal amount or not bother and get 'Purple Shirts' to do it for a lot more
 
I get it all the time, in fact, I have one to work on now.

Got to the stage that family is free, but friends now have to pay; either cash or red wine :)

Scort.
 
I too get asked to fix PC's ,all the time .It's my job as a computer technician at a local school . If I have to go round to someones house ....I'm afraid I charge them . It's best to say .........I'll have a look at it at home in my own time. At the moment I'm constantly being asked about virus's and spyware and how to get rid of them ............seem's to be the big thing at the moment.
 
i used to do it and all i asked for in return was a pint or two. but some people were too tight to even fork out for that. they thought i was joking when i told them how much a professional would charge. suffice to say i don't do it anymore. :)
 
I also end up doing quite a few "IT favours" - usually repaid with either dinner or wine or a favour in turn. If it isn't, then that person isn't likely to get any more help.
 
ive had people ask me to go and install CS on their machines?
had full reformats + installations which takes up a good few hours
recently had to go back home because our speakers stopped working, some prat had muted them in sound control :rolleyes:

just stupid things that they could either do their selves or could at least ask me over the phone and i could tell them

ive just set up a wireless network at the gf's house, now that i didnt mind doing because i have never done it before so it was good practice plus its something a little more difficult than installing a game to someone who is not computer literate
 
make them all a restore disk, and an idiots guide to inserting a boot floppy.

If they have any problem at all, tell them to restore the OS first.

:D

.
 
Immediate family get it free but always get favours off them so its ok. Anyone else £30 call out inc first hour, £20 an hour thereafter
 
say £20 for call out, and £10/£20 each hour after that -depending if they're family

its only fair, if your mate was ace at tiling bathrooms and you asked him to come round to do yours, you wouldn't expect him to do it for free!

because you're good at what you do, they should no way take advantage, i used to fix peoples pc's when i was in school without giving them a price before hand, some of them i barely knew -like some woman my mum knew through PTA, her pc was trashed, i fix it, and after a few hours work, she gave me a fiver. i told her to "f'ing keep it"

after that i started using the charges above ^^ (unless its a really good friend etc..)


-always good to have a copy or two of xp home oem with licence if you need to do a quick format for anyone, i've got a standard nlite copy with the key missing, so i just hand the user a brand new xpdisc with licence for about £50-60 if thats what they need
 
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Yep all the time aswell. As said before you should start charging them. It would cost a lot more to get a computer shop to fix it and then they would have to take the PC in. I started a little company on the side with a few other IT geeks I know. Turns a nice little profit.

And if its a mate or close family member get a few stella's off them :)
 
Never look down on your friends and family for being computer-illiterate guys. I used to, but then I was asked to take a look at a computer that was running the Greek verion of XP. Now, Greek is my native language, but honest to god, I was trying to decipher what those error messages meant and it was like trying to translate medieval Mongolian into Aramaic. I initially thought that the guy who translated it must not speak Greek at all and simply used Babelfish to do it, because a literal translation of the error message didn't actually tell me what the hell was wrong with the machine, but when I went back to my own PC I started looking at things more closely, and I realised how much technical terminology is involved in everyday computing, and how often these terms are in fact everyday words which are being used in ways which are completely irrelevant to their usual meaning, which can very easily lead to confusion.
I never before realised how counter-intuitive Windows is in some things. You don't really "learn" it at all (well, except for those of you who are professional techies I guess), you just memorise ways of doing things.
 
Yes , I charge £20 too , years ago I've spent hours looking at someones PC and at the end they've said .......how much do we owe you ......... and I 've felt guilty at charging and said ......oh, it's all right as I walked past the 2 BMW's and the Porche in their drive.

Would they have to pay anywhere else ?? YES .

What I do now is collect lots of information from the net about anti-virus and spyware software and how to use programs like spybot etc and make a booklet .Theres about 20 pages [and it's growing] of information including how to de-frag ec. and give them a copy.I have screen shots printed and information on how to back-up , update their anti-virus and spyware programs and protect their system . As you know all the required information is out there for free ,but most people dont know how to find it or how to use it.
So , there getting something more for there money.
 
rickyt said:
What I do now is collect lots of information from the net about anti-virus and spyware software and how to use programs like spybot etc and make a booklet .Theres about 20 pages [and it's growing] of information including how to de-frag ec. and give them a copy.I have screen shots printed and information on how to back-up , update their anti-virus and spyware programs and protect their system . As you know all the required information is out there for free ,but most people dont know how to find it or how to use it.
So , there getting something more for there money.
Click to expand...
nice idea :)
 
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