A Word to the Wise

If you ever have to bring your computer in for servicing, insist that the technician power up the machine in your presence to get the basic information off of it: operating system, amount of RAM, etc.

I had a technician who opened up the machine and started fiddling around with the insides, pulling out wires, etc., looking for the memory (I brought it in for an upgrade of the memory). When he put it back together and attempted to turn it on . . . guess what? It wouldn't come on. He killed the damn thing.

Of course, the staff tried to tell me that it was merely a coincidence, that the computer chose to die on the way to the store, or it must have suffered some kind of a surge, and all that bullshit. When they realized I wasn't buying those lame excuses, the negotiations began.

After nearly two weeks of volleying back and forth, we finally reached a settlement with the store. It was a pain in the neck, and I'm drained by it, but I'm glad it's over, and we're happy with the results.

So . . . the moral here is . . . don't let anyone operate on your computer without first checking the vital signs! That's what they do in the operating room before they reach for the scalpel, and if it's good enough for people it's good enough for your PC.

4 comments:

Chelle Sandell said...

Oh honey! I would've lost a screw and started a war! My cousin lets her computer upload updates from Hewlett Packard every night. One night it never turned itself off like usual. The next morning she called tech support and her service warranty had expired...by 1 week. They told her it would cost $99 to renew. She told them..."So, your updates killed my computer and I have to pay you to fix it." The guy had the balls to agree. People suck sometimes! So sorry...but glad you got it resolved.

PatriciaW said...

60 Minutes did a related piece yesterday. I missed the beginning of the segment but the gist was how hard companies are making it to live and work in the technological age without getting screwed.

Did you know there are refrigerators now that rrequire an Internet connection? For what? To download and voice food recall warnings based on the barcodes on the food labels?

Gwyneth Bolton said...

I live in fear of computer problems... We're talking biggest nightmare kind of fear. I'm glad it worked out for you.

Gwyneth

bettye griffin said...

I always suspected that I wasn't the only one who's had this type of problem.

I'll put my husband's negotiating skills up against anybody's, but the nightmare isn't quite over. Now I'm trying to figure out how the hell to access my old Outlook Express, which had the addresses of many of my contacts, since the new machine came with Vista and Windows Mail.

A refrigerator requiring an Internet connection? Good Lord. Not with this lousy DSL provider I have now. The modem has to be reset daily as it is. I guess that means my food will spoil?

Back to the grind. Thanks for posting, all!