UPDATE: Staples Rebuts “Charge Senior Citizen $390 For Basic Computer Repair” Post
Reader Michael watched incredulously as a Staples tech tried to convince a senior citizen that his computer wouldn’t work properly without repairs costing almost $400.The senior, who had been lulled into Staples for a free tune up that suddenly cost $39.99, didn’t understand why he needed to spend money on a “diagnostic screening ($49.99), virus removal services ($150), and more RAM (~$150).” Michael intervened and offered to look at the computer free of charge. He couldn’t believe what he found when he popped open the computer.
He writes:
Thought your readers might find this information useful. While making a return at Staples (800 Lexington St, Waltham, MA), I happened to hear an elderly gentleman disputing a service charge. He had brought his PC in for a free “tune up,” and now was being charged $39.99 for that service, plus the service technician was explaining that he needed to purchase a diagnostic screening ($49.99), virus removal services ($150), and more RAM (~$150) to get his computer working. His PC had four viruses, the technician explained, but they would need to run the diagnostic to determine the extent of the infections and to determine if any hardware needed to be replaced.Having done PC repairs for pizza money in high school, I couldn’t stand to watch a senior citizen get bilked that much to simply have anti-virus installed, run, and then (presumably) removed since it was just a “service.” I stepped in and offered to take a look at his computer for free, though I couldn’t make any promises about fixing it. The technician glared at me, but when the gentleman took me up on the offer he left us alone. I made my returns and followed the man to his house to see what I could do (OK, maybe I’m too trusting but I figure at 6’3″ and 230, there’s not much and 70 year old can pull on me).
He explained that his computer had worked well enough for e-mail and web surfing, but after he took it in for the free diagnostic it wouldn’t start up anymore. Sure enough, we plug his Gateway in and nothing: The monitor doesn’t even flicker, even though the power button turns green. I insert a live CD I’d brought along, and still no luck. I double checked that everything had been just fine before taking it in: He hadn’t dropped it on the way to the store, hadn’t ever opened the case up. He said the technicians had told him he’d need to have virii removed and more RAM added; he suggested he might as well get a new computer if they were going to charge him $300. Seeing how not even the BIOS was showing up, I was starting to worry he was right.
I opened up the PC, expecting the worst: A melted motherboard, fried circuits, or worse, nothing visible at all. I poked and pushed all the parts, making sure everything was tightly pushed in. Everything seemed alright, until I came to the RAM: His DRAM had been partially ejected from its slot, which only could happen if the buttons that held it in place had been pushed. Since he had never opened the PC case up, there was only one explanation: While rummaging inside his computer, a technician had (accidentally or on purpose) hit the button and caused the damage that they were now trying to charge him $390+tax to fix.
I can’t see why a “tune up” would require opening the case, except to check and see how many open DRAM slots were available so they could push Staples products. Whatever the case, taking advantage of the elderly by throwing terms like “computer virus” when a hardware problem you caused stops you from even turning on the computer is downright dishonest, if not quite actionable. I even went through Staples pricing sheets afterwards, and none of the services they tried to upsell even appeared on the list.
Anyways, just a warning to your readers to watch out with Staples services. Probably no better or worse than any other big box assistance, but at list in this instance more than a little odious.
Drive past the big box stores when your computer breaks. Their employees are trained to upsell, not repair computers. Instead, seek out the young, the ones who aren’t old enough to hold advanced degrees or a driver’s license—those who can be paid with extended curfews are ideal. Then, watch in amazement as they sprightly get your computer back to checking AOL so you can forward us that hilarious email Snopes disproved last year.
It should be noted that several Staples techs have chimed in the comments here and on Digg to dispute the prices Michael reports. Here’s a comparison of Michael’s prices, the price Staples charges for in-store tech service, and the price Staples charges for at-home repairs.
It’s possible that the Diagnostic was rung up in-store, the virus removal was done at the on-site price and he got the number slightly off, and the tech was recommending Edge 2GB Kit PC3200 DDR Desktop Memory. So we can say Michael misremembered or misrepresented the prices, the tech was trying to meet quarterly sales goals, or the tech was new and mistakenly punched it the wrong price for the virus removal. The only weird thing under a “newbie/incompetent tech” scenario is that the tuneup price. Staples used to charge $39.99 but it was dropped to $29.99 mid-2007.
(Photo: Getty)
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My question is this: where do I find a tech for computer repairs who is not located at a big box retail store? I live in a major metro area (St. Louis) and even here it is impossible to easily locate a tech repair person other than those at the big box retailers. I am in desperate need to get my laptop’s fan looked at right now, actually, and was planning to take it to Best Buy, as my only option; but if anyone has better ideas of where I might take it to or how to find someone better to take it to that would be great.
Thanks.
The heating story seems the same all over. I had my heatpump die in November right after my son was born. I called Colonial Plumbing and heating and they sent a repair guy, figuring it was old I had a sales rep coming from them too. The repair guy shined his light under teh house and said ‘yup its bad youse needs a new one’ then demanded payment before he could leave. The sales rep was in the driveway getting stuff together and I asked if they could work something out since I was going to buy a new unit from them. No go he demanded the full payment. I asked him why he didnt feel the need to actually look at the unit. He said it looks rusty. We argued and from talking to them I realized I was on the rip-off express with these jerks. The salesman was pissed at the tech and pulled him aside but I told them both to go ahead and leave.
Then I talked to a couple of other reps… A guy from Carter Heating and Air heard me talking about having a newborn in the house and said no worries he would come over and see what he could do. He was awesome and not only priced me a great Trane unit and reasonable install he made sure I had heat!!! Granted it was the emergency heat function but it was something. They were very quick and I had absolutely no extra charges or surprise issues. Even better was that everyone advertised a ‘Trane rebate’ Carter just asked if I wanted them to lower the price rather than deal with rebate hassles.
Colonial plumbing and Heating still sends me mail but it goes right into the shredder along with those ‘vent cleaning’ offers (scams)
V
I’m another Staples tech who would like to offer my comment to this debate.
When you’re part of a company with over 1300 stores the odds are that stuff like this is going to happen from time to time. I don’t think that the tech in question was trying to be crooked. The odds are that he just wasn’t trained very well.
I’ll let you in on the real problem within Staples right now; they’re too cheap for they’re own good. they just aren’t willing to spend money to make money which is really necessary.
Rather than hire and pay real technicians they’d rather hire some 17 year old kid who’s still in school and pay him a fraction of what a real technician demands. This of course leads to a situation where most associates leave after a few months one they gain SOME skills and see that they can make more almost anywheres else. Because of this there’s high turnover within the department and it’s pretty much a given that the tech in most stores won’t be able to solve a problem unless their system Analyzer tool or one of Staples’ flow chat training documents tells them what to do.
Another big problem is labor hours. Staples only allows most stores to spend 15-20 hours a week tops actually performing tech work because labor hours are so tight. I don’t think I really need to describe what happens when you combine new technician + rushed job do I?
That’s not to say that Staples is the worst place to have your PC repaired. Our prices generally are cheaper than the Geek Squads and I truly believe that Staples does try to take care of their customers more than most of the competition does.
One thing I would recommend though, ASK the technician questions. Ask them what their experience is that makes them qualified to repair your PC. Ask them where they received their training. Ask them if they’re A+ certified and if they say they are ask to see their card. If you aren’t satisfied with their answer then forward a complaint to Staples Home Offices asking why they’re letting unqualified associates repair PCs. It’s key that you complain to the Home Office as they’re the people to make decisions. Don’t even bother complaining to the local store manager though. As sad as it sounds local managers really don’t have much say in what goes on, even in their own store.
@DraconianSpark: he sure is. im no longer there but when i was the guy did absolutely nothing but field personal phone calls and preach about upselling.
This is kinda sad, I’ve seen this happen too, and i work at staples myself, to see it happens makes me sick. i am i computer tech myself, 5 years of schooling and much experience, and they wont give me the job, but i watch as the actual “tech” rips people off in the exact same way, i know I’ve seen on at least 2-3 occasions that the tech has told a consumer that he needs more memory than needed for a system. 1 gb is enough for xp, 2gb for xp is extreme sometimes, but when we’re talking about a normal internet user… no photoshop, no video editing, thats insane!
well I’m a tech in a store not to far from waltham and what that tech suggested is a little extreme
the diag was useless but the virus removal and suggested ram upgrade is correct. the tune up is free it cannot be rang in at more then a penny. when you enter the sku 512336 (PC Tune up) it automatically applies a paperless coupon to make it free.
and most of our prices are cheaper then Geek Squad’s
now I realize some people can do a virus removal but most people can not it is pretty simple that most customers are computer illiterate
~The Sandman
ps funny how I found this as I have a meeting for Easy Tech none the less today
Hey Michael, I am a fellow repair guy, currently work in a support department, and I just want to say “if only there were more people out there like you.” [pat on the back] All of these companies, Staples, Best Buy, etc. all charge outrageous fees for what sometimes can be fixed within 15 minutes or less. And what you did was really a random act of kindness. I was actually inspired by this story, not many people anymore today would take the time to do what you did. Thanks for posting it.
Very Good Job Michael. I own a small computer repair business and I am always hearing from people that went to the geek squad, staples or wherever. The reason why I got into this business is because I got tired of hearing people get ripped off by other computer repair companies. If small companies could only compete with the other ones. We just arent able to do the advertising.
@tarpleyc:
You’d be surprised, while my company spends millions advertising 2 page ads in the major computer trade magazines,
I see local shops finding just as effective ways to advertise.
Don’t be fooled by thinking you’re a small company, you don’t realise how much power you have in this market. Van or car advertising, a website that doesn’t look like it’s singing “all by mysellllfff”.. Business cards can be had cheaply, bring at least 20 in your wallet, someone wants your # to talk to you about a car show? something off topic,..give them your business card, it doesn’t matter. Why not do consulting work? Lot of very small businesses that don’t have an IT staff.
I’m an EasyTech at Staples #0655 in Fremont, CA. What this tech would have gotten me fired on the spot. First of all unless it was a big infection he only needed to be charged $40 for a “custom configuration”. Also, we don’t try to upsell, each store has a goal of $300/week, but there is no penalty for not meeting it (I’ve never seen our store meet that goal, and have never been coached for not meeting it). Also, our managers try to get the customer the best deal, for instance a while back we had to replace an toner cartridge offsite and we charged him only the minimum offsite service fee of $100, as opposed to the $130 or so he should have been charged (it’s still a ripoff for us to go offsite which is why I advise all my customers to just bring the computer/printer/whatever to us.
I used to work at Staples here in the UK. Not a happy experience. I can well believe this story as Staples simply wanted you to sell warranties. Thats it! They did not care how you did it, even though they were not worth the paper they were written on.
There was no tech centre in the store I worked at. However, I had more technical knowledge than all of the staff, including managers!
Once, a deputy sore manager was attempting to sell a customer a laptop. “Does it have a CR-RW?” he asked. “Err… hang on, no” was was the reply, “but you can back up on USB memory sticks” was the response. Another member of staff had to tell her that the machine was equipped with a CD-RW. Unbelievable!!
On another occasion, a customer came in with a very slow Socket A Athlon XP PC she’d purchased from the very same store. It was slow due to having just 256Mb RAM. Also the CD-RW was kaput.
I told here I could fit a new one so she purchased a new one in-store and I fitted it in a few minutes. Win XP detected the drive a few seconds later.
During all this, the store manager walks in, see what I’m doing and has a face like a kicked arse.
After the customer left, he pulls me to one side and asks me what I was doing. I explained that I was simply fixing a customer’s PC. “We dont do that here, we’re not technicians”. He wanted me to fill out a form and send the machine back to the manufacturer (NEC). What he failed to realise is that I created a win-win-win situation. The sale of a CD-RW drive, no paperwork and most important, a happy and grateful customer. He was only happy when I told him I’d sold a CD-RW as he thought I’d written the device off and fitted it for free.
Many people are unfortunately promoted to a position of incompitence. Staples management are a prime example of this.
I spant a lot of time advising people on technical matters and telling them whre to buy the same or better items cheaper! I have no regrets doing that.
Wow, I am usually a lurker but I just had to comment on this one and tell my story.
Here in my area I was an “EasyTech” at my local staples. Actually I was the original EasyTech there. Notice the past tense. I eventually quit due to the fact that they basically wanted me to pull this kind of thing in order to get sales.
I will say though, a staples “tune-up” includes opening up the case and vacuuming out the dust. So that’s probably when he unseated the ram. Seriously, people if you need tech support go troll craigslist for 5 minutes, there are plenty of small businesses and individuals who are better trained offering their services for much less.
Wow yea! Great job! You’ve managed to generalize ONE tech at ONE store and you say WATCH OUT WORLD! Staples will eat your soul!!
I was an EasyTech for a full year before starting my new job at Borders. I still have EasyTech Brochures, the numbers you have about the virus removal are entirely false!
I will agree that this PARTICULAR TECH seemed to be ripping this guy off and I commend you for helping him. I would have done the same.
But just as well, at the store I worked at, if someone was about to spend more than $200 repairing a laptop. I would give them the OPTION to consider whether or not it’s worth it, or just get a new one.
I sell IT equipment to MIS departments and hear stories all the time about best buys, staples, circuit city, etc they work on a used car salesman mentality, ie charge a lot, “you’ll never see them again anyway”. Recently a client was faced with buying $90,000 in software, I told him save your money another solution is less than $10,000 something I didn’t sell as the software was sold direct only. Why? Repeat business, I’d rather lose a sale than lose a customer. Sad state of affairs when companies, big companies don’t pick up on that simple business 101.
I work at Staples, and even though I dont fix computers my self I do sell them and know quite alot about them. I can probably explain to you everything that went wrong in this situation. While doing the free pc tune-up we dust and vacum the computers. While doing so we could’ve by accident pressed on the RAM release knob. If the computer did not work after that we really should’ve made a free diagnostic on the computer because it was probably our fault that computer stopped working, but because the person was new he didn’t know the policy on staples easy tech service. So this is why he offered a diagnostic test for 49.99 which is currently 69.99 (inflation). ahahaha. While doing so he also offered the diff things that could resolve the problem, 1-virus, 2-ram. Both of them were lagitemate reasons. Seeing that the customer is older he offered the home sollutions which are more exp because we are sending a proffesional over to their house and not just joe shmoe who used to fix computers for pizza money. There are reasons for everything, I do agree that not all staples workers are trained to their best, but at the same time we dont have a quota or anything like that, and the customers can be quite an exp to deal with…. You dont want us to start complaining about every single thing that customers do wrong.
Staples, called “Bureau En Gros” in the province of Québec in Canada, is the compâny that probably is the biggest theft. I presently work for Staples, repairing computers half of the time (since they supposedly have three “easy techs”, myself, one certified Staples technician, and another Sales representative repairing computers.) You would be disgusted by how much staples try to rip people off. I got hired there thinking that it looked like a decent place, but I was betrayed and now Ièm working in thieves hideout. If you are going to go get your computer fixed, PLEASE take the advice of a Staples employee ( well, employee for the moment, Im quitting this disgusting fraudulent job)and go and get your computer fixed elsewhere, if you donèt want a 400$ bill after your supposed free diagnostic.
At one time I was doing in-home computer repairs in the Phoenix area. Not too surprisingly, I had a lot of regular customers in the Sun City retirement area.
My policy was always, “No fix, no charge”. Most of my calls were for printer problems and they usually required no more than a software upgrade.
I never charged for installing one of the free virus removal programs. I normally carried a CD with one or two on it in case they had a very slow on no internet connection.
Most of the “tune-ups” were no more than a defrag and a registry scan. I like to have the user do it themselves while I walked them through it so they could take care of it themselves. I did have a book I wrote to sell them, “Living With RAM Without Getting a Mega-Byte”. But if their hourly charge was more than $50, I’d give it to them for free.
From giving customer service seminars I knew that, “It’s always cheaper to make a customer happy than it is to make them mad.” Maybe Staples needs a seminar?
….isn’t it against the law to go in to a business and do what you did? i mean good for the old person but the concept is obvious for example, it is your duty to make love to your wife, and staples comes into your house and offers to do it better. the only difference is one is legal. just as if someone came into a store and trys to recruit a person for his/her business, the company can press charges, i hope justice comes your way. but good job for the old person
also maybe it was illegal to do what staples did but you will be the one at fault, as for if a cop enters a house without permission (against the law) and notices drugs (against the law) the one with the drugs will not be in trouble do to the illegal action to obtain the illegal case you the cop, as staples the victim