Wow, that is rediculous. You can remove viruses for free with all sorts of FREE programs.

Good job, Michael. More people should be willing to help out others in our society these days, whether they are helping the young or old.

actually I think this is what happens when it's miniumum wage people working at the stores and not people that are actually trained to fix computers. I would think it would almost always be a better deal to find an independent person to fix, who doesn't have anything to upsell, than going to a store, who's main goal is to sell, not repair

kudos for Michael...

I have always considered starting a low-cost, neighborhood-based computer repair service. There are a lot of elderly people in our neighborhood, and they are probably very easy for the big-box stores to take advantage of.

Michael... you rock! Way to go, helping an old geezer out!

My heater failed last February. I called a repair shop who sent someone out to look at it, said it was the circuit board and it'd cost $750 plus labor. I threw him out of the house after paying the $80 "dispatch" fee, then looked up the part number of the board on the net, searched ebay, got a replacement for $60 and installed it by removing three screws and an edge connector and replacing with new board.

Seems like unless you are an expert in a field or know someone who is, you're going to get ripped off royally, whether it's car repairs, HVAC issues, computers, termite prevention, etc, etc.

ugh!, I dont see how people can work jobs where they are basically just ripping people off. Dispicable!

Blame the senior comments in 5...4...3...2...

"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)."

That's quite true, but conversely, maybe the old man should be a little less trusting of a large stranger he just met in a retail store.

Yay, Michael!

Although I think somebody is owed a plate of fresh cookies and a large, ice-cold glass of milk.

@dualityshift: Whoa - that was uncanny. Not even a minute later...

Good job buddy. i feel sorry for people that aren't tech savvy in the slightest.

my dad still thinks that the bigger the hard drive the better the computer. i don't think he is aware of the existence of RAM, graphics cards, video cards, etc... he thinks everything is in the hard drive.

every couple of years he'll drop a couple thousand on a new free cell machine.

i try and i fail everytime.

I do part time computer repair for seniors locally at $25/hr. Most of the time I don't even charge them, it is more of a hobby than a business. Everyone should try to give back to thier community in one way or another.

$390? Even if a desktop computer really NEEDED $390 worth of work it's not likely to be worth it. If your machine is not longer under warranty, odds are that technology has moved far enough on that you can replace a desktop with a MORE powerful one for $500 or so, and get a warranty with the new one.

I definitely concur with the advice about avoiding big-box computer repair. It seems like 1/3 of the "I hate BestBuy" articles on here are about a computer-repair/geek squad issue, everyone already knew CompUSA was useless and now we hear that Staples wants to rape their customers as well. (I built my desktop machine, I didn't even know Staples OFFERED computer repair services.)

I'd think you'd make good money out of it without cheating people, go for it. It makes me sick when people take advantage of anybody, but especially the elderly, cuz won't most of us be elderly someday?@tmccartney:

@weave:

I agree. Years ago I was having problems with an odd noise underneath my vehicle. SO I assumed it had something to do with the transmission (I am no mechanic). I took it to a transmission place where the guy in the office proceeded to chat me up about transmissions in what I believe was an attempt to find out how knowledgable I was about them. Then he starts talking about replacing my transmission & how when they pull the pan off they are not legally allowed to suggest any fix by what they find in the bottom of the pan (I thought this quite an odd thing to bring up). So the mechanic comes out about a half hour later to show me the pan & there are what looks like bright flecks of gold in the oil (suppossedly brass). The mechanic looks at me like I am supposed to suggest something has to be done. I know I am getting scammed right then & there, look the mechanic in the eye & tell him to put the pan back on. Right then they know that I am on to their bullshit. They put the pan back on & then tell me it was probably my catalytic converter that was causing the noise. I get charged about $130 for the "work" & the miserable bastard even jokingly asked for a tip while processing my credit card payment & even SAID that he wasnt trying to rip me off when I was walking out the door.

The messed up thing about it all is that I felt I had no recourse ... what was I gonna do? call someone in authority to say that I "thought" I was being ripped off? WHat's the likelyhood anything would be done about it? Probably nothing. I'd feel better if I took a crowbar to the heads of these scumbags, than report them to someone who doesnt care.

It is SO hard to find a good mechanic these days it just isnt even funny. I still havnt found one I trust.

So how much did you steal at the guy's house? [Just kidding, of course.]

Staples should stick to selling staples, otherwise they should change their name to The Sneak Squad...sneaky computer services for the meek and tech challenged.

@weave: Angie's List. I've found it quite useful in finding good service companies and contractors, and in avoiding bad ones.

I bought a house last year that had central air, and the air handler had a gas furnace that had never been hooked up since the thing was installed in 2001. The dolt I bought the house from claimed he "preferred the floor furnace" but I'm thinking he didn't include running a gas line to the furnace in the contract to get the HVAC installed and never got around to it... that old floor furnace was a bomb waiting to go off.

Anyway, I was planning to have the furnace inspected before what passes for Winter in TX, and we got an early cold snap. The furnace didn't work (I'd had the gas connected along with a bunch of other work I did on the house.) The exhaust fan cycled on, the igniter lit, but no flame.

I checked Angie's List, called a highly-rated one and they came out same-day, no extra fee. It turns out that the front cover was a little bent, keeping it from clicking in far enough to engage a safety switch. $60 basic trip charge/inspection fee, he checked out the system, made sure it cycled properly and thanked me for my business. I'll definitely call them next time I need something related to the HVAC.

That is what you get when you hire salesmen over real techs and you cut the hours of the people who know what they are doing and don't try to push unnecessary stuff.

Any ways Staples prices are a big ripoff in the first place.

Just look at this discussion about there prices best buy has better prices then staples.
[www.dslreports.com]

And that also leads to people looking at that you worked for places like Geek Squad and just push over you thinking that you where just ripping people off.

@Joedragon:

A comparison against Best Buy? That's fairly laughable. They're just as bad as, if not worse than, Staples.

As for the original article, this is why it always pays to know someone into computers. I'm sure the old guy must have at least a kid or grandchild that knows SOMETHING about computers or knows someone who does.

Am I the only one who was looking forward to the end of the story? Something like "I got the computer all fixed up and the geezer ended up giving me $500 because he turned out to be a millionaire!"

but. ... nothing.

all too true. thought this is pretty low of them, if it is true that CC set it up to appear there was a problem and sell him BS to "fix" it. however, having worked at the tech shop at compusa, i know they will try just about anything to make sure you sell whatever you can. i would always feel bad about it, and i just shrugged off the requests from the managers that i sell more crap services for high prices. whenever a customer was in disbelief of their options, and expressed interest in taking it somewhere else, i would just give them my card. i made more that way working once or twice a month than i did in an entire month at compusa

Man, there at a lot of comments about the for-profit Angieslist showing up in various posts and on various. Creepy viral marketing push going on.

I help my 86-year-old grandfather with stuff where he has to deal with salespeople and you wouldn't believe how people try and screw him. As soon as I or someone younger shows up they change their tune. It's infuriating.

I hope there's a special place in hell for that douche bag Staples employee. Ripping off senior citizens is about as low as it gets.

@weave: I had something similar happen with my Heater/AC. Middle of February the heater died. Called and got someone to come out and left a check with my Mother-in-law. I forget exactly what it was but the repair cost $500. After she gave him the check he recommended that we not use the heater since there were other defects and the possibility of Carbon Monoxide leaking into the house was high, then he left. I was Pissed. After stewing all weekend, the person who could help me was off, I had the money refunded and the part removed. Got a new heater from someone else. Would have gone with them except for the crap I had to put up with over the weekend.

funny, this happens to me a lot. sometimes I have to shop at bb/cc (if a client wants something setup immediately, for example). once in a while I overhear a geek/firedog explaining that for $400 they can have norton, spysweeper, office, a recovery dvd and their OS optimized (normally a ::gasp:: $700 value). I cringe whenever I hear this. From there I hand them my business card, tell them to get office student/teacher edition, and I will do the same for them AT HOME in under an hour (I charge $80/hr w/a 1hr minimum, and it always takes under an hour to setup).

these people are always thrilled when I'm done (they usually pay in cash with a nice fat tip) since I saved them over $200, they don't need to deal with going back to the store and picking up their computer, and I feel I did my part for society to stick it to the box stores.

I only hope staples doesn't become the next CUSA/CC/BB/TD. They're one of the few stores I still respect

@rkmc12: Yeah, I'm like that with my grandmother. Every time she mentions she needs to buy something electronic I offer to go with her, because I don't want her to get screwed. If it's not possible for me to go along, I tell her what she should be looking for and how much it should cost, just to be safe.

@weave: My husband and I try to do anything we can ourselves (with some help from my dad). Almost all car work is done by the two of us. My husband takes care of any computer issues. We also bought a house last year, and pretty much all the repairs we can handle will be done by us. We've already replaced some wiring and put up drywall (after taking down lathe and plaster) and insulation in one room. It's a lot of work, but it's good to know that we're not paying 8 times what the job is worth.

TD prices are at lot better then Staples and they have real tech that fixed a system that I built and got a bad cpu and mb FOR FREE.

This was at the Naperville, IL Outlet Store.

It is nice to have a place where you can get stuff form the big warehouse the SAME DAY!

TD?

What Staples did here is appalling.

@ghnvt: Virus removal is not always a simple matter of running some anti-virus software. Nod32 and Kaspersky can do a great job, but good luck with any others against newer viruses. The OS needs repairs after many infections as well. Spyware is even worse.

I was at Best But the other day and some dude was being charged $1,400 for repairing his computer. The guy obviously could not afford it and was pleading for a break.

@tmccartney:

Tiger Direct

@rrapynot:
$1400...for a repair??? That's just grand larceny if it didn't involve some kind of "clean room" data recovery.

if it takes more than 2-3 hours to repair a computer, it shouldn't be repaired at all. Get whatever files they want off of it, and get a new computer.

@ClayS: That's what I was thinking!

sometimes you just have to do good things, cuz it's the right thing to do..I was happy with the ending@sam1am:

A very similar thing happened to my wife when she took our computer into the local Staples (Toronto-Vic Park & Ellesmere)for an anti virus check. They wanted about $200 plus purchase Norton Anti Virus which is advertised for free as part of our provider's (Roger's)package.

Ok, since I work at Staples I'd like to dispute a few things here. First off, the virus removal service isn't $149 - its $89 which is a pretty dang good price considering the work it takes to clean up most peoples computers (however, the $149 might have also covered the cost of the software and removal) I've seen more horror machines in the two years I've worked for them than I ever did freelancing on my own; Kaspersky and spybot aren't going to fix most of them. Nuking them from orbit is often the best way but even thats questionable considering the users. Heck, most of the people who come in don't even have AV, let alone one thats been updated in the past two or three years. You wonder why the technicians try and upsell? 1.) So we don't have to fix it again or get yelled at as to why we didn't remove the massive spyware infections on a free service and 2.) We're actually nice people and don't WANT you losing $10k from your online bank account do to the trojan that steals your passwords that you type into an open phishing site.

Also, if the technicians got the system to boot in the first place enough to run their analyzer and did everything else they do for the free tuneup they're not going to accidentally knock memory out; the machine booted. Maybe, just "maybe" the memory module got knocked around at some point in the taking it from the store to the customers home? Thats just slightly more likely.

As to why they go inside the computer in the first place - we clean them out. Most users don't ever clean the PC out. The hair balls, dust build up, and yes, even dead mice are disgusting but hey - heats an enemy to your PC too.

Now don't get me wrong, maybe their store is run differently than the dozen or so in my district that I interact with on a daily basis (and have trained most of the technicians) but I could be wrong.

Final note - the pc-tuneup used to showup as $39 on the invoice and ring up as that but then was instantly discounted with a coupon code. Now it shows as $0.01 and coupons out as well.

Btw, if there is questions about how Staples does things or charges please feel free to ask. I wouldn't mind setting the record straight

@ghnvt: The programs may be free, but the expertise isn't a given. That's why there's a market for PC repair services, rotten as it may be sometimes.

Do you have higher ups that try to have you or other techs push stuff?

Are you graded on how much you make for the store vs saving the customers money by not pushing over priced add ons?

Why does staples want there techs to set recycle bin space to 2mb?

Are you able to run Microsoft update or do they want you make customers pay more for that?

How do you get parts that staples does not have?

@ghnvt: Actually, mate, sometimes a virus or worm can so heavily take over your system that you cannot trust your antivirus or any antivirus any further. Simple technician trick; hook up the infected hard drive to a machine with an antivirus installed, run said antivirus on infected drive in safety. Though this works great in theory, the truth is most of the time it doesn't get rid of everything, and viruses/spyware/adware love to call up their buddies and bring them along to the party that is your machine. They replicate. ******The safest and only way to be absolutely sure you are virus/worm free is to reload your windows from a fresh format and start all over again***** It's the hard truth, but it's the only 100.0000% way of being sure, and for a technician who gets paid to be sure, sometimes it's the only way you can approach a customer who is tired of the struggling.