Computer People, The

Review: This business was taking many weeks to attempt to repair my laptop computer. On two occasions, they notified me to tell me my laptop was fixed, and each time I picked it up, I had to bring it right back because it wasn't repaired properly. By this time, I'd already paid them in full for the repairs (over $500). When I complained about the extraordinarily slow pace in which they were moving, they offered me a loaner laptop, assuring me that they weren't going to charge me for the use of the loaner.A few weeks later, while I was out of town, I received a call from this business, stating that my laptop was finally repaired. I arrived back into town two days later, and when I walked into the business to pick up my laptop, I was presented with a $40.00 bill for use of the loaner. I informed the associate (presumably one of the owners) that I wasn't going to pay extra for something that was promised at no charge, he immediately grabbed my laptop and told me that was going to put a lien on it until I paid the $40.Because I sorely needed my laptop back, I handed him my credit card to pay this final charge. The associate told me that he was going to run the card as a debit card, in the event I decided to later dispute this charge. When he realized that this was not a debit card, he ran it anyway, then told me that if I dispute this extra charge, he was going to find my friend who picked up the loaner for me, and sue him for the money.Desired Settlement: I'd spent over two months and over $500 at this business, in an effort to have my laptop properly repaired. I was extremely unhappy about all of this. But when my laptop was finally repaired, I'd planned on bringing it home and quietly avowing to never do business with these people again. But after all that I'd already been through with them, this associate forced me to pay extra money to pick up my laptop, arrogantly threatening to keep the laptop otherwise.

Business

Response:

From: The Computer People

RE: Complaint ID 10181041

The customer’s laptop was dropped off for service on May 6th, 2014. He was informed that the computer would not be looked at until around May the 16th due to backlog. He described the problem was that the laptop was slow. He also stated that he reloaded the laptop and it was slow and had no video after.

Upon looking at the laptop, the laptop was not booting. It was discovered there was physical damage to the motherboard of the laptop. Some of the retainer clips for the RAM modules were broken off and the others were stretched to the point they were not holding the RAM in place. We notified the customer that in order to repair the laptop, the motherboard would need to be replaced. The customer thought the transaction over for several days before contacting us to go ahead with the repair. The part was then was also bad. We quoted the customer on a new drive replacement and informed him that the drive may be able to be mirrored to save on labor costs. The customer stated he had a replacement drive and would bring it in. We mirrored the customer’s faulty hard drive onto the used replacement hard drive he delivered to us. The computer then booted into Windows. Updates to the Windows operating system and other software were performed. Along the process, the computer was rebooted several times. The computer was then shut down on May 27th for the customer to pick up on May 28th. Upon pickup, the customer paid the balance of his bill. The bill was $363.23 in total. The customer then went to his car where he attempted to boot the laptop and it came up to an error page. Unfortunately, this is the first time the error page was displayed. It had not appeared during the time we had the laptop.

The customer left the laptop for us to fix the remaining issue. The problem did not present itself consistently. Intermittent problems are very difficult to troubleshoot and repair. It is a lengthy process. After several days of trying to reproduce the problem with no success, we tested every part of the laptop using the manufacturer’s tests. All of the part of the laptop passed the tests. After several more days, the computer failed again. To practically eliminate the possibility of the problem being caused by software, we completely wiped the system and reloaded it at no additional cost to the customer. Several more days of testing were performed with no further errors being displayed. The laptop was shelved for the customer to pick it up. The customer again attempted to pick up the laptop on or about June 12th. We wanted to make sure he saw it running at the front counter before leaving the store. While attempting to demonstrate the working laptop, it again immediately displayed an error page. At that point, we took the laptop back into service to further troubleshooting. On June 13th, the customer called and expressed that this problem was taking longer than he expected to repair. We immediately offered to loan him a laptop while his was being looked at again. He informed us that he was not in town but would have a friend pick up the loaner. We wrote out a loaner contract to cover us in the case of destruction of the laptop by any means, or the customer keeping the laptop for any length of time after his was repaired. The contract clearly stated that the laptop will be returned “upon request by The Computer People within 24 hours. It is further agreed upon that after the 24 hour grace period, the laptop will be considered rented at a rate of $20 per day until returned.”

On or about June 17th, it was determined (audibly) that the used hard drive, provided by the client had a bad bearing. (It is common for a drive with a bad bearing to test “good” as this one did. They also tend to have intermittent problems.) We notified the customer that a new replacement for his hard drive was needed. The customer returned the phone call a week later and stated he would drop off a new hard drive. A new hard drive was dropped off on or about July 3rd to be installed in the customer’s laptop. A second complete reload of the customer’s laptop was done, again at no additional cost to the customer. The job was completed on July 7th, and the customer was notified at that his laptop was completed and ready for pickup and he needed to deliver the loaner laptop back to us. On July 11th, the customer returned the loner laptop and picked up his computer. He was presented with a bill for the rental of the laptop $40, and stated he did not want to pay the rental. He stated that he was in Baton Rouge (90 miles away) for the last few days, so he could not return any sooner. The customer was informed that if any part of his bill was unpaid then a service lean would be placed on his equipment. At that point the customer paid the bill stating he would just dispute the charges. We informed the customer that he had no grounds to dispute the charge since there was a signed contract. He then threatened to write bad reviews all over the internet.

To summarize, the customer’s laptop was found to have a bad motherboard, and bad hard drive. The motherboard was replaced with a certified replacement from us. He delivered to us a used, bad hard drive which initially tested good. Once it was discovered that the used hard drive he provided was bad, he delivered a new hard drive to us. Even though it was not our fault that the computer failed due to his used, faulty hard drive, we did not charge the customer any additional money to completely reload his system again (typically a $150.00 labor charge). Had new parts been used, (per norm), and had he responded promptly to our calls, the job would have only taken a couple of weeks, including lead time. This was the projected timeframe from the start. In addition, the customer’s bill never came close to the “over $500” as he claimed in his letter to you.

The Computer People

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I was charged $70/hr to have my computer serviced. An hour being a full week. I was told I would be called when the computer is ready or if an additional hour is needed. That never happened. We ended up calling them only to be told my computer isn't ready and we may have to pay another $70 or $150 for a clean swipe. either way we would be notified before charges. still no phone call. Again we had to call them (the following Monday) and was told the computer was ready. when my husband went to pick up the computer we were charged an additional $70. No warning. one of the workers grabbed my computer and went to the back of the store even though it was established that they never called. Horrible customer service