How to avoid computer repair fraud - geek squad

Submitted by Patrick Grote on Sat, 12/09/2006 - 5:00am.

As the family technical support contact for PCs, I am often hit up for help in fixing people's computers. Very rarely do I have to deliver bad news that the computer is dead. All the work is done for free. The reason is that their my family and you do things like that for family.

On Digg a You Tube video showed up that supposedly shows computer repair fraud. Take a look at it:

Now, I think the video is dated. If you look at the style of PCs you'll see they are older. Still, the simple process of removing the IDE cable from the hard drive is simple enough to fix. Best Buy's Geek Squad misdiagnosed it as a bad power supply. I don't know how they did that, as the PC had power, but that was there story.

There was only one company that tried to pad the repair estimate. The neat thing is that everyone else got it right. The problem is that they have minimum charges to fix things. Something as simple as plugging in a cable ranged in fees from $69.96 to $129.95. Only one store, an independent, fixed it for free.

I've always thought that running a computer repair store would be cool, but you can't do that today. PCs have become such a commodity that it's almost cheaper to buy a new PC.

What is the future of PC repair? I don't know, but you have to look at for the frauds.