Got a couple to relate here, one computer related, one not.
1. My poor wife just about had a heart attack a few days ago. Our car we just paid cash for broke down, shortly after she drove it into the ditch, and despite it recovering on its own, we decided it was best for us to get a mekkanik to check it out. So the first person we go to charges us $90 and drops the bomb: the entire front end is shot. "If you try to bring this out on the highway, it will die." The final bill has two options on it: the "bare minimum" cost to make the car safe is $1100 more, and the "this is what you REALLY want done with it to feel secure" cost is $1800. My wife was in tears on the phone!
So naturally, we decide a second opinion is in order. This time, the car goes to a friend of my parents who we trust. He is not told about the previous mechanic and his diagnosis.
Second mechanic's report: $40 for the examination, and a "You'll want to get the front end checked again in another year or two." NO WORK NECESSARY NOW.
SOMEONE's riding a friggin' gravy train. :flame: :mad:
2. Working as a tech in that small town, I took over alpha tech status from another guy who seemed to have a pretty bad reputation. I was careful not to badmouth him or anything because I didn't know him and hadn't seen his work. The closest I came was a computer that some guy had called him for help with and he hadn't been able to figure out after a couple of weeks of trying; I had it purring nicely after two hours of work, so I felt pretty good about that.
Then just before leaving the town, I heard one of the reasons for his reputation. Apparently, he had been servicing the reserve outside of town, and there were a lot of people there who had more money than computer knowledge, and a huge network of PCs. Apparently he put a virus on their network (may or may not have happened, like I say, the people involved knew little about PCs) but then proceeded to charge them over $1000 to remove the virus from less than a dozen machines!
:mad: :mad: :mad:
The person who told me this was VERY interested in the bill I gave her for $50 after cleaning a virus off of her home machine and installing AVG for her, and promised me that she would refer people to me in the future instead...
