Computer Doctor Virus removal for €150

elambra

Hi,

I have a laptop that's 5 years old, running XP and is 1.4Ghz with 512mb RAM. The battery died and I bought a new one on ebay, which didn't work, so it can only be powered by the power lead.

I sold it to my dad for €200 last year, but soon after that it started to become very slow, especially when trying to surf the web (both in IE and FFX).
I also noticed that the processor speed went down to 250mhz, and a BIOS warning came up saying that the processor is being set to a lower speed due to a faulty power lead.

So my dad brought it into a 'Computer Doctor' the other day, and asked them to take a look at it (he wanted to know whether is was worthwhile repairing it). They just called back saying that it was full of viruses and the cost of repairing it is €150!!

Are they taking the p*ss? I was aware that there were some spyware etc. on it that would have to be removed and was planing in doing that myself, and we only really wanted to know whether there was a way to fix the processor speed, as it was assumed that this was causing it to be really slow.

My dad (doesn't have a clue about computers and could easily be taken for a ride) called them back and they said 'ok we'll charge you €120' but I'm still not happy and I'm going to go up with him tomorrow to try and get the laptop back without giving them a penny as I'd rather he put that €120 towards a new laptop as they only cost €400 these days.

Is this a case of ripping off someone who doesn't know a thing about computers? or would you actually pay that amount of money for Virus removal?
I suspect the processor speed thing is due to faulty HW (the power lead) and I'm expecting the laptop to still run at 250mhz

Thanks

Bluetonic

How many hours were spent attending to the laptop?

People don't work for free you know, then there's VAT.

If a few hours work were performed and the laptop is fixed then it sounds like a fair price.

the_syco

Get the breakdown to see what the €120 covers, as it seems a bit steep for a virus scan.

Nody

Expect to pay for handling fee etc., I'd guess at least 50 Euro for that alone.

elambra

Thanks for reply, the thing is my Dad asked them to look at it and get back to him, he didn't ask them to actually fix anything as he just wanted a quote, and they say on their leaflet that you can get a free quote.

€120 is very expensive and now that we know it will cost that much, we don't want them to fix it, we just want the laptop back. Thing is that they have already removed the Viruses.

Not our problem, we just wanted a quote.

Tar.Aldarion

If you asked for a quote you shouldn't have to pay anything. Also, next time just get antivirus or reinstall windows.

overexcitedaj

well it depends. Sounds like they did a complete reload and installed an anti-virus. Also did a full virus scan and maybe an update. Thats what that kind of a price would warrant anyway. Btw the thing that i don't like is that they went ahead without quoting you. now that was wrong.

LiamD

If you asked for a quote and did not tell them to perform the work then you shouldn't have to pay them to get your PC back as their leaflet said free quote.

elambra wrote: »

Hi,
So my dad brought it into a 'Computer Doctor' the other day, and asked them to take a look at it (he wanted to know whether is was worthwhile repairing it). They just called back saying that it was full of viruses and the cost of repairing it is €150!!

...

My dad (doesn't have a clue about computers and could easily be taken for a ride) called them back and they said 'ok we'll charge you €120' but I'm still not happy

Small point but I'd always specify that I just want a quote. 'Take a look at it' is quite vague and could be seen as fix it.

Did your dad definitely tell them not to do the work or had it already been done when he called back?

elambra

they had apparently already done the work when they rang back, he said that's very expensive and they rang back 2hrs later saying ok we'll just charge you €120.. 30 quid cheaper?!

the_syco

overexcitedaj wrote: »

well it depends. Sounds like they did a complete reload and installed an anti-virus. Also did a full virus scan and maybe an update. Thats what that kind of a price would warrant anyway. Btw the thing that i don't like is that they went ahead without quoting you. now that was wrong.

Ouch. If they did a reload, all documents may have been lost. If they didn't warn the daddio of this, they leave themselves open to a nasty lawsuit.

Hellm0

The machine is pretty old to be honest, it is to be expected that they get slower as time passes. I have worked in IT support and the virus line is a pretty standard money maker, the machine may very well have viruses on it but the largest part of the problem is quite simply that the laptop just isn't very fast anymore.

In your socks I would just buy your dad a new netbook or something, they are only a little more expensive then the price of fixing your current machine really.

foggy_lad

do not pay these cowboys anything as they were not asked to do the work but just quote for some work yet they went ahead with €150 worth of repairs without authorization! they will probably try to hold onto the laptop now and force you to pay €120 for something they were not asked to do so taking a small claims court action might be required to get your property back?

Tipsy Mac

The laptop at that age is probably worth about €50, I really can't see why you would bring it to someone for repair given that they will atleast be wanting €50 to do any kind of check on it whatsoever, it's Ireland we are living in not China.

castie

I had a company in Cork take a latop of mine in.
I thought the battery was a goner so I sent it in to check how much it would be to repair.

I returned the next day to an invoice for 120 euro, 100 of that was labour of 1 hours work (said so on the invoice) and a little note at the bottom saying the battery may be faulty. They claimed to have updated my service pack and removed spyware.

I quickly told them that if thats worth 120 euro then I should be a millionaire.
When they realised I at least seemed to know what i was talking about a manager was called from the back to see me.
He informed me that I would not be getting my laptop back until I paid the invoice. Luckily for me on the receipt they gave me for collection, the girl that took my laptop wrote "check battery, power problem" and had ticked the box next to Quote. So I asked him how an updated Service pack and removal of spyware helped them get an estimate of how much my problem was to be fixed. Eventually he very reluctantly returned my laptop after I threatened to call the cops because he was holding property belonging to me and also informing radio stations and newspapers.

If I had not known better I probably would have just paid the 120 euro and said "thanks very much". Some of these places seem to think "If they cant fix it themselves then they have no idea whats going on, so lets make a fortune".

Cunning Alias

If their leaflet says they will give you a quote for free, you shouldn't pay anything.

If they went ahead and did a remaster (wipe/format laptop and reinstalled windows) without you asking, then you can hit them with a lawsuit. Loss of data can be a big issue.

From what iv seen (someone with more experience can correct me on this) the power errors you have mentioned would make me think that the motherboard would need to be replaced. This would be more expensive to fix than buying a new laptop.

Let us know how it goes.

Nothingcompares

you sold your dad a dud laptop for 200 euro? shame on you

Tar.Aldarion

yeah a grand sounds better. He doesn't know what's going on.

monkeyfudge

He markets himself as a doctor... go get a second opinion... Marx Computers down the road in Fairview are cheaper and I'd trust them more.

kmurph

Speaking as someone who does these kind of virus/spyware removals regularly as part of my job, €150/120 does sound a bit expensive. Although, having said that, they can be very time consuming depending on how badly infected the pc is.

I've often had to spend a couple of hours just getting a badly infected pc to a point where I can actually run any of my anti-virus/spyware tools as a lot of spyware is now clever enough that they'll stop you from running certain programs or block access to their download sites. After that, I have 8 or 9 different programs that I use in both safe mode and normal mode to do cleanups along with sometimes having to manually find and remove files or make changes to the registry. There's no magic bullet software that will do everything.

We usually give a flat fee for this kind of work which probably doesn't make much business sense but realistically it's almost impossible to know how long a job is going to take beforehand. The handy thing about them is that a lot of what you're doing is running scans which you can let run by themselves without having to interact with them the whole time leaving you free to work on other things at the same time. So you're not necessarily spending 8 solid hours just working on 1 computer.

As regards talk of suing due to loss of data, any pc repair company that knows what they're doing will have some sort of disclaimer stating that data backups are solely the responsibility of the customer and the company will not be held liable for any loss of data incurred during work being done. This has been the case in the couple of places that I've worked. One shop even had a big sign at the counter where we booked the jobs in stating this just to make it totally clear.

The most depressing thing I see is people bringing in pc's with dead hard drives which have dvd/cd-writers installed but they've never actually used them.

If I have to do a full Windows reinstall (which is normally a last resort), I will contact the customer beforehand and explain to them what I'm doing. I will usually back up their "My Documents" folder but a lot of people have stuff stored elsewhere and they can't necessarily tell me exactly where so there's not much you can do about that if stuff is lost.

The same goes for reinstalling programs. If someone has a dodgy copy of Office or Photoshop installed, we won't reinstall those. Only if the customer has the original install cd's and licence keys would we reinstall. If they don't, then tough.

Anyway, long story short, I know a lot of people do consider this kind of work to be a bit of a rip-off but there is a lot more to it than just running a copy of AVG or Norton.

ednwireland

have you ever tried cleaning viruses off a PC i usually run 3 or 4 different virus scanners to ensure you've got them all( once you have one you'll normally have more) i've spent days trying to get machinery clean wihout a re-install (no-one ever wants to lose their data or software in my experience.
i wouldnt charge €150 but i try to avoid those sort of jobs cos you always lose on them.
best one i had was a guy complaining i'd Changed a PSU pc didnt boot beforehand booted perfectly with new 400w PSU. he was telling me he knew about electronics and there was nothing wrong with the psu he'd tested it with a multi meter, i'd tested it with a psu tester and it was fine for about 2 mins when you started it then it died.

+1 to everything kmurph said

craichoe

elambra wrote: »

Hi,

I have a laptop that's 5 years old, running XP and is 1.4Ghz with 512mb RAM. The battery died and I bought a new one on ebay, which didn't work, so it can only be powered by the power lead.

I sold it to my dad for €200 last year, but soon after that it started to become very slow, especially when trying to surf the web (both in IE and FFX).
I also noticed that the processor speed went down to 250mhz, and a BIOS warning came up saying that the processor is being set to a lower speed due to a faulty power lead.

So my dad brought it into a 'Computer Doctor' the other day, and asked them to take a look at it (he wanted to know whether is was worthwhile repairing it). They just called back saying that it was full of viruses and the cost of repairing it is €150!!

Are they taking the p*ss? I was aware that there were some spyware etc. on it that would have to be removed and was planing in doing that myself, and we only really wanted to know whether there was a way to fix the processor speed, as it was assumed that this was causing it to be really slow.

My dad (doesn't have a clue about computers and could easily be taken for a ride) called them back and they said 'ok we'll charge you €120' but I'm still not happy and I'm going to go up with him tomorrow to try and get the laptop back without giving them a penny as I'd rather he put that €120 towards a new laptop as they only cost €400 these days.

Is this a case of ripping off someone who doesn't know a thing about computers? or would you actually pay that amount of money for Virus removal?
I suspect the processor speed thing is due to faulty HW (the power lead) and I'm expecting the laptop to still run at 250mhz

Thanks

I think your dad should be posting in consumer issues saying his son sold him a knackered laptop with a wrecked battery and power supply for 200 euros. I think you should give your dad the money back and let him buy one that works.

elambra

craichoe wrote: »

I think your dad should be posting in consumer issues saying his son sold him a knackered laptop with a wrecked battery and power supply for 200 euros. I think you should give your dad the money back and let him buy one that works.

I think you should keep your opinions to yourself and stay out of this post if you are not going to stick to the point.

overexcitedaj

kmurph makes a real good point about the time. I too do this as a job and my God if its bad enough your day is gone tending to that particular pc .

DarkJager

Not sure about the other "troubleshooters" here, but surely to god a few scans will let you know how bad the infection is? You then have the choice of slugging through the PC for hours trying to wipe them out, or you could simply just re-install the operating system. It baffles me how someone could see €150 as being justifiable for what is essentially 2 hours of work max if you're good enough.

€150 for a virus removal service is an absolute rip off, regardless of what they charge for "handling" charges. I'd suggest you go somewhere more reputable if you can. Hell, I'm in a christmassy mood so I'm more than happy to give you a hand via PM if you want, no charge

boopolo

I am always getting landed with laptops from family friends that are riddled. If I had a € for each ..... I'd be a rich man. Can take hours, but I dont need to be with it all the time. He would probably run an AV scan or two. Then an anti spyware. Then he would probably use something like System Mechanic to check for other problems and 'tune up' the laptop.

But it sounds that there may be a root/bios infection.

Sponge Bob

Rootkit removal is well worth €150 given teh time and skillz involved .

Tell him stay of the porn sites in future

craichoe

elambra wrote: »

I think you should keep your opinions to yourself and stay out of this post if you are not going to stick to the point.

Come on... Complaining about a 150 euro charge and then admitting that the laptop wouldnt even be worth it to repair hence you sold it to your dad...

On top of that you posted this on a public forum .. On the internet and ask people to keep their opinions to themselves.. Give me a break.

Its up to them what they charge because you are paying for their time. you could make the same argument about a plumber but ffs .. Your dad didnt lose anything ..so where is the issue ?

foggy_lad

getting back on track the op stated that his father asked for a quote which was going to be free yet the cowboys did work without being asked and then asked for €150 at first and then €120, they seem a bit desperate to get some reward, they should get nothing as the work was not authorised by anyone!

Darragh29

elambra wrote: »

Thanks for reply, the thing is my Dad asked them to look at it and get back to him, he didn't ask them to actually fix anything as he just wanted a quote, and they say on their leaflet that you can get a free quote.

€120 is very expensive and now that we know it will cost that much, we don't want them to fix it, we just want the laptop back. Thing is that they have already removed the Viruses.

Not our problem, we just wanted a quote.

120 Euro is not expensive in my opinion. I think you should just pay it, it's not excessive and they've given you a result.

Darragh29

foggy_lad wrote: »

getting back on track the op stated that his father asked for a quote which was going to be free yet the cowboys did work without being asked and then asked for €150 at first and then €120, they seem a bit desperate to get some reward, they should get nothing as the work was not authorised by anyone!

Is it fair on this business that they look at the laptop, diagnose the problem, tell the OP the problem, gives the OP a quotation and then the OP takes that information for free and uses the business for a free diagnosis and goes off and uses this free information to resolve the issue?

It looks to me like the OP is planning to use the business to have the problem diagnosed for free and just doesn't want to spend money. These folks have a business to run and provide a service and if you don't want to spend money, then I suggest you shouldn't have gone to them in the first place.

Also, free quote does not equal free diagnosis of a problem...

castie

He wanted a Quote not a blow by blow account of what was wrong.

um7y1h83ge06nx

I'm going to give my own 2 cents here.

I do virus/spyware removal for about €60 (more if I had to travel a distance to pick-up/drop-off PC).

This would include full virus/spyware removal, plus a sit-down with the customer (approx. 15mins) in front of their PC/laptop explaining what was done, and some tips to prevent problems in the future (for instance, one customer had an out of date version of Norton. I installed AVG Free as an alternative and explained how to use it).

Being honest, I have never had to format a PC in order to solve a virus/spyware issue and I have came across badly infected PCs. I'd be sceptical of any person using a format for this type of problem, it's a hint that the person doesn't really know what they're doing.

Formatting or 'reloading' a PC will definitely remove any virus/spyware but it's like using a sledge hammer to kill a fly.

Then again, maybe I should charge more!

elambra

Good news all (except craichoe cos he's just looking for confrontation, shame on you it's christmas)....

We went in and they said they would reverse the 'work' they done and give it back to us for free. The processor was still running at 250mhz and after pulling out a few technical questions they admitted that they could not fix the processor speed as it was a 'hardware problem'

Anyway I got home and realised that the charger is nearly bust, so I stuck in my own charger and the laptop immediately became faster, now running back at 1.4ghz. Fixed.

Internet is still a bit slow but I'm working on scanning the crap out of it to see if I can get rid of these nasty things slowing it down..

Happy days

elambra

craichoe wrote: »

Come on... Complaining about a 150 euro charge and then admitting that the laptop wouldnt even be worth it to repair hence you sold it to your dad...

On top of that you posted this on a public forum .. On the internet and ask people to keep their opinions to themselves.. Give me a break.

Its up to them what they charge because you are paying for their time. you could make the same argument about a plumber but ffs .. Your dad didnt lose anything ..so where is the issue ?

Listen, this is a public forum entitled 'Consumer Issues' therefore relevant opinions regarding the topic and my concern are welcome. If your here to pick a fight then I suggest you go somewhere else. Why do people always write with their ego's on forums? ooo your going to have to write back now arent you? to get the last word?

back to the point, It's up to ME how much I let someone charge me, and I was not going to let someone charge me that huge amount for such little work. My dad was about to lose €120, that was the issue.

Anyway, this issue has been resolved now, so this thread is finished.

craichoe

elambra wrote: »

Listen, this is a public forum entitled 'Consumer Issues' therefore relevant opinions regarding the topic and my concern are welcome. If your here to pick a fight then I suggest you go somewhere else. Why do people always write with their ego's on forums? ooo your going to have to write back now arent you? to get the last word?

back to the point, It's up to ME how much I let someone charge me, and I was not going to let someone charge me that huge amount for such little work. My dad was about to lose €120, that was the issue.

Anyway, this issue has been resolved now, so this thread is finished.

A. Its not your money its your dads, and there was no money exchanged in the first place. You dad did not no how to do this himself to resolve the issue, the company he went to is a business and they provided a service for a charge.
B. If someone does a job for you just because you know how to do it doesn't automatically make the work a rip-off, a plumber for example could charge 180 euro for cleaning your boiler, your paying for their knowledge. I could get a mate to do it for free.
C. Thats not an unreasonable charge for the amount of time involved in doing it.

Theres no fight, just if someone in Consumer issue bitches about a business, but theres two sides to every coin.

elambra

craichoe wrote: »

A. Its not your money its your dads, and there was no money exchanged in the first place. You dad did not no how to do this himself to resolve the issue, the company he went to is a business and they provided a service for a charge.
B. If someone does a job for you just because you know how to do it doesn't automatically make the work a rip-off, a plumber for example could charge 180 euro for cleaning your boiler, your paying for their knowledge. I could get a mate to do it for free.
C. Thats not an unreasonable charge for the amount of time involved in doing it.

Theres no fight, just if someone in Consumer issue bitches about a business, but theres two sides to every coin.

There are people on this who will do it for €60, which to me sounds more reasonable. If they provided the service for a more reasonable charge then I would have advised my father to go ahead. But it was too expensive. I am now going to do it myself and go about the more tedious route of re-installing windows.

It is well known that there is a rip-off culture in Ireland. I try my best not to get caught out my it. Based on the advise on this thread and also my own judgement, I feel as a consumer that the price was too much, so I didn't go ahead with the service. That's the way things happen. That's why pubs are empty in Ireland, that's why not as many people eat out as in UK/EU/USA, because people charge too much for things and consumers have a choice.

While I accept what you are saying, in my particular situation this is my choice.

Regarding my financial relationship with my father, I'm not going to get into it on a public forum.

AARRRGH

This thread is ridiculous.

The cost of the laptop is irrelevant.

The only issue is this -

If your father clearly asked them for a quote, and they went ahead and fixed it anyway, well then that's their problem and you shouldn't have to pay them anything.

Are you absolutely certain your non-technical father made it clear he only wanted a quote?

Regarding the "rip off" price. Get real. You brought the laptop to a professional. €150 is not a huge amount of money to pay a professional.

Also, as someone with strong technical skills and who has done a lot of virus removal for people in the past, some viruses are nasty ****ers and take quite a few hours of work.

Sid71

First things first! If they quote for free then they should have done so.
As regards virus's, Microsoft have admitted that a virus can get so deep into the kernel of the operating system that it just cant be removed. so the most cost effective way is just save what you can and reinstall:)

I work in Marx and we normally charge between €100-150 depending on how difficult the machine is to clean, though if it's a simple fix we'd use common sense and go lower. The ballpark figure is actually more than what we charge for a Windows reinstall. It can be much more time consuming than simply formatting the drive and reloading Windows but at least none of the customer's data or applications will be lost - so many people don't realise that you lose MS Office by doing a clean install. I only reinstall if I absolutely have to or if the customer decides to.

Sid71

Yes but with a reinstall you know its back to its original state, and sure you have to have to install all the drivers and apps but its the only way to know for sure that its clean and free of virus.
Thats the way I do it.You could spend all day and night and still not get all the trash that has accumulated on the drive.
So as I said save what you can and reinstall.