Advice needed-computer customer gone mad

[Dessie \"Haloia\"]

Hello, I have a strange problem regarding my husband's handyman job.
A woman brought us her sister's laptop, wanting to get it fixed, and
ask us to build her one. He got her one of those 'bare bones' kits
that had a pentium 4, 100 megs ram... all that good stuff, for just 200
bucks. And charged her 30 dollars to make the computer.
She took the computer, without paying and said she would return with
the 30 dollars she owed when she came for the laptop.
Then she never showed.
The sister aparently doesn't care one way or another, she is gone.
We do not have their phone numbers, and it has been 6 months since
she left. No calls, no visit. I am not going to hire a private
investigator just to return the laptop and get the payment. I feel
like saying screw them, and selling the damn thing.


D

 

[Steve Reinis]

Those are the kind of people that take the ease and fun out of being an
informal "Sure, I'll repair it correctly for you and at low cost because I
enjoy it" type person.

You could take a chance and sell the laptop and be done with it, but then
you run the risk of the lady coming back another six months from now saying
you stole her laptop. Or who knows what she may claim.

I like to clean and upgrade or repair friends' computers for them - I find
it fun and interesting. But after a few bad apples I now always write up a
simple little "service agreement" just in case and have them sign it.

What really gets fun is when someone brings in a system loaded with viruses,
spyware, perhaps some bad sectors on a hard drive and data is getting
lost... I always try to get by without formatting and reinstalling
everything, but sometimes you just have to to recover from lousy software or
bugs. Customers get irked that I "changed everything around" or "the cute
background from my toolbar is gone" or "you uninstalled my CometCurser -
WHY!?!?!" I explain to them the situation and they don't care. They think
I screwed up the system instead of "fixing it" even though it feels faster
and is more stable. Now I always immediately make an image of the hard
drive before I touch anything so I can always return the system to it's
exact condition it was in when the customer brought it in if they raise a
fuss. They just don't realize at times that the lousy "free" stuff they
install is what mucks up a system.




"Dessie "Haloia"" <cavynut@tds.net> wrote in message
news:40133fa3$1_3@newspeer2.tds.net...

Hello, I have a strange problem regarding my husband's handyman job.
A woman brought us her sister's laptop, wanting to get it fixed, and
ask us to build her one. He got her one of those 'bare bones' kits
that had a pentium 4, 100 megs ram... all that good stuff, for just 200
bucks. And charged her 30 dollars to make the computer.
She took the computer, without paying and said she would return with
the 30 dollars she owed when she came for the laptop.
Then she never showed.
The sister aparently doesn't care one way or another, she is gone.
We do not have their phone numbers, and it has been 6 months since
she left. No calls, no visit. I am not going to hire a private
investigator just to return the laptop and get the payment. I feel
like saying screw them, and selling the damn thing.


D

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[Dana Myers]

Dessie "Haloia" wrote:

Hello, I have a strange problem regarding my husband's handyman job.
A woman brought us her sister's laptop, wanting to get it fixed, and
ask us to build her one. He got her one of those 'bare bones' kits
that had a pentium 4, 100 megs ram... all that good stuff, for just 200
bucks. And charged her 30 dollars to make the computer.
She took the computer, without paying and said she would return with
the 30 dollars she owed when she came for the laptop.
Then she never showed.

Did you check the laptop serial # with the police for
being stolen before tacitly accepting it as collateral for
the PC you paid cash for?

Dana

 

[The_Pittmans]

Dessie "Haloia" <cavynut@tds.net> wrote in message
news:40133fa3$1_3@newspeer2.tds.net...

Hello, I have a strange problem regarding my husband's handyman job.
A woman brought us her sister's laptop, wanting to get it fixed, and
ask us to build her one. He got her one of those 'bare bones' kits
that had a pentium 4, 100 megs ram... all that good stuff, for just 200
bucks. And charged her 30 dollars to make the computer.
She took the computer, without paying and said she would return with
the 30 dollars she owed when she came for the laptop.
Then she never showed.
The sister aparently doesn't care one way or another, she is gone.
We do not have their phone numbers, and it has been 6 months since
she left. No calls, no visit. I am not going to hire a private
investigator just to return the laptop and get the payment. I feel
like saying screw them, and selling the damn thing.


D

A lot of court house have days during the month, that a lawyer will give
some friendly advise for free. I know that Salem MA has one. You could call
legal assistance to find out your rights. Sometimes all you have to do is
put an ad in the paper telling the person to pay their bill and pick up the
merchandise. If they don't do it after 30 days it now belongs to you.

Then again there is always Judge Judy.

-patty




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[Ken G.]

This was 5 years ago . I called 5 different attorneys to ask what the
laws were in our state about the length of time one must hold onto
customer items left in a repair business and what rights the customer
had if we disposed of items left over 30 days . We do have a sign posted
clearly by the door stating ``any items left after 30 days will be
disposed of ``

All 5 attorneys took interest enough to look in their lawbooks e.t.c .
because they had not been faced with this question before . Turned out
there was no laws protecting the customer from out 30 day policy or any
way we could ``go down`` for following our policy in case someone tried
court .

We had several of these abandon items over the years and generaly waited
90 days for good measure . never had many come back , in fact a few
expected us to dispose after their 6 month return

Call some attorneys .

 

[Steve Reinis]

What model laptop is it? I may be in the market! ;-)


"Haloia" <hotblack_dessie@highway.com> wrote in message
news:40141cd7$1_2@newspeer2.tds.net...

Dana Myers wrote:

Did you check the laptop serial # with the police for
being stolen before tacitly accepting it as collateral for
the PC you paid cash for?

Dana


We didn't really accept it as collateral, it was her sister's computer.
So we just assumed she wouldn't leave her sisters computer just to make
off without paying 30 dollars. They said it was an old work computer
she paid 50 dollars for.

The mysterious sister wanted windows XP installed, but she had no disks.
When my husband wouldn't bootleg XP for her, we never heard from her
again. I figure she doesn't think the computer is worth buying a 100
dollar program for.

D
--
I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slave-ship just
goes in circles.
Http://lifeonmars.iscool.com

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[Haloia]

Dana Myers wrote:

Did you check the laptop serial # with the police for
being stolen before tacitly accepting it as collateral for
the PC you paid cash for?

Dana

We didn't really accept it as collateral, it was her sister's computer.
So we just assumed she wouldn't leave her sisters computer just to make
off without paying 30 dollars. They said it was an old work computer
she paid 50 dollars for.

The mysterious sister wanted windows XP installed, but she had no disks.
When my husband wouldn't bootleg XP for her, we never heard from her
again. I figure she doesn't think the computer is worth buying a 100
dollar program for.

D
--
I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slave-ship just
goes in circles.
Http://lifeonmars.iscool.com

 

[John Del]

Subject: Re: Advice needed-computer customer gone mad
From: goodguyy@webtv.net (Ken G.)
Date: 1/25/04 7:53 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

We had several of these abandon items over the years and generaly waited
90 days for good measure . never had many come back , in fact a few
expected us to dispose after their 6 month return

I've had a few come back after we sold them for charges, and I told them that I
would check storage to see if it's still there, and figure out the storage
costs for them (posted in my store). They NEVER come back.
John Del
Wolcott, CT

"I'm just trying to get into heaven, I'm not running for Jesus!"
Homer Simpson

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