My jaw hit the floor

gamblingman

gamblingman

VIP Member
I couldnt believe it...

My fiancee was asking me today how much shops charge to get rid of viruses and clean a system. I had no clue how much it costs, I just do it free for my friends and family.

I was thinking "...its not all that difficult, how much could it really be? Maybe $30, but $50 at the most, for sure..."

So I checked out some places around here, most wont even give an idea of their costs. But one did, geek squad. When I saw how much they charge people to clean a computer my jaw hit the floor. Its AT LEAST $100!!!

Their basic charge is $100! What on earth is that garbage!

How crazy is that?! I cant believe people actually pay for that. And when I think of all the times I've gone into BestBuy to get stuff for my satellite radio, and seen lines of people waiting to talk to "geek squad"! My god, thats sickening.
 
I think my wife would come into that category, all she wants to know is where to click and as long as the program operates she is happy. When I installed W7 I wanted to share the "joyous occasion" :D but it was completely lost on her :(
The majority of people only use a computer as a tool and have no interest in learning whats beneath the screen in front of them, they don't know there are forums out there to help resolve problems and on the flip side of the coin there are nerds like us that love to tinker and learn.
We are special :good:
 
And there's also corporations who employ drones who can barely install a RAM chip to swindle money from the people who use computers as tools.
 
$100 is not uncommon but agree with you. And its not just about a virus. People go online all the time and pay this fee to get it fixed. I mean stupid issues. Talked to someone a few days ago i have not seen. computer was running slow. $80.00 to speed it up over the internet.
On the other hand many do not and could care less how and why. my wife is one. I will tell her about her problem and why it happened. She says ' I don't care, don't explain it to me, just fix it'. She does not care about the detail or challenge.
Oh well......

Then there are others that will call and ask for support over the phone. Sit there for a half hour explaining it to them and they don't have a clue what your talking about.
 
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I would not pay $100 but that is because I have virus protection and I know a bit about computers. But there are people who do not know about computers, and just do not want to know, as you said tremmor. But there are some things you may not know (just as a example) like if you go get your car serviced, you may want to just drop it off to them and then come back knowing it is done.

And when you think about it, $100 is alright to pay. I mean, to us it is just fixing the computer. But to the people fixing it and to the customer, it could be a hour or two (they might have a lot of computers to fix) and then if they have to install the software, they have to buy a key etc.
You really gotta look at it like you would with something you have no clue about, like the car example and such.
 
that is ridiculous.

There is a computer shop near us, only a small one like, but if you go in with a computer problem, even if they do nothing, they charge a flat rate of £20. You could go in there and say "I just got a wireless mouse and keyboard, how do they connect?", the guy would reply "hold the connect button on the receiver, then press it on the keyboard and mouse" or whatever...£20 right there, that must be a few thousand pound an hour!! But $100 as a base rate, that is madness
 
Aastii said:
that is ridiculous.

There is a computer shop near us, only a small one like, but if you go in with a computer problem, even if they do nothing, they charge a flat rate of £20. You could go in there and say "I just got a wireless mouse and keyboard, how do they connect?", the guy would reply "hold the connect button on the receiver, then press it on the keyboard and mouse" or whatever...£20 right there, that must be a few thousand pound an hour!! But $100 as a base rate, that is madness
Click to expand...

So they ask for money for just handing out advice? What slackers, I mean really. Advice I reckon for small things should be free, but for something that does actually take up a lot of time (or just any considerable amount) and effort should have to be payed for. With inflation and such prices are going up, so really $100 for a hours work, sure it is a bit much, but would you (if you had no computer experience) want to be on a slow computer that has a virus on it?
 
There is a local shop here that does tune up/virus removal for $30 to $50. I have only been there once though as they dont have any parts newer than 98 and they tried to tell me a random dime sized plastic packet of silicon based TIM was better than AS5 and Shin and that I was wasting money on those.

I understand the $100.00, there is fuel and the nice van, and the outfits, and they know everything (jk).
 
When you go to TigerDirect or CompUSA which is basically the same store now, they charge $50 just for a diagnostic even if they don't find anything. At BestBuy its even worse. It like $150 for diagnostics and then its like an extra $100 for repair. :(
 
I was at best buy/geek squad one day ordering a new power adapter for my gf's laptop and these 2 women come in carrying a desktop. They told the guy at the desk that it had a virus or something and by the time the guy got done quoting them how much it was gonna cost it was almost $200. I politely went up to them as the guy was on the phone and told them I worked on computers and only lived like 10 minutes from them and that I could clean up there system for like $25-$30. They never did call me.

Then again yesterday, I was at work and this kid told me he payed his internet provider $100 to log into his machine and clean an infection. Then I told him that I highly doubted his machine is infection free, told him to run Malwarebytes to make sure. It's just absolutely absurd the prices they charge.
 
The computer shop I work at charges $89 for virus removal. I run malwarebytes and combofix. Sometimes though I have more issues involved in getting the virus's off the computer, so it's all a labor charge.
 
cranberries are into everything!

I had to say one thing. I guess I have an unusual woman, she is great. And one thing I like about her is that she is careful with her computer (it wasn't a gift from "daddy", she picked it and spent $900 of HER money buying it). Her mother, on the other hand, is a computer wrecker. You may have seen the Malwarebytes log I got from their computer, the one with over 600 issues, yeah I know.

So maybe my fiancee realized all the trouble that it caused them and does not want to be the same way. When I started teaching her about her computer and how to be careful, she listened and then put what she learned into practice.

She got Firefox and AVG 9.0 Free, and also Malwarebytes; and she uses them. She scans with Malwarebytes a few times a week and with AVG 2x a week. She is on Firefox and uses the NoScript add-on. She is very careful, and learned a lesson by observation of her parents total disregard for safety on a computer. She saw the trouble not being careful could cause, and what she saw on their computer was BAD! It took me days to fix their computer, and then because nothing in their behaviour had changed, they had ANOTHER virus the VERY NEXT DAY!

She cares about her possessions, and has even helped other "less than knowledgeable" girls in her education classes to be safer. For instance, one day the girl next to her was saying that her copy of Norton had expired and she really didnt want to pay for "that thing" again. My fiancee told me later that she was shocked to hear someone say that. So she got AVG free and put it on the girl's computer for her, since the girl couldn't/wouldn't understand how to do it herself. She also uninstalled Norton before putting AVG on.

At first I couldnt believe it. What a woman! I think it take some people seeing what can happen to their things for them to choose to change, though some people will never care. To them its just a screen they play on, not realizing the implications of their actions. But thats how many people live today, in total disregard of how their actions affect them and the people around them. So why should we be surprised when they don't care.
 
I went to a BestBuy in South Carolina late last year and I went to the GeekSquad desk--only because the computer section was deserted and I wanted to see if they had a hard disk I saw advertised!

While there, I asked the guy if they had DDR3 chips for notebooks and what the cost was..

He gets a confused look on his face, and turns to the display of products behind him, looking up and down, in a vain attempt to pretend he knew what was being asked--

After about 2-3 minutes, he turns to me and says--umm actually I don't think they make DDR3 for laptops but we have really good price on original DDR and its really fast!

...no joke!
 
as someone else has said, when it comes to computers, cars, appliances and other items with alot of bells and whistles most people do not care how it works or how to fix it, they just want it fixed for anything up to a moderate fee. I've stopped by a friends house probably a dozen times to help him with his computer and he really doesnt show any care to learn how to do what I'm doing for him. For any of us to charge someone $100 to do some basic computer maintenence seems crazy but for someone who works for a computer repair company its not all that bad because there are alot of costs involved that a random person, with 2 hours to spare, doesnt have.
 
all of us on the forum should start a campaign to end this tyranny of the overcharging geek squad :D ...and make a list of cheep computer shops with fair prices or step by step instructions on how to clean and remove viruses
 
it wouldnt

I am a student of economics, getting rid of big stores is not the answer. What consumers could work for would be more knowledgeable staff from services like geek squad. Start sending letters telling the corporate levels of those businesses what you think of those prices for the quality received.

I would have absolutely no problem taking a computer to Johnb and paying him double what geek squad wants. But thats because I know I am paying for a knowledgeable individual to help me.

But paying $100 (usually more!) for an idiot to follow a standard company procedure off a laminated sheet is not acceptable to me, and nobody should be ok with that.
 
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