It's 2:00 am and you've just completed the presentation for tomorrow's 9:00 am meeting. You select File, then Print from the top menu and ... CRASH! Your PC freezes, then reboots on its own, and finally just shuts down. No amount of coaxing, prayers, or even percussive maintenance is sufficient to resuscitate your petulant PC. What's a guy or gal to do?

Three years ago we reprinted an article from New York Magazine -- "Does Not Compute" -- to provide some pertinent answers about what to do and what not to do. Subsequently, we at Installations Plus+ went two steps better: we opened our free PC Clinic to dispense timely, specific advice, and we set up our monitored PC Forum to discuss a broad range of computer issues and problems. And for folks in our own service area -- New York, New Jersey and Connecticut -- we went even further: we forged an alliance with Doc Audio-Video in Bayside, Queens to provide a broad range of certified audio, video, TV, fax, beeper, and of course, computer repairs.

But guys and gals with broken PCs are still getting ripped off when they take their computers in for repair. So, before this happens to you, make it your business to read "Does Not Compute" and examine our own list of do's and don'ts².

1.   Never pay for an opinion. If you can describe the symptoms clearly, any reputable shop will give your their opinion briefly, verbally, and without charge. But don't expect a free estimate. No shop can afford to perform any work on your equipment without charging something for their effort. Of course, most shops will reduce the cost of any repairs performed by the amount of the prepaid estimate.

2.   Don't look for the cheapest shop. You can expect to pay about the same hourly labor rate for computer repairs as you do for repairs to your automobile. In our area, that's currently around $80 per hour. A shop that charges too little for labor is either cheating themselves or is about to cheat you!

3.   Don't pick a repair shop from the phone book. Good shops advertise in the yellow pages, but so do the bad ones. Ask your friends and neighbors for references, or rely on the shops run by major chain stores such as CompUSA, Circuit City, Radio Shack or WalMart (who at this writing is opening trial PC repair centers in the midwest). In the absence of local references or major chains, check with the Better Business Bureau, the Chamber of Commerce, the Department of Consumer Affairs or equivalent, and the State Attorney General. A minor computer repair can become a major ripoff if you don't choose your shop wisely.

4.   Don't sign anything you haven't read and understood yourself. Don't rely on your "salesmen" or the shop owner to interpret the work order. Unscrupulous repair dealers prepare unscrupulous contracts. Your signature on a one-sided contract is the dealer's license to steal! Read the fine print and get a copy of the contract. If you're uncomfortable about the work order, don't leave your computer, just leave.

5.   Don't agree to repair or upgrade more than one component of your PC. New computers are cheap; repairs and upgrades are costly. Repairing two or more components will almost always cost more than buying a new PC! Don't believe that? Check Egghead, CDW, Insight, Staples, dartek.com and Office Max to see what $500 can buy! Remember:  repairs are not really repairs but replacements -- with few exceptions, no one can repair a hard drive, a motherboard, a modem, a sound card, etc.

6.  If you live in an area where repair shops are few and far between and/or you have folks around who might be especially hard on your computer, consider purchasing an extended warranty from the manufacturer. (Dell, for example, offers three-year on-site, next-day service for $99 on a PC they sell for about $2000.) We don't normally advocate extended warranties, but we think they can be far cheaper than falling prey to a creative ripoff artist. Since not even the manufacturer can "repair" your PC, an extended warranty means you'll get replacement parts or a replacement PC -- and they'll be factory proven, not "white box" specials.

7.  It's tough to tell your boss or your teacher that you're not prepared because "my computer crashed". That's almost as embarrassing as having to say "my dog ate it". But if it's true, take your ribbing and get on with it. To avoid getting ripped off, keep things in perspective. Your PC is only a PC, not your best friend. It can be replaced. You may have to re-create your paper, presentation, or project, but that could cost a lot less than the $3500 an unscrupulous dealer might charge to "repair" your PC and possibly recover your data. (Of course, you can avoid this predicament entirely if you back up your data regularly!)

Okay. You've read our do's and don'ts and perhaps you agree with most if not all of them. But does this really apply to you? After all, the likelihood of your computer breaking down is slim and the likelihood of being ripped off by an unscrupulous repair dealer is even slimmer. Wrong! In our experience, more than half of all new computers will need service within the first three years, and the percentage is even higher for older machines. But more importantly, the incentive for a repair shop to overcharge is almost overpowering!

There will always be greedy and dishonest repair shops, like those mentioned in "Does Not Compute", but today even the best run shops are under tremendous economic pressure to charge as much as they can. With the target "price point" for the average new computer system hovering around $1000, manufacturers are producing "disposable" PCs. This trend erodes the customer base for repairs -- customers buy new instead of repairing -- and makes the job harder to do because manufacturers are increasingly unwilling to provide technical support to repair shops and even more unwilling to supply parts. In short, unless a computer repair shop is subsidized by a retail operation, such as the shops in CompUSA, Circuit City, etc., or has another "profit center" -- perhaps network service, training, or other electronic repairs -- it probably can't afford to provide quality repairs at a fair price!

1. PC Tips is an irregularly-issued column produced by Installations Plus+ for those of its clients who don't pretend to power user status.  You are welcome to submit suggestions for future columns to the PC Tips Suggestion Box.

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2. We plan to make this article permanently available online. If you have additional suggestions about how to avoid getting ripped off when your computer needs repairs, we'd be glad to consider them for updates to this article.

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• The November, 1996 PC Tips on Laser Printers
• The December, 1996 PC Tips on Buying a Personal Computer
• The January, 1997 PC Tips on Computer Viruses
• The February, 1997 PC Tips on Deleting Files and DLL Problems
• The March, 1997 PC Tips on the "Hole" in Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Windows Error Messages
• The April, 1997 PC Tips on Frequently Asked Questions and Their Answers
• The May, 1997 PC Tips on More Frequently Asked Questions and Answers
• The June, 1997 PC Tips on Summer Safeguards
• The July, 1997 PC Tips on Modem Update and Free Speech & the Internet
• The August, 1997 PC Tips on "Windows 93", the World Wide Wait, and an H-P Printer Problem
• The September, 1997 PC Tips on Summer Safeguards, Windows 95 Registry, and Software Upgrades
• The April, 1998 PC Tips on Modems (56.6 kbs, ISDN, Cable), Scanners, Free Email
• The May, 1998 PC Tips on Backups: A Special Report
• The June, 1998 PC Tips on Installing New Software
• The July, 1998 PC Tips Am I Ready for a Website?
• The August, 1998 PC Tips Email Etiquette
• "Highway Robbery," Nathaniel Wice's TIME Digital Magazine undercover investigation of sleazy computer "salesmanship", which appeared in the November, 1996 issue
• "Does Not Compute," Michael Maren's New York Magazine article on selecting a PC repair shop, which appeared in the November, 1996 issue

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