Cost to fix my laptop

motorguy

Crashtogether wrote: »

£10? really? i don't know what to make as an alternative offer.

??

Is he a mate or is this guy a (semi) professional? Or why might 'mates rates' apply?

£50 doesnt seem unreasonable in that its an easy three hours effort and whilst a lot of it may involve watching a screen, there are still buttons to press at appropriate times, drivers to download and install, latest patches to apply, and possibly *free* software to install - AVG etc. Whilst its not rocket science its certainly not a 'come back in three hours and its all done' type event.

I stopped doing it for friends for the above reasons. Theres a perception that it 'too easy to charge money for' when its not, and also typically when you hand somebody back a PC you get a phone call within an hour asking how they get it connected to the internet.

If someone is willing to pay me the going rate (ie, £40-£50) then fine i'll do it, but otherwise - certainly for a tenner - its just not worth the hassle.

motorguy

CHR15 wrote: »

If I charged £50 for doing that I would be a rich man.

If I was doing something like that for a stranger, I would ask for a tenner at most.

It does take around 3hrs but tbh, most of that is sitting around whilst it does it's thing, maybe half hour digging through the registry.

£50 I would expect that to be shop prices, not mates rates.

So, you'd commit 3 hours of your life to doing this, and as the O/P has stated (and is often expected) would deal with subsequent issues for the next month or so for £10.

So thats £3.33 an hour at best??

Its actually statements like yours that encourages the perception that fixing computers is 'easy money' and should only be done for peanuts.

CHR15

pgilc1 wrote: »

So, you'd commit 3 hours of your life to doing this, and as the O/P has stated (and is often expected) would deal with subsequent issues for the next month or so for £10.

So thats £3.33 an hour at best??

No it's £10 for about 30 mins at most. The rest of the time the laptop is happily scanning/downloading on it's own. I can watch TV.


EDIT: I just caught up with the other replies since mine.

I gave up building and selling PC's in my spare time because you become a "friend for life" to anyone you sell a PC to.

Continual questions about virus, defragging, printing, email, internet etc etc etc made it not worth it for me (that was £100 profit on each sale)


.

motorguy

CHR15 wrote: »

No it's £10 for about 30 mins at most. The rest of the time the laptop is happily scanning/downloading on it's own. I can watch TV.


EDIT: I just caught up with the other replies since mine.

I gave up building and selling PC's in my spare time because you become a "friend for life" to anyone you sell a PC to.

Continual questions about virus, defragging, printing, email, internet etc etc etc made it not worth it for me (that was £100 profit on each sale)


.

... add in your time looking for drivers, downloading them, installing them, adding in other bits of *free* software, installing it, taking the laptop back to the guy, showing him it working, showing him how to connect it to the internet, being available when they ring up asking dumb questions, maybe having to look at it again because they cant get a DVD to play on it now, etc, etc.

If you can do that in half an hour - you're a better man than me (and i've been at computers 20 years). If nothing else - unless you have no life altogether - there is still the element of 'tonight i am setting aside 3 hours to be available to rebuild the O/S on this laptop'. That in itself commands a monetary value.

As i said though, saying its £10 worth of effort immediately attaches an unviable monetary expectation to it, which simply cannot be met by even a part time IT person, trying to provide a professional service.

motorguy

CHR15 wrote: »

Continual questions about virus, defragging, printing, email, internet etc etc etc made it not worth it for me (that was £100 profit on each sale)


.

Totally agree with this. People dont seem to be able to differentiate 'support' from the purchase. They would never expect to have the home telephone number of the bloke they bought it off in PC world and to have him on call 24x7 for them, but they will with some poor sod they vaguely know who builds PC's in his spare time. Also, they'll expect you to come and pick it up and / or fix it on the spot, rather than having to queue in PC world on a saturday morning and being told to come back for it in a fortnight.

Bikertov

pgilc1 wrote: »

Totally agree with this. People dont seem to be able to differentiate 'support' from the purchase. They would never expect to have the home telephone number of the bloke they bought it off in PC world and to have him on call 24x7 for them, but they will with some poor sod they vaguely know who builds PC's in his spare time. Also, they'll expect you to come and pick it up and / or fix it on the spot, rather than having to queue in PC world on a saturday morning and being told to come back for it in a fortnight.

Except they happily pay 'Product Support' of £5.99 a month for their new toaster bought from a major electrical retailer ...

motorguy

Bikertov wrote: »

Except they happily pay 'Product Support' of £5.99 a month for their new toaster bought from a major electrical retailer ...

Yup, based on misinformation about how little it costs to fix computers, people look surprised when you quote them real world repair figures.

computershack

Crashtogether wrote: »

Just been quoted £50 from somebody who has fixed my laptop. He took 3 hours and did it in a night (i.e good service), got rid of a virus and downloaded and installed free anti-virus from the internet.

Is this a resonable price? i know nothing about computers so I don't want to feel ripped off.

Thanks for any advice.

I charge £20 an hour and I'm cheap. About 50% the time would be waiting for scanning but remember that he collected and delivered (assuming here). £50 is quite a good price.

If you offered me £10, I'd put back on the malware I'd taken off and hand you it back.

computershack

ExiledWool wrote: »

Sounds fair to me - but is basic stuff and really something everyone should know how to do.

Really? Just finished doing my parents after my mother clicked on the "clean" button of some fake AV thing that popped up. Taken 5hrs with a fair amount of that just getting AV/malware removal tools to install on the thing in order to remove them as it also brought the whole system to a crawl. Had to use a second computer as the malware prevented the computer from connecting to any update site and even going as far as blocking sites like Majorgeeks and CNet so you couldn't get them from there..

Oneday77

I would say £10 to £15 an hour for a back hander is fair enough. To be fair it isn't really a qote you have no OP it is more an invoice, quotes come before work is carried out. Also since it is a month of extra help it is a good deal.
I know I feel uncomfortable helping people out an then charging money. In saying that I never know how to value myself
Chr15 if it was 5 or 6 laptops at once then £10 each is not bad as there would be no wasted time. However you do still have to set your time aside whether it is one or five machines.