£160/hour IT support

damianwhite

And elderly relative of mine was recently charged over £300 for an IT support call out which consisted of trying to understand why a desktop computer wasn't booting (including re-seating RAM, dusting, confirming screen working using a separate computer), and when it was diagnosed that the machine / operating system was irreparable, using a disk caddy to transfer files from the desktop harddrive to a laptop that my relative already owned.

The IT company's hourly rate is £160/hour, so the 2h20m call-out cost over £300 (significantly more than the cost of a replacement computer, given that the relative only uses the computer for web browsing / office applications).

I have since taken possession of the desktop and it booted using a linux live USB first time with no trouble. I have also booted the system to Windows, but it's clear the Windows installation is corrupted (and not worth fixing as it's Windows 7). From what I can see there are no hardware issues.

I have complained to the IT company, but their response is that their call-out rate was made clear to their client, and that they have complied with their published T&Cs.

I am really angry about the situation, and would be grateful for some support from the MSE community. In particular:

• Am I mistaken to be outraged by these charges?
• Are there any consumer protections / trading standards / etc that the IT company may have breached? It seems to me that they're taking advantage of the lack of IT savvy of an older person, which is no different to a cowboy builder or a dodgy double-glazing salesman.
• Are there any other avenues of recourse against this IT company? I'm not convinced of success in a small claims court as they did provide a service (just not one that justifies the price)

Any other thoughts and feedback welcome.

Neil_Jones

damianwhite said:

And elderly relative of mine was recently charged over £300 for an IT support call out which consisted of trying to understand why a desktop computer wasn't booting (including re-seating RAM, dusting, confirming screen working using a separate computer), and when it was diagnosed that the machine / operating system was irreparable, using a disk caddy to transfer files from the desktop harddrive to a laptop that my relative already owned.

The IT company's hourly rate is £160/hour, so the 2h20m call-out cost over £300 (significantly more than the cost of a replacement computer, given that the relative only uses the computer for web browsing / office applications).

I have since taken possession of the desktop and it booted using a linux live USB first time with no trouble. I have also booted the system to Windows, but it's clear the Windows installation is corrupted (and not worth fixing as it's Windows 7). From what I can see there are no hardware issues.

I have complained to the IT company, but their response is that their call-out rate was made clear to their client, and that they have complied with their published T&Cs.

I am really angry about the situation, and would be grateful for some support from the MSE community. In particular:

• Am I mistaken to be outraged by these charges?
• Are there any consumer protections / trading standards / etc that the IT company may have breached? It seems to me that they're taking advantage of the lack of IT savvy of an older person, which is no different to a cowboy builder or a dodgy double-glazing salesman.
• Are there any other avenues of recourse against this IT company? I'm not convinced of success in a small claims court as they did provide a service (just not one that justifies the price)

Any other thoughts and feedback welcome.

While £160 p/h looks quite excessive the devil may be in the detail as to whether it's justifiable or not.  Was this out of hours/unsocial hours or somewhere that's traditionally more expensive like London?  I have seen companies charge £70 an hour and I would probably expect to pay more if I needed them, say, after normal working hours or in an "emergency".

As for "trading standards", well you'd need to prove that there was some breach of the T&Cs.  If the relative was told  £160 an hour and they said yes go ahead with it, you don't have a leg to stand on.

whether the service received justifies the payment is open to debate; that's why we have competition, so if you don't like Company A then you don't use them next time, and you go to Company B next time.

DullGreyGuy

damianwhite said:

I am really angry about the situation, and would be grateful for some support from the MSE community. In particular:

1. Am I mistaken to be outraged by these charges?
2. Are there any consumer protections / trading standards / etc that the IT company may have breached? It seems to me that they're taking advantage of the lack of IT savvy of an older person, which is no different to a cowboy builder or a dodgy double-glazing salesman.
3. Are there any other avenues of recourse against this IT company? I'm not convinced of success in a small claims court as they did provide a service (just not one that justifies the price)

Any other thoughts and feedback welcome.

1. For comparison we pay £93/hr for our contract level 2 engineers on a 7 hour day basis but they are working those full 7 hours. Problem with a call out is that the engineer has time travelling between each job when they aren't generally billing, its rarely possible for them to be back to back all day because you dont know if a job is going to be 30 minutes or 3 hours. So maybe you work on 50% billable time which for us would mean to just break even we'd need to bill £186/hr and clearly most businesses want to make a profit not break even. Normally a perm person is cheaper than a contractor but when you add on pensions, insurances, line management etc etc it all does add up very quickly. 

2. There are no protections about what the hourly rate, thats a commercial decision and one for the customer to decide if they think is reasonable or not. There will be a requirement for them to use appropriate skill and so maybe you can argue the duration was excessive but it will depend on the level of the person sent, the interactions between the engineer and your relative etc. You would have to prove it was unreasonable to do what they did, just because someone else would have done things in different orders etc isn't sufficient evidence. 

3. The county court is the mechanisms for resolving civil disputes. 

flaneurs_lobster

£160/hour? I've billed higher.

It's a shame that you weren't sufficiently involved with your relative (elderly or otherwise) to offer assistance before they turned to the expensive external support.

Now that you are in touch, did you happen to ask them how much they are paying for broadband? 

damianwhite

flaneurs_lobster said:

£160/hour? I've billed higher.

In a consumer setting? I'm aware that B2B charges are that high.

flaneurs_lobster said:

It's a shame that you weren't sufficiently involved with your relative (elderly or otherwise) to offer assistance before they turned to the expensive external support.

Sounds like you're putting blame on me, which doesn't seem particularly reasonable when you don't know the circumstances.

flaneurs_lobster said:

Now that you are in touch, did you happen to ask them how much they are paying for broadband? 

Almost certainly more than if they hunted for the best deal every year, but that's the same for everyone.

"now that you are in touch" makes some assumptions.

Vitor

>using a disk caddy to transfer files from the desktop harddrive<

Whether £300 was reasonable rather depends on the value of the files they recovered off the hard drive and the skills/tools needed to do so.

Heedtheadvice

I tend to agree with Neil. Contractualy it would seem your relative has been maybe a little naive or not appreciating costs involved and what others, who are also competent charge. It is too late to do anything about that now.

As to whether the diagnosis and fix justifies the time charged is another matter. Finding out it is the op system rather than boot bios or hardware really should take very little time....in most circumstances....for a professional. At that stage good advice should be expected which might be take away the drive copy files update to win 10 and replace copied files and return. However age of the system comes to play here too. Putting files onto the laptop too will also take a fair length of time if done on site. We readers do not know what was done in detail what advice was given and what your relative decided to do or agreed to have done.

I am elderly too, still reasonably savvy but know many who are not so aware.

It seems to be a sad tale and apart from finding put the situation in full and then maybe appealing to the company it could be - just put it down to experience.

I had an elderly neighbour ( just a few years older than me) who had a boiler problem. It was a duff thermocouple worth under £20. But my neighbour decided on a course of action, that was one of the options, to have a new boiler fitted. Possibly not the best choice but his choice and peace of mind, if very costly. Maybe not given the best option choices. I suggested the next problem he ask for a second opinion from the circle of friends....he was starting with Dementia.

TELLIT01

The company was on site for over 2 hours but there could be travelling time charged as well, which should be shown in the T&C.  As has been said, if your relative agreed to the charges there is nothing more to be done.  In addition to the time on site there is the cost of the disk caddy, if they left that behind.

DullGreyGuy

TELLIT01 said:

The company was on site for over 2 hours but there could be travelling time charged as well, which should be shown in the T&C.  As has been said, if your relative agreed to the charges there is nothing more to be done.  In addition to the time on site there is the cost of the disk caddy, if they left that behind.

Normally travel time is just built into the hourly rate along with all the other things that means the engineer cannot earn fees for 100% of their time and company overheads. 

Were that not the case you then get into arguments of why did you send the guy from X when the guy from Y could have had a much shorter journey but arrive 2 hours later as they were on a longer job or why did the guy take Z route and get stuck in traffic rather than taking my secret short cut. Fixed call out charge or increased hourly rate is much simpler than actual time travelling. 

leonj

There are some real scumbags around!

matelodave

what is that supposed to mean ?