Undercover Cameras Catch PC Repair Scams, Privacy Violations 665
Barence writes "With help from readers of PC Pro, Sky News in the UK launched an undercover investigation into rogue PC repair shops. As a result, Sky's cameras caught technicians scouring through private photos, stealing passwords and over-charging for basic repairs. It was a simple enough job: 'To create the fault, we simply loosened one of the memory chips so Windows wouldn't load. To get things working again, one needs only push the chip back into the slot and reboot the machine. Any half-way competent engineers should fix it in minutes.' But these technicians had other ideas, stealing photos and documents, as well as login details for email and bank accounts."
Halfway Competent (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know a lot of halfway competent engineers who are PC Repair men.
Re:Halfway Competent (Score:5, Funny)
Fully competent engineers make the best PC repairmen.
Halfway competent engineers should stick to engineering.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>Fully competent engineers make the best PC repairmen.
Current impressions of the job market aside, why would someone qualified for a profession who can earn upwards of $100,000 per year, work in PC repair, where even the better management jobs pay less than half that?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Current impressions of the job market aside, why would someone qualified for a profession who can earn upwards of $100,000 per year, work in PC repair, where even the better management jobs pay less than half that?
Because they get to steal photos and documents, as well as login details for email and bank accounts...
I'm pretty sure they don't report the revenue from those activities either, so it's like an untaxed bonus.
Education alone does not insure honesty or integrity.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Halfway Competent (Score:4, Interesting)
Working as a desktop computer tech for the last 18 years, yeah, you do get to see a lot of cool stuff. About the coolest was a pallet of used machines from an ad agency. We used them as parts for our mom-n-pop repair place I worked at. I had the job of going through all of them and seeing what would boot, etc. Found a CD in one, full of next two year's Chevrolet designs. I'm a car buff and hadn't seen too much in the mags yet. Really tempted to share that info but ended up contacting the company. They just said to destroy the disk. Didn't seem too concerned. Weird!
Now, working at a small college doing tech support, students these days have no shame. It's all out on the desktop. Pretty wild.
With all the exposure to personal info, I wonder when computer techs will be held to confidentiality standards like doctors, lawyers, and accountants? Will we have to wear ties?
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The last 4 posts also apply to car stealerships. Most of the time the mechanics have no clue, and they just keep replacing parts hoping the new part will make the problem go away. I had a wheel that was vibrating and the mechanic replaced the bearings, then the struts, then the steering connection... it went-awy but came back just a week later.
Eventually I was "lucky" enough to get a flat tire, and the local mechanic that fized my tire happened to be competent. He said the vibrating wheel just needed was
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'm guessing that he pulled the tire off the rim to patch it from the inside. When he put the tire back on the rim, he balanced [wikipedia.org] it. That's what stopped the vibration.
If the brake fluid was low enough to screw with the ABS unit, then you needed more than a tip off. You needed the brakes bled.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Just to be clear, there is no such thing as a "brake/steering" fluid system in your car. It's either brake fluid or steering fluid - these are two separate systems with separate reservoirs and separate fluids.
Some vehicles (including my Chevy Astro) use the power steering pump for the power assist brakes. Most vehicles use vacuum for power assist, but not all. I found this out the hard way when my power steering pump died. I couldn't brake or steer. Luckily, I was parked when it died. There is still a separate reservoir for brake fluid. I think the OP was confused about what fluid was being replenished.
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Re:Halfway Competent (Score:4, Interesting)
Once, I took my car to a dealer in for general maintenance at my dad's request (he owned the car), then went shopping while I waited. The tech called me on my cell saying "um... you'd better come look at this." Turns out all sorts of fun things were breaking (i.e. visible cracks, missing bearings, leaks, broken engine brackets, etc.). Oh, and it was going to cost $3000. Some expert haggling by my dad over the phone got the price down to a more palatable $2000.
So no, they weren't lying, but they wanted to charge an arm and a leg, and we had to twist their arms to get them to be reasonable.
Another time, I took in the same car (via a tow truck) to another dealer because it refused to start. I was told they needed to replace the entire electrical system of the car, and that it would cost $800. I asked if there was another way to get the car working cheaper, even temporarily, and I was told "No".
Well I wanted a second opinion, so I had another tow truck take my car back home. The tow truck driver, upon hearing why I wasn't having the dealership repair the car, said he'd take a look when we got to my apartment. The verdict?
"Replace this wire here, and get a new clamp for this wire here. Clean the terminals, then reattach the wires. Should run you like $25, and you'll be good as new."
The car works fine, a year later.
So you'll forgive us if we're wary of dealerships.
Re:Halfway Competent (Score:5, Informative)
Because those $100K jobs are few and far between and usually go to people with connections. Don't believe those salary surveys. Those that have great paying jobs are easy to find. Those that have given up on engineering because they can't get a job or have low paying jobs are generally not as easy to find and therefore excluded from the surveys. Result: Surveys don't represent reality.
How do I know this? I have a master's degree in chemical engineering plus my state EIT (Engineer In Training) cert, but have been working in the computer field since 1997. I got laid off and couldn't get another engineering job. I spent 3 years trying. I've since quit the engineering profession. I have made more as a computer tech than I did as an engineer. I've got a neighbor who has a BS in chemical engineering, and his experience mirrors mine. He does not want his kids going into engineering. Even when I was working as an engineer, my coworkers would often gather and read the salary surveys and laugh at them.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You're definitely right here which is why I took every opportunity I could to make those connections and guess what? Now I'm making what the surveys say I should be making. It was definitely frustrating for the longest time because I never accepted help from people always preferring to do it myself. Then somewhere along the line a pretty lady came into my life and made me realize that asking for or accepting help doesn't make you weak and it often makes the other person feel good. This is like going to the
Re:Halfway Competent (Score:4, Insightful)
The truth is you dont need to be really competent to be a PC repairman. 95% of problems can be solved with either "reinstall windows" or "try replacing part X and see if it works". Anything more complicated than that is going to require time, effort and expertise that exceeds the cost of the computer. So there is no point of hiring expensive people with high levels of skill to begin with.
Re:Halfway Competent (Score:5, Insightful)
If you mean "exceeds the cost of the hardware", then yes.
OTOH there's still some people who believe a repair job doesn't automatically mean the loss of all the data in the machine.
Re:Halfway Competent (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh and you're not a very good repairer if you're just guessing at parts. If you can't tell the difference between a broken power supply, motherboard, or ram then you don't know what you're doing.
Re:Halfway Competent (Score:5, Informative)
[blockquote]Oh and you're not a very good repairer if you're just guessing at parts. If you can't tell the difference between a broken power supply, motherboard, or ram then you don't know what you're doing[/blockquote]
I don't know, there are funky things that can happen.
For instance, I had a machine that would randomly reboot, windows error messaging pointed to a chipset failure. So, I swapped ram, but the machine kept rebooting, so I swapped processor. This didn't fix the issue so i tried a new motherboard, the pc still kept rebooting. I decided to go ahead and pull the mobo from the chasis and run it on a cardboard box before replacing any more parts. I turned the mobo on with a screw driver. The computer never rebooted and ran flawlessly. I put it back in the case and it began rebooting again. I disconnected the power switch wire. It didn't exhibit this problem. I found out after all that work, it was a faulty power switch!
Sometimes you just can't tell by the symptoms what the problem is, and even following reasonable troubleshooting steps you sometimes just waste time.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You could apply the same logic to medical conditions, and in fact that's what a lot of NHS doctors do:
1. Look at symptoms
2. Try most likely treatment
3. If not cured, repeat with progressively less likely treatments
3. Cured!
Where I work, the way we justify spending time diagnosing a fault and fixing it without a wipe+reinstall is that it's less trouble for the customer. Particularly for business customers it's important to be able to get up and running, with all their software/email/settings/etc intact ASAP.
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We exist, we're just in corporate settings where we make a lot more money.
It's actually rather amazing how little you have to do in order to be regarded as the "best of the best" in desktop support in large corporate environments (because most good engineers move on very quickly to other job descriptions).
The main issue being that you should be able to recover a machine to normal operations without reinstalling or wiping the machine 90%+ of the time (which is fairly easy to do if you know what you're doin
No wonder my honeymoon photos are all over 4chan (Score:4, Funny)
Stupid geek squad!
Re:No wonder my honeymoon photos are all over 4cha (Score:2, Funny)
...only in the chubby threads...
-- Ethanol-fueled. Captcha: conquered
!surprising (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not surprised, sad to say - people can be very unscrupulous - but how do you prevent this? Under *NIX, you can separate a lot of your data from the OS. But under Windows, with its registry, it's a little more difficult.
If I couldn't fix it myself, I'd at least put in a blank drive before I took it in to a repair center.
Re:!surprising (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem of course being that people who take their computers to repair shops almost certainly lack the technical chops to be putting in a blank drive, and aren't going to have a spare blank drive even if they technically knew how. Besides, sometimes the services they provide are things like installing device drivers, cleaning up spyware, etc. - the sorts of thing which requires the affected drive to be in place.
Anecdotally, the first laptop I ever owned was a Dell, and I had to send it in for service after it was damaged in a car accident. They did not require, but strongly recommended that I remove the drive before sending it to them. This was to safeguard both parties - they didn't want to have to even deal with the possibility that their technicians might do something unscrupulous (and were happy to have the indemnity that comes from them not even having the access to do so), but also protects the drive against damage from shipping (even if the parts are insured, the data is not).
Re:!surprising (Score:4, Funny)
"Anecdotally, the first laptop I ever owned was a Dell, and I had to send it in for service after it was damaged in a car accident."
Those Dell laptops, always speeding, weaving through traffic, flipping you the bird if you're going too slow. Its only a matter of time before they get into an accident. The shame little Latitude or Inspiron must feel when their parents Optiplex and Precision watch the video of their children failing a roadside field sobriety test.
Surprising? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what happens when you skip over qualified technicians to hire high school students or college dropouts who are 'good with computers' to save a little money.
Perhaps these companies should be sued, each and every one of them, for privacy violations. Maybe when the risk of hiring unqualified technicians is too high, they'll actually start to hire people with certifications and/or degrees for a sane amount of money.
No, $7.25/hr isn't a sane amount of money for a computer technician in the US.
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"$7.25/hr isn't a sane amount of money for a computer technician in the US."
That's why you need a tip jar.
Re:Surprising? (Score:5, Funny)
"$7.25/hr isn't a sane amount of money for a computer technician in the US."
That's why you need a tip jar.
Let's see what tips I've got, being a tech in a computer store....
1) $10 every four or five months,
2) $20 maybe once a year,
3) repeated offers to get in on a pyramid scheme,
4) an offer to witness me convert religions and, when I declined, a promise that the offerer would pray that I would see the light, as I might die tomorrow and be cast into the firey pit with all the other unsaved,
5) an offer to go to a certain motel at a certain time to meet some people for a reason the person wasn't willing to entirely clarify beyond "It's easy money!",
6) a suggestion that the customer's Eastern European niece was a real nice girl and I should e-mail her, maybe start a relationship,
7) and a dude who said I could burn a copy of his 'barely legal cheerleaders being spanked' porn collection.
Re:Surprising? (Score:5, Funny)
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Oh, I got tips from gracious girls in college after helping them with computers. Many of those girls would go up to the professor with the whole "oh, I'm just a dumb little girl, please help me with the material" schtick and wangle a bunch of exam/assignment information out of them in the process. If I ever got stuck on an assignment or wanted to know what to study for the exam, they were more than willing to tell me since I'd been nice and fixed their machines. Not all favors from women have to be of the P
Re:Surprising? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what happens when you skip over qualified technicians to hire high school students or college dropouts who are 'good with computers' to save a little money.
Uh, no. This is what happens when you skip over reference checks/spending time to know your employees and hire unscrupulous technicians to save a little money.
"scouring through private photos, stealing passwords and over-charging for basic repairs" == moral problem, not a technical one.
-Malloc
Re:Surprising? (Score:5, Interesting)
If they were being paid a decent wage, maybe they'd actually care about their jobs. Or, God forbid, take a little pride in it. Substandard pay will get you substandard workers. Even in this shitty economy we're in, there's no free lunch when it comes to the wage-worthiness continuum.
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I completely disagree. Morals and ethics has no correlation with wages. We've got people making $400K+ per year bilking the university for money, making illegal hires, and making front page news about it. You might find a disgruntled employee somewhere who is lower paid but it isn't the pay, it's the perceived treatment, with an emphasis on perceived. You can teach morals and ethics but like any education it's up to the student to want to follow through with what they have learned.
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Agreed. My first programming job was part-time; I was hired at $10/hr, and I had to practically demand a raise to $12/hr in a lengthy e-mail in which I pointed out all the valuable things I had already contributed to the company.
Several months later he told us to tell our friends he was looking to hire entry-level peons (who would do less work than we were currently doing) and that they'd start at $12/hr.
We definitely got the "I don't respect you" vibe from that.
No, wages did not dictate my behavior in the
This is true (Score:5, Interesting)
It is something Costco has discovered: They have less shrinkage (theft) than normal. Why? They pay their employees well and have good benefits. Thus while it doesn't mean nobody ever steals from them, it means it happens less than at similar stores. The reason is threefold:
1) People like and care about their job more because it pays well, and thus don't want to do things that might mess it up. So even if they are somewhat morally dubious, they may elect not to risk their job.
2) Their employees have more money and thus less incentive to steal. When you are flat broke, theft can seem like a good option. When you can afford what you want, it isn't as attractive.
3) They have more goodwill towards their employer. They feel like their employer cares about them so they care about their employer. Most people have a much easier time screwing someone over if they don't know them or dislike them.
It really DOES seem to work. Also, it tends to reduce turnover. With minimum wage, you have an extremely high turnover rate. People come and go all the time. As you increase pay, you increase the amount of time people will stay with you. The reason this matters to an employer is that it costs money to train new employees. Even on menial jobs, you don't walk in and have 100% efficiency on day one. This applies even if you've done similar work before. Every setup is different, it takes time to train up people.
Again something Costco has discovered. The interesting thing is that the two factors (lower theft and turnover) seem to add up for them and largely offset the higher costs for employees. Yes, they pay out more, but it reduces other costs and thus doesn't end up hitting the bottom line as much as you might first expect.
Re:Surprising? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Surprising? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you have an excellent point. I've been involved with the hiring process of the IT people I work with (an even our current IT manager). I tend to choose those that seem honest in the interview. The HR/non-techs tend to be impressed by the "big talkers". When we talk after the people I rate the highest they usually rate the lowest and vice versa.
We do a Q/A interview first and then we do a hands on interview where we make them show that they can do all the stuff they listed in their resume or said they could do in the Q/A portion. It is amazing the amount of lies people tell in an interview (and not just exaggeration, but blatant lies about their skills). People who are honest in their interview have, in our experience, been honest employees.
Most people can be taught to do low end "geek squad" style tech support, but you can't teach someone to be honest. It isn't based on pay either. Someone who will cheat and steal in a $7/hr job will do the same if they are making $30.
Re:Surprising? (Score:4, Insightful)
I've found certs mean almost nothing. I've found the dumbest of checklist chimps that have managed to get a cert or a degree. And certs say nothing about the ethical nature of an individual.
People that behave unethically when they feel that they are not being watched or their customer is too ignorant to watch them can never be paid enough to stop behaving unethically.
Most techs I work with don't get paid hourly. They share a significant percentage of each job. This nets to a very nice hourly rate. And yet some of them will reassign calls from other techs stealing from their own friends and co-workers. Give customers their direct lines and try to steal the entire call. And steal customer lists and inventory even being paid 10x or MORE than 7.25/hr. For these types of people there is no fair rate that would make them stop stealing.
I've found more mature people with real responsibilities: mortgages, children, etc. do better then purely smarter people with little responsibilities and ethics. And I've found certs mean almost nothing when it comes to evaluating a persons ethics or even their deductive skills.
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The real issue is TURNOVER. Even if you were lucky enough to get an honest tech on your Best Buy or Staples repair staff, the low wages mean that honest person will eventually move-on to job that pay two or three times more.
So you hire another honest tech. He sticks around maybe six months, and then he too gets hired to someplace else.
So you go on yet *another* search for a tech, but you find there are no more honest people - at least not for $7/hour - because they're all working for better companies than
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Interesting, you casually call people peons yet you can't type "pisspoor".
And... (Score:2)
stealing photos and documents, as well as login details for email and bank accounts
Address book lists, songs, movies, p0rn....
Deliberately breaking the motherboard? (Score:5, Interesting)
While the stuff all the reports are picking up on is certainly not good, the most shocking bit is near the end of the article:
Meanwhile, at Evnova Computers in Barbican the loose memory chip was also spotted and fixed. But the company also told us we needed a new motherboard. We declined the offer and collected our laptop. When we examined it, we discovered technicians had soldered the memory bus pins together to recreate the original fault. Evnova later claimed it believed we were from a rival repair company.
So they catch onto the fact that it's not a genuine customer and they think that a bit of criminal damage is the best thing to do?
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That's pretty incredibly evil. I mean, who are they hiring, ex-pimps that got AAA+ certification in prison?
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Hopefully they at least get taken to court for destruction of property, with a little fraud/theft-by-deception on the side.
But hey, if auto mechanics can't be held civilly/criminally responsible for repairing/replacing things that don't need to be replaced, or saying they've done work but haven't, then there's a good chance Evnova Computers won't be held responsible for their actions, either.
Re:Deliberately breaking the motherboard? (Score:4, Interesting)
REally?
Broke 2 new Oxygen sensors to sell my wife, replacements at the tune of $380.00 each. They cost $45.90 at autozone for the real AC delco ones.
I know they were good, they were just replaced and marked, the ones he showed me someone took a torch to. He magically changed his tune when I told my wife to call the cops right then and there. 99% of people dont know anything about a car, they love this.
Never EVER trust a mechanic unless you found an honest one.
Re:Deliberately breaking the motherboard? (Score:5, Interesting)
+5 Gullible. :) It is very unlikely that they realized it wasnt a legit customer. If they had realized they were being watched they probably would have been on their best behaviour. That sounds more like an excuse than anything. More likely is that they were afraid the customer would go someplace else and get it fixed without needing a new motherboard thus discovering that Evnova's advice was bad. So they broke the motherboard on purpose to make their claim that a new motherboard was needed more credible and likely to be confirmed by the next shop.
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them: Oy! wtf!? Why have you been doing your own soldering work on your laptop?
customer: Why have I been doing what? huh?
them: Soldering! This - right here - why would you do that to your own machine?
customer:
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News flash: unscrupulous employers hire unscrupulous people.
PC Repair Scams (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:PC Repair Scams (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfair criticism. They are not charging for the act of snaping a DIMM in place, any more than that engineer in the famous story is charging to draw an X in white chalk. Rather, they are charging for the expertise to handle any issues that result from the memory change. (Windows Genuine Advantage rejection for the win!)
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The one time I used Geek Squad it was with this all-in one PC (think of it as a PC iMac, the only reason I really used them is because I had no experience with all-in-ones and there was no easy way of taking the case off that I thought would go back together nicely (it was all plastic you had to snap apart) add with that a lost instruction manual and I had something I really didn't feel comfortable taking apart. Long story short they manged t
Old story that illustrates your point: (Score:5, Funny)
Back in the days when all computers were mainframes, a company's computer stopped working, so they hired a consultant to fix it. The consultant walked in, took out a small hammer and tapped the computer, which started working. He billed the company $1000.
The CEO was outraged, and demanded that a detailed bill be sent. The bill came back:
Tapping computer with small hammer - $1
Knowing where to tap - $999
Re:PC Repair Scams (Score:4, Informative)
Ahh the crux of the matter :) (aside from the WGA jibe)
The point is that a tech had to allocate desk time (at least where I work, we charge for desk time, not the techs time, since the tech will be back and fourth between about 4 computers constantly) to fixing this, not to mention finding a deliberately sabotaged component (and sabotaged in a way that is NOT A COMMON FAULT) then testing to see if windows was harmed by the faulty part (usually if a machine runs for a while with memory errors it will corrupt at least a handful of windows files if you are lucky, the registry if your not).
How this diagnosis would go at my pc shop...
1, try booting
2, try booting linux live CD
3, open case, find loose ram
4, try booting windows again
5, boot from a windows CD and do at least 3 chkdsk (at least get 2 clean scans)
6, run prime95 on it overnight to make sure its all happy
6.5 if at any time a prime95 pass fails or windows doesn't boot, load windows CD and do windows repair for XP or SFC for Vista, if it still fails, load linux CD and dupe data to NAS in preparation for reinstall (we do this regardless of if the customer asks us to, the amount of times we get asked after a "wipe-reinstall" if their email is still there...)
7, charge customer $99AU for the fault.
Re:PC Repair Scams (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:PC Repair Scams (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, that for you $50 is too much.
To me, it is called Minimum Bench Time. You need bench work in my shop, I'd charge you $50 Minimum. But that gets you a 1/2 hour of tech time to answer other questions you might have.
But if you bought RAM from me, I'd install it for you, for free. But you'd complain that I charge 30% more than some mail order place and is ripping people off there too.
Then you complain that places like Best Buy hire idiots who don't know shit to answer your highly technical questions even when you're not intending to even buy whatever at that store.
Yeah, I know who you are. You're the stupid tech that gives everyone else's time and effort away for free, because you can do it yourself for nothing, and you shop www.pricewatch.com and think you're all that and a box of chocolates because if it.
I love you. You create more customers for me.
Some people don't want to run around for days trying to figure out how to save that last few $ you claim is ripping people off, in this case $50 bench fee.
My customers know I'm not the cheapest, but I am fair. What they get is ME, and I'm priceless compared to you. They know they can call me anytime and get me, and I'll give them good advice, and treat them with respect. And they get peace of mind, which is worth something to them.
So, thank you! Really, I mean it.
Re:PC Repair Scams (Score:5, Insightful)
But if you bought RAM from me, I'd install it for you, for free. But you'd complain that I charge 30% more than some mail order place and is ripping people off there too.
This is a good one.
Consider a $47 memory pack from Newegg. You charge 30% and either pull it from stock you've had to make a bet on not going obsolete and having to sell at a loss or pay for shipping(you could pass the buck here...)& wait for the part. Even then you're only charging ~$14 to customer for you to choose, buy and install the RAM, in which case the customer saves $33 over having you install THEIR ram.
What you get back is the customer is more willing to come to you for minor upgrades rather than shrug and do it themselves. After all, you'll do it cheaper and still carry the liability if you burn out a mobo, get an incompatible part, etc..
I'd hardly consider that ripping someone off.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly!
I don't compete with low price mail order online shops. They are not my competitors. I sell service, not products. The Products I sell are gravy.
Other companies (Score:4, Informative)
When will we get modular hard drives? (Score:3, Insightful)
I keep a cheap HD with KNOPPIX Maxi ready. I would always swap it in, if I ever bothered to let a hardware tech touch my machine. I have in the past, but only because they can diagnose motherboard issues and I cannot.
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Many computers already have this. Most servers have trays, trays are available for single installation as well. Mac Pro's have some type of slide you need to mount to the bottom of the drive. Dell has something similar although you still need to route cables.
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Well.... (Score:3, Informative)
Too bad there are companies like this out there, when i stopped working for a PC repair shop (espically when i stopped doing alot of repair work on the side), I had alot of my old customers ask me if they should keep taking their systems back to the same shop, or to another shop. The best advice i could give them for hardware related problems was to tell whoever was fixing the systems, that they wanted any original hardware returned to them.
Software, always been a problem... anything you store on your systems is fair game to whoever is fixing it. The best advice i was able to give to my old customers for their sensitive information was not to store it on the computer at all. Pick up a couple thumb drives and store any documents, passwords, etc... on those drives to keep it seperate.
Im sure there are more of us out there that have given the same advice.
Steal passwords (Score:2)
Re:Steal passwords (Score:5, Informative)
Probably saved passwords in Firefox or whatever equivalent they were using. If you are not using a master password, one can just hit 'show passwords' to get em all.
Since most people don't like typing their passwords in each time, if someone has used a particular browser for a long time, it can be a goldmine of access info and details.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Steal passwords (Score:5, Funny)
So if you see my Slashdot account start going crazy and posting nonsense, it's not me.
HAHAHA DISREGARD THAT, I SUCK COCKS
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Ah yes. That feature.
A friend (an Opera fan) of mine found that some time ago, and promptly informed me (died of laughter) that because anyone can sit down and get his passwords, Firefox was of questionable quality ('it sucks').
I then pointed out the whole Edit --> Preferences (for windows, Tools --> Options) --> Security --> "Use a master password" checkbox. When using this, the passwords it stores are properly encrypted and cannot be used by anything without providing a password you select. No
Re:Steal passwords (Score:5, Informative)
Not quite from the article, but from an article linked to by it at the bottom of the story:
"...Inside one of the documents copied to the memory stick was a text file containing passwords for Facebook, Hotmail, eBay and a NatWest bank account.
Once the technician had discovered this information, he opened a web browser on the laptop and attempted to log into the back account for around five minutes.
The only reason he was unsuccessful was because the details were fake....."
It almost happened to me (Score:3, Interesting)
I upgraded my system to 1GB of RAM which it recognized properly. But after using it for about 3 weeks, I got a "PCI.SYS is corrupt or missing" error on boot.
When I called my support folks, I was told that I would need to either replace the motherboard or reinstall Windows XP. These are folks I had told what I had done to the system including the RAM upgrade. In any case, I would have had to spend in excess of US$220!
What I did was to remove the "offending" RAM and everything was good as normal.
My question though is why would the system work for three weeks before throwing the PCI.SYS error?
Re:It almost happened to me (Score:5, Informative)
If it's a RAM problem, and there's no way to tell in this case without further testing, it can manifest itself in all kinds of unusual ways. Random errors like this can happen. Instant reboots can happen, blue screens, general failures to boot, corrupted data, etc.
Easy enough to take the chip out and test it in a known-good computer using memtest, though.
Motherboard RAM-handling issues can sometimes pop up as well, especially if that particular RAM is the straw that broke the camel's back and overloads your power supply. If the port or controller is damaged, it can look similar to wonky RAM.
Of course, we all know that Windows is perfectly stable, too.
Either of those options they gave could possibly be correct. There's no way to tell without troubleshooting, though.
There's a sucker born every minute (Score:2, Interesting)
IMHO, introduction to PC anatomy and troubleshooting should be mandatory in the high school curriculum in today's day and age, and would go a long way to mitigating the problem.
no, they know what they're doing (Score:2)
They had to get the computer working to rummage through the private stuff, right?
(yeah, I know they could yank the drive and put it in another machine but run with it for a minute here...)
How to get back at them (Score:5, Funny)
1) Collect images of goatse, lemonparty, etc
2) Move to folder marked "Private"
3) Loosen memory chip
4) Bring computer to snoopy repair shop.
5) Laugh as crooked tech's scream "Augghh, my eyes!"
(there is no ???, but there also is no profit. Sorry)
PC Work (Score:3, Funny)
I don't like to do PC work for people that I work with. Just to keep things professional. So I sent some work to a friend of mine who was looking for some work. Initially he did a great job, and several people started spreading the word and got him a few more jobs. After a year or so, I started hearing complaints. Jobs not being done right or slowly, couldn't contact him, or couldn't get their machine back. One person at work ended up taking him to small claims court to get their computer back.
I found out later he was addicted to WOW and that was what was causing him to be a knob.
Not just in UK. (Score:5, Interesting)
Just an example of in this case images copied from a laptop that was taken for repair. For anyone living in Hong Kong or following Cantopop, just think "Edison Chen". You will know what I'm talking about, it has been all over the media for a long long time.
For the rest of us: this is a famous singer/actor/etc around here. He took his laptop for repair once, and a year or so ago photos of him having sex with female stars started to appear on the Internet. Copied off of his laptop by the repairman who started snooping around the data on the hard disk after the repairs were finished. This repairman has got a jail term for that, by the way. And it all ballooned in the biggest entertainment story of cantopop in 2008, and probably the biggest in cantopop history.
For links: just search for "edison chen" on google. The first top-100 or so are about this scandal.
Re:Not just in UK. (Score:5, Funny)
I think I will google for "cantopop" first...
My experience in China (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder how many times he got away with this, taking the extra cash for himself. I reported the scam to his boss, but the boss wasn't very excited about it. He was probably in on the scam, too. Heck, it was probably his idea. Most office customers wouldn't know 2G RAM from a RAID array. Just another example of the sort of automatic fraud from vendors that you have to constantly be aware of in China (and elsewhere).
Re:My experience in China (Score:5, Funny)
"A lot" is two words. You wouldn't say "alittle", would you?
iwould
Ignorance is a choice. (Score:3, Insightful)
Mod me "troll" if you want but there is nothing magical about computers. If someone feels it's not worth their time and effort to learn how computers work, that's their prerogative. But, when they make the choice to remain ignorant, they need to man up and accept that this is going to cost them. They will be at the complete mercy of people who made the effort to understand how these devices work.
Heck, I can tear down an engine and rebuild it if I want but I choose to pay other people to do that kind of work for me. The fact that I understand how engines work gives me the ability to screen mechanics and find one who won't rip me off. One who will just do the work that needs to be done and charge for the true value of that work.
I honestly can't comprehend people who don't take the time to learn how things work. These days, most white collar jobs require extensive use of computers. People rely on these devices to feed their families and put a roof over their heads yet they make no effort to understand how they work. It's ... I have no words. I just don't understand how people can be content to live in a fog of ignorance.
Fix in minutes? (Score:4, Insightful)
To get things working again, one needs only push the chip back into the slot and reboot the machine. Any half-way competent engineers should fix it in minutes.'
This isn't as bad as some of these "exposes" they run on PC repair shops, but I would dispute it should take minutes to fix. For a start, you need to open the case first, which you're probably not going to do until you've tried to see if you can solve the problem without opening the case (maybe it's a BIOS or OS problem). It's not like checking the ram is seated properly is the first thing you'd check and it's not like the BIOS will come up with a "RAMs not seated properly" message.
I remember another similar set up a while back where they'd plugged the IDE cable in backwards. Again, if somebody brings in a computer that has stopped working, the first thing you think of is not going to be that the IDE cable has magically turned itself backwards again.
Having said all that, let me make it clear that these people (the PC repair people) are still scumbags. I had a computer from BestBuy that was still under warranty that had damage to the power supply and motherboard (you could see the burn marks on the connectors). BestBuy's Geek Squad tried to tell me that I had a virus and need to buy their anti-virus.
Trust (Score:3, Insightful)
I was talking to a friend of mine who, like myself, does local PC contract work. He charges a bit more than me and in discussing that one day he started talking about the various reasons he felt his costs were fair. Partly it is a regional difference as well as he has been doing it longer. But the big thing that I felt, knowing his clients as he often will consult with me on things, was trust.
Given that I'm sure that there are others in his area that could do his work for a lower fee his clients are very loyal. Rather thou the trust that they have in him is worth the extra money.
I even used a car analogy. Saying that he was like a trusted mechanic. Since most people don't know much about computers when something is wrong with them, like a car for someone who is not a mechanic, as the repairman you can lie with near impunity as to what is wrong. Or just describe the problem as it really is in such overwhelming technical detail that it sounds much worse than it really is.
I don't think any of us who have been around are very surprised that this goes on. From the moment PCs when mainstream I've seen sleazy repair shop after sleazy repair shop doing the same kinds of things. And it makes it all the easier for me to retain customers given that by doing honest work I build up a trust with them.
In their defense... (Score:3, Interesting)
This has already been done before (Score:5, Interesting)
The CBC did a documentary called "Getting Gouged by Geeks" of precisely the same thing, with almost precisely the same fault - Instead of loosening the chip, the module itself was blown in such a way that the computer didn't power on. Unfortunately, CBC had high standards - even one guy who had figured it out, and honestly fixed it, was considered to be "gouging" because he only had a larger module than what needed replacing - Let's not even mention that they expected him to do a house call for free and give them a memory module for the going price online. There were plenty of examples of others who weren't so legit, though.
You can see it here [www.cbc.ca]. Interestingly, Slashdot [slashdot.org] ran a story on it.
Pr0n WAS my pay! (Score:3, Interesting)
Co-workers used to always bring in their home computers for me to fix (for free), because as the database and web guy, I "knew" computers.
So I always did searches for *.jpg on their machines. It's interesting to see the pr0n preferences of your co-workers. Some of the people you would least suspect have some of the most extensive and unusual pr0n collections.
Plus I managed to snag some good co-worker, girlfriend & wife porn as well. It's astounding how clueless people are about the visibility of "secret" files on their computers.
Re:Big deal (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, people do snoop and overcharge. It's a fact of life, but it's a fact of life that can get you sued, put in jail, or worse.
Add to that the fact that any half-way decent technician would testify that testing the seating/connection of things is the first or second thing on the list they do when it comes to hardware troubleshooting, and you're already deep into scam territory.
I'd bet the places involved would have been happy to sell you $400 refurb 100GB hard drives, re-sticker CPUs, and sell pirated copies of Windows, too.
Re:Big deal (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Big deal (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like saying "If you don't want a mechanic to overcharge you, learn to fix your own car", which is good advice, but to be realistic, I don't have the time to spend pouring over a 1999 Pontiac Grand Am manual when I need my car up and running in a day.
I think you misunderstand how this works. I have enough knowledge about car exhausts not to get ripped off. They are not going to sell me frequency grease or some BS, plus I have a vague idea of how much time and money it should take, and an excellent idea of exactly what is broken and what I need them to fix. Given my knowledge, I am extremely well qualified to outsource to a mechanic and manage their work.
Not surprisingly, my interactions with tradespeople in general are pretty positive.
Someone whom takes a more dilbertian approach toward management is going to be screwed over by their mechanic, sooner or later. Its not necessarily even "screwed over" so much as utterly clueless expectations. Consider people whom proudly declare how totally clueless they are about mechanical things, but suddenly become experts on the topic when its time to discuss prices, or start arguing when they hear something they don't want to hear.
Re:Big deal (Score:5, Informative)
But the article mentions a sample bias. They asked readers what the worst PC Repair shops were before they investigated.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps if you stopped forgetting things, you wouldn't have to learn as much.
Re:Big deal (Score:5, Informative)
I have to completely disagree here with computers being more complex than cars for repairs. Realistically there are a handful of components on a computer that you ever need to deal with. In a weeks course you could teach someone with any sort of aptitude towards eletronics how to fix 99.9% of issues, because in the end its find out what's not working as you think it should, open a box and snap in the new part. Compare that to a car where you may need to diagonose things such as cylinder compression, belt timing, rebuild transmissions, and scores of other things. We're not talking Jiffy Lube stuff, but actual repairs and tuning. There's no comparison when it comes to the amount of knowledge aquired.
Don't compare computer design and manufacturing with repairing.
Re:Big deal (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What you have here is an entire industry (Plumbing) that apparently specializes in ripping off its customers and preying on their ignorance.
What you have here is an entire industry (Electricians) that apparently specializes in ripping off its customers and preying on their ignorance.
What you have here is an entire industry (Mechanics) that apparently specializes in ripping off its customers and preying on their ignorance.
Basically, ignorance is asking people to rip you off. It shouldn't be like that, but it is. A stuck seat belt becomes a £100 repair if you're a female. A small leak becomes a £300 repair if you don't know the basics of plumbing.
Read up, and then be specific when it comes to the repair. You might not know how to solder a water pipe with a leak, but you can point at it and diagnose the problem you want solved.
Seems that you're best off finding a local PC repairman that will come to you
Re:Big deal (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't want to be overcharged, learn a thing or two about your PC so you can fix it yourself.
Your comment goes against the very essence of civilization.
Why should I invest time and resources to turn myself into a "computer specialist", instead of using a means of wealth exchange "money" to hire a REAL specialist to do the job for me? Then I can continue to be good at MY special job - medicine - and have my needs met by a more efficient specialist, in terms of time and other resources.
Of course it all breaks down when a) the "specialist" in question is probably no more qualified than I am; and b) the "specialist" in question is actively trying to defraud me of my money or possessions.
It's no wonder that philosophers have been complaining ever since ancient Greece about the value of ethics and morals in a society. You just can't run one without them. Of course you can use other tactics - fear, oppression, etc to TRY to maintain order, but these are incredibly wasteful. History teaches us what always happens when you put a lot of power in the hands of just a few men.
Re:Big deal (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope that you are also an expert in fixing... cars, plumbing, roofs, TVs, refrigerators, and washing machines; all of which I garauntee will break down at some point if your life. Let's also not forget other handy do it yourself projects like curing illnesses, neutering your pet, and pulling wisdom teeth. People get overcharged for all of these things every day. Just because the subject at hand happens to be your area of expertise doesn't mean you can just say 'learn a thing or two' and call that a valid resolution to the problem.
Re:Big deal (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, I tell people that I am outdated with regards to fixing computers, I used to do it when I started to play with computers but now the time I would spend fixing my aunt virus infected computer would make me loose too much money compared to spending that time on my regular work.
So maybe competent people do not want to do this kind of work, I don't anyway...
They have stopped to call me since a while and this is a good thing, charging them more than the price of the computer to fix it wouldn't fly and that is what it costs me in lost income ;-))
Re:Big deal (Score:5, Funny)
the time I would spend fixing my aunt virus infected computer
Perhaps you should consider some auntie virus software... Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week. Try the veal!
Re: (Score:2)
There's a difference between things that are in plain view, and things that are hidden properly. Plain view means it's sitting there on the desktop for the world to see, or that it's in some ambiguously named folder that you have to open to see if it has anything to backup. Hidden means it's in the usual suspects as far as places that store information/pictures, as well as aptly-named folders.
There's no way to prevent accidental viewing of pictures sometimes, but there's no reason someone should be loadin