To further elaborate on my prior post, good computer shops are like doctors, they will not talk about what you have on your pc or if they do swap stories there is not going to be a name or personal details attached. So unless you are one of the 3 guys who have to have gay black midget lesbian bondage porn to get through your day its unlikely you would be identified by the content of your selections if we did see anything. IF we did see something, you may be known as the GBMLB porn guy among the crew, but thats it.
Unfortunately as you climb in price you see alot more “brand sensitivity” in my experience. A local independent gets looked down on alot by alot of folks with the big cash.
My anecdote isn’t the same at all but this reminds me of a time when I was annoyed at an overly-laidback hippie running a hostel we were staying at. He did have a list of fees for services such as ferrying us to trailheads and back, and of course sleeping in the hostel.
When it came time to check out our group did a mental tally of what we thought we owed and asked it that was right, and he shrugged and said “whatever you think you owe, man”. I certainly didn’t want to lowball him, and never would. The annoyance came in wondering if A) we were way low in what we owed him, and he secretly thought we were trying to get away with something and so would resent us even though we made an honest mistake, or B) we calculated too high and he was lackadaisical because he thought he was going to get a lot of money 
When someone makes a statement like that I let it be thier responsibility, take them at their literal word and pay what I think I owe. It’s his business after all and he’s free to present a detailed bill. If you guessed high just consider it a tip.
Some people are not willing to consider that perhaps other people have use for money too. They expect to get everything at cost or free. They are accustomed to store managers at the big boxes just rolling over and exchanging or fixing things for them, in the name of customer service. For the average customer who genuinely HAS lost the receipt, but the product failed, this is a good policy. But there are people who will take advantage of these policies. One of my old bosses proudly told me of how her cousin stole a carseat from one of the big box stores by putting it on the bottom of the shopping cart, and then “forgetting” to point it out to the cashier. Apparently she was prepared to claim that she didn’t have enough money if the cashier noticed it. At any rate, the cousin used the car seat for about 18 months…and then returned it for cash back. My boss, who was the manager of a retail store, thought that this was quite clever of her cousin. Of course, my boss was also regularly outraged at high retail prices. This woman was not the most logical of people.
My point is, some people will cheat and steal at every opportunity. And if you are in a position of power, you should do everything you can to deny these people a chance to cheat and steal from YOU and your business. So what if they can’t get their clock repaired, or their computer fixed? Actions should have consequences, and maybe, just maybe, they’ll learn from the experience.
And then the real obnoxious ones come out and draw the big guns.
We have had one place go to state consumer affairs to file a complaint, after the investigator discussed it with me the complaint was dismissed as without merit and no fines or problems were listed on my licencing.
One customer went to the better business bureau because several weeks after a virus cleanup she started getting error messages again, she had revirused it, we went ahead and took care of it. Machine still seemed kinda slow and hard drive light was on alot so we loaded up our HDD tester, it was forecasting a hard drive failure in about 6 weeks. We informed the customer of this and she freaked out just knowing we did something to come up with an excuse to charge more money. 
all we were going to do was charge her for the drive and clone it over.
Her complaint to the BBB demanded that we replace her hard drive because we should have seen the problem before. :rolleyes:
Fortunately the BBB saw things my way especially when we presented it as “customer is demanding we provide warranty replacements for parts we did not install or provide”. Customer never replied again, BBB wrote it off as resolved.
A friend of mine has based his business model on that, he offers all kind of computer and information services and people pay him what they think it’s worth. So far it’s working, and he says he’s surprised that in previous jobs he kept running into idjits wanting “a Mercedes for the price of a bicycle” but not this time. The idea was that coming up with a detailed list of possible services would have been a PITA for him, but the customers usually have poked around before contacting him (so they know how much the going price is) and what he has to do is say whether he can or can not do it. Some of his customers have mentioned being befuddled by the wide range of prices for what’s supposed to be the same service (“why is this store charging 100€ while the guys across the street charge 42€, and why will neither one explain what is it he’s doing?”). He also has no problem explaining what is it he’s doing at a level the customer understands. Oh, and he’s had customers pay him for… doing a bit of market research and giving them the data so they could make him an offer.
It probably wouldn’t work well if there was a lot of people doing it, but so long as you’re dealing with honest folk (like you and your friends) and there is enough information to figure out the “right” price, it does work.
I’m convinced some people think all’s fair in love , war, and retail. If they can get away with it it’s not really dishonest , just part of the game.
Still, you have to find the balance between sales and that kind of loss. Sometimes being to overly zealous costs you sales and honest customers. I always act as if the customer has made an honest mistake. We had a real problem with customers switching price tags or removing them and hoping by asking “how much is this?” they’d get a better price. If it’s something really overt then it’s a different story.
I see your point.
Our pricing is somewhat middle of the road and usually we don’t have a problem, execpt with some clowns.
No!
Unless your screensaver starts showing your naked pics, we just back up your “Crap”… and if your a hot chick… sorry for looking… but if your a fat guy with his wiener…juck… wtf would I look?
I heard this every day: these documents are confidential, privat, importand, etc…
I’ve got no time to look at customers stuff and I also do not care about it… move it from A to B, fix A, then move files back to A - get paid… and getting paid is what I look out for.
Ugh.
The worst is when you sell products to hobbyists whose hobby might have a slight educational value. Most folks are OK but a signifigant number seem to be offended at the idea that you dare to charge more than your materials cost for your work since they are such noble educators of the public! You can get some guy whose a half-step away from the teabagger party and when you present him a price he turns into an out-and-out socialist.
I’ve actually called people on it. Shaming works in this matter pretty well, but some folks and their buddies don’t seem to grasp that labor should be rewarded more than $2 per hour.
It’s for the church , or for the Lord is one I got really tired of. I told one minister that he should render unto Ceaser what is Caeser’s and he tool a breath and said “okay, good one”
People also seem to think if you have a business you’re making a bunch o money and can afford to slash the prices. They not thinking about all the other folks that come in thinking their reason for wanting a discount is a great one.
No. Several reasons.
Didn’t have time to even if we wanted to.
Possibility of legal repercussions. Browsing through Joe Perv’s collection and finding kiddy porn or other legally questionable content that we’d be morally if not legally obligated to report. Assuming we didn’t just take him out back and leave him in a dumpster. Either way we’d be involved in the legal proceedings having to explain why we were looking in the first place.
And for the above reason, it was against company policy.
Umm, I know nothing about computer repair and don’t even use Windows (damn, it feels good to say that), but I really need a batch of chocolate chip cookies.
Do you need your lawn mowed?
Nope, I don’t need my lawn mowed. However, I do need the catboxes cleaned. How badly do you want those CCCookies? 
So how is this going to work?
You mail him dirty cat boxes, he cleans them and mails them back at which time you send him CC cookies?
Even using next day air with same day turn around the litter boxes will be gone for two days.
Can you cats hold it for that long?
Color me puzzled.
CatboxES. Plural. Anyway, he(? She?) was offering lawn services in the first place…lawns are very hard to pack up and ship somewhere…
You see, for some “Angel of Death” chocolate chip cookies, I’d hitch-hike to Fort Worthless.
But… litter boxES? For those I’d stay home and buy some Chips Ahoys.
I really don’t see why it should matter if the person asks upfront. You say no, and that’s the end of it. If they can’t afford it, they leave. If they want to try somewhere else that might donate their time to the church, they can.
Any person who tries to manipulate you into doing what you have said you won’t do is not doing his church a favor.
Any IT equipment fails at some point or another and people need their stuff they created with it.
…however, some don’t and that is fine too.