The Endicott Enquirer News from the Southern Tier

Tune Ups: Staples Tries To Charge Senior Citizen $390 For Basic Computer Repair

Thought your readers might find this information useful. While making a return at Staples (800 Lexington St, Waltham, MA), I happened to hear an elderly gentleman disputing a service charge. He had brought his PC in for a free "tune up," and now was being charged $39.99 for that service, plus the service technician was explaining that he needed to purchase a diagnostic screening ($49.99), virus removal services ($150), and more RAM (~$150) to get his computer working. His PC had four viruses, the technician explained, but they would need to run the diagnostic to determine the extent of the infections and to determine if any hardware needed to be replaced.

Having done PC repairs for pizza money in high school, I couldn't stand to watch a senior citizen get bilked that much to simply have anti-virus installed, run, and then (presumably) removed since it was just a "service." I stepped in and offered to take a look at his computer for free, though I couldn't make any promises about fixing it. The technician glared at me, but when the gentleman took me up on the offer he left us alone. I made my returns and followed the man to his house to see what I could do (OK, maybe I'm too trusting but I figure at 6'3" and 230, there's not much and 70 year old can pull on me).

He explained that his computer had worked well enough for e-mail and web surfing, but after he took it in for the free diagnostic it wouldn't start up anymore. Sure enough, we plug his Gateway in and nothing: The monitor doesn't even flicker, even though the power button turns green. I insert a live CD I'd brought along, and still no luck. I double checked that everything had been just fine before taking it in: He hadn't dropped it on the way to the store, hadn't ever opened the case up. He said the technicians had told him he'd need to have virii removed and more RAM added; he suggested he might as well get a new computer if they were going to charge him $300. Seeing how not even the BIOS was showing up, I was starting to worry he was right.

I opened up the PC, expecting the worst: A melted motherboard, fried circuits, or worse, nothing visible at all. I poked and pushed all the parts, making sure everything was tightly pushed in. Everything seemed alright, until I came to the RAM: His DRAM had been partially ejected from its slot, which only could happen if the buttons that held it in place had been pushed. Since he had never opened the PC case up, there was only one explanation: While rummaging inside his computer, a technician had (accidentally or on purpose) hit the button and caused the damage that they were now trying to charge him $390+tax to fix.

I can't see why a "tune up" would require opening the case, except to check and see how many open DRAM slots were available so they could push Staples products. Whatever the case, taking advantage of the elderly by throwing terms like "computer virus" when a hardware problem you caused stops you from even turning on the computer is downright dishonest, if not quite actionable. I even went through Staples pricing sheets afterwards, and none of the services they tried to upsell even appeared on the list.

Anyways, just a warning to your readers to watch out with Staples services. Probably no better or worse than any other big box assistance, but at list in this instance more than a little odious.

Tune Ups: Staples Tries To Charge Senior Citizen $390 For Basic Computer Repair

Just a friendly reminder that you should not bring your PC to Staples, Best Buy, Circuit City or any other big box store for servicing. Take it to the kid down the street and pay them 20 bucks to look it over for you, chances are you will get much more for the money and they will appreciate being thanked for their services since us techie types don't get thanked nearly enough for this kind of thing. The big box stores will take advantage of you if you are not very careful in these situations if you don't know what you are doing or don't know what all of the various acronyms mean, at least let someone else bring in the PC for you since they will know if you are getting scammed or not.