I was gobsmacked to read this month's (March 2011) article in Which? magazine: "Would your PC survive high street surgery?" Which? took 24 computers (both laptops and desktops) with very basic faults to PC World, Comet, Best Buy and Carphone Warehouse and found the chances of getting them fixed was no better than 50:50!
But what shocked me more were the prices they quoted or charged for the repairs. For a laptop with a fairly basic software boot-up fault, Comet quoted for a new motherboard for £275! Best Buy came in at £160 charging for a new version of Windows plus a diagnostic fee of £40.
The most we would charge for these repairs would be £50. On top of that I was staggered by how long they took to repair these machines, typically 5-15 days with some repairs taking as long as 28 days! If we had a tricky repair with components needing sourcing, it's very rare for a repair to take longer than 3 or 4 days and typically it's 1-2 days. So why do these large retailers with plentiful staff need up to 4 weeks to fix the most basic repair not even requiring parts?
The desktops had an even more basic fault than the laptops - a cable had become detached from the motherboard. PC World charged £69.99 to repair this and took 4 days! Typical charges were £49.99 and I was pleased to see some offered the repair free of charge.
We offer free diagnosis on all our repairs and we wouldn't dream of charging you for the five seconds it took to plug a cable back in you'll be pleased to hear!
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