I read a Usenet posting that annoyed me this week. I might as well quote it, because I’m lazy.
The author was called to a friend’s relative’s house to investigate the strange behaviour of their PC. As the author expected, it was stuffed full of spyware and other nastiness, but curiously, it was in an even worse condition than that. Key services, such as its USB capabilities, its sound device and even Norton Antivirus were disabled. The owner didn’t have the experience to screw up her computer so royally, so what had happened? Quote:
She had phoned a number out of the local paper of a PC ‘expert’ who could solve any problem. He had come round and fiddled with the PC for a while and ‘Run something where he got rid of a lot of ticks in boxes’ (msconfig) - a few reboots and he had told her that the PC was damaged beyond repair and she would need a new one. The one she had was a Dell that she paid £900 for a couple of years ago and he wasn’t even selling her one - he said ‘Get another Dell because this would have happened a lot sooner on a cheaper PC’.
The bill for his expert advice lasting less than an hour?
£175 + VAT.
What? Arrrggh. Not only was the cretin unable to fix the problem, he advised the owner that the only way to solve her spyware woes - for that is all they were, before he wrecked everything else - was to get a whole new PC.
As the owner fortunately knew, PCs are not damaged ‘beyond repair’ unless they are actually a smoking heap on your kitchen floor.
This story really annoys me for a couple of reasons. For one, I see self-styled ‘PC experts’ advertising in the local paper all the time. I’d never dream of becoming one - far too much hassle - but I imagine that the majority are hard-working individuals who know their way around Windows and have chosen an innovative way of making some cash. They, and indeed all PC geeks, don’t deserve to have their reputation stained by idiots who have no idea what’s going on.
Secondly, everyone knows someone who’s, shall we say, a computer novice. To be honest, they don’t know their Internet Explorer arse from their Task Manager elbow, and they probably don’t want to, either. The idea that someone is making money off their ignorance - especially when they’re completely useless - is annoying.
And that’s why I saw BT’s Home IT Advisor service advertised a few days ago and thought “what a good idea”. It’s £9.99 a month (and you can ask them as many trivial and irritating questions as you like), or £25 for a single incident. Spywared-up? Computer won’t boot because you’ve had some monkey playing with it for £175 an hour? Call BT, who you can - presumably - trust.
I’m surprised no large company has thought to offer it before. Yeah, so there’s only so much help you can offer over the phone, and I dread to think of the huge array of differing circumstances the phone advisors will have to cope with, but it’s a start. Until computers are clever enough to take care of themselves, it sounds like a great service for the computer newcomer.
Could be a bit cheaper though.
