Welcome to Neon9 Forum

[jasoneon9]

This forum was first introduced as part of neon9.com website to initially expose the high prices of some Computer repair shops.

I recently worked at Quayit computers in Totnes Ticklemore Street and was enjoying the work only to find out to my dismay & Disappointment that i was the only qualified Microsoft Certified Professional, although they do have Dave the co-owner and martin that are quite familiar with Mac & Pc’s.
This wasn’t my real concern as with me working there, they would have someone who is qualified to fix & Troubleshoot PC problems, and although I must admit I have no knowledge of Mac computers which also they don’t have anyone who is qualified either.

I have quit my job after 2 days, Why you ask Money.

I was asked to work the first day for free to prove myself, (my qualifications should settle that why don’t they just do a proper interview and ask me questions of what i know and check what my qualifications are?).
As the wage was negotiable I was then asked to work the whole month at minimum wage and then re-evaluate my wage at the end of the month, i negotiated that the re-evaluate my wage in 2 weeks they said ok,
I didn’t spend the last 2 years studying to be a Certified Professional to work for minimum wage.
It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest now to realise why there isn’t any Certified Pc Technicians Employed by Quayit.

After all that said this still isn’t the reason why i have quit after 2 days.
fist day i was asked to bill a man £156 to fit a new power supply that took me 10 minutes to diagnose and fit a replacement costing Quayit approximately £7.50 + my 10 minutes of time

Quayit say that we must do a Diagnostic test first £20 + vat before we troubleshoot any problem which consists of
Scan disk & Defrag, which you can do yourself you right click your hard drive choose properties then tools
if 1 bad block is found then Quayit go no further and suggest the owner to buy a new hard drive Pfft!
Scan disk can correct bad blocks if there is many bad block’s this would suggests possible sign of hard drive failure and then i would suggest a new hard drive.
Part of the Diagnostic is to check for spyware & virus, if 1 tracking cookie is found, which is found on every computer connected to internet with no protection, you would be billed for £29 + vat for the removal, why not just sell you a 1 years subscription to OneCare or Norton which are excellent protection or download freely AVG or Spybot which is free ok protection is not as good but better than none.

I was asked to promote more memory for a customer 256mb £49 + vat (which was a second hand ram chip from old machine) sold as new. At Pc world a new 256mb ram is £10 to £15 including vat
1 fitted Power Supply Unit £69
1 tracking Cookie Removed £29
1 x second hand sold as new 256mb memory fitted £49
£147 + Vat £25.72
Total £172.72 Ouch!

Quayit decided that wasn’t enough they asked me to say its £156 + vat £27.30 Total £183.30 Double ouch!

The computer was brought in for not powering up, it was a simple replacement of a power supply unit i would of charged £35 to £40 max and then suggested to customer that a ram upgrade would speed his computer up but was up to the customer as far as diagnostics go i would of given customer instructions to do their own scan & defrag
and if they didn’t have antivirus or internet protection i would of offered to sell them some protection.

The last straw i was asked to go to a customer’s house to install 3 sets of Nero burning software and install 3 external DVD writers which you just plug USB into machine.
Everything was going fine but 1 machine that already had a corrupted Nero installed wasn’t behaving and had to be removed first only thing was, was the uninstaller kept crashing so i asked customer if i could use other machine to go on internet for a solution, internet was slow but i found a solution and proceeded to fix machine in next 10 minutes, because of the corruption problems to overcome job took a little longer than hoped for but all was resolved and customer was happy,
time taken was 1 hour 45 minutes how much would a reasonable bill be?

With 30% off Try £172

Yes £172 Quayit charged i went back to shop to quiz them and told them that this was extortionate but i was told by Dave co-owner to mind my own business.

So i told them that i could no longer work for them.

A fair high price from a Qualified Pc Technician should be approximately £40 to £60 per hour

I don’t like high prices I am a Qualified Technician & my price is £30 per hour for the 1st hour then £25 an hour then on, unless i need to take pc away then you will receive a fair fixed price once i have determined the fault and solution,

My Qualifications are
A+ Hardware
A+ Software
Network+
MCDST Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician
MCP Microsoft Certified Professional
Also i have been fixing computers since 1996

Currently studying for Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator should be complete by end September
then Studying for Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer

Ask QUAYIT in Totnes what their Credentials are
i was told none by Dave co-owner with no Qualifications and Extortionate prices who would you rather be fixing your computer

Ring Jason on 07730117175 if you need computer help from someone who is Qualified to help you and has integrity
not to rip you off i like to pay fair prices i suspect you like fair prices too.