Still no exercise but actually beginning to feel human.
So after a good ten days waiting on hearing back about my puter at the shop I finally get to the bottom of what has happened with it. Nothing. That’s right, it has taken them close to ten days to report that it won’t turn on (yeah, like, that is the fault!!) and do nothing else. I find this out when they clarify to me that if I want them to actually open the thing up and diagnose the fault, they will charge me $140 per half hour just to *diagnose* the fault, and then will give me a quote for how much to fix it. No, they won’t place a cap on how many half hours it will take them to diagnose the problem. And they do require payment of at least the first $140 in advance. Given that I fully expect the verdict to be “it’s fried”, I don’t really want to spend too much more money on it simply so that I can make a claim for reimbursement on my insurer. Particularly when they are charging just as much as MY HOURLY RATE to open the bloody computer up and have a look. Bloody delicate geniuses (genii?)
So, after that wasted 10 days of messing around with zero progress, I approach it from a different perspective. So now the plan is for my insurer to get the computer and assess its brokenness, which means I don’t have to pay for pointless delicate genius work.
The frustrating thing is that I am 90% sure that my computer is a write-off. I am 100% sure I have the money to buy a new one and won’t have to wait until I get the insurance payout. However, I am also 100% sure that if I go ahead a buy a new one now, they will declare that they are able to fix the old one and I will then have two (2) notebook computers. So more waiting.
I must be clear that I am not without computer of course. Apart from the fact that I use a computer all day at work, I have been using our spare mac (which I can’t stand), so I haven’t gone cold turkey.
Oh, and prize for the best customer service in this whole debacle goes to the girl from the insurer’s appointed computer technician who rang this morning to get all of my details so that the job could be assigned to a technician. I explained that the problem was that the computer didn’t turn on and had no function lights. She concluded her call by saying “If you notice any other faults with the computer in the meantime, please call us and let us know”. I shall be sure to inform them if the machine decides to go further than just totally ceasing to work. I mean, it is just a very expensive paperweight at the moment. How much worse could it get? Spontaneous combustion perhaps? A side order of total structural meltdown?
7 comments
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August 28, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Sekhmet
Wow, you get paid $140 per hour??? I’m in the wrong job đŸ˜¯
August 28, 2007 at 4:54 pm
deege
It is actually $140 a *half hour* for these goons, which means close to $300 per hour. However, given that I don’t work for myself, I don’t actually receive anything like that – plenty goes in different directions along the way.
August 28, 2007 at 10:02 pm
kathy
That’s exactly what I was thinking! What is it you do deege?
I had the computer / insurance / service nightmare a few years ago .. I don’t think I ever want to go there again! Still, we did eventually get the laptop back in working condition, so I can understand your hesitation re buying a new one.
Good luck.
PS I’m with Sara .. keep on blogging.
August 28, 2007 at 10:03 pm
kathy
That’s exactly what I was thinking! What is it you do deege?
I had the computer / insurance / service nightmare a few years ago .. I don’t think I ever want to go there again! Still, we did eventually get the laptop back in working condition, so I can understand your hesitation re buying a new one.
Good luck.
PS I’m with Sara .. keep on blogging.
September 2, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Spark Driver
Spontaneous combustion wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Then you would be confident that it can’t be fixed and more on lol.
September 3, 2007 at 7:52 am
Gareth Pye
When you can send photos of items that clearly aren’t right its much easier to get insurance companies to do things. Try dropping it several times. You may be surprised how high up you need to do this from.
September 12, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Beakus
Oh my god… sounds like a right mission, and what a rip off! As for the call centre phone monkey… well, what can you say?? Eeeediots!
Hope you get it sorted Deege.
B.