I fried a customer's HD. What do?

[Boston Pro Comp Serv LLC]

I agree if you can't prove without a doubt that it wasn't your mistake that fried the drive, eat the whole thing.

 

[Larry Sabo]

As others have said, you need to make it right without penalizing the customer. If that means a financial loss in the present, look at it as an investment in goodwill that will pay dividends in the future. I think it's important to understand what fried the drive. I've fried a drive when groping to connect the Molex power connector, and inadvertently touched the drive power pins with the connecter inverted. Zaap! To minimize the risk of doing that again, I no longer connect a Molex connector if its supply is powered-on.

A TVS (Transient Voltage Suppression) diode is probably shorted, protecting the rest of the drive. You might be able to rescue the data by just snipping it. This TVS diodes FAQ might help.

 

[HFultzjr]

Freebie.......everything included.

Live and learn, we all have made mistakes, errors.

 

[joydivision]

I would buy a new drive out of your pocket, and then charge him what you originally were going to. He has a new drive, no malware etc, a nice clean installation. You have still done what you said you were going to but you also put in a new drive.

Thankfully it seems there was no critical data to loose in this case.

 

[lcoughey]

You have still done what you said you were going to but you also put in a new drive.

He did not request a wipe and reload.

Thankfully it seems there was no critical data to loose in this case.

I wouldn't count on that, yet. Clients start remembering what they are missing after they get their system back and can't find them. I wouldn't be surprised if the client still thinks that all their files, emails, passwords, etc will be on the new hard drive.

 

[nlinecomputers]

He did not request a wipe and reload.

I wouldn't count on that, yet. Clients start remembering what they are missing after they get their system back and can't find them. I wouldn't be surprised if the client still thinks that all their files, emails, passwords, etc will be on the new hard drive.

Ditto that. Most people really do not understand the word Data so they will not understand that pictures, tax records are DATA. This isn't over yet for certain.

 

[glc122]

Replace it the Hdd and let him know.

 

[drjones]

I am distressed by the fact that now twice in a week we've had techs make somewhat disastrous mistakes and participants in the forum (and the other tech) actually still recommend charging the customer anything. (The other one was the iphone thread.)

Those adapters killing drives isn't unheard of, and I don't especially blame you as I don't think you really made a mistake. That said, you did *not* complete the job you were hired to do, and thus the customer owes you nothing. You *did* damage *working* equipment, and now you are obliged to replace it. 70 year old client probably doesn't even need a 500Gb drive, overnight it, install it, return with a big apology, and you'll keep the client and he'll tell his friends. It'll cost ya $70 and some time. Maybe even give him a few coupons to give his friends.

Charge him ANYTHING, and you will be damaging the image of your business, especially to a population who already feels EXTREMELY vulnerable in this arena.

Flogging a dead horse here, but ya'll advocating for charging clients in these situations...you need both a business ethics class and a crash course in customer service, and you make me sad because you give all of us a bad name in just the same way that scheister mechanics make all mechanics look bad.

I've never heard of an adapter killing a hard drive, so until I see more info supporting that assertion, it could well be bad luck for both parties involved.

How about this; you get called to work on a clients PC. You start working on it, but before you can finish your diagnostics and a malware scan, the hard disk dies. Just suddenly catastrophically fails.

You're trying to tell me that would be the tech's fault??

Get off your high horse, these forums are to learn & discuss. The OP certainly doesn't have any ill will or intent, he's posting to learn and discuss and ascertain the right thing to do.

 

[LifelineIT]

I've never heard of an adapter killing a hard drive, so until I see more info supporting that assertion, it could well be bad luck for both parties involved.

How about this; you get called to work on a clients PC. You start working on it, but before you can finish your diagnostics and a malware scan, the hard disk dies. Just suddenly catastrophically fails.

You're trying to tell me that would be the tech's fault??

Get off your high horse, these forums are to learn & discuss. The OP certainly doesn't have any ill will or intent, he's posting to learn and discuss and ascertain the right thing to do.

Ok, I'll address these in order, even if I don't really like your tone.

For killing hard drives: Someone else here said they'd seen it too. Bertie? I dunno, it's in this thread somewhere. Next, I have seen it myself in my shop, thankfully it was one of our drives. My business partner is an EE and I'm stubborn, so we set about to figure out the problem...it's not hard. In exactly the same way that the cheap chinese replacement laptop adapters often throw dirty power, not surprisingly the cheap chinese usb/sata dongles ALSO throw dirty power. I had three of them in here including the one that cooked a drive, and 2 out of 3 were not within an acceptable delta on power output. I've since upgraded to a different cheap chinese piece of crap but with a much more solid power supply, and I haven't had any more issues. As someone else recommended, google it dude.

Next, you're not serious about comparing these two scenarios, right? I mean really, you're not, right? You can't take two completely different events that have a somewhat similar outcome and claim they're the same.

And, as for the OP of this post, no, I don't think he had any ill will or intent, and in fact I told him so, and which is why I think that he came here to ask. I was discussing the other people who have been advising him to charge for the repair, and I was talking about the OP of the last post who broke an ipod and still kept money in the exchange. I can see where you'd be confused about whom I was speaking---but I wasn't casting aspersions on the OP, I promise.

And...as for discussions...did you read the whole thread?

Edit: I will acquiesce that lots of people would just tell the owner that his drive died and wouldn't own up to nuking it themselves, and charge him for the drive and the replacement and the reinstall, and convince him that that was really the problem all along. Hopefully we don't have any of those techs floating around here.

 

[joydivision]

Sorry I was under the impression the data is not too much of an issue otherwise if this happened to me I would be bricking it.

I think this is a lesson to all of us to always clone a drive as soon as it enters the workshop. Easier said than done though.

 

[codegreen]

He did not request a wipe and reload.

Not to mention no back up of his files and programs. I know he thinks there's nothing important on there, but I agree that lost passwords, email account info and such are probably going to be an issue here.

How about this; you get called to work on a clients PC. You start working on it, but before you can finish your diagnostics and a malware scan, the hard disk dies. Just suddenly catastrophically fails.

You're trying to tell me that would be the tech's fault??

Not the same situation. The OP knows that it was his equipment that fried the drive. He says so in the title. There was a puff of smoke. This was not a failing drive before he popped it into his drive dock.

And, while I think LifelineIT may have come off a bit harsh, I agree with him. I am also baffled by the few suggestions that a technician should expect payment for a badly botched job. In this particular case, the customer came in for a malware cleaning, got his hard drive toasted, and is leaving with a re-install minus all his data. If this were my situation, not only would the customer be getting his computer back with a new drive at no cost, I would like offer him a discount on his repair. If I mess up, I want a customer walking away thinking, "Wow, he really went all-out to make things right," as opposed to, "Hmmm... I think I was just scammed."

 

[drjones]

Lifeline: I apologize somewhat for my tone, but I don't appreciate your insinuation that we're ignorant crooks if we don't give customers free everything for any mistake we might make.

I have a lady I do support for; she's the mother of a childhood friend. Sweet lady.

She finally decides to replace her old XP box. I sell her a new Dell with Win 8 - big mistake, and that was one of the experiences that caused me to vow to NEVER sell a Win8 PC again.

Anyway, she has all sorts of issues with it freezing and just not acting right. I spent easily 2-4 hours AT NO CHARGE TO HER diagnosing it and trying to fix it. Of course I assume it's an operator error, but nope; I saw it seize up myself. Couldn't find anything wrong though, Just a lemon.

I ended up buying her a brand new replacement and installing it - ALL AT NO CHARGE.

All said & done, between the phone calls, my actual labor time on the phone & on-site and the cost of the new box, it easily cost me almost $1k out of pocket.

Did I go far enough to make things right?

 

[drjones]

Not the same situation. The OP knows that it was his equipment that fried the drive. He says so in the title. There was a puff of smoke. This was not a failing drive before he popped it into his drive dock.

That's one of the simultaneously awesome and worst things about IT is that you truly can never know it all, and there is always something new to learn.

That said, I've never heard of a USB-SATA adapter frying a drive. Doesn't mean it couldn't happen but I also don't think it's unreasonable to at least ask if it couldn't have been faulty customer equipment to begin with.

We all know how well residentials in particular take care of their PCs, right?

 

[Megaarch]

Going by your original post op I think you did enough work to justify charging for the original repair.

If you truly didn't f up his data, photos, music, videos, documents, etc. You provided a service of fixing his system, with a fresh install of windows.

However if you lost his data, photos, music, videos, documents, etc. You should do it out of pocket and pray no recourse on his part.

 

[B Trevathan]

I have a lady I do support for; she's the mother of a childhood friend. Sweet lady.

She finally decides to replace her old XP box. I sell her a new Dell with Win 8 - big mistake, and that was one of the experiences that caused me to vow to NEVER sell a Win8 PC again.

Anyway, she has all sorts of issues with it freezing and just not acting right. I spent easily 2-4 hours AT NO CHARGE TO HER diagnosing it and trying to fix it. Of course I assume it's an operator error, but nope; I saw it seize up myself. Couldn't find anything wrong though, Just a lemon.

I ended up buying her a brand new replacement and installing it - ALL AT NO CHARGE.

All said & done, between the phone calls, my actual labor time on the phone & on-site and the cost of the new box, it easily cost me almost $1k out of pocket.

Wow, was there no warranty help at all from Dell?

Would Dell not work with you at all? Did you tell them that you yourself had checked the computer that you sold her and it was faulty?

The whole system was a bad, you had to replace everything? You couldn't fix it by swapping any of the parts with known good parts?

That was nice of you. I hate lemons. It makes me feel bad when something like that happens to a friend or family member or like you said a sweet lady who is the mother of a childhood friend.

 

[Mercenary Roadie]

What I would do is still charge for the virus cleanup...that work was done.

That is not a true statement. The clean up was not completed and it is why he took it back to his shop and ended up frying it.

Fact 1. He did not complete the job he was hired to do.

Fact 2. He destroyed his clients equipment (not intentional)

Fact 3. The client is without a working computer.

How anyone can say with a straight face that the client should still be charged is beyond me.

Things like this happen and its why you carry insurance. I wouldn't make a claim in this case and just eat the cost of replacing the destroyed equipment and ensure that the client is back up 100%.

It is the right thing to do and the legal thing to do.

 

[LifelineIT]

Lifeline: I apologize somewhat for my tone, but I don't appreciate your insinuation that we're ignorant crooks if we don't give customers free everything for any mistake we might make.

A few follow-up comments (for everyone, not just you):

I apologize if what I said made you think I was calling you an ignorant crook, it wasn't my intention. I stand by my statement that charging the customer for anything in this scenario is unethical, though. Yep, it sucks, but like I said, it's the cost of doing business. If you can't swallow a hard drive and a few hours, I'd posit that your business plan is in jeopardy. If you find that you routinely find yourself in these scenarios---then maybe some more training is in order. I don't think that either of these things is the case with anyone here---I'm just pointing out that time/out-of-pocket aren't good enough excuses.

Next, this thread is NOT in a private, members-only forum, it's publicly viewable. All of our company names are in our signatures, finding this thread is trivial. Would your opinions and statements be the same if you know that your clients could read what you've said you would do in the same circumstance? I actually posted portions of this thread (identities removed) to my personal facebook, and asked my friends to weigh in and tell me that I was out of line. Everyone who responded felt the same way---including major retail managers, other technicians, and general consumers. Not a scientific measure to be sure, but give it a spin on your own wall and see what happens.

I'm sorry that I get a little bit animated in these conversations---I've been a major retail manager for a long time (and in some big stores), and I've always argued that customer service is the only thing that will protect your business in a competitive environment. If I'm not going to be the cheapest, I better make sure that as many of my customers as possible feel that they've been treated better than fairly, ESPECIALLY customers who already feel at a disadvantage walking through the door. I wouldn't ever tell anyone how to run their business, but I reserve the right to be cranky when folks in my industry make the rest of us look shady.

 

[SOHOtechRob]

Resolution

Please see my Edit #4 for resolution with customer during delivery this morning.

 

[Porthos]

EDIT 4: 3/29/2014: I delivered the PC back to the customer today. Once I got in to his assisted living facility room, I told him I had good and bad news. He asked for the bad first. I explained what happened, apologized profusely, told him I bought a new HD at my cost, reloaded Win7, AVG, Adobe, Java, all security updates and set browser home page to his AT&T webmail page for him - and that I wasn't going to charge him for any of it. My business lives and dies on customer referrals and word of mouth and I wanted him to be satisfied that I did everything possible for him. He was very appreciative, and sympathized that in his previous work experience in dry cleaning sometimes accidents happen. Well, a few minutes later his lady friend from upstairs came down and I explained it all again to her. She was much more impressed with what I did to rectify the problem. I told her I wasn't going to charge him/her for anything. She protested and said I should charge him/her something. I told them I wasn't going to give them a dollar figure - they could pick whatever they felt comfortable. I was ready to accept $0 and would be privately grateful for anything greater to defray the cost of the HD as well as my labor. As he pulled out a fat wad of cash, they bantered a bit back and forth about what was enough and finally handed me a $100 bill. I was surprised at this large amount and I asked him AGAIN if he was sure he wanted to pay me that much. He insisted and I reluctantly but gratefully accepted. As long as he doesn't download every optimizer, registry fixer and toolbar helper again, I think everybody is a winner here.

I have customers like that as well. Remember the april 15 MBAM snafu? Since I literally force all virus removal customers to buy it(to follow EULA) I offered all that were affected a fix for free (over 100 in 4 days) all but 5 gave me anywhere between 40 and 60 bucks for my efforts. Being a one man shop that was "an experience".

 

[Romaniac]

That's amazing news - well done.

@Porthos: good stuff. And thanks for pasting the resolution edit.