Virus Removal/PC Tune-Up Process

[fixitdaz]

I have to call BS.

This guy is an end user. I have read all his other posts and he always starts out will quoting his prices. Like he has something to prove. He is trying to make us all look like over prices fools. He does not own a shop and he does not fix computers for $24. At best he is a staples or best buy "SALES PERSON" I mean ""TECH"" that gets side jobs off of craigslist.

You would think at $7000 a month he could afford at least his own domain name.

I agree with you he is full of it. He obviously thinks he's go some thing to prove, or he is one them flash f*@c*@ers my cars bigger than your car anything you can do I can do better type of Person. Rant Rant Rant OK that's it, sed it, rant over.

 

[Xander]

Mike/Tech24, the website has the address as 102 but googling it comes up with 108 (and a street view location in the middle of the intersection). Starion Financial shows up as 109 but there's nothing across the street from it other than what looks like a house and an ice cream shop (with illegible signs).

http://i53.tinypic.com/2wcmzhz.png <-intersection "102"
http://i56.tinypic.com/xlwklg.png <-two buildings on 'even' side of street
http://i54.tinypic.com/zlxo34.jpg <- shop?

EDIT: Fixitdaz, I was trying to remember where I'd seen the pic on his website... it's your avatar. I smell a Getty lawsuit...!

 

[fixitdaz]

yes yes I am not to imprest I have used it for about 14 months now and that's the first time I have seen it used by a.an.other

 

[NeutronTech]

... with an average of $48-$72/repair, ...

I thought you had a $24 flat fee??

 

[tech_24]

I do charge a flat $24 per repair charge. virus removal $24 + tuneup $24 + Data backup $24 = $72 total service invoice. I do perform quality work and don't feel that lower my prices undercuts the quality of my work. $7000 is not what goes in our pocket, its total sales and out of that comes operating costs (Advertising, ordering, utilities, etc). Never once have i undercut anyone in these forums in regards to their businesses and pricing as its not my business nor my place to tell you what you should charge. I only stated my rates in original post as to show the theme of my organization and y i was looking for other methods that might make repair process easier. companies in my area offer 24-hour return times on alot of services and just like me have exclusions to that if parts need to be ordered, etc. The bulk of my business comes from business contracts and winning bids on business wide upgrades. Keep in mind i am not a repair shop i am a retail electronics store that does repair

 

[tech_24]

and to ehousecalls in regards to your pictures, The far left business is Jerry's vacuum center, their is 2 business underneath a barber shop and a wedding alterations shop (Julies Needle & Thread) the next office to the left of Jerry's (Has yellow sign) is La Boutique a purse and accessories store, to the left of that is Kent's Barber Shop, then the last shop on the left is Tech24 it is a strip mall type building with several business located within. 102 1st ave NW was the address for La Boutique which shutdown so we decided to have that as our makeshift office until we could get all rennovations done to 108 and get the shop up and running. I currently do not have an apple computer anymore as we decided to switch our machines to pc's and website was made on a mac so changes cannot be made on pc. We are in the process of getting a domain and new webpage however trying to decide on domain name as tech24.com tech24.org etc are all taken

 

[tech_24]

This is 108 1st ave nw ehousecalls just gotta pan the camera to see the entire building so you can view each of the business located within

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=108+1st+ave+nw+mandan+nd&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=108+1st+Ave+NW,+Mandan,+Morton,+North+Dakota+58554&gl=us&ei=dkbvTMrpJ4ecnAfA2YCyCw&oi=geocode_result&ved=0CBMQ8gEwAA&t=h&layer=c&cbll=46.826616,-100.891292&panoid=yICthfbrDfYkJk7c8Nr2uA&cbp=12,96.31,,0,8.95&ll=46.826616,-100.891292&spn=0.000323,0.000862&z=20

 

[Wheelie]

This thread elicits many emotions. There are a whole host of red flags but I just do not have the time or energy ...

 

[BDPCR]

Wow $24.00 an hour, $24.00 virus removal talk about devaluing our service what a shame.

 

[meanderer]

Mike/Tech24, the website has the address as 102 but googling it comes up with 108 (and a street view location in the middle of the intersection). Starion Financial shows up as 109 but there's nothing across the street from it other than what looks like a house and an ice cream shop (with illegible signs).

http://i53.tinypic.com/2wcmzhz.png <-intersection "102"
http://i56.tinypic.com/xlwklg.png <-two buildings on 'even' side of street
http://i54.tinypic.com/zlxo34.jpg <- shop?

EDIT: Fixitdaz, I was trying to remember where I'd seen the pic on his website... it's your avatar. I smell a Getty lawsuit...!

I did the same search on the website, but thought posting all this is not worth the time, thanks for doing this for me

So suddenly you bring up the topic of "business wide upgrades". While I had already done my share of judging, the bulk of the stuff here still don't line up on my sheet.

And yes you can edit your webpage with a PC after you make it with a mac, you just have to pay me

 

[AdamsAPlus]

It doesn't sound to me like you want to be a tech. You want people to bring you a computer and you run a script and your done. Being a tech is about figuring out the problem. Such as in a virus removal. Running RKill then MBytes and SAS, will only get the weaker viruses. Figuring out the virus, removing it from the registry, fixing the registry, finding out if a rootkit is involved, disabling the rootkit, unhooking if required. This all takes time. Yea I build computers (or should I say reimage) that I sell, 20 at a time, but you just can't do that with virus removal. Well unless you just nuke and pave all virus removals.

There are some real tough, stubborn viruses out there. You can't expect to spend 3 min on the computer to start a scan and be done with it.

What do you do when you can't get anything to install, or you can't run any exe programs? What about when the registry will not open? Ever look at the Hijack This logs? If your scans come up clean do you believe that you are actually virus free or do you test the computer to see if there are any other symptoms? All this stuff takes time.

There is no - 1 solution will remove all viruses.

I know this one pizza tech that that had the model, Mbytes for virus removals. ERD Commander for other software problems. If those 2 didn't fix it he would nuke and pave.
As far as hardware issues, he would replace the hard drive, power supply and the ram. If that didn't fix the problem, he would tell the customer that it was the motherboard and it would be cheaper to buy a new computer.

He didn't even charge $24 for each repair. And he was not a tech.

 

[gunslinger]

Without reading all 78 posts I'll say this:

1. I don't see a problem with the 24 hour TA. Most of the time I can do that as well. Although I do not advertise that I can.

2. I'm not sure how you can make a decent living at $24 per system unless you live outside the US?

3. Someone made the remark that Superantispyware and Malwarebytes were not the be all end all. This is true, but from years of using them I can say about 80-90% of the time if they wont get rid of the infection a reinstall is coming soon.


Just a few quick thoughts.

 

[Jake77444]

LOL.......I don't know what else to say.

 

[iisjman07]

I'm calling for this post to be locked. The topic of discussion has disappeared

 

[Wheelie]

I do charge a flat $24 per repair charge. virus removal $24 + tuneup $24 + Data backup $24 = $72 total service invoice. I do perform quality work and don't feel that lower my prices undercuts the quality of my work. $7000 is not what goes in our pocket, its total sales and out of that comes operating costs (Advertising, ordering, utilities, etc). Never once have i undercut anyone in these forums in regards to their businesses and pricing as its not my business nor my place to tell you what you should charge. I only stated my rates in original post as to show the theme of my organization and y i was looking for other methods that might make repair process easier. companies in my area offer 24-hour return times on alot of services and just like me have exclusions to that if parts need to be ordered, etc. The bulk of my business comes from business contracts and winning bids on business wide upgrades. Keep in mind i am not a repair shop i am a retail electronics store that does repair

You will do all that work for $72? Really? I won't come right out and call you an idiot but I gotta tell you it is very tempting.

It is poor businessmen/technicians like this that drives customers my way. You are actually good for my business.

A Mr. Lowballer PC Repair dude like you recently moved smack into the middle of my work area about 4 months ago. Put up big bright orange and yellow signs out front advertising $25 virus removal, free troubleshooting, $59 Windows reloads, yada yada yada. They did not cause even a minor hiccup in my business. In fact, he drove business to me (people he pi$$ed off).

Drove by there yesterday and the signs are all gone, and the store is bare and painters were in there making it all pretty for the next tenant. I actually like it when I see y'all come to town. Makes me realize how important it is that I have two things:
1) business sense, and
2) technical skillz.



.

 

[MobileTechie]

Someone made the remark that Superantispyware and Malwarebytes were not the be all end all. This is true, but from years of using them I can say about 80-90% of the time if they wont get rid of the infection a reinstall is coming soon.

I would say that isn't true anymore. Most infections I see are rogueware and as of a few months ago about 80% of them come with a rootkit or bootkit that neither of those apps will remove. Yet other tools and methods produce a clean, working system.

If you look at the virus removal sites you'll see that they all include Gmer or TDSSKiller as standard tools after MBAM or similar, which would indicate to me that they are also removing rootkits that these aging anti-malware apps don't get.

I don't remember the last time I had to reinstall because of a virus, I think it was a virut infection about a year ago.

 

[Wheelie]

I would say that isn't true anymore. Most infections I see are rogueware and as of a few months ago about 80% of them come with a rootkit or bootkit that neither of those apps will remove. Yet other tools and methods produce a clean, working system.

If you look at the virus removal sites you'll see that they all include Gmer or TDSSKiller as standard tools after MBAM or similar, which would indicate to me that they are also removing rootkits that these aging anti-malware apps don't get.

I don't remember the last time I had to reinstall because of a virus, I think it was a virut infection about a year ago.

Agree. On top of that I can't tell you how many "zero day" infections I have seen in the past year as well (10 or 15 maybe?). Nothing picks them up except a careful eye.

.

 

[gunslinger]

I would say that isn't true anymore. Most infections I see are rogueware and as of a few months ago about 80% of them come with a rootkit or bootkit that neither of those apps will remove. Yet other tools and methods produce a clean, working system.

If you look at the virus removal sites you'll see that they all include Gmer or TDSSKiller as standard tools after MBAM or similar, which would indicate to me that they are also removing rootkits that these aging anti-malware apps don't get.

I don't remember the last time I had to reinstall because of a virus, I think it was a virut infection about a year ago.

TDSSKiller has been in my kit for a little while, as well as a few other tools. As for certain infections that AV programs and MAM and SAS wont touch, it has been my experience that once removed the OS will never be the same any way and may require repair. Or, you may end up wasting hours trying to remove a stubborn infection just to have to reinstall anyway. It would not be fair to the customer to charge them for trying to clean the system and for a reinstall.

 

[tech_24]

Thanks to everyone for their posts...sorry i have been inactive for a little while...just gearing up for our 2nd location...We have merged with a few other repair places in the area and are readying the second store...adding more consumer electronics into the mix with this location and keeping the old location primarily repairs and our boost mobile cellular service...Hoping for a boost mobile/sprint kiosk in the mall by the end of the summer...We will see how it goes

 

[Hickory Computer]

Wow. I'm not sure where to begin. Your turn around isn't bad. We tell everyone 3business days, but most of the time we call them back same/next day. I'm not going to discuss pricing because I don't know your area. It seems like it would be a narrow margin.... I certainly couldn't make that work in our market. I would be very interested to hear from you after 6 months with a shop and associated overhead.

Scripting is nice, but nothing beats the human touch. So many things would be missed if we weren't standing right there watching. Our optimization process takes 3+ hours and there is nearly 40 items on the checklist. I don't believe you can return a truly "clean" PC to the customer with the items mentioned in any of your rebuttle posts.

You really should include a hardware inspection of all components. The customer is paying for your trained eye.

Reloading should always be a last resort. I don't agree that it is the only way to ensure all virus/malware/etc. is removed. We've only reloaded as a result of a virus once, maybe twice.

I keep noticing techs resetting IE. Be careful, especially on business PC's. Most home users will not be affected by the reset, but many commercial customers will. There are a lot of web based programs now that require specific IE settings. A reset will create quite a mess. Examples include: real estate agents who access MLS databases. Financial planners & stock brokers who access broker/dealer software. Many other web destination require specific security settings.

Just a few thoughts...