Selling a PC: Avoiding the Traps

This article is about selling new or old computer to clients and how to avoid the potential traps involved.

We live in an age where there are many mainstream stores such as Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Circuit City & Comp USA selling mainstream brands of PC such as Packard Bell, Dell, Compaq, Gateway & Hewlett Packard.
These companies typically have very good warranties, technical support and refund policies which regular adults come to expect with all computers.

They probably will expect this level of warranty & technical support and any assumptions can get either you or the customer burnt. For example, what happens if you supply a customer a new custom built computer that has a 1 year warranty and a month later their street has a surge which kills the computer? They will assume that the computer is under warranty (which it may or may not be depending if you wish to cover it) and there shouldn’t be any problem, however most manufacturers dont replace surged parts as the part itself didnt fail.
What happens if the PC is misused (3 year old kicked it repeatedly) and they claim for the warranty?
What happens if the customer thinks the computer has something wrong and after an hour of diagnostics by you, you find that there is nothing wrong with it?
What happens if the client has all their business accounting databases on the PC, the hard drive fails and they want to sue you for damages?

You need to include warranty terms on your receipts and get them to sign it.

Disclaimer: I am not, never have been and probably never will be a lawyer; nor is this article intended to take the place of proper legal advice. Consult with a qualified legal professional. This is only intended to be a starting point.

This is what I use for the bottom of my receipts:

• Warranty covers HARDWARE ONLY and not any software. In the event of a warranty return, a $35 labor fee will be charged if the machine is found to be not faulty.
• Title of goods does not pass until the invoice amount is paid in full. All items include sales tax unless otherwise specified.
• This invoice is to be presented for any return-to-base warranty of computers. Warranty starts from the date of invoice and is valid for the time specified on this invoice.
• Warranty does not cover the damage to other equipment used in conjunction of this unit.
• Warranty will be voided if there is evidence that the computer has been misused.
• Your Company are in no way responsible for any loss of business or data due to any failure of the system. The buyer is 100% responsible for backing up such data.

Without warranty limiting terms you are opening yourself to a world of problems. Play it safe and do things right first time.