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The service is nothing like it was some years ago.

Friends 6 year old HP PC running Windows 98 SE had a major crash later only
starting in safe mode with a warning box popping up about a run program dll
file not working.

It didn't look good, I suggested they take it to PC Source - being a long
established computer outfit that's still going that should offer a fairly
good honest service.
Seemed obvious that Windows 98 would have to be re-installed but there
could've been other problems so it was best to let them look at it. I took
the PC along with owner and explained the problem leaving it with them to
see what they could do with it. That was last Friday week just before I
went to Christchurch. Owner of PC picked it up from PC source last Friday
(a week later) with a cost of $100 for re-installing Windows and given the
impression that it was in good working order again.
The owner waited till I came over Monday morning for me to connect
everything back up to it. On starting the bugger it didn't look right at
all, it was in 640 x 480 resolution for some reason. I went to properties
to change it to find that the display was on 16 colours as well LOL. Big
surprise when the menus wouldn't work to change the resolution settings.
The HP has shared memory - 64MB with 8MB being used for the video display.
I couldn't believe it that PC Source gave the PC back to the lady owner in
that condition. I went into PC Source to see what the story was. I had a
relayed chat with the tech guy through a lady in the front of the outfit who
obviously couldn't give a stuff about the poor service that female customers
of her similar age have to put up with.
Some older people don't need more than limited knowledge to run their
computers - they could do without the wool being pulled over their eyes by
dodgy service bastards as well.
Through the lady in the front of the store the tech guy knew it couldn't do
more 16 lousy colours when it was handed back to the customer who was lead
to believe that her PC was all fixed happily paying the $100 for the
service.
The guy said through the lady he hides behind that he tried to find drivers
for it but couldn't and suggested I see if I could find any for it LOL. I
went back to the owner telling her what happened, after having a gutsful of
the monkeys.

It was obvious that something wasn't right with the PC. Instead of trying
to fix the display which they didn't at the time, they could've simply told
the owner about the problem with the video display instead of not saying a
damn thing about it as no one would notice the difference between 16 lousy
colours and 32 bit true colour at it's previous resolution of 800 x 600.
The owner was fuming and rang the manager of PC Source. To cut it down the
management and some guy Simon sounded pretty good about it. They offered to
put a video card in it at a further cost of $45 for putting it in. After
another chat with management by the owner of the PC they offered to put a
video card in it for nothing. Knowing that old 4MB cards are worthless
that's about what I was expecting they'd put into it.
Bugger me if on checking out the PC today that it's best setting is 16bit
colour at 800 x 600. On checking the video card info, the card they put in
is a lousy ONE MB piece of crap. The outfit must be full of rubbish with
lousy cards as old as that. I had a 2MB in my old 486 PC from Shands years
ago at great cost at the time of course.

PC Source are full of surprises.

Well here's a surprise for the lousy service that the useless monkeys at PC
Source have the damn nerve to offer to computing public of Dunedin.

My elderly lady friend was told by management that the technician isn't
allowed to talk to the customers because he doesn't know how to handle such
situations when it comes to dealing with the public.

Whether a PC can be fixed or not or one expects is good honest up front
service especially over any problems that can't be easily corrected.

E. Scrooge

P.S.
Is there an outfit left in Dunedin that offers a good honest service to the
computing public of Dunedin?

Pro South couldn't be any worse - very doubtful any other outfit would think
16 lousy colours was going to be good enough to fool anyone.

T'was the Wed, 1 Nov 2006 20:00:12 +1300 when I remembered "E.
Scrooge" <scrooge@*shot.co.nz (*sling)> saying something like this:

>Well here's a surprise for the lousy service that the useless monkeys at PC
>Source have the damn nerve to offer to computing public of Dunedin.
>
>My elderly lady friend was told by management that the technician isn't
>allowed to talk to the customers because he doesn't know how to handle such
>situations when it comes to dealing with the public.

It still consistently surprises me that places like this can have such
bad service plain and simple. It's not like they're charging discount
rates for discount work, but a solid rate for a less than solid
service. And yet consistently it has been proven that proving great
customer service is a really simple and effective way of retaining
customers and getting new customers.

And it's not even like it's hard to provide good customer service, it
really should be the norm, not the exception to the rule.
--
Cheers,

Waylon Kenning.

E. Scrooge wrote:

> P.S.
> Is there an outfit left in Dunedin that offers a good honest service to the
> computing public of Dunedin?

PCNZ, 19 North Road.

On Wed, 1 Nov 2006 20:00:12 +1300, "E. Scrooge" <scrooge@*shot.co.nz
(*sling)> exclaimed:

>Well here's a surprise for the lousy service that the useless monkeys at PC
>Source have the damn nerve to offer to computing public of Dunedin.
>
>My elderly lady friend was told by management that the technician isn't
>allowed to talk to the customers because he doesn't know how to handle such
>situations when it comes to dealing with the public.

That's shocking.

Note that PC Source is no longer a Dunedin PC company anyway. They've
been bought out by a Christchurch outfit, so I guess they're probably
suffering from the problems small companies often have when they are
run from afar.

But technicians not allowed to talk to customers? The best thing they
could have done at that stage would have been to front up, be honest,
and sort it out.

On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 20:57:21 +1300, Fred Dagg wrote:

> On Wed, 1 Nov 2006 20:00:12 +1300, "E. Scrooge" <scrooge@*shot.co.nz
> (*sling)> exclaimed:
>
>>Well here's a surprise for the lousy service that the useless monkeys at PC
>>Source have the damn nerve to offer to computing public of Dunedin.
>>
>>My elderly lady friend was told by management that the technician isn't
>>allowed to talk to the customers because he doesn't know how to handle such
>>situations when it comes to dealing with the public.
>
> That's shocking.
>
> Note that PC Source is no longer a Dunedin PC company anyway. They've
> been bought out by a Christchurch outfit, so I guess they're probably
> suffering from the problems small companies often have when they are
> run from afar.
>
> But technicians not allowed to talk to customers? The best thing they
> could have done at that stage would have been to front up, be honest,
> and sort it out.

I agree, no talking to the customer is wierd. I sometimes really hate
talking to the clients I fix/setup stuff for as it can be pointless. But to
not be allowed at all it just silly. Talking "through" someone else is just
a painful exercise.

Heck, we just give away old PCs for free... Although I admit that I'd hate
to deal with such old PCs (and Windows 9 especially if you asked "and so
do you have the install CDs ?" and get the classic answer "no".

I have heard could things about PCNZ........

"Fred Dagg" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On Wed, 1 Nov 2006 20:00:12 +1300, "E. Scrooge" <scrooge@*shot.co.nz
> (*sling)> exclaimed:
>
>>Well here's a surprise for the lousy service that the useless monkeys at
>>PC
>>Source have the damn nerve to offer to computing public of Dunedin.
>>
>>My elderly lady friend was told by management that the technician isn't
>>allowed to talk to the customers because he doesn't know how to handle
>>such
>>situations when it comes to dealing with the public.
>
> That's shocking.
>
> Note that PC Source is no longer a Dunedin PC company anyway. They've
> been bought out by a Christchurch outfit, so I guess they're probably
> suffering from the problems small companies often have when they are
> run from afar.
>
> But technicians not allowed to talk to customers? The best thing they
> could have done at that stage would have been to front up, be honest,
> and sort it out.

The HP PC is a budget model, nothing great. It's lasted well but only had
light use by it's owner.
It's still showing that 64MB only has 54MB just like it was with it's shared
video setup.

All they had to do was be honest enough to tell the owner when she picked it
up that Windows is working but they couldn't fix a video display problem at
the time.
Keeping the fact that it could only display 16 colours to themselves was
stupid and hardly did any favours for the lady in the shop that has to deal
with the customers.

I'm sure they've had a rev by the management in Christchurch, and probably
out of spite chose to shove a gutless 1 MB card in it as if it would go
unnoticed.
After Simon from the store been good enough to pick up the PC and deliver it
back and connecting it up for the owner shoving a 1 MB card in it was hardly
doing him any favours either. I was surprised they even found a 1MB card as
anything up to 4MB is just as worthless but at least will do the job of
displaying 24bit colour.

While not expecting much more the owner is going to at least let the
management in Christchurch know that a 1MB card that can only display 16bit
colour was put in it by PC Source Dunedin.

It hasn't got the HP software that would've been on the HP recovery CDs for
it. The software for the shared video could be part of those CDs that they
were given with the PC. Better off having just Windows 98 instead of the
original HP crap all over again.

The video setting is even showing a drop menu to choose the shared sis video
display that no longer works since the major crash or the now 1MB S3 video
card.

If they'd been honest and given good fair service the owner might even
consider buying one of their computers when the time comes to replace the HP
bugger.

E. Scrooge

In article <>,
says...
> On Wed, 1 Nov 2006 20:00:12 +1300, "E. Scrooge" <scrooge@*shot.co.nz
> (*sling)> exclaimed:
>
> >Well here's a surprise for the lousy service that the useless monkeys at PC
> >Source have the damn nerve to offer to computing public of Dunedin.
> >
> >My elderly lady friend was told by management that the technician isn't
> >allowed to talk to the customers because he doesn't know how to handle such
> >situations when it comes to dealing with the public.
>
> That's shocking.

Naa - the technician coulda been another Woger. In which case, yer
lucky!

--
Duncan

"wogers nemesis" <> wrote in message
news:17wpllkyyuu1u$.gx3s2isv7nwv$... .
> On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 20:57:21 +1300, Fred Dagg wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 1 Nov 2006 20:00:12 +1300, "E. Scrooge" <scrooge@*shot.co.nz
>> (*sling)> exclaimed:
>>
>>>Well here's a surprise for the lousy service that the useless monkeys at
>>>PC
>>>Source have the damn nerve to offer to computing public of Dunedin.
>>>
>>>My elderly lady friend was told by management that the technician isn't
>>>allowed to talk to the customers because he doesn't know how to handle
>>>such
>>>situations when it comes to dealing with the public.
>>
>> That's shocking.
>>
>> Note that PC Source is no longer a Dunedin PC company anyway. They've
>> been bought out by a Christchurch outfit, so I guess they're probably
>> suffering from the problems small companies often have when they are
>> run from afar.
>>
>> But technicians not allowed to talk to customers? The best thing they
>> could have done at that stage would have been to front up, be honest,
>> and sort it out.
>
> I agree, no talking to the customer is wierd. I sometimes really hate
> talking to the clients I fix/setup stuff for as it can be pointless. But
> to
> not be allowed at all it just silly. Talking "through" someone else is
> just
> a painful exercise.
>
> Heck, we just give away old PCs for free... Although I admit that I'd hate
> to deal with such old PCs (and Windows 9 especially if you asked "and so
> do you have the install CDs ?" and get the classic answer "no".
>
> I have heard could things about PCNZ........

The thing was bought new in 2000 from Noel Leeming. No great buy even back
then when budget PCs cost more but they went to the store and bought it
after seeing a fancy newspaper ad for it.
It's had light use and still had 8GB free on it's 10GB hard drive 6 years
later.

I suggested PC Source being a long local running outfit thinking it was the
best option. The PC was either fixable or buggered. After paying a $100
one would've expected it to be running well as it could for the time been,
and not restricted to a lousy 16 colours at 640 x 480.

E. Scrooge

"Waylon Kenning" <> wrote in message
news:...
> T'was the Wed, 1 Nov 2006 20:00:12 +1300 when I remembered "E.
> Scrooge" <scrooge@*shot.co.nz (*sling)> saying something like this:
>
>>Well here's a surprise for the lousy service that the useless monkeys at
>>PC
>>Source have the damn nerve to offer to computing public of Dunedin.
>>
>>My elderly lady friend was told by management that the technician isn't
>>allowed to talk to the customers because he doesn't know how to handle
>>such
>>situations when it comes to dealing with the public.
>
> It still consistently surprises me that places like this can have such
> bad service plain and simple. It's not like they're charging discount
> rates for discount work, but a solid rate for a less than solid
> service. And yet consistently it has been proven that proving great
> customer service is a really simple and effective way of retaining
> customers and getting new customers.
>
> And it's not even like it's hard to provide good customer service, it
> really should be the norm, not the exception to the rule.
> --
> Cheers,
>
> Waylon Kenning.

We weren't expecting much, just a most likely re-install of Windows 98 and a
report of any problems. When friend said she picked up the PC on Friday
paying a $100 with no mention of any problems it sounded pretty promising.
Couldn't believe the guy working on it didn't think anyone would notice it
stuck on 16 colours with no obvious sign of easily improving it.

E. Scrooge

"Stu Fleming" <> wrote in message
news:...
> E. Scrooge wrote:
>
>> P.S.
>> Is there an outfit left in Dunedin that offers a good honest service to
>> the computing public of Dunedin?
>
> PCNZ, 19 North Road.

Someone else recommends that guy as well.

E. Scrooge