We all have those customers. You know, the ones who say or do something you just can’t believe. Maybe they blundered or were just naive. Whatever, it makes good water cooler talk.
I’ve heard some pretty crazy stuff this year and decided to compile a crazy list. This list is representative of the most bizarre. It seems like we get a lot of this stuff.
We have customers sign a waiver allowing us to remove software. Days after picking up her laptop, a woman came back complaining we removed software she paid nearly $600.00 per month to maintain. Every title on her list was a virus.
“How cool, someone finally came out with a flexible phone.” Days after the new iPhone came out a younger customer was eager to show off his new bendy smartphone. In reality, the iPhone 6 has a design flaw which makes it susceptible to tight pockets.
At the beginning of the year we had a customer show us a check in excess of $5,000.00 to pay for a Craigslist sale. This person was preparing to send the item to the Nigerian buyer along with $4,000.00. Even after acknowledging it was a scam they were still going to send the item.
Rental laptops are popular because of their perceived low cost. Most, however, are equivalent to cheap department store rigs. A customer who rented one decided to keep the rental after showing me she could buy three department store machines for the sum of all her payments.
Many people believe paying more gets more. One customer who asked my opinion showed me a bunch of flyers comparing new computers. Each had pretty much the same specs. His choice was the most expensive computer which was also the slowest of the bunch. So much for our opinion.
Even though we don’t fix printers we still help with issues. One guy wanted to zoom in on a person in a crowd. He kept cropping and resizing the image but when it printed it was pixilated. “They do it on TV and in the movies though.” CSI simply has better technology.
I overheard a customer talking to his wife about a repair they were contemplating. Before he dialed he asked me not to listen (in a 15′ X 15′ room). He seemed to be talking in code which he later explained was to confuse the NSA. Imagine how high our taxes would be if they actually employed people to listen to each conversation.
Earlier in the year I broke my own rule and dated a customer. In any event, she had some sensitive documents on her laptop which she felt were protected with a user password. After showing her how easy it was to access the data she changed the password. Weeks after separating I received an email asking if I remembered her password.
Drum roll please. My all time favorite involved a guy and his wife who believed the secrets on their computer were leaking from their machine to people calling them. Even without being connected to the internet, somehow their personal information was escaping and debt collectors could still find them. Their solution was a lead shield duct taped onto the computer which made the tower heavy and somehow didn’t fix the problem.
Yes, we do get some odd ducks coming through our doors. I’ve been told I invite them because I’m the oddest. There’s rarely a dull day at the computer store and for a pretty mundane business we have our fair share of entertaining stories.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can call him at (978) 919-8059 or visit www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)