A
Arcane
Guest
I live in PA and have a side business of troubleshooting pcs in people's homes. I recently went to this woman's home who had downloaded a program to clean her hard drive, but it caused problems.
To try and keep this as untechnical as possible, she was missing at least one file needed for her computer to boot up. She is on disability and has a fixed income. I agreed to look at her system to see if it could be fixed by restoring the missing file or if Windows 98 would need to be reinstalled. If it was just the file, I would only charge her $40 and if it was more involved, $40 an hour to reinstall Windows 98.
When I got to her house, it looked like replacing the file might work. I looked on the Windows 98 CD for the file and had to go through many (54) archived files trying to find this one file. After 2 1/2 hours looking through these files I was explaining to her how I wasn't able to find it. I was demonstrating what I had been doing when I came across the file. I placed it in the correct folder and rebooted the system. The original error went away, but other errors started displaying. I realized that the lose of files was much more severe and told her so. Reinstalling Windows 98 was the best option.
I told her that I was only going to charge the $40 mentioned beforehand for the time spent. I also told her that I was willing to set up another time to come back and reinstall Windows 98 or that I could stay and do it then. She said that she wanted me to stay and do it.
I stayed to reformat the hard drive, install Windows 98, reinstall the modem and printer drives and to install her AOL software. This took 1 3/4 hours.
I wrote out two bills. The first was for the 2 1/2 hours in which I waived 1 1/2 hours and the cost was $42.40 total. She paid me that amount in cash.
The second bill was for 1 3/4 hours of work and was for $74.20. She wrote me a postdated check for January 1, 2001 for that. Because money is an issue for her, I agreed to this.
I received a letter from her today stating that she was satisfied with the work, but that $116.60 is too high for installing Windows 98.
She states in the letter that I should have just reinstalled Windows without trying to find the file. That she has had that done before several times for only $25. She feels that I wasted time looking for the file. She also states that she didn't ask me to install her modem, printer or AOL software; that she knew how to do it. She says that I stretched out and wasted time to inflate the cost.
She states that she is going to stop payment on the postdated check. She writes that she is willing to pay what is 'fair', but what I charged is 'outrageous'.
She also stated in her letter that she has asked around for legal advice, that I can take her to court if I want and that she was advised to go get written statements from other reliable sources about the cost of installing Windows.
She ends the letter with, "If you are willing to readjust the bill, let me know. If not then I will take my chances in court. I should not have to pay for the time that you wasted."
I feel that I DID charge her fairly. She never said a word about the cost that evening. She told me to proceed and install Windows98 AFTER I had already been there 2 1/2 hours. I told her every step of the way how I was going to charge for what I did. She sat in the living room with me the entire time and watched what I did. She could have told me to stop at any point.
Most companies around here that do on-site service charge $65-$85 an hour.
I'm thinking that there isn't any valid reason to persue this because it's "only" $74.20. The question is, what SHOULD I do? How do I handle this? Would it be worth to take her to court? Should I send her back her check (I have deposited the cash amount)?
Thanking everying in advance...
Arcane
To try and keep this as untechnical as possible, she was missing at least one file needed for her computer to boot up. She is on disability and has a fixed income. I agreed to look at her system to see if it could be fixed by restoring the missing file or if Windows 98 would need to be reinstalled. If it was just the file, I would only charge her $40 and if it was more involved, $40 an hour to reinstall Windows 98.
When I got to her house, it looked like replacing the file might work. I looked on the Windows 98 CD for the file and had to go through many (54) archived files trying to find this one file. After 2 1/2 hours looking through these files I was explaining to her how I wasn't able to find it. I was demonstrating what I had been doing when I came across the file. I placed it in the correct folder and rebooted the system. The original error went away, but other errors started displaying. I realized that the lose of files was much more severe and told her so. Reinstalling Windows 98 was the best option.
I told her that I was only going to charge the $40 mentioned beforehand for the time spent. I also told her that I was willing to set up another time to come back and reinstall Windows 98 or that I could stay and do it then. She said that she wanted me to stay and do it.
I stayed to reformat the hard drive, install Windows 98, reinstall the modem and printer drives and to install her AOL software. This took 1 3/4 hours.
I wrote out two bills. The first was for the 2 1/2 hours in which I waived 1 1/2 hours and the cost was $42.40 total. She paid me that amount in cash.
The second bill was for 1 3/4 hours of work and was for $74.20. She wrote me a postdated check for January 1, 2001 for that. Because money is an issue for her, I agreed to this.
I received a letter from her today stating that she was satisfied with the work, but that $116.60 is too high for installing Windows 98.
She states in the letter that I should have just reinstalled Windows without trying to find the file. That she has had that done before several times for only $25. She feels that I wasted time looking for the file. She also states that she didn't ask me to install her modem, printer or AOL software; that she knew how to do it. She says that I stretched out and wasted time to inflate the cost.
She states that she is going to stop payment on the postdated check. She writes that she is willing to pay what is 'fair', but what I charged is 'outrageous'.
She also stated in her letter that she has asked around for legal advice, that I can take her to court if I want and that she was advised to go get written statements from other reliable sources about the cost of installing Windows.
She ends the letter with, "If you are willing to readjust the bill, let me know. If not then I will take my chances in court. I should not have to pay for the time that you wasted."
I feel that I DID charge her fairly. She never said a word about the cost that evening. She told me to proceed and install Windows98 AFTER I had already been there 2 1/2 hours. I told her every step of the way how I was going to charge for what I did. She sat in the living room with me the entire time and watched what I did. She could have told me to stop at any point.
Most companies around here that do on-site service charge $65-$85 an hour.
I'm thinking that there isn't any valid reason to persue this because it's "only" $74.20. The question is, what SHOULD I do? How do I handle this? Would it be worth to take her to court? Should I send her back her check (I have deposited the cash amount)?
Thanking everying in advance...
Arcane