My Computer Hero,William Conner Computer ripoff makes big bucks misdiagnosing computers Calgary, Alberta Canada

Due to the threat of lawsuit our response here will be limited. Our cooperation with the complainant has regretfully been limited because she did threaten a lawsuit, while we were reviewing her complaint. The exact details cannot be released due to Canadian privacy legislation. As such please note that there are facts in dispute by both sides, however while the complainant can say whatever she wants, we cannot.

Part of the problem stems from the complainant not entirely understanding what she is talking about, which is understandable as she doesn't at all work in the field. This led to complications when she was talking to the other technicians as it was clear to me that what she was saying to them did not represent what we discussed. The complainant was upset at the time as she had been led to believe by competing technicians that she was ripped off. I would have told her the same thing had I been told what she and her son told them. However, the facts support a correct adherence to proper troubleshooting procedure, not a scam.

It is customary when a complaint is received by our company to have the technician document the entire event and troubleshooting procedures used. Said documentation is then reviewed internally by another non-technical employee and submitted for opinion to at least two other non-My Computer Hero IT professionals. It is important to me that if we are doing something wrong that we correct it, address the problem and revise the procedures. This has been our practice for the three years we have been in business and have only had to go through this procedure twice.

It was the opinion of the technical consultants that reviewed the documentation that the procedure was sound and made sense given the circumstances and conversation. It is our position that her hard drive is in a state of failure and should be swapped out as soon as possible, that has not changed but been reinforced when the data was shared with the outside consultants. It was at that point that we decided NOT to offer the complainant a full refund.

At no time did we suggest the computer must be completely replaced, but that the conversation led to the complainant stating that she was considering a laptop and given her future plans and current circumstances it might be just as well to go that way than to continue. She agreed and I offered to help her select an appropriate laptop the next day from an independent vendor at no charge.

I never once directed her to purchase a new desktop. As such her costs for purchasing, setting up and returning her new machine were not applicable to us.

As for the issues in the last paragraph, we do guarantee our work, and have had to occasionally stand by it, but rarely, as our procedures are tried and tested, a result of my 11 years in the industry. Our guarantee covers work done by us and will be repaired by us. This is a commonly accepted practice. A manufacturer will honour it's warranty internally and will not reimburse you because you've unilaterally decided to go else where and act against its advice. Neither do we.

The complainant states that I was not professionally trained. This is true, most people were not when I entered the industry 11 years ago, and most people still are not. What currently exists of formal training for field technicians is introductory at best and woefully inadequate. There is no formal licensing procedure available by the province or city in which we reside, which is a shame as at this point anyone can represent themselves as a technician without certification, training or experience. The only thing I personally lack is paid formal training and do carry industry and PC manufacturer certifications and am quite qualified to work in this industry. Spending time in a classroom does not equate competence. While this is an important point, in this specific case, it's moot.

We do record telephone conversations, that is no surprise as most businesses do these days. Its perfectly legal and an accepted way of doing business. We do this to keep both parties to the call accountable. I believe the complainant was offended by this when she claimed I had said something during a conversation with her son that I did not and then e-mailed her a copy of the call to back it up.

As for invoicing, it was provided, as promised, at the time promised. The fact that the complainant was impatient and requested a detailed invoice (which requires a bit more effort than our normal invoices, but which we have no problem providing) 4 times in a 24hr period over a weekend should bear some consideration as you evaluate the merits of both sides.

It should also be noted that the times and amounts the complainant states are not accurate. The total billed time was 5.25hrs and was at a higher rate as this was an emergency service call which started at 11pm which carries an increased rate that the complainant was well aware. In fact, the complainant remarked, as I informed her of the total charge (after I told her it was no longer worth continuing to salvage the installation) that she expected and was prepared to pay more than what was charged.

I regret that this situation turned out the way it did. The accusation of impropriety and the implication of incompetence kept me awake all weekend as I went over every step in my head over and over to figure out what went wrong, but from a technical perspective, nothing did. I suspect this has more to do with buyers remorse than anything.

I feel horrible that the complainant feels the she was ripped off, and understand her need to vent, but I have 12 pages of documentation here that proves, and would stand up in a court of law, that we were, in fact, not in the wrong.

I'm glad that her computer is now working but need to stress what she had done to it by someone else is not what she asked me to do, and I explained the pros and cons of both. Ultimately, as a professional in the field all I can do is offer advice to a client as to what their options are, but I cannot be held responsible for their decisions, especially when they run contrary to what was offered.

I realize this is only half the picture, and you, the consumer would be able to make a better judgement if you knew the contents of our conversations and could see the reports, but I am however not able to disclose them. Please keep that in mind while rendering your opinion.

As an update, I, the complainant understands fully what I'm talking about, as well as know enough about computers to investigate with other technicians the validity of any work performed by My Computer Hero. I also know much more about computers than I disclosed to Mr Conner. He was not hounded for a receipt, he had promised a receipt would be emailed me the very next day, which wasn't.

This is not a case of buyers' remorse, As was previously stated I purchased a new computer because of William Conners' advice that MY computer was too costly too repair,also the reason he offered to help me find something that was comparable to what I already owned. Upon not being comfortable with My Computer Heros' recommendations I chose to validate the advice/work that William Conner had done/given with other licensed technicians.

Three different technicians, 3 different stores, all have given the same information concerning troubleshooting hard drives and it does not take the length of time that I paid My Computer Hero to do it!

I have a licensed technicians report on file that was emailed to My Computer Hero, he has chosen to ignore or explain the reasons why my original hard drive was re-installed in less than 1.5hr and is still working fine up to and including today by that particular licensed technician.

I presently own a laptop ( purchased 6 yr ago, still running extremely well), my son owns a Mac G4, a new computer purchase is a drop in the bucket for me as they're a necessity in my work. The new purchase was returned on the advice of the licensed technician who put my original computer back together and upon his testing of the hard drive, not once, but twice. He assured me that there was absolutely nothing wrong with it and purchasing a new computer was definitely not a requirement.

At no time did I tell William Conner that I thought his bill would be more costly than what he charged, I'm the one who put a stop to the endless hours of fiddling with my computer, he was given a list of the issues it was having the moment he entered my office, he chose to ignore any of those including the fact a virus scan had just been done.

His first tactic was to run another and load one of his favourite virus programs on my computer, even though he was informed I had just purchased a well known Virus Program. This definitely has been the most expensive can of pressurized air and memory stick ( gift from My Computer Hero) that I've had purchased.

I live by the rule, pay the bill and deal with it later, especially when someone supposedly guarantees their work. I expect them to honour that guarantee, not concoct excuses of why they've chosen not too.

Air- $12,95
Memory stick $26.95
Rip off- Priceless

Buyer beware, only deal with those who can produce proper qualifiication to work within this industry.

Four points I would like to address, this will be our final word on the matter.

1. The "technicians report" consisted solely of "i. Installed HDD -> PCC -> Passed on all HW Restore -> Done, updates ; done. Recovery Complete, TS -> Passed CCFPU (?)" which is gibberish at worst but most likely means they just ran the hp recovery software.

2. There is no such thing as a licensed technician. No body or mechanism exists. One can be vendor certified, as I am by various vendors, but there is no governing body nor government power that licences computer technicians. If anyone claims they are, demand proof and see for yourself. They may hold certifications, which isn't the same thing, and I hold them too. The most common field certification vendor being Comptia and its A+ certification, which is barely adequate I might add.

3. If all you wanted was a system reinstall, that would have been easy, but you agreed with my recommendation and decided against it because of the risk of data loss. Additionally I doubt the 3 technicians you took the drive to did a sector by sector reliability analysis as I did, or even looked at the S.M.A.R.T. data and rendered an opinion. Ask them. Keep in mind, even with the best equipment in the industry (which is rarely found outside of clean rooms), this would take about an hour of bench time for that drive.

4. I do, have, and would have stood beside my guarantee had you given me the opportunity to do so. Going else where and sending me conveluted "technician reports" doesn't qualify. Our gaurntee is to fix our mistakes, never did I promise that if you were unhappy that you could go elsewhere and becovered, nor would that ever be implied in any guarntee by any company.

Anyone can reinstall an operating system on a failing hard drive Pat, it doesn't mean its not failing, and it doesn't mean that I scammed you. My concern was preventing data loss and mainting data integrity, not just taking the easy way out, I explained that, you knew that..

As for the rest of your points, believe what you want to believe, I know what I did was right and equitable. I informed you every step of the way and asked for your consent, no different than any other client I have and will deal with.

I'm sorry, it appears we will never see eye to eye on this. I wish you well.

Four points I would like to address, this will be our final word on the matter.

1. The "technicians report" consisted solely of "i. Installed HDD -> PCC -> Passed on all HW Restore -> Done, updates ; done. Recovery Complete, TS -> Passed CCFPU (?)" which is gibberish at worst but most likely means they just ran the hp recovery software.

2. There is no such thing as a licensed technician. No body or mechanism exists. One can be vendor certified, as I am by various vendors, but there is no governing body nor government power that licences computer technicians. If anyone claims they are, demand proof and see for yourself. They may hold certifications, which isn't the same thing, and I hold them too. The most common field certification vendor being Comptia and its A+ certification, which is barely adequate I might add.

3. If all you wanted was a system reinstall, that would have been easy, but you agreed with my recommendation and decided against it because of the risk of data loss. Additionally I doubt the 3 technicians you took the drive to did a sector by sector reliability analysis as I did, or even looked at the S.M.A.R.T. data and rendered an opinion. Ask them. Keep in mind, even with the best equipment in the industry (which is rarely found outside of clean rooms), this would take about an hour of bench time for that drive.

4. I do, have, and would have stood beside my guarantee had you given me the opportunity to do so. Going else where and sending me conveluted "technician reports" doesn't qualify. Our gaurntee is to fix our mistakes, never did I promise that if you were unhappy that you could go elsewhere and becovered, nor would that ever be implied in any guarntee by any company.

Anyone can reinstall an operating system on a failing hard drive Pat, it doesn't mean its not failing, and it doesn't mean that I scammed you. My concern was preventing data loss and mainting data integrity, not just taking the easy way out, I explained that, you knew that..

As for the rest of your points, believe what you want to believe, I know what I did was right and equitable. I informed you every step of the way and asked for your consent, no different than any other client I have and will deal with.

I'm sorry, it appears we will never see eye to eye on this. I wish you well.

As a reply to Mr Conner's latest rebuttal, the licensed and educated technician who repaired my computer stated..'IF My Computer Hero understands the business of computer he will understand the report' IF not, he won't. As his rebuttal shows, he's referred to it as gibberish.

I've been informed by the technician repairing my computer, that there are qualified technicians, and there are unqualified, licensed under various corporations, and unlicensed, educated and uneducated technicians. Bear in mind, My Computer Hero's owner informed me he was 'self taught'.

All the proper procedures were followed when my computer was successfully repaired and to this day it continues to run fine.

There wasn't a problem backing up information which was performed by the 2nd technician,Mr Conner said he was even unable to do that. He informed me he tried, and 'it just wasn't working', his comments of course.

There isn't a problem with the hard drive--Mr Conner made the diagnosis there was.

Mr Conner had the opportunity to correct his errors by refunding my money, he was notified when I spoke with the first computer technician that it was doubtful there was hard drive failure.

Mr Conner's stated 'I will do whatever it takes to rectify this situation Pat'.that comment was made by him upon my first conversation informing him that I had spoken to various technicians. He failed to honour his guarantee once I made him aware of the fact that his work was under 'attack' for lack of a better choice of words.

I don't know of anyone who would take the chance of being ripped off a second time by the person who failed to diagnose/repair something correctly.

Hence the reason I chose to investigate and have the work performed by another qualified technician.

Mr Conner is correct in stating that there is no licensing body in our city/province to oversee his chosen field of employment. Mr Conner is also not licensed to operate as a business, nor does he have to be in this city.

Unfortunately in Alberta, it's 'buyer beware' in many trades, occupations, businesses etc. many who claim to be experts in their field are not, nor have they had any formal training..they can 'hang a shingle' today and be in business and gone tomorrow.

I stand by my original complaint, I've been ripped off. This is much more about ethics and business practice than it is about money.
I paid Mr Conner immediately, I believe someone should be paid for the work they complete, I don't believe someone should keep what's been paid to them once it's proven their diagnosis and work reeks of mistakes.

My original computer is still working fine with the original hard drive!

My computer is still running just fine, amazing after William Conner from My Computer Hero diagnosed it as needing a new hard drive, or as he put it...'buy a new computer, I'll help you choose one'

Marketplace this evening has done a segment on computer technicians, hard drive failure is an excuse used often by techs and so is convincing the consumer they need a new computer. Every issue and everything Mr Conner did to or said was an issue with my computer is exactly what one tech on hidden camera by Marketplace did, including copying files. People beware, many of these guys are only duping us as consumers and until we demand that they be properly governed if you will, it is going to continue.

An update for all those considering using this person to repair their computer...January 17/2008, my computer is STILL running without any issues or work done to it whatsoever.

Just an update, my computer is still running fine, what a scam some of these computer techs are.