Laptop Repair: Some Red-Flag Issues

As ordinary laptop users and non-tech-savvy people, most of us are unfamiliar with the lurking dangers of entrusting our machines to a laptop repair service or a freelance technician. Unless the person is a completely honest, ethical and trustworthy professional, there are huge risks involved in handing over our personal machines to an outsider.

Few of us realize how much personal information is contained in our laptops. We keep photographs, videos, mail, financial documents, bank and credit card details and other such details of our private lives, routinely stored on our laptops. Many unethical technicians make it a habit to poke around in client laptops and peek into what is essentially confidential data. They may or may not consequently misuse this information, but it's a good practice not to keep too much personal information on your laptop at all! This being easier said than done, you can request the repair-service to remove your hard-disk (assuming the problem is not with this) and use their own stand-by while they repair the laptop. This may not always be feasible, which brings us back to the issue of integrity - one of the first principles is to pick a repair-service that is known to be ethical and trustworthy.

A good strategy is to check on the repair-service's data protection policy, terms and conditions. You can also question them about possible compensation in case your confidentiality is breached by their technicians.

Another big issue is guarantees. Many repair-services will not provide guarantees for work done, though they may guarantee the spare parts used. This means that if the same problem recurs in a couple of months, you have to depend on the goodwill of the service-provider to get a full resolution again.

Parts and spares is another area where many unethical service-providers can rip you off. Unless they are completely transparent about the source, provide company price-lists and can give you the best options, you can be sure that there are big mark-ups as far as spares are concerned.

Most of us depend on our laptops for our work and entertainment. Hence downtime and delays can be frustrating and expensive. However, unless your service-provider can give you a fixed time-frame for repair turnaround, it's not a good idea to hand over the machine to this provider.

Spouting jargon or "computerese" is one way in which some crooked technicians can intimidate customers. They could often call you after a few days and report that the problem is bigger than anticipated and proceed to load on a variety of issues.

These are some of the issues you need to consider when you are looking for a good laptop repair-service.



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