There are close to 78% of house holds that have computer in the US. Less than 10% of those people actually know how to fix a computer. This is where you can get yourself in trouble if your computer ever messes up. If you don't know anything about a computer then chances are your computer technician knows that you don't and if he/she is crooked they could rip you off majorly.
There are a lot of different things that you will need to know about a computer before you just open yourself up to a technician. The first will be computer basics like what is a computer hard drive and what is memory. You will not have to be an expert in the computer repair field, but you just need to know enough to make yourself sound like you are aware of what is going on. There are many different troubleshooting steps you can take before you call the computer geek. You could try restarting your computer. Maybe restarting your internet modem.
The more you know about the computer the easier it will be to communicate with the technician and understand what he is telling you. What if the technician was to say "You have a bad Hard Drive". One question that would be great to come back to him with is "What leads you to believe this?" Or maybe he might tell you "Your computer is so old, you just need to buy a new computer instead of buying a new stick of memory." Here is what you could say in return, "How much is a stick of memory compared to fixing this computer?"
I once read this article where it talked about Computer Repair people who rip their customers off. They had an operation setup where a certified computer repair technician unplugged the hard drive on the computer and then the people went out to a few different computer shops to get a check up performed on the computer. The first shop found the problem with in seconds and hooked it the cable back up. The second computer shop looked at the computer and said that the mother board was shot and they would need to buy a new mother board and it would be "X" amount to install it. The third computer shop they went to did the same as number 2 computer shop. They made up a problem with the computer being broke and told them there would be an additional charge for the computer to be fixed. They went to 3 more shops and all 3 of those shops were the same was and Shop 2 and Shop 3.
Bottom line people, the computer technician can and will rip you off. But the question to ask yourself is, "Will I let them rip me off?" Here is an article that goes a long with what I'm talking about, you can find it here.
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