Beyond Horrible Service

[canuckamuck]

I am not exactly a computer newbie, I have been using PC's and Mac's for the last 16 years. 'IT' is not my business, but I know when I have a problem and I can often sort it out myself. That being said, sometimes I need to get something fixed. When I lived in Sriracha whenever I needed to I would just go to a computer shop in Tukcom, explain the issue, and it usually was fixed up within a few hours or overnight, never for more than 200 baht.

I live in Chiang Mai now, so I had to choose a new place to get my computer fixed. I chose Goodspeed Computers at Pantip.

Day 1 the story begins: I had been testing out Windows 7 Beta (which I enjoyed immensley by the way) but I started to get the BSOD (blue screen of death). I assumed I had some win 7 conflict, so I swapped in a hard drive running windows XP. And soon I got the same problem. Before the crashes I noticed a sound in my computer like a switch turning off or on about every 5 min or so. I have never heard my computer make that sound before.

Anyhow, I put the win 7 drive back in, and took it down to Goodspeed. I told them that I wanted them to turn it on so that I could show them what was wrong but even though one guy spoke English, none of them seemed to understand what I meant. They also acted like they never heard of win 7 before, although they had a machine running Win7 right out front. Anyhow I did manage to get them to agree to install Vista, because I no longer wanted to try Win7. They said it would be 300 baht. I was hoping they would discover the problem in the process.

The next day I went there to pick it up and they had installed Vista plus a number of unwanted programs that took me half an hour to uninstall. They told me I had a 30 day guarantee.

2 days later the BSOD returned, along with the switch like sound. I took the computer back and said I want to know what is wrong with my computer. They said we will reinstall windows. I said I don't need a reinstall, I want to know what is wrong, I think it is a hardware problem not a software problem. They said it would be ready at noon.

I went back today at noon and they said that it wasn't ready yet. I asked them what they were going to do to it and they said reinstall Windows. I said I don't want a reinstall I want you to find out what is wrong with it.

I went back again at 6:00 and I said what was wrong with the computer, they said we reinstalled windows that will be 300 baht.

300 baht? two days ago you said I had a 30 day guarantee. What good is your guarantee if I have to pay again and you never found the problem?

Anyhow they must have been tired of me because they said I could go.

Now for the moment of truth, I hooked it up, turned it on, and to my surprise, I was now running XP. I certainly did not ask to run XP. And the icing on the cake came when I installed my antivirus and found over 300 instances of worms and trojans on my system. Mainly win32.worm.agent.pzw, Trojan.generic.219244, and win32.worm.AutoIt.X and a few others.

Amazing how I can get a massively infected computer back from a shop When I took it there to be looked at for problems.

My Antivirus got rid of all but 6 instances of these, all of which are embedded in the autorun. I will have to figure the rest out myself I guess.

Anyhow that is my rant. Any one else have trouble with this shop?

[Just1Voice]

If you know where the Kad Suan Keaw Mall is. Just east of it, passed the stoplight on the left side of the street (Manee Nopparat) you'll find Computer City. It's a large building with a number of individual sales & repair shops inside. If nothing there satisfies you, just walk a little farther east and there are two more major computer sales centers. This is where I go to buy any new computer I need, as well as repairs, upgrades, software, etc. There is a bit of a language problem as very few speak any English, so if you can take someone with you who can translate, you'll be able to get pretty much whatever you want or need.

[canuckamuck]

If you know where the Kad Suan Keaw Mall is. Just east of it, passed the stoplight on the left side of the street (Manee Nopparat) you'll find Computer City. It's a large building with a number of individual sales & repair shops inside. If nothing there satisfies you, just walk a little farther east and there are two more major computer sales centers. This is where I go to buy any new computer I need, as well as repairs, upgrades, software, etc. There is a bit of a language problem as very few speak any English, so if you can take someone with you who can translate, you'll be able to get pretty much whatever you want or need.

Thank You, I know the place. I will go there next.

My wife usually comes along, but often I get by better without her because she can add to the confusion because of the terminology. If have barely passable Thai language skills, but most computer words are universal.

Edited June 10, 2009 by canuckamuck