Bristol and Bath Home Computers

At Bristol and Bath Home Computers we value our customers so much that we will pay you £5 for introducing a friend to us.

All you need to do is register on our blog, you can subscribe to receive notification on any heading that you wish, Registering on our blog does not subscribe you and you will only receive a confirmation email from us until you personally subscribe, this ensures your privacy, we do not spam and we do not share your personal information with anyone, subscribing just makes you aware of new posts on your chosen blog, you can unsubscribe at any time.

You do not need to subscribe to be entitled to your £5 payment as long as you have registered you can receive payment.

There is only one requirement to be able to receive your payment, that is you will need a PayPal account, we are currently only able to make payment via PayPal, you can use the link below to open an account, we will not be paying by PayPal only forever so you may if you prefer let your earning build up until we can pay by other means.

To qualify for your £5 payment all you need to do is ask your friend to quote your blog username when making a fault call, we will automatically ask for it but in case we forget ask them to quote it anyway, when we have completed the call and received payment we will allocate £5 to your account, we will make payment to you (Currently using PayPal) when your commission reaches £20.

We have customers already printing their own cards and distributing them to friends with their Blog user name printed on the card.

Please note the £5 commission is only payable for new customers joining our client list.

Link: http://www.bristol-and-bath-home-computers.co.uk

When you place a call with Bristol and Bath Home Computers, you will be asked a series of questions to determine the fault with your computer, these few questions will give our engineers a good indication as to where the fault lies, if a fault is fixable by you over the phone we will tell you how to do it, that is it, you will have rectified the problem yourself, you will not receive a bill or a visit from us.

If we determine that the fault requires a visit we will give you an indication of what the problem “may be” and an “estimated time for repair” you must bare in mind that with IT the most basic sounding faults can be a lot more involved so a quote at this stage is not possible.

We arrange call slots in 2 hour periods, our call outs where possible will be area specific at busy times to minimise travel times and fix as many faults as possible, we will endeavour to meet our scheduled time slots however this is not always possible, we may turn up late or early depending on our previous job, if early and you are not available we will wait until our scheduled visit time, if late and the later time is not possible for your commitments we will reschedule with the option of an out of hours visit at normal rates.

On arrival at site we will test the equipment and determine the fault, an indication is often available immediately but normally within half an hour, if a fault is not diagnosed within the first hour we will give you a progress report before we proceed into the following hour, 90% of faults can be diagnosed and rectified within 1 hour.

Link: http://www.milsom.biz/index.php?pr=Reducing_Charges

I have worked for large corporate information technology companies, they charged customers double to five times the prices per hour than I charge here at Bristol and Bath Home Computers, I was always loyal to the companies I worked for but I still liked to do the best for my customers and always striving to save them money by keeping visit times to a minimum, sometimes rounding down to the next hour instead of up.

I have the save money mentality implanted into my head so much that I still do the same with Bristol and Bath Home Computer customers, I will be listing ways to reduce our call out charges with regular bulletins on this site so subscribe today and keep up to date on money saving ideas, simply register by using the link on the right hand side and select the blogs you wish to register on.

Link: http://blog.milsom.biz/computers.php/company/whats-this-no-fix-no-fee-malarkey

You may remember I wrote a post about the no fix no fee sales spiel, I couldn’t understand why a computer company would use a failure clause as a sales pitch, there basically saying “come to us we may not be able to fix your computer” don’t know about you but that doesn’t fill me with confidence, I have looked at the computer companies operating around Bath and Bristol and was surprised at the results.

The sites that offer “no fix no fee” have terms and conditions, one sites conditions was “If they sent an engineer that did not have the knowledge to fix the problem there would not be a fee, except the call out charge, is the call out charge not a fee? why would they send an engineer to a site when they are not adequately qualified to fix the problem, there was other terms such as if the quote was not accepted or if you just refused to pay the extra cost for parts and any other option available there would still be a fee.

One said there were terms and conditions, I was unable to find the terms and conditions for the no fix no fee despite searching the site.

My conclusion is that no fix no fee means their engineers may not be qualified to work on your equipment.

No call out charge is another thing that I find amusing, everyone I see that has a no call out charge option charges for the first hour on site or half hour depending on the company, that just means if you are out you wont get a bill, why would you call out an engineer and not be available to have it fixed.

At Bristol and Bath Home Computers we do not have a phoney “no fix no fee” clause, if we are called out we are able to fix it, we do not have a misleading “no call out charge", what you see is what you get.

Buying a used computer can save you a lot of money, it can also cost you a lot of money.

Buying a used Notebook (Laptop) computer
This is by far the most risky computer to purchase second hand, I would always be very reluctant to buy a second hand notebook.
Notebook computers can be purchased for as little as £300 new, buying a second hand one you can pay as little as £150 with loads of software installed.

Buying a second hand notebook you are totally at the mercy of the person selling the notebook, there may be a fault that is intermittent and the seller just wants to get rid of it quickly before the fault becomes more permanent, they may have already had a quote and the quote can often be more than the value of the notebook, a system board or LCD can cost as much or sometimes more than £600 each to replace.
The software included may be very expensive but you cant take that into consideration when purchasing a notebook, you need to know that the software is legal, you need to know that it was received from a reliable source and you need the license to go with it, using illegal software leaves you open to prosecution, although unlikely at a personal level is it a gamble you are prepared to take?

If you are interested in purchasing a second hand computer there are a few checks you can take to minimise any chance of being sold a dud.

1/ Ask the seller why he/she is selling, you need to use your judgement to decide if the reason is a good reason or if they are just trying to fob you off.
2/ Do not buy from a person who will not allow you to go to their home to test it, buying from a friend in a pub is very risky and if they are asking for a very low price the chances are it is stolen
3/ Ask to see proof of purchase or warranty details to ensure it is not a stolen computer, police have the right to seize stolen goods.
4/ Check for physical damage, cracked screens, damaged plastics on corners, loose or worn display hinges, check the screws and screw holes for excessive scratches, push down keyboard keys and look underneath a shiny or dark residue can almost guarantee a drinks spillage and must be avoided at all costs.
5/ Run the notebook from the battery for a good length of time and do some high activity task such as defragmenting or scandisk on the hard disk, this will test the battery and the state of the hard disk as well as many system board processes, bare in mind that doing high activity tasks the battery will not last anywhere near the manufacturer quoted time, if it last 30 minutes you will be doing OK.
6/ If the computer has software included as part of the sale ask for the activation keys and license certificates for each piece of software included, sometimes this information is physically stuck to the equipment.
7/ Running diagnostics software will not guarantee that the computer is good, diagnostics software will only show a fault if it is in a fault state, it may not show an intermittent fault.
8/ believe your gut instinct, if something doesn’t feel right walk away, if a deal seems too good to be true it probably is.