COMPUTER HOUSE CALLS

First of all, Karl doesn't listen and he's the king of avoidance. In the very beginning, I told him that I needed to consult with him about what would suit my needs and wants best, a laptop or a desktop. I told him that I had initially wanted a desktop because we had planned on building a desk into an area in the kitchen for it, but that I was now thinking I would use a laptop more because I had become accustomed to using my laptop in the living room while watching TV. He just ended up putting together a desktop and I conceded on that. Mainly, though, we made it VERY CLEAR that we wanted a top of the line computer that would last us several years, as in the past we had always done that and it had worked well for us. The desktop he was building was for an area in my new kitchen that wasn't even built yet, but everything else in the kitchen was completely newly built. So I was surprised when he brought a gamer-type tower to the house, which is large, plastic and ugly. I conceded on that as well, figuring that when we eventually had a desk built in, the area for the tower would have to be large and hidden. The keyboard feels cheaply made. Along with the computer, he had talked my husband into a ridiculous speaker system. When it was being discussed, I was questioning the placement of the whole thing because the kitchen area where it would be didn't make a lot of sense for the placement of such a system because that's not where we would want to be listening to music. I also asked him about possibly doing something altogether different that wouldn't require anything with wires, something we could use with Bluetooth or WiFi, although I didn't really know what works like that. As I said before, he is not one to listen to something he doesn't want to hear. He was definitely pushing the system in a major way and completely ignoring any of my questions and concerns. The most he would say was something along the lines of "you don't want that..." so I lost on that point, too, and just went along. He had my husband caught up in the idea of how top-of-the-line this system was going to be and how there's nothing better, blah, blah, blah, which surprised me because my husband doesn't usually care about stuff like that. When Karl brought it over to hook it up, it was also unsightly with four speakers and a huge box thing that I'm not sure what it is anymore. Everything had yards of black wire trailing from it, so it was obvious that I would need to have someone build the desk to accommodate all of these things and somehow hide all those wires (which never got done). My husband realized very quickly that the speaker system was overkill and called Karl to say he wanted to get the mid-range speaker system instead. The one we purchased cost over $400 and the next system down from that Karl had told us cost around $200. He had a fit, going on and on about how he couldn't send it back, that nobody has ever asked to return then before and that he would have to keep $100 for all the trouble it was going to cause him. We were genuinely sorry that it was such an issue for him so my husband agreed. The cheaper set was just as unsightly. In regard to the computer itself, I sensed right away that something wasn't right. Although I'm not a computer programmer or anything, I've had many computers over the years and a couple of other computer people that we worked closely with whenever there was a problem. I wrote Karl a letter on January 13, 2015, telling him that I was very unhappy with the computer, stating that it 'acts like a dud, and NOTHING like the best' like I had requested. I said, "Every time I decide to work on it, something crashes, freezes or closes. I get script errors all of the time! I even had a couple of memory dump problems already" which I've only ever seen on a very old computer that has had lots of garbage loaded onto it. I was missing my last computer person a lot because he always answered my questions, always worked with me, and I was really having a difficult time getting in sync with this new guy. My husband and I have always treated our computer people like family and we told Karl that right off the bat. Regardless of the difficulties in communication we were having with Karl, we treated him like gold, always making him fresh coffee when he would come over because he really enjoys his coffee, and my husband even bought him a bag of the Hawaiian coffee we get because he really liked it. Karl always said, "You guys are always so nice to me!" but we assumed he had our backs as well. When Karl initially set up the computer and turned it on, he kept saying how fast it responded, but I was watching as he clicked on this and that and I noticed that there was some lag where there should have been absolutely none. That circle thing was showing up (what used to be an hourglass) indicating that it was loading and not zipping right to the page or program. I knew there was no arguing with him and I decided to just wait and see how it worked for me. Right away I was getting error messages that I've never gotten on a computer before unless it was old and loaded with a lot of crap, stuff like 'memory dump' errors, and the computer repeatedly crashed while I was in the middle of something. I was so angry and upset and I ended up using my ancient laptop more than the new desktop. We had the computer several months and I had only used it a handful of times when I turned the computer on one morning and it completely crashed. Turns out the motherboard died - yet another thing that should not be happening on a new computer! That time when Karl came over to check it out, I out and out told him that I hated the computer, that I never use it and on the off chance that I turn it on just to sync files between it and my laptop, I get error messages or it crashes while I'm in the midst of doing something. Karl said he couldn't take it back, that the things inside the computer that he installed cost a lot of money, etc., etc. Another tactic that Karl would use whenever I would complain was the 'poor me' distraction, which always made me feel bad and guilty so I would back off. To show just how well he could play me to go along with what he wanted, when he had such a fit about us wanting to send back the $500 speakers for something more practical, I thought to search for the speakers online and found that the cheaper, approximately $200-worth set (per Karl), cost only about $60. When he was here the next time, I told him what I'd found. He said, after first going on a 'poor me' spiel, and rather angrily, that 'I don't know where you found them for that price' but blah, blah, blah, and again, I backed off because I figured I was in the wrong - again. I finally stopped feeling that way when it came to the point where I was trying to come to terms with the fact that I was stuck with a $2,150 lemon of a computer - that still didn't have any usable programs on - but I just didn't want to deal with Karl anymore. He made me feel really stupid and I was at the end of my rope with him. Truthfully, I didn't want to try to take a gamble on anyone else, either, because in the past my husband and I had been screwed over by a contractor and an electrician, and I thought I was safe going with someone from Angie's List but I wasn't! My husband called around and found that the computer person I really liked was back in the area. What a relief to have him come in and answer the questions that I asked of him without getting some runaround to get away from it. It was so refreshing that I could have cried. Then I asked him something about the computer and he said 'okay, let's take a look at what's in here.' Really?! I could never get a straight answer about that from Karl. The most shocking thing we found is that the hard drive was so small that he couldn't even remember seeing that size before. He showed me by going online and searching that they weren't even available for sale. The next size up that was found was at least 5 times the size of what we had and it went for $25! He said that hard drives aren't that expensive so I should have had one many, many times that size for the kind of money we paid for that computer. He showed me that this computer, even though there's nothing on it yet, is 1/4 full!!! He also only had 4G of ram, which is why I noticed the lag in the very beginning. The parts inside that computer were junk, probably crap he had sitting around and wanted to get rid of. I said I wanted a TOP OF THE LINE PC and all I got was a top of the line price! I could have purchased an Apple laptop for that price and would have had all of the programs that I would ever need already included. I paid that price for a PC with nothing but some stolen photo program Karl threw in. I'm sure it wasn't even legal. My husband and I are very upset and angry. We called Karl and said we wanted our $2,150 back and he can take all of his junk back. He hung up on my husband and refuses to answer the phone. I believe he defrauded us and that we should be able to get our money back.

The computer he made for me is excellent.

Don't want to waste my time explaining.

They got here and told me what was wrong how much it would cost toke it back to the shop brought it back next day all fixed. Excellent job. Very happy with them . Would recommend them.

Everything went well. Karl was able to fit me in the day I called. He was prompt and explained what he was doing with each step. The whole experience went smoothly and I was very pleased. I had tried calling other computer repair persons listed in phone book but either they didn't return my call or required that I carry in my hard drive and leave it "for a few days." I didn't want to have my computer out of service that long and I also thought my printer would have to be installed.