White van PC man

[PropertyCrashUK]

I know this has been discussed in the past and often rubbished, and rightly so, but is the idea of a white van PC man business now begining to become a potential business in its own right.

In my area there seems to be more andm ore people advertising in the yellow pages, in the local rag, by flyers through the door and they seem to be charging anywhere from £25 to £50 per hour. Some are now even offering yearly maintenance contracts.

PCs are increasingly becoming key to people in the home - much more than just a year or so ago. Home networks, viruses, trojans, wireless and plenty more planned for the home from the likes of Ms and Intel in the coming years.

Is the white van PC man finally about to become a lucrative home business much like home alarm/security, plumbing, etc?

[MrsGoof]

There is a co. that are not Withe van but Bike, they have home based enginers areound the ourskirts of London that do this kind of thing.

I can't remember the name of the Co. nut I heard the owner taling on the radio recently who grew the co. out of demand rather than will.

So there certainly is a market for such a business but, I'm sure it will be one that will become oversubscribed in time

[PropertyCrashUK]

You mean you think every tom, dick and harry who has a pc and a screwdriver will get into it?

[MrsGoof]

I've had to re-fix a couple of machines for friends who used one of these monkeys to supposidly fix their PC.

The bad ones may not survive, the good ones will grow their business by word of mouth.

Have a look in your local free-bee papers. I bet you see at least 1 ad., last time I look my local rag had 3 ads.

It's definatly a means to earn some cash. I probably earnt about £500 last year doing simple things for Friends of Friends.

[PropertyCrashUK]

My yellow pages has numrous ads and a friend got a flyer round his door a few days ago. I was just in PC World and noticed they are now branching out with brochures aimed at schools, the public sector, business and SMEs re their repair and support services. So PC World must see a market there?

[MrsGoof]

My yellow pages has numrous ads and a friend got a flyer round his door a few days ago. I was just in PC World and noticed they are now branching out with brochures aimed at schools, the public sector, business and SMEs re their repair and support services. So PC World must see a market there?

PC world mailed my Ltd last week offering their service.

Last week I had to re-fix a michine fixed by PC world. Feckers add a 15Gb partition to the HD (ext3). Plus the removed loads of software from the HD. Simple for me to fix but scary what these guys can do to the uneducated. If only I could prove the swapped the HD, al in the name of a new PS, Graphics card and HD cleanse (AV check....)

[meridian]

PC world mailed my Ltd last week offering their service.

Last week I had to re-fix a michine fixed by PC world. Feckers add a 15Gb partition to the HD (ext3). Plus the removed loads of software from the HD. Simple for me to fix but scary what these guys can do to the uneducated. If only I could prove the swapped the HD, al in the name of a new PS, Graphics card and HD cleanse (AV check....)

Mates of mine bought a new PC from PCWorld a year or so ago. It crashed recently so they took the harddrive to a recovery expert to recover their holiday snaps, only to find that there was a shedload of business training documents, contact details, porn, etc that wasn't theirs.
Took a great deal of grief trying to get PCWorld to admit that their 'new' PC had a refurbished second-hand harddrive in it, but they eventually coughed up a spanking new pc.
Their main worry was that in this instance the porn was fairly innocent (as far as porn goes), but what if the refurbished drive had been Gary Glitter's?

[martinb]

I do this kind of stuff as a sideline from my "main" contracts. All done through word of mouth. Useful as an additional source of income for MyCo but wouldn't make enough to be able to do this as the only revenue earner.

There are some national companies who contract out to local technicians (eg www.pc-callout.biz) but their rates of pay are terrible (£15 per hour to the technician, no pay for travelling time). There are also a few local ones around my area with vans etc.

[ASB]

but what if the refurbished drive had been Gary Glitter's?

Maybe he's right. He's not a nonce and PC world put it in when he got them to fix it....

[PropertyCrashUK]

I do this kind of stuff as a sideline from my "main" contracts. All done through word of mouth. Useful as an additional source of income for MyCo but wouldn't make enough to be able to do this as the only revenue earner.

There are some national companies who contract out to local technicians (eg www.pc-callout.biz) but their rates of pay are terrible (£15 per hour to the technician, no pay for travelling time). There are also a few local ones around my area with vans etc.

Thanks martin - trying to figure out whether this is a struggle to make 20K a year type thing or a 40 to 50K thing. There seems to be an awful lot of oys doing it but, perhaps like plumbers and other white van man types, the good people will flourish as word of mouth gets round.

As home automation and pcs increasingly make inroads into the home I think that it will eventually become a white van man business, and probably a good earner at that, but whether it is there or not NOW is something I am not so sure about.