A customer I dealt with a few months ago calls me out again, since his broadband is running very slow.

I checked for spyware last time, & found none, but since he often surfs to porn sites, its a safe bet that there is a spyware infection, or a hardware problem (since he had a problem with the ethernet link from his PC to the broadband modem).

Once I’m there, I see no evidence of an internet slowdown… I’m there for 90 minutes, & I notice a slowdown only in the last 10 minutes…

During my time there, I check for spyware (only a minor infection), and I disable some suspicious programs in the auto-startup places.

Once the slowdown started, ping times grew very long (1 or 2 seconds, or even lost pings). I started to suspect the usb cable, so I swapped it & everything seemed to return to normal.

A few days later, customers calls saying he is not happy, since I charged him $110 but the problem is still not fixed! He eventually fixed the problem himself by calling the ISP, who got him to download the AVG virus checker, & removed some viruses.

Ok, I should have made sure he had a virus checker… for some reason, I thought he already had one installed.

So I offer a full refund, but he graciously points out that I did do a lot of other work while I was there… so we agree to split the difference & I send him a cheque for $55

I don’t like dissatisfied customers & will do anything I can to make things “right”.