Question : PC died while under my care. Fair Solution / Proposal to Client

I recently repaired a PC for a client, it needed a new hard drive and to have all OS and apps and networking to be reinstalled. Everything went well and it was thourily tested including a  number of reboots. I worked on it over a few days and there was no additional issue.

I needed to ship it back to our client as they are approx 100 miles away.

On receipt, the client informed me that the PC was completely dead.

Over the phone I had him re-seat everything and double check all internal and external connections a number of times but not a gink out of it, no lights, no nothing. Unfortunately he needed it urgently for a staff member.

I tried to negotiate with him that the best solution would be:

that we would supply him with a new PC under which would have much better specs and a full warranty, at our cost price. The original PC was over 3 years old and now "dead"
that we would eventually take back the hard drive and we would credit him the cost of the drive
that he would pay us for the labour for the original repair as the PC left our premises in working order
( we didn't get as far as discussing the labour to build a replacement loaner PC and to ship it. )


He is acting upset and is arguing that he will not pay for anything:

The original repair
The new hard drive
The shipping fee
The labour for the build of a used PC to be a loaner including installing OS, Office, Antivirus, network configurations, etc.
Shipping the loaner PC
A replacement loaner PC

In fact, he is not paying for anything by the sound of things.  

rather than fall out with an important client I said we would sort it out later after we receive the failed PC back and investigate it.

I cant afford to fall out with him as I get a steady stream of work from the client.

How can I resolve this, what is the best proposal, I have a micro sized business and times are difficult for me also.

What would be a very fair proposal that I can firmly make?

Answer : PC died while under my care. Fair Solution / Proposal to Client

Been there, done that. This is quite simple. He had a PC that was broken, so he won't push to get out of the labor costs *if* he gets a PC that is fixed. Build or buy a PC that is as power as what he had (and if it is 3 years old, he'll probably be getting a better PC anyways) and he gets that for free, but you charge him for the original labor, after all that *was* done.

File an insurance claim with the shipping company you used, and get the original failed PC back, format it, and use as many parts that are still good as possible to recoup your costs.

In short, the customer did nothing wrong here so I'd be right there with him that he shouldn't have to pay for the labor of repairing a PC *and* a new PC. this is a "make it right" scenario, so ...make it right.