Tech support disclaimers.

[dano]

I've been getting a lot of people asking me to fix their pc's recently and am starting to get concerned that I'm not doing anything to protect myself in the event of accidental data loss. Can I get a generic 'Not responsible' type of form that I can ask people to sign before I touch their computers or do I need to have one legally written?
Whats the situation for this?
Thanks,
Dano.

 

[Strykar]

AFAIK, you can't really have accidental data loss, their harddrive can die, which is not your fault or you can format the system.. I would hope you would call them before hand and ask about that first.

 

[Eva_Unit_0]

AFAIK, you can't really have accidental data loss, their harddrive can die, which is not your fault or you can format the system.. I would hope you would call them before hand and ask about that first.

Sure you can. Accidently delete the wrong files? Accidently mess the OS up so it no longer boots and no backups exist? And hell, people are stupid...I can imagine you going and telling them that they have to reformat the box (virus or whatever), and they go crazy and blame you for their data loss. Never underestimate what people will blame you for, especially when it's something they don't understand anyway.

If you are doing work for anyone other than close friends and family I would definitely consider making a liability disclaimer. AFAIK you don't need to do anything legal...I do believe that a signed form that simply states "I will not hold [name] responsible for any data loss" (in so many words) would be sufficient. But I'm not sure so I'd wait for others to pitch in their experiences.

 

[Strykar]

Sure you can. Accidently delete the wrong files? Accidently mess the OS up so it no longer boots and no backups exist? And hell, people are stupid...I can imagine you going and telling them that they have to reformat the box (virus or whatever), and they go crazy and blame you for their data loss. Never underestimate what people will blame you for, especially when it's something they don't understand anyway.

If you are doing work for anyone other than close friends and family I would definitely consider making a liability disclaimer. AFAIK you don't need to do anything legal...I do believe that a signed form that simply states "I will not hold [name] responsible for any data loss" (in so many words) would be sufficient. But I'm not sure so I'd wait for others to pitch in their experiences.

Ive never need to delete anything other than spyware/adware and temp files, always make backups if I need to delete a system file for restoration reasons (rename as .old) other than that, the customer may specify to cleanup the hard drive for freeing up space in which case if they don't specify something is crucial when I ask them, I don't find myself liable.

It's pretty hard to argue against disclaimers though, like you said, they can blame you for anything, it's not a bad thing by any means and Im running it by my boss now, so thanks for the idea.

I can think of several occasions calling a customer and asking if they had crucial files so I could format and getting pretty upset when they found out I wasn't burning them a new Windows disk......................

 

[S1nF1xx]

The worst case scenario I can think of is having the HDD die while you're working on it or shortly after they get the computer back. Of corse they're going to blame you for it, even though it can't possibly be your fault.

 

[TheBluePill]

Most law firms have all of the disclaimer forms you could ever want already printed up and ready to. Contact one and they should be able to set you up for a small fee.

 

[Rtstrider]

Never underestimate what people will blame you for, especially when it's something they don't understand anyway.

True...One time I had a customer come in with a stick or ram for his old ass pentium 1 compaq...POS (Does not stand for point of sale, so use your imagination...) wouldn't go online before he brought it to the store, yet he failed to tell us that...So when I put in the stick of ram...He blamed me for making his internet not work....Kinda funny....My boss even told the dude his computer was an old piece of shit in the middle of the argument....I kinda chuckled yet went off to work on other computers at the same time....

The worst case scenario I can think of is having the HDD die while you're working on it or shortly after they get the computer back. Of corse they're going to blame you for it, even though it can't possibly be your fault.

I actually had the controller on the hd itself go up in smoke in front of the customer...He was cool with it because he saw with his own eyes, I did nothing to harm his drive....Popped a new one in and he was happy....And who doesn't hate the click of death......Well other than us pc techs...That click means more $ for us....