What do you do when your brand new computer needs to be fixed and the company you purchased it from does not seem to want to know?

Customer help lines are one of those inventions of the Devil that cause the most grief.

Often located outside the UK, they keep people waiting on hold for hours and generally add to the angst of a computer breakdown.

So what can you, the consumer, do to speed up the service process and get your machine working again?

First, do not panic or get angry. Shouting at the technical support person is unlikely to help your case. A calm and controlled approach to getting the problem fixed will almost certainly help the process.

A quick look at Dell, who take more than 20,000 calls each week from home and small business computer users, will outline some of the things that computer manufacturers are doing to try to ease the problems.

Dell claim that the average time before a help desk call is answered is less than 90 seconds, although they do admit it can seem longer when things are going wrong.

Dell also claim to fix more than 80 per cent of problems during the first call.

Before you call the helpline, try to remember exactly when the problem occurred and identify what you had just done before it happened.

Had you just installed a new piece of software that might be causing conflicts inside the machine? Is a new piece of hardware incompatible with other installed equipment? There is generally a good reason why a computer fails and, having identified the problem, quite often the fix is just a few seconds away.

Check the manufacturer's web site and see if there are any downloadable patches that might fix the problem for you. If you cannot find anything, get on the phone and be prepared to wait.

Some computers genuinely are faulty from the outset and these need to be returned to the manufacturer to be exchanged.

Do not package the whole lot up and send it back without informing the manufacture what you are doing.

You will almost certainly need a return of goods number that will identify your package when it arrives. Without that number, the exchange process can take literally months.

As a last resort, you might like to look at the PC Association of the UK (PCA) web site. The PCA is computer industry watchdog and may be persuaded to take the case further for you.

The UK's installed-computer base is growing ever larger and it follows that there will be a proportionally larger number of dissatisfied customers.

After all, nobody is perfect and we all make mistakes.

Most reputable computer companies admit their errors and are prepared to offer support for the victims of those mistakes. Sadly, some are not.

If you are the victim of a computer disaster and are having trouble getting your problems resolved, you could also contact your local Trading Standards department or the Citizens' Advice Bureau, who will advise you on your legal rights.

www.pcauk.org
www.brighton-hove.gov.uk (for Trading Standards)

www.brightonhovecab.org.uk (for Citizens' Advice Bureau)