Important Legal Stuff and Terms

We’re pretty darned good at what we do, but we are not perfect (who is?). So as a result we have to tell you a few very important things (in English, not legalese):

- We cannot absolutely guarantee that your system (especially Windows systems) will remain safe from hackers and viruses. We use all standard practices to make sure that you have adequate protection and security, and we can cure/remove pretty much any detectable malware but it is always possible that the bad guys are a step ahead and we haven’t found out yet. As a result, we do not warranty that you will always remain free of malware. We also can’t protect you against mistakes made by your employees outside of your network that we defend for you, or social engineering tricks that you or they might fall for. If you open that “Important Notice From UPS” and wind up encrypting your hard drive, we can’t save you. Nobody can. We recommend that you have an offsite backup and we’ll help you do it. We like Backblaze ourselves.

- We will implement a good backup process if asked, and we will encourage you to follow it. However, we do not by default monitor your systems to make sure that they continue to back up without trouble. That is available from us as an additional service, though, and we encourage you to have us do this for you. We don’t charge a lot to check your systems weekly and we think it’s a good idea. We will show you how to monitor it yourselves and to check it, but we are not responsible for data lost - especially when we institute procedures for you that are not followed.

- We will check your systems when we are working on them. But we cannot guarantee that the hardware will not fail at any given time (we’ve had perfectly normal computers have hard drives fail the day after we were there - these things happen). We encourage you to follow good backup practices (as mentioned above). We’ll happily help you set that up. But if we come in and fix a software issue, and a week later the hard drive fails, that’s not something we saw a warning of. If we do get an indication of failing hardware we WILL tell you. We promise.

- We are system engineers, not auto mechanics. We are not the end sellers of virtually all of the products you have us set up (except for Kerio firewall appliances). Sometimes, things that are purchased by you do not work right when they come from the factory. If we didn’t sell it to you, we won’t charge you an arm and a leg to fix someone else’s problem, but we don’t automatically fix it for free. If the hard drive array Apple sells you has a hardware issue we don’t get paid by them to find the problem and arrange the repair/swap. If the software you bought from a vendor doesn’t work as promised by them we aren’t the party responsible. We’ll work hard to get it solved and we won’t hold you up over it.

- We will not let your confidential data into the wild. We retain what we need to work on your systems and no more than that. If you have a NDA you need signed, we’ll sign it. We promise to keep confidential what we do as you require. We won’t help you with any illegal activity and if we do come across anything illegal we will report it to authorities as required by law.

- We aren’t a computer shop, we don’t stock parts and cabling. We will work with you to make sure you have all the gear and accessories needed to do the job, but it’s the client’s responsibility to procure anything needed and make sure it’s all in place for us. We’ll happily make sure that you’ve got it all ready before we come. But we’re not plumbers - we can’t run out to the truck for a part. We love plumbers, and many of them are our clients - our business isn’t the same, though.

Engaging us to work on your systems says that you accept these terms of how we do things. We’ll do everything possible within those constraints to make sure that you’re well-taken care of and that your problems go away. Don’t let the legal talk scare you - we’re good at IT.

©2020 JH Turiel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.