Questions people ask

I'm Priyesh Mehta. I provide patient, in-home technology help to older adults in Toronto and the GTA. It's just me — not a franchise, not a call centre, not a rotating cast of technicians. The person who answers the phone is the person who comes to the door.

It started as unpaid help for neighbours in my own building and grew from there, which is a slightly embarrassing origin story for a business but a reassuring one for a customer.

No, and I'd rather say so plainly than dress it up. I'm not a certified engineer and I don't hold vendor certifications. What I have is many years of doing this across Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android, iPad and smart TVs, and — more relevantly — a lot of practice explaining it to people who don't want a lecture.

For what most people actually need, certification isn't the constraint. Patience is. If a job genuinely needs a certified specialist or a repair shop, I'll tell you and point you to one rather than experiment on your machine.

I've applied to Toronto Police Service for a Criminal Record and Judicial Matters Check, and I'll show you the certificate the moment it arrives. It covers criminal convictions as well as any outstanding charges, warrants, judicial orders or peace bonds.

You may also have heard of the Vulnerable Sector Check — the deeper screening used for people who work with children and vulnerable adults. I'd rather explain where I stand on that than let you assume. In Toronto an individual isn't allowed to request one; it has to be sponsored by a registered organisation, which is genuinely difficult for a one-person business. If I can find an organisation willing to sponsor one, I'll get it done and say so on this page.

In the meantime, ask me for references from the neighbours I already help. They'll take your call — and frankly, a neighbour who will pick up the phone and vouch for me is worth more to you than a certificate you have to take my word for.

Yes — liability cover, plus errors and omissions cover for the work itself. If a building or a residence needs a certificate of insurance naming them, I can provide one. Ask and I'll send it before the first visit rather than after.

Toronto and the surrounding GTA. Travel time is the real constraint in this city, so if you're further out, ask — I'll tell you honestly whether it's practical rather than take the booking and resent the drive.

If you're in an apartment or condominium building with several people who need help, that changes the arithmetic entirely. Say so.

Call or text any day and I'll get back to you the same day where I possibly can. Visits are by appointment. If something is genuinely urgent — you think you've been scammed, or you can't get into your email and something depends on it — say the word "urgent" and I'll move things around.

Three kinds of work, really:

Fixing — the printer, the email, the tablet that won't charge properly, the pop-up that won't go away, the television that needs four remotes.

Organising — photos scattered across three devices, passwords on scraps of paper, a mailbox with nine thousand unread messages, backups that were never set up, a phone still on the settings it came with.

Teaching — video calls with grandchildren, online banking without fear, spotting a scam message, using the thing you were given for Christmas and have been politely ignoring since.

That list will never be complete, so here's the short version: if it plugs in, has a screen, or connects to the internet, ask me. If I can't help I'll say so on the phone, before you've spent anything.

All of it. Windows PCs, Macs, iPhones, Android phones, iPads, tablets, smart TVs, printers, e-readers, and the assorted boxes that accumulate behind a television.

I don't do hardware repair — cracked screens, failed hard drives, soldering. I don't do specialist data recovery from a dead drive. I don't run cable through your walls. And I don't do anything dishonest, including logging into an account that isn't yours, however good the reason sounds.

For the first three, I'll refer you somewhere competent. For the fourth, I'll simply say no.

This is the question I most want to be asked, and the one that decides whether this works.

I don't take the mouse out of anyone's hand. I don't talk over people to the family member in the room — I talk to the person whose computer it is. I don't do the sighing thing. And I never suggest that someone should already know something; most of this software was designed by people who have never watched a seventy-eight-year-old try to use it.

If she'd rather I just quietly fixed it and didn't turn it into a lesson, that's completely fine, and she can tell me so.

Yes, and it's worth telling me in advance so I can do it properly. Practically, that usually means writing things down instead of expecting them to be remembered, setting things up so they need less intervention, and keeping a family member in the loop by default.

I also have a firm rule: if I'm not confident someone fully understands what they're agreeing to, I don't take a signature or a payment from them. I stop, and I ask to speak with the family. That occasionally costs me work. It should.

An hour is usually enough, and an hour is the minimum I charge for. I'll tell you the likely total before I start, so nobody is guessing at the end.

We start with whatever's actually bothering you — the thing that made you pick up the phone. Then, if there's time, I write down what devices you have and make sure the updates and the backup are working.

I don't set up remote access on a first visit. That's deliberate, and it's explained further down this page.

Before any of that, I'll go through the agreement with you and leave you a paper copy. It takes five minutes and it's the part that protects you.

Yes — a short written agreement before work starts, and a separate one if we set up remote access. Ontario law requires it for work arranged in your home, and it's genuinely there for your benefit: it fixes the price in writing, sets out what I will and won't do, and spells out your right to cancel.

You can read the whole thing before I ever come round. It's on this website.

Please. In person, on speakerphone, or on a video call from another province — whatever works. I'd genuinely rather have them there, especially the first time. It's easier for everyone if the family can see who I am and how I work.

Honestly, it depends — some things take four minutes and some take two hours, and anyone who promises otherwise before seeing the machine is guessing.

What I will promise: I'll give you an estimate before I start, and if it's going to run past that estimate I'll stop and ask you first. You will never get a bill you weren't expecting.

And if it turns out to be a five-minute fix, I don't vanish and bill you for the hour. We've got the hour, so we'll use it — on anything else you'd like looked at, or on making sure your backups and updates are actually working. You get the hour you paid for.

Eventually, most things can — and it's much faster for you. Once remote help is set up I can look at your computer from my desk within minutes rather than days, and it costs less than a house call.

But I never set it up on a first visit. Not because it's difficult — it takes two minutes — but because you shouldn't hand a stranger standing in your living room the keys to your computer on the day you meet him. Meet me first, see how I work, talk to your family, and decide at the second visit or later. If you'd rather never set it up at all, that's a perfectly good answer and I'll keep coming in person.

The first visit needs to be in person regardless. Trust isn't something you can install over the internet, and neither is a printer.

Just let me know as far ahead as you can — a day's notice is ideal and there's no charge. If something happens and you have to cancel on the morning, phone me anyway. I'm not going to invoice an eighty-year-old for a bad night's sleep.

Yes. It is precisely the same mechanism. You have been warned about it by the bank, by the news and by your children, and you were right to listen. I'm not going to pretend that's an unfair comparison — I'm going to tell you what makes this different.

The direction of the call. A scammer phones you. Every time, without exception, the fraud begins with them contacting you unexpectedly. I will never do that. You phone me, on a number you already have, or I connect during a visit while you're sitting beside me.

You can see it. There's a visible marker on screen whenever I'm connected. It never happens silently. If you don't want me connected at a given moment, you say so and I disconnect.

It's written down. Every connection is logged, and every connection appears in the monthly note that goes to you and your family — the date, the time, and why. A scammer's connection leaves no record anyone can check. Mine leaves one you're handed unprompted every month.

You consented in person, on paper. Not a box ticked in an email. A signed page, in your own home, naming the software and telling you how to revoke it. And you can revoke it at any time — one phone call, and I'll talk you through removing it, or come and do it.

Hang up. Don't be polite about it — you owe a cold caller nothing. Then phone me on the number on my card or on this website.

You will never offend me by hanging up on someone claiming to be me. You will never offend me by phoning to check. Please do both, every time, forever.

While I'm connected or sitting at your machine, technically I can see whatever is on the screen — the same as any repair shop, and the same as the scammer, which is exactly why the controls above matter more than the technology.

In practice: I look at what the job requires and nothing else. I don't browse your documents, your photos or your email. If you'd like to close things before I start, please do — I'd think better of you for it, not worse.

No. If a job needs a password, you type it in, or you tell me and I use it once. Nothing is stored, written down or taken away. Where a password needs to be recorded somewhere, we'll set up a proper place for it that you control — not a note in my phone.

No, and I won't be persuaded — including when it would genuinely be easier for you, and including when you insist.

I will sit beside you while you bank, and help you understand what you're looking at. I will help you make the bank's website less frightening. I will never log in as you and I will never move your money. If I did, there'd be no way for anyone — including you — to tell the difference between me and the thing your children warned you about.

I keep a short record for each household: what devices you have, what we've worked on, when I've visited or connected, and the family contact you've asked me to send the monthly note to. That's it, and it's what lets me help you quickly next time.

No copies of your files, photos, email or passwords. Nothing is sold or shared with anyone. Ask me to delete your record and I will.

In your home it's $79 an hour — a founding rate; it will be $110 once the first twenty-five households are taken. One hour minimum, then by the half hour. The Family Plan is $39 a month at the founding rate, $59 after.

The twenty-five founding households keep their rate permanently. That's not a sales tactic — it's owed to the people who took a chance on a new service.

The library does it very well, and I'd genuinely recommend it — the Toronto Public Library will book you a session with a librarian, and organisations like Cyber-Seniors and Connected Canadians run free programmes. If your need is unhurried learning and you can get to a branch, use them. I'm not going to pretend otherwise to win a booking.

What they can't do is come to your home this week, come back when it breaks again, or be a known person who is accountable to you. That's what you're paying for, and it's why I don't compete on price. In a service where a stranger comes into your home and sees your banking, the cheapest option available should worry you.

For a visit: cash, debit or credit card, or Interac e-transfer — at the end, once you've seen the work. You'll get a proper invoice either way.

If you're paying by card, you tap it yourself, on my phone, the same as you would at a shop. The receipt arrives by text or email before I've left. I never type your card number in, I never write it down, and nothing is kept afterwards.

For the monthly plan: pre-authorised debit from your bank account, set up through a secure page hosted by our payment provider — not by me. I don't ask for card numbers over the phone and I don't keep a card on file. Anyone in this line of work who asks an older person for a card number to keep on file has made a choice about what kind of business they're running.

Then you don't pay, and I'll tell you who can. I'd rather lose an afternoon than take money for a problem I didn't solve.

Any time, by phone or in writing, and I won't put you through a retention conversation. There's no minimum term and no cancellation fee.

Separately, anything you sign with me at your home can be cancelled within ten days of you receiving your copy, with your money back. That's Ontario law and it's written into the agreement.

Yes, and a good part of the point is that you don't have to be here. You can arrange the first visit, join it by video call, and be the named contact for the monthly note.

One condition: your parent has to want it. I'll speak to them directly before the first visit, and if they'd rather not, that's their decision and I'll say so kindly.

Yes. Very common. The invoice comes to you and the help goes to them.

A short note from me every month, in plain English: what we worked on, every time I connected and why, whether the updates and backups are current, and anything unusual I noticed. Two minutes to read.

Your parent gets the same note. Nothing goes to you that doesn't go to them.

Common, and understandable — accepting help with technology can feel like admitting something larger. Pushing usually makes it worse.

What tends to work is a small, specific, obviously-useful job rather than a general offer of supervision: getting the photos off the old phone, or making the video calls stop failing. Start there. Don't frame it as safety, even though it is.