It's called the asshole tax, and it's what happens when you believe a child over the person you're paying to fix your/their mistake (again).
Having run my own computer repair side business for a while, I would have (and have) absolutely done the same thing in the situation. I also had repeat fliers that realized their mistakes and didn't try to blame me for their failure, and the nicer ones even got a discount. But the asshole tax is there to make dealing with problem customers more worth it, and potentially to encourage them to find someone else to torment and give money to.
what scam? the customer wanted them to work on their computer, so they did, and charged the customer accordingly.
they lied to the customer and charged for work they didn't do
what lie? they told the customer the truth from the beginning, and still agreed to the customer's demands to work on the problem. they agreed to remove all viruses from the peripherals, which they did, because the peripherals were returned to the customer at the end virus-free.
Removing is an action, not an end result. Nothing was removed.
If you have no money, and throw away all of it, you still have no money.
She wouldn't take "fuck off" for an answer. She got charged the special rate for believing whatever she pretended.
The son scammed her. He told her she needed to disinfect peripherals. The tech is just allowing that to happen and charging a not listening to the tech fee.
Yes, the tech, who is also in a position of trust on the matter, is therefore part of said scam. Twist it all you want, the tech lied and benefited.
They wrote in plain text that the customers son's word had been taken over a word of a techie. So it's either pushing more to convince her, refusing service or playing dumb.
Tech tried to tell them it was unnecessary, would take forever, and would be expensive. I'd agree with you if, for a second, the customer sounded like they wanted to drop the matter. No, this was the customer absolutely digging their heels in, and the tech did what they could to get an irate woman out of the store.
At a certain point, you have to just let people make their mistakes, and get out of their way. This is exactly how I interpret the situation.
Sometimes lying is good. Like when a customer wants you to lie to them