Well I took my car in for a service and when they took it for a test drive they ran over a plank on the road, blowing the tyre and slightly buckling the rim (found out the rim was buckled myself. Vibrations @ 100kph). So, I got a new tyre and rim. 
The day before yesterday, I took my parents 15" IBM monitor in for repairs because the screen was almost completely washed out with white and there were some white lines across the screen. Anyway, I saw the add in the yellow pages(business directory) which said they woud give you a free qoute and tell you what the problem is. That sounds good. But this is where I think the scam was. I didn't realise the possibility of this by the second paragraph though. Anyway, so I rang them up and then took it in to them so they could have a look at it. The next day(yesterday) they rang me up and said it was a faulty line distributor and the cost would be AU$116(halve the value for US$). I said I'd get back to them on that because I thought it wasn't worth it for various reasons which I wont bother you with(obvious reasons anyway). My dad agreed that it was better just to get a new 17" and save the hassle. So I got the new monitor. I then rang them back and said I don't want it repaired. The woman on the phone(Kay) said that was fine and she'd ring me back once they had put it back together and it was ready for picking up. This was sounding pretty normal untill she rang me back 10 minutes later.
Kay said that the techs had already fixed the monitor because they needed to in order to find the fault. She said that this was quite strange because it had never happened before. Then she offered the monitor repairs for $66 as I didn't want the repairs. I said I'd have a think about it and I rang my dad and he said he'd talk to them. I rang him back he said that he'd given the monitor to them. I thought 'Hang on, they were trying to get $66 from us when we didn't actually want it fixed so as not to pay anything and now they've scored themselves a free monitor. We're getting the roar(sp?) end of the stick here'. So I told my dad that I'd ring Kay back up and get the monitor back. I tried to be nice and tell her that I might need the monitor again when I reformated the HDD and there might be some compatibility issues with a new monitor(which is wrong but it was just a white lie). Kay siad that this has happened to other clients but there wern't any problems. Basically, Kay seemed like she was trying to get out of giving it back to me. So I told her that I would prefer to have the monitor back just in case. So she said that it would be a charge of $66. I said that I didn't want to pay $66 for it as I didn't mind having a faulty monitor back, as long as I could see the reformatting process. She said 'could you hold the line for a moment'. About 5 seconds later she came back on and said she would ring me back up once the monitor was put back together and ready to pick up. About an hour and a half later she did. Yada yada yada, I've now got the monitor back and in full working order. All for free!
Analysis of events:
1) Free quote sounds a bit suss considering most people would just buy a new one. I've been told there isn't any money in monitor repairs nowadays anyway.
2) Do they really need to supposedlyfix it to find the fault? (I'm not too sure on this but I'd say no, since this was a 'strange' occurance). Sounds like an excuse to get me to pay.
3) If they did need to fix it to find the fault, what are the chances that hasn't happened before anyway? They're a computer repair shop for goodness sake.
4) Why did she always need to ring me back once the the monitor was put back together and ready for picking up? The ony reason why a monitor might still be apart is because it hasn't been fixed, which it apparently was. Surely she must have known the monitor's condition.
5) And why did she hold the line for 5 seconds when she had seemed to ave no options left for keeping the monitor? I reckon she was trying to think of one.
6)She took an hour and a half to ring me back to tell me that the monitor was ready to pick up. I've taken that monitor case off myself and it only takes a minute or two.
Am I being too sceptical here? Do you think this is a scam? I hate having to think that people are trying to rip me off and pull a scam on me but I can't let them make a profit out of me wrongly, can I? I feel good about out-smarting the scam, if it really was one.
(Damn, this is a long post(rant). Sorry, just wanted to tell my story and get your views)
The day before yesterday, I took my parents 15" IBM monitor in for repairs because the screen was almost completely washed out with white and there were some white lines across the screen. Anyway, I saw the add in the yellow pages(business directory) which said they woud give you a free qoute and tell you what the problem is. That sounds good. But this is where I think the scam was. I didn't realise the possibility of this by the second paragraph though. Anyway, so I rang them up and then took it in to them so they could have a look at it. The next day(yesterday) they rang me up and said it was a faulty line distributor and the cost would be AU$116(halve the value for US$). I said I'd get back to them on that because I thought it wasn't worth it for various reasons which I wont bother you with(obvious reasons anyway). My dad agreed that it was better just to get a new 17" and save the hassle. So I got the new monitor. I then rang them back and said I don't want it repaired. The woman on the phone(Kay) said that was fine and she'd ring me back once they had put it back together and it was ready for picking up. This was sounding pretty normal untill she rang me back 10 minutes later.
Kay said that the techs had already fixed the monitor because they needed to in order to find the fault. She said that this was quite strange because it had never happened before. Then she offered the monitor repairs for $66 as I didn't want the repairs. I said I'd have a think about it and I rang my dad and he said he'd talk to them. I rang him back he said that he'd given the monitor to them. I thought 'Hang on, they were trying to get $66 from us when we didn't actually want it fixed so as not to pay anything and now they've scored themselves a free monitor. We're getting the roar(sp?) end of the stick here'. So I told my dad that I'd ring Kay back up and get the monitor back. I tried to be nice and tell her that I might need the monitor again when I reformated the HDD and there might be some compatibility issues with a new monitor(which is wrong but it was just a white lie). Kay siad that this has happened to other clients but there wern't any problems. Basically, Kay seemed like she was trying to get out of giving it back to me. So I told her that I would prefer to have the monitor back just in case. So she said that it would be a charge of $66. I said that I didn't want to pay $66 for it as I didn't mind having a faulty monitor back, as long as I could see the reformatting process. She said 'could you hold the line for a moment'. About 5 seconds later she came back on and said she would ring me back up once the monitor was put back together and ready to pick up. About an hour and a half later she did. Yada yada yada, I've now got the monitor back and in full working order. All for free!
Analysis of events:
1) Free quote sounds a bit suss considering most people would just buy a new one. I've been told there isn't any money in monitor repairs nowadays anyway.
2) Do they really need to supposedlyfix it to find the fault? (I'm not too sure on this but I'd say no, since this was a 'strange' occurance). Sounds like an excuse to get me to pay.
3) If they did need to fix it to find the fault, what are the chances that hasn't happened before anyway? They're a computer repair shop for goodness sake.
4) Why did she always need to ring me back once the the monitor was put back together and ready for picking up? The ony reason why a monitor might still be apart is because it hasn't been fixed, which it apparently was. Surely she must have known the monitor's condition.
5) And why did she hold the line for 5 seconds when she had seemed to ave no options left for keeping the monitor? I reckon she was trying to think of one.
6)She took an hour and a half to ring me back to tell me that the monitor was ready to pick up. I've taken that monitor case off myself and it only takes a minute or two.
Am I being too sceptical here? Do you think this is a scam? I hate having to think that people are trying to rip me off and pull a scam on me but I can't let them make a profit out of me wrongly, can I? I feel good about out-smarting the scam, if it really was one.
(Damn, this is a long post(rant). Sorry, just wanted to tell my story and get your views)
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