amp repair shop - am I wrong to be ranting?

John_P

I had to drop a PA power amp in to be repaired last week -  not my amp but I work nearby so I dropped it off as a favour to a mate.  While there I took my old valvestate power amp in for a service thinking I might sell it and it hasn't been used for at least 5 years.

I hadn't heard anything so I rang up today to ask what it would cost to be told it had been collected.  Weird I thought,  turns out the chap with the PA amp had been in to collect his amp and the repair guy had done the service, decided it needed a new power transistor, done the repair and asked the other chap to pay and take it with him.

So I owe my mate the money and need to get the amp off him.  That's fine.  But if I'd known the bill was going to be £65 I might not have wanted it repairing (I'm not convinced it needed repairing either). 

I'm not a huge bill (more than I might have thought worth paying) but I'm a bit miffed that he just went ahead without asking and that he asked someone else to pay and take it away.    Am I being fussy?

Emp_Fab

No.  He's bang out of order.  £65 for a new power transistor too ?  - even with labour, that's taking the piss in my book.  Doubly so that he did it without your explicit instruction to go ahead with the repair.

Karlos

Did you leave a contact number..? Any repairer I have ever dealt with (and this goes for repairing anything, car, Xbox etc) has always rang and told me what the issue was and how much and do I want to proceed.

Unless you explicitly said "its bust, fix it at all cost" then he should have contacted you especially if the repair cost was close to or more then the value of the amp.

Does seem you are stuck though.

Not sure it's worth pursuing for £65 unless you have a dog and you can let it shit on his doorstep every day for 2 weeks.

John_P

Thanks chaps - I wasn't thinking of taking him to court or anything dramatic - I just felt really annoyed and yet as soon as I see my mate I'll have the amp so I wasn't sure if I was over reacting to feel annoyed.  

I did leave a contact number - in fact when I dropped off the other amp I made sure he had the other guys number and stress that the other repair was nothing to do with me, (he had rung first to arrange that I was taking it).  So it seemed weird that no only repaired it without asking, he also just gave it to the other chap  (and asked him to pay).

Fretwired

Emp_Fab said:

No.  He's bang out of order.  £65 for a new power transistor too ?  - even with labour, that's taking the piss in my book.  Doubly so that he did it without your explicit instruction to go ahead with the repair.

Got to agree with @Emp_Fab 100 per cent.

xmrchi

I wonder if he still has the old tranny you could ask for thst back, and get it checked out?

thumpingrug

This is an issue of what was agreed between the parties.  If you had said you took it in for them to price up a repair and they went ahead without consulting you and did the repair I could sympathise with your angst, but you say you took it in for a service.  What did you agree with the shop would be the extent of the service.  Could they have interpreted your request as one which meant get it working again.

John_P

thumpingrug said:

This is an issue of what was agreed between the parties.  If you had said you took it in for them to price up a repair and they went ahead without consulting you and did the repair I could sympathise with your angst, but you say you took it in for a service.  What did you agree with the shop would be the extent of the service.  Could they have interpreted your request as one which meant get it working again.

I asked him to check it over and give me a call if he found anything that needed doing.   I rang today expecting to an estimate (and assumed he'd say that he'd looked it over and it would be about 20-30 for checking it and possibly replacing any pots/jacks that looked dirty/tired etc).    I'm happy to pay for things that need doing - I'd just like to be involved in the decision.  And to find he asked my friend to pay and take it seems very random.  I get that I took in both amps but I made it really really clear that the other amp was nothing to do with me and he should contact him about it - I wronly assumed that meant contact me about my amp lol

ICBM

While he should definitely have contacted one of you before doing anything that isn't covered by a minimum check-over charge, I don't think the cost was that excessive. It's pretty easy to get to an hour of work plus a part on something like this, and the fact that the amp is not worth much more is irrelevant - if it's worth any more at all the repair is still fair value for money if the alternative is writing it off. Assuming it did actually need repairing, of course...

You won't get pots or jacks replaced any cheaper by anyone who is actually running a business repairing amps either. But he should still have asked.

There can be awkward situations where you get to the end of a check-over before identifying a more serious fault, but you have to accept it if the customer declines the repair at that point. Or they can be stupid and not understand what 'minimum repair charge' means when they book it in - this just happened to me literally yesterday. Wrote off a quarter of an hour's work because the customer didn't want to spend £37.50 fixing the amp... phone them and say "no problem, it will be covered by the minimum charge", and they reply "no, that's too much, I only paid £20 for it". (Amp worth about £75.)

John_P

Yeah I can see how the he could have come up with the price and if he'd rung me and explain I proably would have said just sort it (although I might have popped to say show me).-It was more the principle that he just did it when I asked him to have a look and let me know.  Then gave it to someone else and asked them to pay.  How does he know my mate will return to me - I know I'm exaggerating but it just annoyed me.  Maybe I'm in a grumpy mood and need to go play loud guitar

ICBM

The lack of communication is the problem, I agree.

thumpingrug

As you asked him to check it over and call you before doing anything he is wrong to charge.  I can't help feeling he took advantage of your friend who won't have know what was agreed for the service.