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?
Comments
Offset "(Emp) - a little heavy on the hyperbole."
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).
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
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.)
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein