Charged for no repair

sandra_nz

d.edna wrote: »

You really can't expect them to inspect the machine for free can you? They have to pay the guy to inspect it!!

Yes, they have to pay the guy to inspect it, but they should let the customer know up front that there is an inspection fee.

mluton

Sales of goods act.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/consumer/guides_to/law_goods.shtml

Tozer

mluton wrote: »

Sales of goods act.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/consumer/guides_to/law_goods.shtml

And your point is...?

pinkshoes

£35 for an inspection fee is quite steep, given that it shouldn't have taken him more than 15 to 20 mins to diagnose that, meaning that his fee is over £100 an hour!!! I'd ask for a breakdown of the charge, then pay it.

When you get the laptop home, do what someone suggested above, and plug an external monitor into it. If it works, take it back to the shop, and ask for your money back due to wrong diagnosis!

RobertoMoir

pinkshoes wrote: »

£35 for an inspection fee is quite steep, given that it shouldn't have taken him more than 15 to 20 mins to diagnose that, meaning that his fee is over £100 an hour!!! I'd ask for a breakdown of the charge, then pay it.

Absolutely. Given their description of the faults, I'd half-expect the laptop to actually be on fire as well. Not exactly difficult to diagnose.

pinkshoes wrote: »

When you get the laptop home, do what someone suggested above, and plug an external monitor into it. If it works, take it back to the shop, and ask for your money back due to wrong diagnosis!

That is a good idea.
It's very difficult for the set of components they've identified to fail all at once without either a bath or some "percussive maintenance". Either we've not got all the story about what happened to the laptop or the diagnosis is a little doubtful.

eevie

Thanks again for the replies and advice.

It's very difficult for the set of components they've identified to fail all at once without either a bath or some "percussive maintenance". Either we've not got all the story about what happened to the laptop or the diagnosis is a little doubtful.

I will quiz my daughter later about her [strike]mis[/strike]use of the computer. I know an accident did not occur during the 24 hours prior to its demise as I had charge of it whilst I was trying to see what was wrong with it (at no time have I tampared with any of the hardware). It had been turning itself off for a few day before this. A couple of weeks before this Vista presented the option to reset to factory setting which she did without actually being aware of the consequences!
Could the faults have been caused by a power surge?

bap98189

eevie wrote: »

not economically viable as the motherboard, memory and hard drive would all need replacing.

They are fobbing you off, safe in the knowledge that you don't kow any better. There is no way all those components need replacing unless someone has taken a hammer to it. They either don't know what the problem is or they haven't bothered to look at it yet.

RobertoMoir

I agree that the fee is quite reasonable. Not telling someone about it beforehand isn't. Personally, I'd have asked before leaving the computer behind, but that doesn't excuse them if they didn't make it clear that they were selling diagnosis as a service rather than something they just absorbed as "cost of sales".

vlad_the_impaler

I repair laptops for a living.

If the mobo has failed, how can they possibly know that the HDD and the ram had failed? If a mobo has gone, unless the laptop is very expensive, it is curtains; you won't even bother to test the rest in other units (which is the only way you could).

If I were you I would do the following:

Go back to the shop. Ask them for a written report of the faults. As you are paying £35, this is not unreasonable. Tell them that you are 'suprised' at some many faults occuring all at the same time. Tell them that you will be having it checked out elsewhere, and if their report is wrong, you will be back for a refund.

5-1 they will just give you the laptop back to be rid of you. See, you have to get yourself at the point where you have demonstrably paid for a service. Then you can have them if they are lying.

Daytona_nev

eevie wrote: »

Thanks for the replies. The understanding was that they would let me know the fault and cost and then I would agree to repair, at no time did they tell me it would be £35 to diagnose the faults. If I have to pay the £35 to get it back I could perhaps insist they provide a written report to include their opinion as to how such catastrophic damage occured and then try the insurance root.

Try the insurance route? What?

Do you ring your car insurance up every time your car develops a fault?