Free assessment swindle

edpvito

I sent my macbook off to a company as I suspected a problem with the logic board, there website claims to specialise in the problem i suspected. They offer to send a courier, which you pay for and a 'no obligation, no catch, free assessment'. They had good reviews so I went for it. They were quite slow but after about 10 days sent me an email saying that there was a problem with the hard drive and needed replacing which they would do for a pretty steep £350. I had previously had a problem with the hard drive whilst under warranty - about 9 months ago - and suspected that they hadnt fixed it properly, so I told them this which triggered a catch that they say doesnt exist. Because I was taking back to somewhere else for a 3rd party warranty fix it would incurr a charge of £85. I phoned up and explained that it wasnt under warranty but I suspected they hadnt fixed it properly so why would i pay them to fix it, I also explained that I would mostly likely install a new hard drive myself as I am a software developer. The company said if i had just said 'send it back' they would have but because I had told them what I was going to do they have the right to charge me. They dont have any ts and cs on tehir website or emails just 'no obligation, free assessment, no catches'. I have looked carefully through the website but i cant see how they can do this. I am a bit loathe to go small claims court as I have never done this before and after all its £85. But then again £85 is £85. If there had been a problem with the logic board i would have got them to fix it, as it wasnt that i didnt want them to fix it and they seem to be screwing me over for that. I noticed that the last two reviews for this company have included 'cowboys' and 'i am going to set up a facebook group to alert others'....

Any advice, the guy on the phone had clearly been watching too much question time and kept saying 'please allow me to finish' even when i wasnt saying anything!

The company now have my macbook hostage until i pay up.

cono1717

Can you post the website here for us to look at. If they don't have any terms of conditions then the terms become the offer under which the contract was formed i.e No obligations.

For example if I said to you "Hey I will check your mac for free if you like and you only pay me if you want me to repair it" and you say "OK Sure" that is a basic offer and acceptance of contract - I can't then re-neg that contract at a later stage.

First step would be to go down the letter before action route.

edpvito

Hi, thanks for responding, here is the website:

http://www.gtec-macrepairs.co.uk/

Actually I found the Ts and Cs...

DEPOSIT – unless a service is prepaid a deposit of £24.99 is payable to secure your free collection which is then used against the cost

of your repair or redelivery - this is solely in place to ensure that your collection takes place - should it not take place for any reason

then this deposit is non refundable - although another collection can be booked but the client then loses the original deposit and

another deposit is required to rebook

CONTRACTED FAULTS - Only the fault reported by the customer will be repaired, if any other fault arises or is noticed after the

contracted fault is repaired then this is chargeable as a separate contracted repair.

DATA - All data is the sole responsibility of the customer and we are in no way held responsible for your data as some tests can leave

hard drives in an unusable state and data can be lost, if the client doesn't specify that data their data needs to be retrieved before testing

then we will proceed without carrying out data recovery.

DATA RECOVERY - recovery of data isn't an exact science and is therefore not guaranteed 100% the results can only be appraised

once the process is undertaken and regardless of the outcome data recovery is chargeable at full rate whether successful or not.

ABANDONED SYSTEMS AND HARDWARE - Any system not collected/delivered within 3 months after us contacting you in the

first instance will be deemed abandoned and as such will be recycled accordingly

LATE PAYMENT FEES - Once your invoice reaches 7 days you will be charged a late payment fee of £2 per day unless otherwise

agreed

INSURANCE - Your device will be shipped back to you and is covered up to £1000 for loss or damage

SHIPPING DAMAGE – upon return of your device should you find any damage caused during shipping you must inform us within

24hrs of receipt and provide us with pictures of the damage, we advise that if your package arrives in a poor condition and you suspect

the device inside may be damaged then you should open and inspect the device whilst the courier is still present and before you sign

for it and if there is any damage to the device you should have the courier report it to his depot and refuse to accept delivery.

CANCELLATIONS – If you wish to cancel your repair we completely understand sometimes your circumstances change and you

have every right to cancel our services but to cover our administration costs we have to levy a charge - cancellations are charged at

£84.99

PREPAID SERVICES – if the collection doesn’t take place for any reason other than a fault of interlink – nothing to collect,

improperly packaged, package not ready etc then any services purchased on the website or over the phone are non-refundable. Should

you wish to rearrange your collection and repair then your re-collection will be charged at £24.99 or alternatively you can arrange

your own shipping to us and your prepayment will still stand against any works carried out.

ABANDONED DEVICES – any device not claimed or paid for so we can deliver back to you will then be deemed abandoned and

subject to a 90 day waiting period from the last day of request for payment, once this period has passed we reserve the right to recycle

your device in a responsible and suitable manor.

PACKAGING – please see our guidelines on packaging your device suitably and securely for shipping with the courier (a copy of

which is available on request) any device not suitably packaged will not be covered by the shipping insurance and will be the sole

responsibility of the sender.

bod1467

edpvito wrote: »

CONTRACTED FAULTS - Only the fault reported by the customer will be repaired, if any other fault arises or is noticed after the contracted fault is repaired then this is chargeable as a separate contracted repair.

I suspect that this is the term they'll rely on.

edpvito

But they havent repaired anything and this is not what they are claiming. They are changing for an assessment of the problem on my computer. If I took my car to a garage with a rattle and said I think the exhaust pipe has a hole can you take a look at it and then they said its not your exhaust pipe its your carburetta you wouldnt expect to be charged for them taking a look at the exhaust pipe and deciding it wasnt that.

Free assessment is what they are advertising. Free. They are saying that my free assessment shouldnt be free because I have told them the hard drive had been repaired under warranty. Which to me is irrelevant the history of the computer. They offered a free service which I took them up on and now they are charging me.

cono1717

I'd point them to this image:


Taken from http://www.gtec-macrepairs.co.uk/free-assessment

cookie365

That site appears dubious to say the least.

I can't find any link from the site to their T&Cs; I had to google the firm name plus conditions to find them:
http://www.gtec-macrepairs.co.uk/terms

It seems they're relying on the assertion that you 'canceled the repair'. When they sent you the assessment what exaclty was the process for deciding if you wanted a repair?

Did you see those T&Cs at any point? Were you shown them as part of the steps to book an assessment?

If not it's hard to see how you can be bound by them.

It's also difficult to see how the assessment can be free if they don't refund your £24.99 deposit unless you use their repair service.

edpvito

On Friday they sent me this:

Password has been by passed so not to worry
our engineer has diagnosed it as needing a new hard drive £345 fitted with a fresh install of el capitan
Please advise if we are to proceed thank you

Over the weekend I replied:

Hi Gary


Thanks for the diagnostics. My macbook was repaired whilst under warranty with Western Digital about 9 months ago and they said at the time there was a problem with the hard drive which they were supposed to have replaced but I dont think they did so it would be great if you could send it back and I will take it up with them.


Regards


To be fair, when I looked through my correspondence I did see the Ts and Cs which i cut and paste in an earlier post. I dont think his assertion is that the work has been cancelled, that wasnt what I understood when I spoke to him. I think from his point of view he feels they have done diagnostic work which I will then take to another company. Which I can understand to a degree, but I sent it to him believing that there was a problem with the logic board which seems to be their specialism and how I found them. Clearly they make their money by offering the convenience of getting the device picked up, diagnosing and fixing. But as that image shows their sales pitch is very much - no obligation, free assessment, no catch.

I emailed him earlier but I dont think he'll get back to me. He'll assume i need my macbook back and wait for payment. I spoke to CAB consumer rights and they told me to propose some sort of mediation terms and then if no joy pay but state paying in protest and then take to small claims.

SnowTiger

edpvito wrote: »

To be fair, when I looked through my correspondence I did see the Ts and Cs which i cut and paste in an earlier post. I dont think his assertion is that the work has been cancelled, that wasnt what I understood when I spoke to him. I think from his point of view he feels they have done diagnostic work which I will then take to another company. Which I can understand to a degree...

I can see that point too, however the text you highlighted from the website earlier appears to offer that as an option:

TOTALLY FREE ASSESSMENT

Because it's very difficult to give an accurate price over the phone without seeing the fault we offer a free assessment service with no obligation so we pick it up for free fully insured upto the value of £1000 and then we can assess it for you and if you decide not to proceed then there's no charge - no catches unlike other companies who will charge you an admin fee.

"...if you decide not to proceed then there's no charge - no catches unlike other companies who will charge you an admin fee." Seems clear to me.

Big, bold, statements such as this tend to trump anything that's hidden away in the T&Cs. And, as cookie365 points out, the T&Cs seem to be hidden anyway.

edpvito

Thanks for all the replies. As far as I can see they haven't got a leg to stand on but lifes not quite that simple. So I phoned consumer rights subsequent to 2 emails attempting to resolve the issue with the company - no response - who suggested I pay the invoice under protest and attempt to claim the money back via an alternative dispute resolution body. Which I will do on principle if it doesnt cost too much.

I've never experienced this before and find it a bit strange. Surely he knows that I am going to review him as a con man along with the two most recent reviews for his business...ultimately his work will surely dry up? Who'd run a business like that? I suppose I am naive. Some people just assume that people won't go to the bother of trying to get their money back through the correct procedures. Ultimately it might come to that, who wants to have an £85 dispute hanging over their heads for the next couple of months?

Does anyone know if there are any bodies that offer free dispute resolution? Apparently I have to do this before making a small claim. Needless to say the company doesnt belong to a scheme.

jtf123

Did you get anywhere with this? I had an experience with them too and came across this thread when Googling (made an account just for this).

Basically I was given a price over the phone for a fixed repair and when they got it, they added VAT on top of the price they originally quoted (with no mention of this on the website at the time, and they didn't make this clear over the phone!). I asked for it to be returned and they charged me, even though they claim it is a free assessment and I won't be charged if I don't want to go ahead with the work!

I also left a bad review on their website and surprise surprise, they have deleted my review. I couldn't see any other bad reviews so I suppose this is common practice with scam companies like this. I have been recommended by citizen's advice to report them to ASA for false advertising and recommend anyone reading this to do the same. I will also be reporting them to Trading Standards since they did not make it clear at the time they were VAT registered and the price they quoted didn't include VAT, which is bad practice. I recommend anyone else who have been scammed by them to do the same, they should not be operating the way that the do...