Custard22
From DotelTech
- Client: Hillbilly
- Problem: Failed hardware
- My Job: Screw Turner
This is one of my favorite problem customers, he was such a goof ball you just had to smile dealing with him. Don't get me wrong, he was a class 17 idiot, who should be sterilized to preserve the gene pool. He was always rude, and wore the same exact shirt for months on end. Anyways he wanted to build a SUPER computer.
He gave me the specs and I quoted him a price. He didn't want to pay that much and that he could find much cheaper parts at the computer shows. Computer shows are known for horrible failure rates, 50%+ failure rates on parts, parts that are sold as higher specs then they really are, basically junk. I explain to the smelly idiot that we only use high end parts, we never use the cheap parts because it's not worth the high failure rate. He asks if we would build it with parts he provided. I told him that we would at our normal hourly rate.
He leaves and returns a dozen times with parts he requests quotes from us each time to "show the other vendors what he is looking for". Most of the parts he buys are not compatible with each other, after about a month of buying, returning and exchanging parts he has all the right parts for a computer. Granted much lower specs then he originally requested. But they were MUCH cheaper according to him.
I start to build the machine, after testing the parts, I find a few bad one's. He returns the parts and has them exchanged with the other vendors. Another month passes and we are finally ready to build again. I explain to him this machine will not preform as well as he is hoping due to poor hardware.
I finish the frankin-box and he takes it home. He comes back and tells us how great a computer it is. Whoa ok....Not what I was expecting, well as long as he is happy.
Short lived happiness, the first to go was the cheap CPU cooling fan. I replaced it, didn't even charge him, cost on a good fan is about $6 I just wanted the machine gone and out of my face. Several days later his budget harddrive fails. He wants us to replace the failed harddrive. I explain to him that we won't replace parts we didn't sell him. So he buys a replacement quality drive from us. A month later his cheap power supply goes out and damages the motherboard. Again he wants us to replace them for free, again I tell him we don't warranty parts we didn't sell. Once again he now buys a quality power supply and motherboard from us. Finally his video card dies. and we repeat process.
.......Ahhh here they are, We get served paper for small claims court. He is suing us for the max you can claim under small claims here $5,000. Granted he's ended up paying twice what the computer was worth in bad parts and labor, it was still not close to $5,000. So I do the research get all his invoices together with his signatures agreeing that we though the parts he bought were substandard and we would work on them anyways. They are place in a folder and labeled for the judge.
Customer refused arbitration so we went straight to the judge. The customer came to the court house in the same old stinky shirt he always wore, with the exception of a sports jacket over the stained holy shirt. I present the evidence and when the judge asks him for his evidence he literally dumps a paper bag full of wadded up receipts on the bench.
The look on the judges face was priceless. After 5 minutes of the customer trying to figure out the receipts to show the judge, The judge hands them to me, and asks me to look at them. I take the pile to our table, and start looking through them. I find a few receipts and ALOT of quotes. I notice he had added the prices on the quotes in the amount he was suing for. Essentially he was suing for refunds on things he never bought. I continue sorting and I come across a $2000 repair for his truck. He had his transmission replaced. I smiled, I think the judge noticed, because he asked me how I was doing.
I continue looking through, and then I come to something that makes me laugh. I blurted out a laugh and immediate stifled myself. This had two results, me getting kicked in the shins by my coworker (also there to testify) and irritating the judge. I now have the the info and bring it to the judge, I point which one's are valid receipts, which are quotes (the ones that say QUOTE) and the pile of completely irrelevant items. I had placed the item that made me laugh on the bottom of the pile.
I sit back down and the judge views the documents. When he got to the end of the third pile I notice he smiles and then shakes his head. He then looks right at me and shakes his head slowly.
He immediately rules in our favor.
Now I bet you are wonder what that item was...........It was the results of a Urinary infection test he had recently.