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Massive ripoff attempt on next door neighbour thwarted

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VK3DRB:
My next door neighbour owns a DeLonghi wine cooler out of warranty - a small fridge. It stopped working and he called a repairman. The repairman charged him $240 to remove a faulty circuit board. Fair enough. It is a very simple PCB with a 7812 type 12V linear regulator on it and a relay and not much else. Look at the photo here.

The technician told my neighbour a replacement board costs... wait for it...$1,200 plus labour to install it. About $1,700 all up including the $240 to come out in the first place... more than what the Italian branded whitegoods rubbish is worth.

My neighbour thought it was a bit expensive and he told the repairman he'll think about it, then he dropped by my house with the board. The electrolytic cap was a bit bulging (tested OK though) and the 7812 had a dead short internally. I had a spare LM340T-12 voltage regulator and a high quality electrolytic capacitor to replace the hu-flung-dung brand capacitor. Cost was nothing to me and I won't charge my neighbour anything as he is a nice bloke and a good neighbour.

Part of Australian culture is that ripping people off is seriously frowned upon. Was this a red herring, or is this sort of ripoff more commonplace?

johansen:
i'm in western washington and i've seen posts on reddit that suggest i could make money.. driving all the way to california, and back.. to change out a compressor on wine fridges.

to some extent the prices they get estimates for.. are just the cost of having a repair man within half an hour of housing prices at 20 million an acre.

Dan123456:
I think it’s pretty common unfortunately  :( A lot of industries don’t repair anything anymore as the labour cost is too high compared to what they would make from the repair  :(

For instance, back in my mechanic days everything was just remove and replace so you might have one broken wire in a car that could be soldered back together… but the boss man will charge the customer for a whole new harness plus a days worth of labor to fit it.

I can’t speak from first hand experience on whitegoods, but have heard similar stories from mates saying repairing their dishwasher or what not was gonna be 2 or 3 times more expensive than a new one!

Halcyon:

--- Quote from: VK3DRB on November 27, 2023, 06:48:29 am ---Part of Australian culture is that ripping people off is seriously frowned upon. Was this a red herring, or is this sort of ripoff more commonplace?

--- End quote ---

I have no doubt that dodgy operators are out there. However this is insanity.

For those reading along at home, if the unit was slightly out of warranty, you could make a claim citing Australian Consumer Law. I'm sure DeLonghi being a "reputable" brand would have just sent out their service techs, or at the very least, a replacement part for free.

But you get what you pay for. I recently had to get someone to look at my Bosch/Siemens dishwasher which was leaking and triggering a "water doesn't belong here" error. The unit was purchased in 2015 and has been great to this day.

I went to the Bosch website, logged a service job and they sent a local company out the following day. The part (something to do with the sump) was replaced at no charge. Bosch identified that there was a design defect in that model during manufacture which caused a seal to leak over time. The faulty part was replaced and I wasn't out of pocket. I was actually shocked, as I fully expected to pay at least a call-out fee, but nope, Bosch took it upon themselves to remedy the issue for free without me even asking. THAT'S service and it's the reason why I wouldn't hesistate to buy a Bosch appliance again. It's been rock solid.

Meanwhile my neighbour bought a cheap dishwasher from Aldi (some rebadged Chinese rubbish). He has been through 2 units in 3 months and the second unit is now faulty with the same problem.

BradC:

--- Quote from: VK3DRB on November 27, 2023, 06:48:29 am ---Part of Australian culture is that ripping people off is seriously frowned upon. Was this a red herring, or is this sort of ripoff more commonplace?
--- End quote ---

It seems to be par for the course when involving wine fridges. "Cost down" design at top of the market prices. Take a cheap fridge, change the thermostat and put a glass door on and sell it for 6 times the price.

Then again maybe I've repaired enough that I'm just old and bitter.

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