Customer was right. You should take care on iPad mini 1, feed it and water it for a year and it would grow to iPad mini 3. Its your fault and negligence.
I owned a computer repair shop for 10 years. Customers always signed a repair contract and everything is video recorded with audio. All policies were always placed in writing in large letters on wall posters. Customers would come back 2 years later for items. They would tell me that their girl friend dropped it off so my contract was invalid. They would bring repaired items back one year later with a different problem and tell me the the warranty should cover it because they took it home and never turned it on or used it for one year. I would turn on the computer and show them their active browser cache and recent files they had created and smile :-)
I left my laptop at a place for some months because I was busy with work. I called him after all that time and he still had the computer so after the repair I gave him a good tip. I know it was taking up space in his place and if he sold it after all that time I would have completely understood.
@Trantor The Troll Aren't you being a waste as well as a piece of shit on TH-cam judging others for their mistakes? Sometimes shit happens and you get arrested. An example is being too drunk at a celebration and walking home then getting thrown in a drunk tank then being charged with Public Intoxication. Its that fast
Thank you, it felt very nice to hear all these things. You're not speaking too much, you are speaking the right stuff, the concrete things someone has to deal with. Your experience and you're attitude is awesome and very inspiring. Health to you and your family !
If you told every customer they had 2 moths to pick up their device they would all push it. It's a safe assumption to make that most people want their device back as soon as possible.
@@limitlessart6817 Should be very clear ie policy. Simple. Some customers demand a return they dont get it yet they still come because the service and product is good.
Some people are just weird. We have downstairs 2 shop and one of them takes all packages when the people are not home. And we had one Lady in the house her stuff would sit there sometimes for MONTH and then she moved out and didnt even pick up the last one she still had there.
You are a stand up guy. I can't say I would have re-reimbursed him. I mean; how long are you going to hold on to it for? 2 months is long enough. You are a good dude.
You should have a standard form explaining all your policies, including the pickup and return policy. Have them sign they acknowledge the policies, you keep the signed copy and give them a copy for them to keep. Once a week scan all those forms and sign them digitally, then store them in a backup server. You may need to keep a filing cabinet for permanent storage of the forms for the devices you sell, but the ones that are picked up can probably be discarded safely after the warranty period expires. This should help with any liability if they claim they weren't informed of the policy.
Here where I live there're some rules we generally follow. You have 60 days limit to pick up your hardware, without exception. We make the customer sign a paper that says that, and what we can do with the hardware if time period is over. We have a few articles in our laws that back us up in cases like these. You have to be responsible for doing the burocracy, the client is responsible for picking his stuff on time. You aren't suppose to call them every day to let them know they have to go to your store to pick it up. You have to put a big ass singboard about the 60 days limit too.
Fantastic and interesting lesson Northridge Fix. Keep accurate records, you did the right thing Sir, absolutely no legal obligation on your part ; you are a very noble human being ! There are an amazing number of arseholes in the world. The videos are fascinating keep up the good work thank you very much for sharing !
The fact you showed compassion to the guy says alot. If you did that for me I would very grateful,but this guy has the gall and is like "give me something better" pisses me off. Choosing beggars are a problem and I highly doubt he had documents for court on it. I highly doubt it. You handled it better than I would have. my patience with people is very low. Mad respect to you!
I like stories like this. You are a honest guy and doing good for humanity. You are basically recycling stuff ( repairing ). If you ask me personally, if you bought something for yourself and didn't try to repair it in a shop, you have no longer right to buy a new product for yourself by law. That way people would appreciate their things a lot more and we would have less plastic waste on our planet.
Think you handled the situation very well. Records are always important to cover your backs. Nice of you to provide another tablet and a shame that that person then wanted to rip you off. Subscribed as your a great guy (y)
I have dealt with the same thing many times, but I’m a tractor mechanic. I will have big engines and transmissions waiting to be picked up after I rebuild them sitting for two years and if they do not pay up in that time I/we will sell them. We charge $25 every month they up on pallets in the warehouse.
Excellent advice! Keep a detailed ticket on repair with intake photos including Serial number and model. Also it is imperative to keep an exact timeline of when repair was completed and every customer contact attempted and made. Just found your channel excellent information.
Depending on the cost of the repair you can request a deposit be paid to proceed with the repair. This deposit is substantial enough to at least cover the parts and enough that the customer would want to come back and collect his goods after repair.
That's what we started doing at our shop. It's now our policy to ask for a deposit up front when taking in new repairs. We waive the fee for a lot of our known-customers however if it's a new client asking what we can do on a 9 year-old laptop, we always ask for a 1-hour deposit. We've seen enough of these to know that few customers are interested in paying hundreds for a logic board repair or a hard drive replacement. The amount of laptop that get left behind with unpaid bills has dropped dramatically.
We the technicians are not the pawn shop owners to keep the customers items for long time so it's good to sell them I totally understand your situation
You know that is very sad that customers try to take advantage of you. They think you are in business to give them free stuff. You did the right thing. Love viewing your channel, please keep posting.
If he dropped it off with not speaking to you, just placing it on the counter, why would you enter it into your system? You became liable for it once you had it on record and when contacting him after doing work on it you added even more complexity. You should not have done any work on it until getting a signed work order, for your protection.
the dumbass just left the ipad, i have no empathy for his callousness, i see no point in trying to make the customer seem right with this lowbar argument.
@@thomasmusgrave7595 Not about the customer being right. What if the customer didn't want the screen repaired and it was something else? For all he knew it might have been left on the counter by mistake? If you parked your car outside a mechanics and the mechanic saw it and thought you wanted a new transmission, would you pay for that? Shop owner has made this misery himself, by "assuming" customer wanted something repaired without instruction, then this defence of "it doesn't make sense..You have 60 days.."?
Same here. We have 2 months limit until customer pickup his device. Also we give him copy of agreement document that he sign and any person from his family bring back that document he will take the device. Also we explain him that after 2 month his device is becamse our and he can not take it even if he came with police. We had that case too and nothing happen.
I had a similar customer he was threatening violence even after I offered the guy a better laptop because the toshiba did not like those LED screens .. had to get police involved... hate customers who try it on and then try to scam you further ... you try to help and then they think they can work around your helpfulness ... my issue was early 2012 ...
I was really happy with this story until he came back. Regardless I commend you and your shop because that is incredible customer service. Some places give you 2 weeks and if you return on the 3rd it’s guaranteed to be gone
So full of crap customers can be, iCloud backs all that crap up. I really appreciate how Alex does business, he does it fairly and honestly something we need more of in this world.
Mr. Louis Rossman! What happened to you? You look different? Man this guy has got the headset and everything! It’s awesome that you went out of your way to help this guy out. I would have never have done that(give out free iPad) unless he brought ALOT of business. He turned it around on you trying to get more free stuff even though you were nice and helped him out.
"I was out of the country" "The documents on that tablet will prove my court case." Hmmmmmmmmmmmm...... I think both of thsoe things were lies I ALSO think he intentionally "broke" his ipad screen and dropped it off with you to keep it out of the way of a pending raid/arrest
I have run into this problem. I also have a 30-day abandonment policy. Any equipment left for 30 days will be recycled. Just make sure you note EVERYTHING.
In Bulgaria "consumer protection agency" so to speak has 1 month listed as puckup time. After that, you have no LEGAL obligation to even keep the item, you can just toss it, sell it, whatever. Having said that, our shop policy and actions were always the same as described in the video. I'm curious which country are you from and what does your law say about this period (besides your shop policy)?
Same, at my repair shop we document on the SO that devices kept after 30 days may be discarded. I’ll usually hold it longer if I can, or make an exception for good customers. But after several months of holding it, it just becomes ridiculous. I’m not a storage locker…
I worked in the service department of the UK's No1 consumer electronics retailer many moons ago, around the time expensive VHS/Betamax camcorders were all the rage. One of the types of items never picked up by some customers were these expensive camcorders. Some of these camcorders were those brought in for repair for having tapes stuck inside the mechanism. These were tapes of customers filming themselves or each other in various forms of errr ummm 'compromising positions'.... Brought a whole new meaning to "data recovery" too!!
You get this nonsense in any independent business. I ran a graphic and website development company for 5 years, and the amount of clients I would get coming back to redeem files that they had lost (I also have a 2 month hold policy), declaring that my work was innacurate to their documented needs - so shouldn't count as "revisions," saying I owed them more work after their contract deposits had ran dry, and trying to convince me that I wronged them for sticking to the contracts they signed, was outrageous. It's unbelievable the kind of lies people will tell to either get their money back or get more out of you than they paid for. And yup, after their tantrums and threats, they often just disappear, without a trace. I sympathize with you, in this. It can be so exhausting. Sounds like you handled it very well. Stand strong.
I have had this happen to me, in my case it was with a car repair, the customer showed back up 9 months later, turns out he was active military and was deployed with almost no notice and had the paperwork to prove it, i'm glad i still had the car.
I had a customer similar to the person you describe in this video. With storage space being limited nothing can be held indefinitely. I gave my customer the same treatment you describe: Calls to inform her that her computer was ready, text messages every few days for a couple of months. After about 1 1/2 years I gave up and sold the PC for just a little more than the repair fee. It is fair practice. Anyone that doesn't understand this had never had a business, and probably shouldn't ever have a business to run.
@@vicvascara6383 Ain't nobody got time or storage for that. Policy is policy, don't pick up your shit, don't pay your bill, our cost will be recouped any way possible. Even if it's only the small amount of joy I get out of using old-ass iPhones and god-damned netbooks for target practice. I found the owners of such devices are very much aware of how worthless they are, why they bothered to bring it in to begin with is beyond me though.
Sadly I've encountered this problem many times. Not a pretty picture. Was low-key happy i wasn't the owner of the business, just a worker. Pretty scary scenario, man...
Devices are just vessels, back it up and and sell the device, customer comes back he can pay you the repair and give him his back up or restore to a device he or she has. If its a computer sell it with another hard drive and keep the customers drive in a safe place. There are ways to deal with things, just think before selling anything, save yourself some headaches.
There are laws on keeping customer data as well. I believe its 12 months. Also if you did that for every customer who left stuff you could potentially be storing many hundred gigabytes of information. Which if it was accidentally leaked/accessed could be used against you. *different laws in different countries*
"No good deed goes unpunished".......as a prior small business owner, one of my all time fav sayings a friend told me after somewhat similar situation...lol
One thing I've learned from a couple different business owners is that you should not hesitate to "fire" bad, toxic customers. They're liabilities that will end up costing you money and emotional capital. Also, a lawsuit threat should end all informal discussions. From there on out, negotiations go through lawyers or not at all..
Sad to say: he was probably held without bail/bound after dropping it off (his legal counsel either didn’t know or have time [public defender] to retrieve it ). It’s irresponsible to say he was just careless, he likely didn’t receive any of your messages (phone confiscated as part of internment) and couldn’t act on them. It’s a really fucked up situation that happens wayyyy more often than youd think, family of lawyers and legal professionals. Sad thing is you’re in the right he was just shit out of luck (he might be a victim of circumstance). Either his bail/bound was denied (flight risk) or too high to fund.
Robert Villafan Dude probably mumbled something (not loud or clear) when he saw that the technician busy, he might’ve said something but when not being focused on you’re hard to notice (I say this from experience). If he had trustworthy friends or family he could’ve told them but this is hindsight from not ever third-person view; we will never know the whole situation. All the same, whatever issues that came from his situation are no one else’s fault or problem but his own. I can understand how his situation came about and sympathize but in the end I won’t lose sleep on one guy’s plight. Shit could be so much worse and much less avoidable than his issues.
When I had my TV Repair shop, all those decades ago, I didn't have this problem so much....or.. these problems... For one, I had several things to inform the customer of this kind of policy. I had signs on the walls in each room. Secondly, when a customer brought me a TV or I did a house call and had to take the TV to the shop, I had a receipt that I would put the Make, Model and Serial number on. I also noted any damage found right at that point... i.e. large scratch on top of cabinet... cup stain on cabinet, image burn-in on the CRT, etc. The receipt (and its copy) also had the policies clearly printed o them. One of them was the maximum time, after repair completed, that the device must be picked up or delivered and that COD was required, especially before delivery. I didn't want to lug a huge, heavy TV up some stairs. When it came to a customer trading in their Old tv for another tv, new or used, on the receipt BOTH TVs' information was noted. This avoided problems. Although, in all those years, there was ONE customer who decided to contact the BBB, claiming that I ripped her off by taking her old TV as a trade-in, fixing it and selling it. LOL When I got the letter from the BBB, I responded that taking a trade-in, fixing and selling it is normal business. I really didn't have to go into too much detail, but I did mention that this customer, when they brought in their old TV, didn't want to go ahead with repairs due to the prices of those repairs. For one thing, as I remember, that old Panasonic TV needed a new CRT, which was not cheap. Plus, I had all this documented on the receipts. Needless to say, the BBB wrote back, after dealing with the customer, making it clear that there was no problem here as no bad business had happened. Sometimes, customers CAN be a real pain in the corporate ass.
Around here, shops like these rapair ones, laundry shops, etc have a 30 day storage policy, aftar that it starts paying a daily fee. And after that, for a few months, it is considered abandoned. All these rules are printed in the back of the receipt
It's better not to entertain such cheated customer ever in future no matter how much business he/she offers. You better be careful & better sign a contract which explains your company's policy on it. So that you can be on safer side. I really idealized you a lot & wonder if I could be professional & expert in electronics field, just like you. But sadly some dreams are always a dream. Love from India. Keep rise & shine 👍
Here in Denmark the limit is 3 months. After that we're allowed to throw it to recycling. During those 3 months, we do attempt to contact the customer multiple times.
Good on ya bud. A year is very lenient. Youre well within your trading right. He acknowledged this upon contracting you to repair it in the first place.
In the situation of customers not collecting their items repaired or not within a timely manner, I would ship the item back cheap as possible (after attempting one last contact) for them as I can understand you not storing items for free over a long period of time. As long as you have proof of postage/shipping. Include that cost on their bill/invoice which is deductible upon collection within a certain period (e.g. 60 days etc).
I was the primary pc tech and manager of a retail computer shop back home. When the customer would sign the work order, the bottom of the paper had a blurb that said that they had 30 days to pick up their computer and after that it was considered abandoned and subject to resale for us to recover our costs. I had several machines set aside from people who didn't pick up their machines. Every few (3/4) I would make a call and leave a vm (most wouldn't answer) telling them that they needed to pick up. I would notate on the work order every time I called the customer. Eventually, I talked to my boss who was the owner and told him that I'd like to resell these machines. (We would take out any new parts of course) We gave them one final call and told them that if they didn't come pick it up, we would consider it abandoned and it would be subject to resale. We waited another two weeks. After this time, I'd write "ABANDONED" across the work order slip and file it just in case. Then, I took all the machines and Frankensteined what I could into working machines with left over bits and pieces (we always had used RAM, video cards, etc). It turned into a nice little income boost of probably $700-$800. Not a lot but every bit helps.
I work as a printer technician here in my country Philippines.we also have that same situation of you often.before they leaved thier printer we remind them that we have month storage only if we repair thier printer.the next succeding months we will charge storage fee,i already repaired thier printer,text and call/notify them that it is ready for pick up..2months past we still text or tries to notify them until such time we cannot contact him/her anymore.we use thier printer in our shop for printing docs until such time we run out of parts for that particular model so we ended up using its parts for our other costumer.after almost 2years they showed up in the shop and looking for thier printer.
Brilliant handling of the situation and I understand giving the potentially dangerous customer a iPad Mini 2. It's like giving candy to the bull so that he doesn't tear the place up, haha.
I have no clue how I ended up on this video, autoplay was on, but I enjoyed it and finished the video nonetheless. This is a good life lesson just in general, keep things that can be documented documented.💯
Very good story...i like to add more security to myself...like when i do give him the ipad i make sure i let him sign the reciept that he recieve a device as a form of help...so he dont go crazy the next day....maybe if you print your policies in the back of your receipts that will help aswell...keep up the good work
Both are good in there own ways, but the way this guy explains things just sticks in your head . I like how he goes over allot of different devices and not just Macbooks.
I've only ever had one customer abandon property in the 20 years I've been in IT. It was their college son's laptop that got damaged in a frat party. After hearing it would be nearly $1000 to fix, they declined and said they would pick it up. After 6 months of communication and them promising to pick it up, they stopped calling. About 4 months after that, we claimed the laptop as abandoned property. Two months later they called and wanted it back and we told them that we had declared it abandoned under the state's abandoned property law and that the laptop was gone. Naturally, they threatened to sue us, and we said go ahead and never heard from them again.
I had a customer like this. He dropped off an iPhone 6+ for a screen repair and disappeared for the next two years. He came back in complaining that we didn't have the phone ready for him to pick up. And we unconvinced him because he works out of the state. Somehow we still had most of the device but it had been salvaged for parts. He couldn't believe we would do such a thing. Because I still had the motherboard and frame laying around, I told him that I could still repair the device and have it ready to go by the end of the day. We did the work and the customer never showed up to pick it up. It was so important to him but it's been another 2 years and I haven't seen the guy since.
If you take possession/sell the device, you need to have the policy clear in writing. They could give you a hard time in court if you don't. Also, any device you take in should have the serial number noted on the receipt.
As a home shop I struggle with the best way to schedule drop off and pick up. I always ask for their preferred time first, but I think I will do what you describe instead as some customers seem to prefer more structure.
Thats why we have our customer sign a sheet when they book something in for repair, saying that if we're unable to contact them for more than 3 months, their ipad/iphone/laptop/PC, "may be disposed of, to recover costs of repair and storage" - we'll keep something for over a year, if they keep in communication with us, or if they paid upfront - but if we try repeatedly, and just can't get through to them... its done. The sheet they sign off also contains a statement of the visual inspection when they booked it in - scratches, cracks, bends, missing screws, etc - so when they come in and say "That crack wasn't there", we have something to refer back to.
Customer was right. You should take care on iPad mini 1, feed it and water it for a year and it would grow to iPad mini 3. Its your fault and negligence.
It did grow into ipad mini 2. Maybe if he waited another year, it would've turned into mini 3.
@@NorthridgeFix, you could tell him that on the full moon leprechaun will get him his iPad mini 3 from the unicorn ass...
@@NorthridgeFix r/choosiebeggers lol
NorthridgeFix if you wait 10 years it grows to a iPad Pro max XR
Watching on ipad mini 1.
Wait... This isn't Louis 🤔
wheres the iphone?
Lol that was my thought! Is this Russian (assumed, no offence intended) Louis!?
@@davidplowie4670 basically lol
I don't think he's Russian. Great channel.
elldeeone-Something tells me Louis would have been brutal. LOL
I owned a computer repair shop for 10 years. Customers always signed a repair contract and everything is video recorded with audio. All policies were always placed in writing in large letters on wall posters. Customers would come back 2 years later for items. They would tell me that their girl friend dropped it off so my contract was invalid. They would bring repaired items back one year later with a different problem and tell me the the warranty should cover it because they took it home and never turned it on or used it for one year. I would turn on the computer and show them their active browser cache and recent files they had created and smile :-)
U from?
@@mobilerepair4885 usa canada eu asia etc
Show the recent web browser cache... Read between the lines anybody?
Edit
what was it??? was it P... Pictures of P....
@@imark7777777 Nah
Thanks for the info
I left my laptop at a place for some months because I was busy with work.
I called him after all that time and he still had the computer so after the repair I gave him a good tip.
I know it was taking up space in his place and if he sold it after all that time I would have completely understood.
Great on them. Thats rare.
his enthusiasm about getting the iPad mini 2, proved that his whole story about court documents was BS.
Indeed. Especially he realized he should start asking for mini 3.
I applaud you for the way you handled it. The customer was just greedy and trying to take advantage of your generosity.
He stopped being a customer at that time and became a user;have had friends like that....loose him quick.
“Out of the country” = “I caught a new case and couldn’t afford the bond so I had to sit in county lockup for a year” 😂
you too?
Fr this just heppened to me
@Trantor The Troll Aren't you being a waste as well as a piece of shit on TH-cam judging others for their mistakes? Sometimes shit happens and you get arrested. An example is being too drunk at a celebration and walking home then getting thrown in a drunk tank then being charged with Public Intoxication. Its that fast
Trantor The Troll imagine thinking your better than other people because you don’t do drugs. Idiot
@@Ps3luvr260 is it wrong to think you're better if you're actually better?
I fucking love this, this is the kind of guy that you take as it comes. Very honest man and good hearted.
I’d have a beer with this guy any day of the week.
Thank you, it felt very nice to hear all these things. You're not speaking too much, you are speaking the right stuff, the concrete things someone has to deal with. Your experience and you're attitude is awesome and very inspiring. Health to you and your family !
If you told every customer they had 2 moths to pick up their device they would all push it. It's a safe assumption to make that most people want their device back as soon as possible.
If you give people a limit they usually want to push it
@@limitlessart6817 Should be very clear ie policy. Simple. Some customers demand a return they dont get it yet they still come because the service and product is good.
Some people are just weird. We have downstairs 2 shop and one of them takes all packages when the people are not home. And we had one Lady in the house her stuff would sit there sometimes for MONTH and then she moved out and didnt even pick up the last one she still had there.
You are a stand up guy. I can't say I would have re-reimbursed him. I mean; how long are you going to hold on to it for? 2 months is long enough. You are a good dude.
You should have a standard form explaining all your policies, including the pickup and return policy. Have them sign they acknowledge the policies, you keep the signed copy and give them a copy for them to keep. Once a week scan all those forms and sign them digitally, then store them in a backup server. You may need to keep a filing cabinet for permanent storage of the forms for the devices you sell, but the ones that are picked up can probably be discarded safely after the warranty period expires. This should help with any liability if they claim they weren't informed of the policy.
In absolutely no repair shop can you just drop something off with no communication and expect it to be there one year later.
I should really go pick up that laptop…
@@NineEyeRon just wait longer, it will become a top tier alienware gaming laptop then!
so its right to sell the costumer item? loool
@@Sim-po1mc yep, I own a repair shop and I agree with him.
@@Sim-po1mc Yes...
I have respect for your patients. You are willing when communication is there to find a way. So no need to be mad.
You are a man with a great moral.we do appreciate this kind of behavior.
Here where I live there're some rules we generally follow. You have 60 days limit to pick up your hardware, without exception. We make the customer sign a paper that says that, and what we can do with the hardware if time period is over. We have a few articles in our laws that back us up in cases like these. You have to be responsible for doing the burocracy, the client is responsible for picking his stuff on time. You aren't suppose to call them every day to let them know they have to go to your store to pick it up. You have to put a big ass singboard about the 60 days limit too.
Fantastic and interesting lesson Northridge Fix. Keep accurate records, you did the right thing Sir, absolutely no legal obligation on your part ; you are a very noble human being ! There are an amazing number of arseholes in the world. The videos are fascinating keep up the good work thank you very much for sharing !
The fact you showed compassion to the guy says alot. If you did that for me I would very grateful,but this guy has the gall and is like "give me something better" pisses me off. Choosing beggars are a problem and I highly doubt he had documents for court on it. I highly doubt it. You handled it better than I would have. my patience with people is very low. Mad respect to you!
Customer just got out of jail. Just wanted money.
It's good to know that there're great tech repair shops on both the east coast and the west coast :) Louis Rossmann and you are a godsent!
godsend :) and yes, they are.
I like stories like this. You are a honest guy and doing good for humanity. You are basically recycling stuff ( repairing ). If you ask me personally, if you bought something for yourself and didn't try to repair it in a shop, you have no longer right to buy a new product for yourself by law. That way people would appreciate their things a lot more and we would have less plastic waste on our planet.
I can't believe you offered him a solution like this. You are a great man.
Think you handled the situation very well. Records are always important to cover your backs. Nice of you to provide another tablet and a shame that that person then wanted to rip you off.
Subscribed as your a great guy (y)
I have dealt with the same thing many times, but I’m a tractor mechanic. I will have big engines and transmissions waiting to be picked up after I rebuild them sitting for two years and if they do not pay up in that time I/we will sell them. We charge $25 every month they up on pallets in the warehouse.
Now i see why people are cold when i enter to the shop with sunshine smile and lovely nice voice. Because of these people. I understand right now.
the way he dealt with that kind of customer is so brilliant and professional
He took your kindness as a weakness didn't he... Some people lol, Great video :)
A genuine guidence for new technitions,
Excellent advice! Keep a detailed ticket on repair with intake photos including Serial number and model. Also it is imperative to keep an exact timeline of when repair was completed and every customer contact attempted and made. Just found your channel excellent information.
don’t know how i ended up here but loved the story 😂🤷🏽♂️
Why
Yeah I want to know as well, are you a business owner or something?
Depending on the cost of the repair you can request a deposit be paid to proceed with the repair. This deposit is substantial enough to at least cover the parts and enough that the customer would want to come back and collect his goods after repair.
That's what we started doing at our shop. It's now our policy to ask for a deposit up front when taking in new repairs. We waive the fee for a lot of our known-customers however if it's a new client asking what we can do on a 9 year-old laptop, we always ask for a 1-hour deposit. We've seen enough of these to know that few customers are interested in paying hundreds for a logic board repair or a hard drive replacement. The amount of laptop that get left behind with unpaid bills has dropped dramatically.
We the technicians are not the pawn shop owners to keep the customers items for long time so it's good to sell them I totally understand your situation
You know that is very sad that customers try to take advantage of you. They think you are in business to give them free stuff. You did the right thing. Love viewing your channel, please keep posting.
If he dropped it off with not speaking to you, just placing it on the counter, why would you enter it into your system? You became liable for it once you had it on record and when contacting him after doing work on it you added even more complexity. You should not have done any work on it until getting a signed work order, for your protection.
the dumbass just left the ipad, i have no empathy for his callousness, i see no point in trying to make the customer seem right with this lowbar argument.
@@thomasmusgrave7595 Yeah, it's basically "That money I owed you? I left it on your porch last night. So now, we're square."
@@thomasmusgrave7595 Not about the customer being right.
What if the customer didn't want the screen repaired and it was something else? For all he knew it might have been left on the counter by mistake?
If you parked your car outside a mechanics and the mechanic saw it and thought you wanted a new transmission, would you pay for that?
Shop owner has made this misery himself, by "assuming" customer wanted something repaired without instruction, then this defence of "it doesn't make sense..You have 60 days.."?
@@Cheepchipsable he said it was a regular customer, if you own a shop you will understand, thats why he kept it that long and even gave a replacement
Maybe try getting a deposit when people drop off tablets
I suppose the tablet itself is the deposit lol
Good idea. Even 5 bucks. Anything would be better than nothing
Same here. We have 2 months limit until customer pickup his device. Also we give him copy of agreement document that he sign and any person from his family bring back that document he will take the device. Also we explain him that after 2 month his device is becamse our and he can not take it even if he came with police. We had that case too and nothing happen.
Who leaves there items there for over a week never mind a year lol
New to this channel I love it
This is a great video! Thanks for sharing that story and way to stand your ground!
Am a victim of such situations to the extent I lost my workshop, l had a lot of troubles with such I couldn't handle it anymore
I had a similar customer he was threatening violence even after I offered the guy a better laptop because the toshiba did not like those LED screens .. had to get police involved... hate customers who try it on and then try to scam you further ... you try to help and then they think they can work around your helpfulness ... my issue was early 2012 ...
A very valuable lesson for me, who will start a new business, although not the same as yours.
Very valuable and teaching story.
Thank you!
I was really happy with this story until he came back. Regardless I commend you and your shop because that is incredible customer service. Some places give you 2 weeks and if you return on the 3rd it’s guaranteed to be gone
So full of crap customers can be, iCloud backs all that crap up. I really appreciate how Alex does business, he does it fairly and honestly something we need more of in this world.
Mr. Louis Rossman! What happened to you? You look different? Man this guy has got the headset and everything!
It’s awesome that you went out of your way to help this guy out. I would have never have done that(give out free iPad) unless he brought ALOT of business. He turned it around on you trying to get more free stuff even though you were nice and helped him out.
You can't stay too nice on this business. You have to be practical efficient rather.
u know its hurt the most when u ignore ur policies just to help a customer and he/she tries to backstab u
"I was out of the country"
"The documents on that tablet will prove my court case."
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm......
I think both of thsoe things were lies
I ALSO think he intentionally "broke" his ipad screen and dropped it off with you to keep it out of the way of a pending raid/arrest
Noah Hastings unlikely
Yeah 🤣
Smart
Yeah, see. He got a tip off from his inside man, see. Den he busted out of da joint, see. And he came for his ipads.
I'm getting a Louis rossman group vibe
Absolutely correct seems like a overly fair guy much respect for him he’s a gentleman
I have run into this problem. I also have a 30-day abandonment policy. Any equipment left for 30 days will be recycled. Just make sure you note EVERYTHING.
In Bulgaria "consumer protection agency" so to speak has 1 month listed as puckup time. After that, you have no LEGAL obligation to even keep the item, you can just toss it, sell it, whatever. Having said that, our shop policy and actions were always the same as described in the video. I'm curious which country are you from and what does your law say about this period (besides your shop policy)?
I have a 30 minute abandonment policy finders keepers
Exactly thats what i started doing.
@@theenzoferrari458 No. It's not.
Same, at my repair shop we document on the SO that devices kept after 30 days may be discarded. I’ll usually hold it longer if I can, or make an exception for good customers. But after several months of holding it, it just becomes ridiculous. I’m not a storage locker…
You are a good person and there is always someone who try to take advantage of that
I worked in the service department of the UK's No1 consumer electronics retailer many moons ago, around the time expensive VHS/Betamax camcorders were all the rage.
One of the types of items never picked up by some customers were these expensive camcorders.
Some of these camcorders were those brought in for repair for having tapes stuck inside the mechanism. These were tapes of customers filming themselves or each other in various forms of errr ummm 'compromising positions'....
Brought a whole new meaning to "data recovery" too!!
Very reasonable policies. There's only so much you can do.
Love the way you handle situations. Brilliant.
You get this nonsense in any independent business. I ran a graphic and website development company for 5 years, and the amount of clients I would get coming back to redeem files that they had lost (I also have a 2 month hold policy), declaring that my work was innacurate to their documented needs - so shouldn't count as "revisions," saying I owed them more work after their contract deposits had ran dry, and trying to convince me that I wronged them for sticking to the contracts they signed, was outrageous. It's unbelievable the kind of lies people will tell to either get their money back or get more out of you than they paid for. And yup, after their tantrums and threats, they often just disappear, without a trace. I sympathize with you, in this. It can be so exhausting. Sounds like you handled it very well. Stand strong.
I have had this happen to me, in my case it was with a car repair, the customer showed back up 9 months later, turns out he was active military and was deployed with almost no notice and had the paperwork to prove it, i'm glad i still had the car.
I had a customer similar to the person you describe in this video. With storage space being limited nothing can be held indefinitely. I gave my customer the same treatment you describe: Calls to inform her that her computer was ready, text messages every few days for a couple of months. After about 1 1/2 years I gave up and sold the PC for just a little more than the repair fee. It is fair practice. Anyone that doesn't understand this had never had a business, and probably shouldn't ever have a business to run.
easy way to void the "all my valuable info" cheap memory cards transfer relevant info and throw it in a drawer
Jordan Little Won’t work with iOS products, there are no memory card slots.
itune backup would do
@@vicvascara6383 Ain't nobody got time or storage for that. Policy is policy, don't pick up your shit, don't pay your bill, our cost will be recouped any way possible. Even if it's only the small amount of joy I get out of using old-ass iPhones and god-damned netbooks for target practice. I found the owners of such devices are very much aware of how worthless they are, why they bothered to bring it in to begin with is beyond me though.
The guy was being shaken down. Even if he had made a back up of all that data, the thug was still going to do what he was going to do.
@@W1ldTangent THIS!!! time is money!
"We auction it off after a week, unless of course the customer is a gangster"
unless the customer is a gangster LOL
Sadly I've encountered this problem many times. Not a pretty picture. Was low-key happy i wasn't the owner of the business, just a worker. Pretty scary scenario, man...
So many scammers and dishonest people out there.... Thank you for sharing.
You are a patient man. Maybe one day I will send something to you.
I have never knew about this channel but after this simply and honest advice im suscribing. Thanks for the knowledge
You are a good man. 🙏
Devices are just vessels, back it up and and sell the device, customer comes back he can pay you the repair and give him his back up or restore to a device he or she has. If its a computer sell it with another hard drive and keep the customers drive in a safe place. There are ways to deal with things, just think before selling anything, save yourself some headaches.
There are laws on keeping customer data as well. I believe its 12 months. Also if you did that for every customer who left stuff you could potentially be storing many hundred gigabytes of information. Which if it was accidentally leaked/accessed could be used against you. *different laws in different countries*
"No good deed goes unpunished".......as a prior small business owner, one of my all time fav sayings a friend told me after somewhat similar situation...lol
One thing I've learned from a couple different business owners is that you should not hesitate to "fire" bad, toxic customers. They're liabilities that will end up costing you money and emotional capital.
Also, a lawsuit threat should end all informal discussions. From there on out, negotiations go through lawyers or not at all..
Sad to say: he was probably held without bail/bound after dropping it off (his legal counsel either didn’t know or have time [public defender] to retrieve it ). It’s irresponsible to say he was just careless, he likely didn’t receive any of your messages (phone confiscated as part of internment) and couldn’t act on them.
It’s a really fucked up situation that happens wayyyy more often than youd think, family of lawyers and legal professionals. Sad thing is you’re in the right he was just shit out of luck (he might be a victim of circumstance).
Either his bail/bound was denied (flight risk) or too high to fund.
Everything could've been avoided if he just waited to talk to him instead of dropping the iPad without a word and leaving
Robert Villafan Dude probably mumbled something (not loud or clear) when he saw that the technician busy, he might’ve said something but when not being focused on you’re hard to notice (I say this from experience). If he had trustworthy friends or family he could’ve told them but this is hindsight from not ever third-person view; we will never know the whole situation.
All the same, whatever issues that came from his situation are no one else’s fault or problem but his own. I can understand how his situation came about and sympathize but in the end I won’t lose sleep on one guy’s plight. Shit could be so much worse and much less avoidable than his issues.
When I had my TV Repair shop, all those decades ago, I didn't have this problem so much....or.. these problems...
For one, I had several things to inform the customer of this kind of policy. I had signs on the walls in each room.
Secondly, when a customer brought me a TV or I did a house call and had to take the TV to the shop, I had a receipt that I would put the Make, Model and Serial number on. I also noted any damage found right at that point... i.e. large scratch on top of cabinet... cup stain on cabinet, image burn-in on the CRT, etc.
The receipt (and its copy) also had the policies clearly printed o them.
One of them was the maximum time, after repair completed, that the device must be picked up or delivered and that COD was required, especially before delivery. I didn't want to lug a huge, heavy TV up some stairs.
When it came to a customer trading in their Old tv for another tv, new or used, on the receipt BOTH TVs' information was noted. This avoided problems.
Although, in all those years, there was ONE customer who decided to contact the BBB, claiming that I ripped her off by taking her old TV as a trade-in, fixing it and selling it. LOL
When I got the letter from the BBB, I responded that taking a trade-in, fixing and selling it is normal business. I really didn't have to go into too much detail, but I did mention that this customer, when they brought in their old TV, didn't want to go ahead with repairs due to the prices of those repairs. For one thing, as I remember, that old Panasonic TV needed a new CRT, which was not cheap.
Plus, I had all this documented on the receipts.
Needless to say, the BBB wrote back, after dealing with the customer, making it clear that there was no problem here as no bad business had happened.
Sometimes, customers CAN be a real pain in the corporate ass.
If you told every customer that they had 2 months to collect, you would soon become a storage unit, so i totally agree!
You are way nicer than I would of been!
Around here, shops like these rapair ones, laundry shops, etc have a 30 day storage policy, aftar that it starts paying a daily fee. And after that, for a few months, it is considered abandoned.
All these rules are printed in the back of the receipt
Hunter wants his laptop back.
Yes, sounds like the Hunter Biden laptop scandal.
Had a customer came back after a year passed... they were really surprise we still had it
It's better not to entertain such cheated customer ever in future no matter how much business he/she offers. You better be careful & better sign a contract which explains your company's policy on it. So that you can be on safer side.
I really idealized you a lot & wonder if I could be professional & expert in electronics field, just like you. But sadly some dreams are always a dream. Love from India. Keep rise & shine 👍
I own a repair shop, i highly agree with you.
Here in Denmark the limit is 3 months. After that we're allowed to throw it to recycling. During those 3 months, we do attempt to contact the customer multiple times.
Good on ya bud. A year is very lenient. Youre well within your trading right. He acknowledged this upon contracting you to repair it in the first place.
In the situation of customers not collecting their items repaired or not within a timely manner, I would ship the item back cheap as possible (after attempting one last contact) for them as I can understand you not storing items for free over a long period of time. As long as you have proof of postage/shipping. Include that cost on their bill/invoice which is deductible upon collection within a certain period (e.g. 60 days etc).
I was the primary pc tech and manager of a retail computer shop back home. When the customer would sign the work order, the bottom of the paper had a blurb that said that they had 30 days to pick up their computer and after that it was considered abandoned and subject to resale for us to recover our costs. I had several machines set aside from people who didn't pick up their machines. Every few (3/4) I would make a call and leave a vm (most wouldn't answer) telling them that they needed to pick up. I would notate on the work order every time I called the customer. Eventually, I talked to my boss who was the owner and told him that I'd like to resell these machines. (We would take out any new parts of course) We gave them one final call and told them that if they didn't come pick it up, we would consider it abandoned and it would be subject to resale. We waited another two weeks. After this time, I'd write "ABANDONED" across the work order slip and file it just in case. Then, I took all the machines and Frankensteined what I could into working machines with left over bits and pieces (we always had used RAM, video cards, etc). It turned into a nice little income boost of probably $700-$800. Not a lot but every bit helps.
I work as a printer technician here in my country Philippines.we also have that same situation of you often.before they leaved thier printer we remind them that we have month storage only if we repair thier printer.the next succeding months we will charge storage fee,i already repaired thier printer,text and call/notify them that it is ready for pick up..2months past we still text or tries to notify them until such time we cannot contact him/her anymore.we use thier printer in our shop for printing docs until such time we run out of parts for that particular model so we ended up using its parts for our other costumer.after almost 2years they showed up in the shop and looking for thier printer.
Sir i M With You
Don't Care Such Customers who Don't care about There Own Things
Brilliant handling of the situation and I understand giving the potentially dangerous customer a iPad Mini 2. It's like giving candy to the bull so that he doesn't tear the place up, haha.
I have no clue how I ended up on this video, autoplay was on, but I enjoyed it and finished the video nonetheless. This is a good life lesson just in general, keep things that can be documented documented.💯
Very good story...i like to add more security to myself...like when i do give him the ipad i make sure i let him sign the reciept that he recieve a device as a form of help...so he dont go crazy the next day....maybe if you print your policies in the back of your receipts that will help aswell...keep up the good work
What is this? Louis Rossmann kNoCkOfF
You think rossman is the worlds first repair person? Hes not even the first repair person to do youtube.
Both are good in there own ways, but the way this guy explains things just sticks in your head . I like how he goes over allot of different devices and not just Macbooks.
@@ronnie3044 its joke c'moon guys
"regular customer"
doesnt turn up for over a year
"gave him the ipad bcuz hes a regular customer"
Yep. And he will be back again next year.
Hunter really wants his laptop back all of a sudden.
You are way too nice. Definitely take care of your customers, even though that guy was rude
I've only ever had one customer abandon property in the 20 years I've been in IT. It was their college son's laptop that got damaged in a frat party. After hearing it would be nearly $1000 to fix, they declined and said they would pick it up. After 6 months of communication and them promising to pick it up, they stopped calling. About 4 months after that, we claimed the laptop as abandoned property. Two months later they called and wanted it back and we told them that we had declared it abandoned under the state's abandoned property law and that the laptop was gone. Naturally, they threatened to sue us, and we said go ahead and never heard from them again.
Priceless information he didn't need for a year ....
I had a customer like this. He dropped off an iPhone 6+ for a screen repair and disappeared for the next two years. He came back in complaining that we didn't have the phone ready for him to pick up. And we unconvinced him because he works out of the state. Somehow we still had most of the device but it had been salvaged for parts. He couldn't believe we would do such a thing. Because I still had the motherboard and frame laying around, I told him that I could still repair the device and have it ready to go by the end of the day. We did the work and the customer never showed up to pick it up. It was so important to him but it's been another 2 years and I haven't seen the guy since.
Prison issues maybe??? 🤨
(I mean come on... 3... years) 🤔
If you take possession/sell the device, you need to have the policy clear in writing. They could give you a hard time in court if you don't. Also, any device you take in should have the serial number noted on the receipt.
Danke!
Hunter Biden has entered the chat
Hunter Biden wants his Laptop back.
I owned phone repair shop for over 10yrs now, i had to admit this is a hard business and challenging
As a home shop I struggle with the best way to schedule drop off and pick up. I always ask for their preferred time first, but I think I will do what you describe instead as some customers seem to prefer more structure.
Thats why we have our customer sign a sheet when they book something in for repair, saying that if we're unable to contact them for more than 3 months, their ipad/iphone/laptop/PC, "may be disposed of, to recover costs of repair and storage" - we'll keep something for over a year, if they keep in communication with us, or if they paid upfront - but if we try repeatedly, and just can't get through to them... its done.
The sheet they sign off also contains a statement of the visual inspection when they booked it in - scratches, cracks, bends, missing screws, etc - so when they come in and say "That crack wasn't there", we have something to refer back to.