Originally Posted by TimFountain

I just wanted to get other peoples opinion regarding what I would consider dubious practices aimed at lightening your wallet. My experiences since I arrived in the US in 2003 have been generally OK, but on a number of occasions I really felt I was being ‘taken for a ride’. Here are a couple of examples:-

1. Home repairs.

2 year old fridge went out. I called Frigidaire. They sent someone over from a 3rd party repair co, you know the sort ‘ABC White Goods Repair co’. So in crawls this Neanderthal and has a quick poke around the back of the fridge. Proclaims the compressor starter has gone. How convenient, as the starter isn't covered under the extended warranty. That'll be $220 + fitting, and it will take at least 1 hour to fit, very tricky job. Thanks very much I say, but no thanks and sends him on his way, with no payment. Go to Frigidaire web site. New starter is $22 + $3 shipping. It plugs onto side of compressor, takes, oh, about 5 seconds to do. Result, one working fridge, free diagnosis and a pissed ABC White Goods co. They phone me up and ask when can they come round to do the job? I tell them that the repair was so expensive that I decided to get a new fridge and that I would not be paying them as they didn't do any repair. They are not happy but what else can they do? Result: if he had said it would be $60 + ½ hour, I would have said go ahead. As he was being greedy, he ended up with nothing….

2. Dentists.

See this thread, page 5 http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=281202. My overriding experience with dentists over here is that they try to extract maximum revenue from you through elective, non insured extras. Of course it is purely coincidental that these are not covered by insurance, so they get a lot more from you than they would from the insurance co, and they get paid immediately....

3. A/C Experience.

My AC had been running without seeming to do much cooling. When we bought the house, we had a 1 year warranty, so I called them and they sent someone round. Without doing a whole lot of work, he told me that a winding in the motor that drives the fan in the outside unit had blown, causing the fan to run slower. He replaced the motor, bugger all difference. Next guy to come along tells me I need the evaporator unit sealing, $400 down the toilet if I go that route. I decided to go up into the loft. Turns out that the guy who fitted the alarm disturbed the tubes leading to a splitter/equalizer box and there was a 1� gap, letting cold air out and warm air in. Took me about 2 minutes to fix. Neither of the so-called experts could be bothered to go crawling around the hot, itchy loft to find the real problem.

4. Builders.

We had an office built on the back of the garage. Solid concrete slab, 500 sq feet, extra insulation to keep it cooler in the summer, Skylights etc. Got 3 quotes, prices ranged from $22,000 to $54,000. All for exactly the same thing!
I wanted to split A/C unit installed, In the US they are not a fan of the split A/C, and instead they prefer the ducted or though-wall approach. I found a 16,000 BTU split unit for $1500. Installer was unsure about it (lots of mutterings about unreliable, European crap etc. etc.) In the end he killed the deal by wanting $4,500 to install it. I told him to go play in the traffic. I got a hotel style through the wall unit for $900, and had the builder install it. Result – A/C guy got nothing!

5. Car Dealers.

They are masters of the ‘added extra’. Dealer prep fees on new cars, loan prep fees etc. etc. I just put a line though all of these added extras when we went to pick the car up and said they never asked me if I wanted to car prepped, it took them about 2 mouse clicks to arrange the loan etc. Of course they had already done it so they were SOL. I refused to sign for these added extras and got up to walk…. They very quickly waived them all.
What about servicing I hear you ask? Oh what a great source of revenue; from the brake line drain to the transmission flush, to the 3K mile oil change. Come one, the manufacturer recommends an oil change ever $10K, the transmission is sealed for life and the brakes need new fluid every 60K miles of 4 years. FFS they must think I don’t know how to read a service manual. Watch out for the simple brake job that turns into full pads and discs (‘rotors’).

I guess my experience to date has been you have to go into these kinds of situations with your eyes open, with the expectation that someone is going to try and rip you a new one, and you won’t be far off. My advice is to get multiple quotes for pretty much anything you need, and get them to put it in writing as to exactly what you need and why you need it. You will be surprised at how many of those extras melt away when they have to put it in writing.

There, I feel much better now, Monday morning rant over with!

- Tim

Originally Posted by Bob

These problems can happen anywhere though, but what makes it worse here, is pretty much bugger all consumer protection...

Originally Posted by Rockgurl

I bought a brand new $3000 bass at Guitar Center...it was a Warwick, pretty much the best bass you can buy. A week later it went wrong....the input jack started shorting out and made horrible buzzing noises in the middle of the gig. I went back to the store and they couldn't fix it right there and then as it needed a whole new input which they had to send it back to Warwick for. As I have spent about $6000 so far at Guitar Center I thought they might offer a replacement loaner so I could play the shows I had that week but they didn't. OK...I can handle that as I have two other basses, but the shocker was when I came to pick up the bass the following week, they tried to charge me for the repair! I said "you have to be kidding, right?". They were dead serious. I had had it for less than a week but they said the input wasn't covered under the warranty. I told them that was BS and I wasn't paying because I did not expect a $3000 bass to break after one week. I am such a good customer there that they just looked sheepishly at me and shrugged and mumbled but I was quite furious. I was absolutely not going to pay.

Back in England you know you would just get it repaired with an apology, if it had only been a week. Damn rip-off merchants over here.

Originally Posted by Rockgurl

I bought a brand new $3000 bass at Guitar Center...it was a Warwick, pretty much the best bass you can buy. A week later it went wrong....the input jack started shorting out and made horrible buzzing noises in the middle of the gig. I went back to the store and they couldn't fix it right there and then as it needed a whole new input which they had to send it back to Warwick for. As I have spent about $6000 so far at Guitar Center I thought they might offer a replacement loaner so I could play the shows I had that week but they didn't. OK...I can handle that as I have two other basses, but the shocker was when I came to pick up the bass the following week, they tried to charge me for the repair! I said "you have to be kidding, right?". They were dead serious. I had had it for less than a week but they said the input wasn't covered under the warranty. I told them that was BS and I wasn't paying because I did not expect a $3000 bass to break after one week. I am such a good customer there that they just looked sheepishly at me and shrugged and mumbled but I was quite furious. I was absolutely not going to pay.

Back in England you know you would just get it repaired with an apology, if it had only been a week. Damn rip-off merchants over here.

Originally Posted by Rockgurl

Here's the deal...the guitar is very rare and valuable. It's one of only 300 in the world and of 75 in America. It is signed by the founder of Warwick and has a serial number. It is not available on Musicians Friend.com (which is the online version of Guitar Center anyway) because of it's uniqueness. It was not replaceable because it is so rare and they did send it back to the manufacturer who installed the replacement part. It was obviously a faulty input mechanism...these things happen. It is a superior product with a faulty part but as I bought it in Guitar Center I figured they were the ones liable. It wasn't Warwick charging me, it was GC. I just thought because it was a superior and specialist product that they would have taken more care with the follow-up customer service. I spent over $5000 that day on equipment and was disappointed to say the least.

Originally Posted by rincewind

As I would be to. I would speak with the manager in the store and threaten to take the matter higher if neccessary. For something of that value, I would expect them to fix it no questions asked.

Originally Posted by Rockgurl

I did actually speak to the manager and after he heard what I had to say was the one who cancelled the charges. I think he could sense my determination not to pay! LOL. Here's a picture of my much-loved pride and joy...a bleached blonde Limited Edition Warwick Thumb:

Originally Posted by rincewind

Nice axe. You do any Cliff Burton type solos?

Originally Posted by Rockgurl

LMAO! Not with this bass...it's far too sophisticated! I use my Ibanez for that! Actually I bought a Jason Newsted video and I never knew he put so much into his bass playing...great player!

Originally Posted by Yorkieabroad

And another rip off - although I'm not sure if this counts as USA or UK....

British embassy in Washington - I've been trying to talk to someone about a new passport, and I mean a real, live person, not a recording or a website.... the only way to actually talk to someone about it is to call a premium rate number charged at $2.10 per minute...and then I got some dizzy tart who could hardly speak english and had no idea at all about passport issuance.....apparently its all outsourced.......

I spent 12 dollars learning absolutely diddly-squat - apart from reinforcing a previously held view that in general, british embassies/consulates are a total waste of time and no help whatsoever to the people they are supposed to be helping, unless the help required is in arranging a feakin' cocktail party................

Originally Posted by Wintersong

That's nothing - the US Embassy in London charges you 1 pound 60 a minute!

I once spent 10 pounds finding out diddly squat. Luckily, I had phoned them from work

Originally Posted by tomelina

Would'nt that be 'naff all' or at least 'sweet Fanny Adams' if it is the London US embassy?