Not recommended - high pressure tactics for uninformed customers

Beware - terrible service at this shop. Tried to deal with them to get my mother service for her laptop, and they pull the same high-pressure tactics as the big box stores.

Here is the entire text of the email I sent to the store for those who want the gory details:

Andrew,

I have to say I'm stunned at how terrible the experience has been for what should have been a simple transaction at your store. I've heard the account from two separate people independently, and it's consistent.

I'm not going to bother addressing the snotty comments made about me to both my mother and brother, because there's enough to complain about without that. Clearly you think you know me despite the fact that we've never met.

When I found your website, I was hoping that a small town shop may have been free from the high-pressure tactics at FutureShop or BestBuy but that's obviously not the case. Our experience has included everything that I hate about these big shops.

On Nov 12th I emailed you to describe an issue that my mother was having with her laptop. In that email I gave you what I thought might be some good background information to help diagnose the problem. I also clearly stated that no repair work was to be done past the initial troubleshooting. The laptop arrived the next morning, and my mother expressed the same intention again - no repair work until we knew how much and agreed to it. You even went so far as point at a receipt you have posted on your wall from a competitor to point out that you weren't like "the other guys".

You notified us at roughly noon that day that the hard drive was dead, with an estimate of the cost to repair. Despite the cost of the new hard drive being double retail cost anywhere else (I won't begrudge you trying to make a profit), we were still considering repairing. I responded to you at 1:37pm that afternoon requesting clarification on several items, which you never responded to. You emailed me again at 2:19pm to find out what our decision was, but you offered no clarifications for the questions I posed earlier.

By the 14th at 9:30pm I still had not heard from you so I notified you that you were not to proceed with any fix on the laptop. I received no further emails from you.

At this point I pretty much considered the issue closed. What I didn't count on was you trying to extort the money by claiming that you had already done the work and therefore should be paid for it. If you had indeed performed any repair, it was without authorization, and on your own time. Your instructions were clear, and you ignored them in the hopes that the customer would feel bullied into paying for it. Plain and simple. You made reference to some "policy" that the store has that you have things fixed in 24 hrs. At no point did we request 24 hour service. On top of proceeding without permission, the claim of 4-6 hours effort is absurd. You mentioned more than once that perhaps they should let me repair it "since obviously he knows more than me". Apparently you're right, because I performed the same thing myself last weekend in less than 1.5 hr

I don't need a lecture about not understanding retail, profit margins, customer relations etc, - I've been running my own IT consulting business in Ottawa for over 20 years, and doing hardware upgrades for myself and my customers has obviously been part of it. Stories like this, are the reason why people don't trust the big box stores.

I intentionally sent my brother in to pick up the machine so that I didn't need to worry about any last minute tactics. I heard the same story almost word for word. More trash talk about how he has a know-it-all brother. I'm not sure why you seem determined to make this about me, but I've read over every email I sent, and at no time did I second guess your assessment nor do anything other than ask for clarification about costs. I suppose it's easier to make a profit on uninformed customers.