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Scamming Engineering
- Thread starter Futurist
- Start date
Today's? That scam is older than dirt -- or at least as old as A/C.
I have a reputable firm who look after my A/C, but the most common (not that it is common) fault is the failure of a start capacitor.
As you well know these things are just a few dollars so I always keep new spares around here.
I'd go so far as to say that these should even be user replaceable, like click a panel, open it, remove the old, insert the new, close.
Repair scams have been around since repairs have.
My daughter slid on the ice into a curb hard enough to bend the wheel, which made the car shake very noticeably. My wife took it to a national-brand repair shop that gave us a list of damages that needed to be fixed in order for the car to be safe to drive that totaled up to around $2300 (more than the car is worth, frankly). I limped it over to the place I normally have do work -- they are certainly not the cheapest, but they aren't too much above that, and they are very honest about what does and doesn't need to be done. I was expecting that something was probably damaged, from the way it was shaking, and was expecting to have to replace a tie rod or some other steering or suspension components, but they said that all that needed to be done was replace the wheel, that everything else looked fine. They got a used wheel, moved the tire over to it and balanced it, then checked the alignment, which was still within tolerances. I think the total bill came to around $90 and it's been driving just fine for over a year now.
In fairness to businesses that get called out on these investigative calls, what might be a simple fix is not always obvious to a technician walking up to a non-working unit. I have no idea in this case, though both of the reference technicians stated that it was a fault that a competent technician should be able to identify in five minutes.
My daughter slid on the ice into a curb hard enough to bend the wheel, which made the car shake very noticeably. My wife took it to a national-brand repair shop that gave us a list of damages that needed to be fixed in order for the car to be safe to drive that totaled up to around $2300 (more than the car is worth, frankly). I limped it over to the place I normally have do work -- they are certainly not the cheapest, but they aren't too much above that, and they are very honest about what does and doesn't need to be done. I was expecting that something was probably damaged, from the way it was shaking, and was expecting to have to replace a tie rod or some other steering or suspension components, but they said that all that needed to be done was replace the wheel, that everything else looked fine. They got a used wheel, moved the tire over to it and balanced it, then checked the alignment, which was still within tolerances. I think the total bill came to around $90 and it's been driving just fine for over a year now.
In fairness to businesses that get called out on these investigative calls, what might be a simple fix is not always obvious to a technician walking up to a non-working unit. I have no idea in this case, though both of the reference technicians stated that it was a fault that a competent technician should be able to identify in five minutes.
I used the term to represent those who are skilled at scamming when diagnosing customer problems, they likely have certification in scamming.
And wait to get sued by person (or person's survivors) that does it improperly and kills themselves.
