I just got off the phone with a customer. 1 hour and 20 minutes. About 3 months ago, I fished some wire, mounted his surround sound speakers, sold him an MX-350, programmed it, showed him and his wife how to use it. He bought the equipment from a big box store. It was a theatre in a box. Denon 1506 av receiver, polk audio speakers, and he bought a toshiba dvd/vcr combo.
He called me about a month ago because nothing was working. He had bought a new wall unit, unplugged everything, and tried to it all back up.
I went to his place, hooked it all back up, and charged him for it.
Tonight he calls, says he was watching the sapranos on dvd, and the sound just stopped working.
I try to troubleshoot over the phone. After about 15 minutes, I say to him, put the movie back in and try it. He says what movie, I said the Sapranos. He says, oh I turned it back in to the video store before I got this new dvd player. Now I find out that, his other unit died so he took it back, and got this new one. Same model.
After another 15 minutes or so I finally get discouraged and tell him that he really needs to call the store that sold him the equipment. He says "I tried that, they said they couldn't help me"
After a total of 1 hour and 20 minutes I find out that he screwed with the settings on the av receiver too. I finally got it going.
This sh*t will drive me insane....
I explained to him after I was done that I didn't sell him his equipment, therefore I made no money on the equipment sales. Which means, I can't be called to walk him thru his issues as it's not my responibility.
He thanked me for my help.
What the F%$#$
Just wanted/needed to vent.

You don't need to vent, You need to send him a bill.

If you give me your phone number I'll know who to tell people to call when they have problems with there Big Box Buys.......... LOL

Yeah no sh*t

Get a 900/976 number. $1.50/minute.

I always joke about that, but I wonder if anyone has really done it.

dont just send him a bill sell him some new gear that works right

$1.50 a minute isn't enough....

Yeah, d-tools... microbiz... Dell...

Call him about 2:00 AM this morning, and wake him up to ask if his sytem is still working O.K. --- do this for about 3 nights in a row!

80 mins @ $1.50 is $120. Not bad, but if you were there, would've probably taken 10 mins. Just went to my boss' sister's house because her kids couldn't watch Noggin, Nickelodeon, etc on their digital cable. Channel wouldn't change when she entered in the channel. She was looking at a few year old channel guide. It was Adelphia, go figure.

10 minutes...3 hour minimum servce call = $225 That sounds like an even better deal :)

My Podiatrist friend says that you can call him 24/7. But if you call at 3am to make an appointment because your foot hurts, he will call you at 4am to confirm your appointment. He's from New Jersey, so I don't think he's kidding

Tough break, I hate those calls.

Try this next time when you want to solve your problem quickly - Speak away from the phone and say something like this:

"honey, you're only dialated to 4 centimeters, we've got plenty of time.."
"I know its my birthday, just get started without me"

or

"I'm going thru some mountains so I might lose you.."
"my battery is going dead " "
"I'm in an attic, can I call you back?"

ha.

sad thing is, sometimes it's all true. :(

Had a customer try to DIY and changed out his S-VHS, and DVD player, to a DVD/VCR Combo. All the equipment was his, and he called to tell me he could not see his VCR video now... No composite monitor out....YAY

I feel your pain, just got back to the office from a service call where the guy tried to do half the job himself. The job was wall fishing some sat and antenna feeds, he had it all f**ked up, then he has the balls to try to tell me how to finish it up. He keeps getting in my way, I'm in the attic and he accidentally pulls my wires back down through the access point.
I finally tell him I don't need or want his help and that I've managed to do this without him for the last twenty years and if he would have let me do the whole job it would have been cheaper and turned out better. He just looks at me like I'm speaking some foreign language, what an idiot, I wanted to smash his face.
I hate the way people will attempt to what we do for a living themselves, they would never try to do there own electrical or plumbing but audio video, hell anybody can do that. I tell myself next time I'm just going to walk out and leave them with their mess, by finishing it for him I don't think he learned his lesson.