Philips repair - am I being ripped off?

[Steven]

Hi all,

I have a problem with a Philips 28PW6515/05. It keeps going into
standby after a few hours usage (letting the TV cool for a couple of
hours would often bring the thing back to life).

I took it into repair to City Electronic Services, Barking, Essex, UK
(a registered Philips dealer).

I have been billed the following:
Inspection fee (came and collected TV) - £57.75
Labour - £57
"Painter chip and memory chip" £62.79

Plus there is VAT to pay on top of this!

The TV only cost around £500 when I bought it 3 years ago.

The issues here:
1) This bill has come as quite a shock, there was no estimate given -
which I am very pissed off about. Can I sue the company for not giving
an estimate?

2) I was wondering if anyone knows whether this is a realistic
estimate for the work? I have no idea how much it should cost. Am I
being ripped off?

[They did tell me that this is a "known fault" with Philips TVs and
that Philips "may be willing to pay for the cost of the parts". But I
think that was City Electronics just trying to get me off the phone!

Any help would be useful, are there any websites that deal with these
issues?


Best wishes,

Steve.

 

[eddumweer]

Hi Steve,

Repair is expensive these days.

But think about someone must get the tv and bring it to the repairshop. So
this cost time and so money. Also think about if there is something that
broke during transport, I think you hold the transporter responsible. So
there you also pay for.

If they say it's a common fault in that tv-set, they can repair it in a
short time. But think that administrationcost, getting the replacement
components by post is expensive these days (ordercost from companies) and
these are also payed by you.

And because the chiptype is not exactly mentioned I can't say that the price
isn't reasonable.

But for you as a customer it looks like a huge cost and it is, but as a
company with paying the repairman at the end of the month and taxes and so
on it's looks normal.

But also the prices you payed for new is quite low if you see the price for
the repair, I've seen that in my 20 years I've been repairing that the
repairprice is coming quick towards the newprice!

For that reason I've left the repairbusiness for end consumers and making
repairs for businessequipment without the problem how to tell the customer
how high the prices are!

Greetings Peter

 

[barry]

no your not being ripped off! this problemwith the painter chip is a costly
and time consuming repair needing special equipment(viz a viz)soldering
tools
regards barry