Customer Service Nightmare: Dealing With Small OEMs

[Ivan Seeking]

As for this guy, yeah, again, I was just trying to help him out. I figured that by billing net 60 days he would have a chance to get back on his feet.

 

[Danger]

I make no secret of my religious affiliation (semi-militant Atheist), so anyone pulling the Christian crap on me gets one warning in no uncertain terms.
When I was running my company, I always gave 30 days net, then 2%/month. If it wasn't paid within 6 months, I'd just go and repossess the parts.
My favourite experience was when some woman called me to the IGA parking lot because she'd locked her keys in the car. I was in a hurry, so I didn't bother with the traditional fudging around to make it look difficult. I always charged a $15 call-out fee (within town limits), and a flat $10 to open a vehicle. When I presented the invoice, she said "Are you nuts? There's no way I'm paying you $25 for something that took you 2 1/2 seconds."
I said, "Okay", pushed the lock button, and closed the door... with the keys still inside. I just looked at her and said "now it's $35".
She got one of those "you can't treat me like that" looks and said that she was going to call someone else. Unfortunately for her, the only 'someone else' in town was the local towing company, who my best friend worked for. While she was storming off into the store to use the payphone, I called my friend's boss on my cell (one of the first in town), and told him what happened. He cheerfully drove over, opened the car, and charged her $45. I was standing beside my van laughing at her the whole time.
(The reason that I was in a hurry was because I had a favourite show coming on TV, but this was far more entertaining.)

 

[DaveC426913]

I was in a hurry, so I didn't bother with the traditional fudging around to make it look difficult.

My landlord locked his keys in his car, and I had the opportunity to watch a guy in action. He leaves all his stuff in his trunk out on the road, and brings one up with him, fiddles for a bit, goes away, comes back with a different one, goes away, etc. Takes him about 15 minutes. I offer to help, and he (wryly) threatens to take my fingers off.

He charges 75 clams.


Meanwhile, I've managed to open stranded strangers' locks with a coathanger in - yep - about 2 1/2 seconds (no really - down, up, and it's open). I've become quite adept at it.

 

[Danger]

Depends upon the mechanism, of course. This is a weird situation for me. You can get pretty detailed instructions on-line for how to pick locks or open vehicles. That notwithstanding, if I were to tell anyone how to do either, or even let him/her see my picks close-up, I would be put in prison for 14 years with no chance of parole. If I were to break into something, it would be 21 years. The first 14 would be for 'swearing a false oath' (which was my promise before entering Lock Tech College that I would never divulge any proprietary information to anyone; sworn to an RCMP officer). Therefore, I can't really discuss the matter in any detail. It might sound silly, given the internet information readily available, but I can't violate that oath.

 

[DaveC426913]

That notwithstanding, if I were to tell anyone how to do either, or even let him/her see my picks close-up, I would be put in prison for 14 years with no chance of parole. If I were to break into something, it would be 21 years. The first 14 would be for 'swearing a false oath' (which was my promise before entering Lock Tech College that I would never divulge any proprietary information to anyone; sworn to an RCMP officer).

Huh. It had not occurred to me that operators might be bound not to divulge their knowledge. That does put a different slant on it, yes.

 

[JasonRox]

(which was my promise before entering Lock Tech College that I would never divulge any proprietary information to anyone; sworn to an RCMP officer).

RCMP officers don't even take themselves seriously.

No offense to RCMP officers, but they're a joke to this country.

 

[Danger]

That's under Canadian law, of course. Other jurisdictions have different standards.

 

[Moonbear]

Meanwhile, I've managed to open stranded strangers' locks with a coathanger in - yep - about 2 1/2 seconds (no really - down, up, and it's open). I've become quite adept at it.

When I was in college, the campus police would help with unlocking cars if you locked your keys in, but would refuse if you had power locks, claiming it was too easy to damage them and they didn't want to be liable. I don't know what's special about them...maybe there are wires that can get snagged or something. Of course, when I was locked out, I had a car with power locks (this was before the locks on cars were all controlled by keyfobs you had to have in hand before you could lock the door...on that one, it was rather easy to bump the power lock button when getting out, which is what happened to me). Fortunately I convinced the cop that having a car with working locks wasn't very useful to me if I couldn't get into it, and would prefer taking my chances with him damaging something I could deal with repairing later over standing outside all night...nothing wound up damaged, so it all worked out well. But, yeah, at the time, even on a poor student budget, if our campus police didn't offer the service free, I'd have GLADLY paid $25 to get into my car (I figure it costs some time and money just to drive out to where I am)...I'd have considered it cheap. I'd have been willing to pay $50 even, for bailing me out of my own stupidity. I might have started cringing at $75, but if I was resorting to calling a locksmith in the first place, I'd have to suck up the fact that I didn't have any other options available. Of course, if I had more than one choice, I would probably ask what their fees were and try a few to see if one was more reasonable than the others, but that might also depend on where I was stuck and how long I was willing to stay stuck there.

 

[JasonRox]

When I was in college, the campus police would help with unlocking cars if you locked your keys in, but would refuse if you had power locks, claiming it was too easy to damage them and they didn't want to be liable. I don't know what's special about them...maybe there are wires that can get snagged or something. Of course, when I was locked out, I had a car with power locks (this was before the locks on cars were all controlled by keyfobs you had to have in hand before you could lock the door...on that one, it was rather easy to bump the power lock button when getting out, which is what happened to me). Fortunately I convinced the cop that having a car with working locks wasn't very useful to me if I couldn't get into it, and would prefer taking my chances with him damaging something I could deal with repairing later over standing outside all night...nothing wound up damaged, so it all worked out well. But, yeah, at the time, even on a poor student budget, if our campus police didn't offer the service free, I'd have GLADLY paid $25 to get into my car (I figure it costs some time and money just to drive out to where I am)...I'd have considered it cheap. I'd have been willing to pay $50 even, for bailing me out of my own stupidity. I might have started cringing at $75, but if I was resorting to calling a locksmith in the first place, I'd have to suck up the fact that I didn't have any other options available. Of course, if I had more than one choice, I would probably ask what their fees were and try a few to see if one was more reasonable than the others, but that might also depend on where I was stuck and how long I was willing to stay stuck there.

True. The price of $25 isn't even that bad.

When Danger locked the door on the lady, that was just priceless.

The $25 is probably cheaper than taking a cab home and back to get a another pair of keys.

 

[Moonbear]

True. The price of $25 isn't even that bad.

When Danger locked the door on the lady, that was just priceless.

Yep, I wish I could have been there to see her expression.

 

[DaveC426913]

When I presented the invoice, she said "Are you nuts? There's no way I'm paying you $25 for something that took you 2 1/2 seconds."

"Actually ma'am, from end-to-end, including travel, this job will have taken about 45 minutes of my day. You're getting it for a steal you twit."