A customer at my shop in Tacoma insisted I replace a whole $800 laptop board for a 50 cent fuse.

He brought in a gaming laptop that wouldn't power on. I found a blown fuse on the main board in about 20 minutes. Told him I could just replace the fuse. He got really agitated, said if a fuse blew, the whole board was 'compromised' and needed replacement. He'd read it online. I explained the fuse did its job protecting the board from a surge, and the new power brick he'd bought fixed the root cause. He still demanded the full board swap, said he wouldn't trust my 'patch job'. I did the swap because he paid, but it felt so wasteful. Anyone else run into customers who think more expensive always means better repair?

2 comments

2 Comments

joel28011h ago

Reminds me of a buddy who had a client bring in a monitor with a single bad capacitor. He replaced it for maybe twenty bucks. The guy came back a week later, furious, saying he wanted a whole new power board because a "real fix" wouldn't be so cheap. My friend had to swap the entire board to make him happy, even though the original fix was perfectly solid.

blake_murphy6134m ago

Charge more for the simple fix next time.