We strive to provide excellent customer service and the way we do it is by trying to please every customer demand related to their computers. Regardless of our view on the demands, we believe in the genuine nature of people and support their queries around the clock.
Unfortunately, this backfired on us recently and we had an unpleasant situation where a customer tried to use us to trick the system.
We have received a Dell laptop which had extensive liquid damage. Something like a bowl of cereals with milk if we had to guess. We have seen liquid damage, but the extent of this was different.
The customer told us that he bought it from eBay, knowing that it is a liquid damaged laptop which does not turn on. Although we knew that it will be a challenging repair, we felt that we want to help the guy as he spends nearly 400$ for the device at this condition.
Helping someone just because you feel bad for the situation they are in, is not always the right thing!
Lessons learned the hard way
As with every logic board repair, the success rate depends heavily on the extend of the damage. And it was applicable for this repair too. We have replaced a couple of components responsible for the voltage feeding the system, but more we dug in we have realized how extensive the damage was.
There were traces on the board, which feeds voltage to different parts of the system. Most of these traces are on multiple layers of the board. Due to the surface of the board being limited.
One particular area was so severely damaged from the liquid that the short almost drilled through the logic board and destroyed 3 layers of traces while shorting.
A short eventually is a powerful reaction between positive and negative traces and if the chips have enough power to feed the current through the short, it can create a little explosion which destroys anything around that shorting point.
This was basically the point where we said, that we cannot do much about it due to the logic board traces been severely damaged and informed the customer that we can either source the replacement logic board or cancel the repair.
His decision was to cancel the repair and we assembled and returned the laptop back to the customer. Little we knew of his intentions.
As a part of a repair, we replace components and connectors which are damaged, corroded or malfunctioning. However, if repair is cancelled we do not replace damaged components or connectors, instead, we leave the ones it came with on their places. We do not charge logic board repair price for an unsuccessful repair either, hence we cannot just replace the damaged bits without inherent additional cost.
A couple of days after the customer has picked up his laptop, he informed us that Dell refused to repair the laptop for free due to work on it has been done. And offered to charge him for the repair.
Although, we have informed him that as part of a repair we do resolder components and there will be a mark of work done on the board.
He apparently transferred the laptop on his name and tried to run it under warranty repair, which it cannot be due to the liquid damage occurred. Even if it had been accepted as a warranty repair, we have warned him up front that if we will work on the board. There will be marks of repair attempts.
We were heartbroken about this case, and as we do with all our customers we ensured that all of his queries were answered with utmost urgency. From late evening to early morning queries, we were there for him to answer his queries both related and unrelated to the work he wanted being done. Receiving such a response we thought was unfair, considering all of our support.