PSA: Watch out for that printer repair shop on 3rd street

I stopped into a repair shop in Austin last Tuesday to pick up a new toner cartridge, and the guy behind the counter tried to sell me a refurbished printer for $400 more than what a new one costs online. Anyone else run into shops that just want to upsell you on junk instead of actually fixing your gear?

3 comments

3 Comments

hannah4004d ago

emerym36 has a point about margins being tight (I get it, running a small shop is brutal), but the $250 quote thing is actually a bit off. Printer repairs on something like a jam are usually way simpler, taking maybe 30 minutes tops if you know what you're doing. I've seen shops try to tack on a "diagnosis fee" that's just a flat fee for looking at it, not actual repair time. And the refurbished model story from the_wendy sounds like exactly what I ran into in Austin (scratches and all, really?). Checking prices on your phone is solid advice, but you gotta factor in that some shops don't even bother fixing anymore, they just flip you to a higher priced unit.

the_wendy4d agoTop Commenter

I saw a Reddit thread last month where a guy in Denver got quoted $250 to fix a paper jam on an old HP. When he pushed back, they tried to sell him a "refurbished" model that had visible scratches and a missing button. That's exactly the kind of thing you're describing. These shops bank on people not checking prices first or feeling rushed. I always look up the cost of a new part or whole machine on my phone before saying yes to anything. It saves a lot of hassle and wasted money.

emerym364d ago

Oh come on, have you ever actually run a repair shop? Margins are razor thin and printers are the absolute worst to work on. That $250 quote for a paper jam probably included an hour of labor, diagnosis fees, and the fact that they have to deal with some crusty old machine that's been sitting in a dusty office for 10 years. And offering a refurbished model isn't always a scam - sometimes it's genuinely cheaper than the time it takes to fix something that's gonna break again in two weeks anyway. You can look up prices on your phone all you want but you're not accounting for the fact that these shops have rent and employees to pay.