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I've had a few people jump fuses and then act surprised when I confronted them with it. The problem is that they don't want to admit that they blew up their TV.
When I was a young teenager, an older man who seemed nice called me up to give me some stuff. What he gave me consisted of an old RCA tube manual and a sack of loose tubes, most of which turned out to be duds. I thanked him and offered him some money; but, he wouldn't take it.
About a year or so later, he called to ask if I'd fix his 19" Magnavox TV and he wanted to know if I could drop by his house after school to pick it up; which, I agreed to do.
The TV was a basic mid '80's 19" knob tuned Magnavox color TV that used the 19C3 chassis. Actually, the cabinet style looked just like an older GTE-Sylvania from the '70's-early '80's; but, we all know that NAP bought Sylvania. So, no real surprise that the cabinet design was carried over with a different chassis installed.
Anyway, the problem with this set was that big yellow HV cap in the horizontal output circuit that was so common to arc and burn. I replaced the cap, tested the TV, figured up the bill, and called him to tell him the TV was ready. I was looking forward to making him happy because the $35 I was going to charge him was likely $80-$100 less than what a real shop would have charged for the repair and delivery. When I told him what he owed me, he blew a gasket. "What! $35, I didn't know you had gone commercial. You know, I gave you all that stuff and now you are going to charge me $35 to fix my TV! I figured you'd do it for the cost of the part and the experience." By this time, I was PO'ed. Here I was thinking I was doing the guy a favor and then he bitched to hell and back about the price. He told me that he wasn't going to pay the $35 and tried to get me down to a lower price. When I wouldn't do it, he demanded that I unfix the set and he'd come pick it up. I agreed and told him that he would owe me a $10 check-out fee. Of course, he raised hell about that. I finally told him that if he didn't want to pay the $10 check-out fee; then, he could give me the set and we'd be even. He said, "I'm not giving you my TV because all you'll do is fix it and make a bunch of money off of it." After about a month, he finally came and picked up the TV, paid me the $10, and left after I told him to never call me about anything again and if he thought my price was too high; then, he should take his set to a repair shop and see what they charge.
That incident really taught me a lesson about how some people operate and I feel like the set got thrown in the dumpster. Back then, I could have gotten at least $75 for that set had he left it with me; but, I would have been happy with the $35 repair charge. However, I only got $10 out of the deal and the whole thing actually cost me more labor time because I had to take the set back apart and remove the new part that I had installed. Had I really wanted to be a jerk, I would have introduced some other fault into the TV that no one else would have likely caught and had he wanted it fixed, he would have had to bring it back to me. Then again, after all that, I didn't want to see him or his damn TV again.
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