Monitoring The Situation, Part 4

I get a phone call from a customer.

Customer: “The monitor plug on the computer I bought is the wrong size and broke the cable on my monitor. You’re going to replace both my computer and my monitor.”

I’m a bit confused since monitor plugs (generally) only come in one size.

Me: “Bring it in, and we’ll take a look at it and see what’s up.”

The next day, he brings it in and plops it down on the counter.

Customer: “I will be back in two hours to pick up my new computer, and you’d better have a monitor for me, as well, to replace the one you damaged.”

This is back in the day when monitors have fixed video cables. He storms out of the shop, but we take it into the service area and check the video card plugs. They look pretty normal to us, so we plug in a monitor and test it out and everything seems fine. We’re rather confused as to what the issue could have been.

The guy comes back in, and we show him the system working fine with a monitor plugged in.

Customer: “Well, that must be some special monitor, because it totally broke the plug on mine!”

Me: “Can you bring your monitor in? We have no idea how it could be a different size, nor how it could break your plug.”

The next day, he brings his monitor in, and it’s got a standard VGA connector on the cable, but the pins are all bent to h***. I can’t imagine what the h*** he did to it, but we straighten the pins and plug it in, and it works fine. I unplug the monitor.

Me: “Show me how you plugged it in.”

Customer: “I can’t. The connector is still all screwed up!”

I’m sitting there looking at the VGA plug on the video card, and it looks perfectly fine.

Me: “What is wrong with it?”

Customer: “It’s all bent out of shape! Are you blind?!“

Me: “No, I’m looking at it, and it looks perfectly fine. Where does it look bent out of shape to you?”

He reaches over and points at the RS232 serial port, which we hadn’t noticed before; it has all of its pins bent out of shape.

Customer: “The pins are all bent! How am I going to plug my monitor in?!”

Me: *Calmly* “Sir, that’s not where the monitor goes; that’s just a serial port. It doesn’t have the same number of pins, and it’s not even the right gender.”

Customer: “What?! You’re just trying to rip me off! I’m going to sue you unless you take the computer back and refund me and give me $350 for my monitor!”

We refused, and he stormed out of the shop, leaving his computer and his monitor.

Two weeks later, he filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau (BBB), which we responded to and explained the situation, including photos of the trashed serial port. The BBB administratively closed the case, so we contacted the customer and asked him to pick up his computer. He started yelling at us, accusing us of “being in cahoots” with the BBB, and saying that he was going to take us to small claims court over this.

Strangely, we didn’t hear a WORD from him about it again for TWO YEARS, at which point he showed up with his receipt and wanted his computer back. Luckily for him, we still had it (covered in dust) and he took it back.

Related:
Not Properly Monitoring The Situation, Part 3
Not Properly Monitoring The Situation, Part 2
Not Properly Monitoring The Situation