Transaction Was Above (Mother)Board

(A customer brings in a PC that has an obviously blown motherboard. I take the side off and see black scorch mark on the power supply, and know something had blow badly.)

Me: “Well, I don’t know if the hard drive is good or not. A diagnostic is $50, but if we do repairs we take that off the labor.”

Customer: “Nah, I’ll just replace the board.”

Me: “Do you want us to do it?”

Customer: “No, I have done all this stuff before.”

(Confused then as to why he needed us to do a diagnostic, I sell him a new board. It takes a new CPU, and a new power supply. It happens to use his old RAM and as a freebie, I test it and the new board worked with his. Two days later:)

Customer: “The motherboard you sold me does not work.”

Me: “What? We tested it, with the new power supply. Is it your drive that is dead?”

Customer: “No. It is the board! You sold me a bad board.”

Me: “Well, you saw it work with your RAM. Are you sure it is not just the drives?”

Customer: “No. I told you it is the board!”

Me: “Well, let’s have a look.”

(I open the machine. I disconnect the drives from power and data. I hit the power and smell smoke.)

Me: “Woah! What the h***! Pull the power cord!”

Customer: “See! It is a bad board.”

(I look a little closer because the cards don’t seem to be fitting in very well.)

Me: “Sir, did you mount this on the standoffs?”

Customer: “Standoffs? What do you mean?”

Me: “Well, this board has great pictures in the manual. Here they are.”

(I point out the standoffs and how it shows placing them before mounting the board.)

Customer: “Oh, those. They were in the way so I took them out. I don’t need a d*** book! I know what I am doing!”

Me: “Well, you needed those standoffs. You destroyed this board.”

Customer: “No, I didn’t!”

Me: “Sir, the instructions are clear. You must put in the standoffs. Otherwise all the solder points on the back of the board can short out. This board has been mounted wrong and is probably dead.”

Customer: “I want to talk to your manager!”

(My manager  is already there because the customer is getting louder.)

Manager: “Yes?”

Customer: “This idiot says I mounted the board wrong! He won’t admit he sold me a bad board!”

Manager: “Now, I heard he tested your old RAM when you were here yesterday.”

Customer: “Yah.”

Manager: “And it worked then?”

Customer: “F*** you!”

Manager: “You need to leave now, sir.”

Customer: “I want my money back! You people are f****** crooks!”

Manager: “No, a crook is someone that f**** up their own shit and then tries to blame others for it. Get the h*** out of my store!”

(The customer stormed out and smashed his computer in the parking lot. After stomping on it a few times, he ran over it with his car. It was a shame. It was a nice case.)