Repair of tv-sets and toilet bowls at the price of the new ones: how firms are massively deceiving customers

«How much will it cost?» — «Well, I won't say that, we need to see.» Many of us had such a conversation when something broke in the house and we had to call the masters. «Base» has published an investigation into how repair firms deceive customers. A group of companies that operates throughout the country has come into view and is distinguished by particularly audacious methods of work, from fake services and incomplete repair of equipment to direct threats when outraged customers refused to pay.

Especially often, elderly people fall for the bait of clever hacks. Nadezhda's grandmother is 82 years old. She passed the blockade and the concentration camp and lives alone in St. Petersburg, the woman said. On May, her TV broke down. The master came and took him with him. The next day he arrived again, but not alone, but with a companion of impressive size. The price for repairs demanded by the men turned out to be higher than the cost of a new TV. But Grandma got scared and gave the last one.

There are thousands of such cases all over the country. A similar story happened to Elena from Kursk. The sound stopped working on the old laptop. She turned to the ad that hung in the entrance. Two people came again. Despite the warning that the computer is old, and she is not going to pay a lot, she was «rolled out» for repairs of 9 thousand rubles. The woman was confused because she was at home alone with the children, and paid the required money. In addition, the button in the TV broke, and the «masters» took the TV with them. On the phone, she was told that the repair of the button would cost 10 thousand rubles, and it would not be given without payment. Then Elena and her husband cheated and agreed to pay for the TV. One person arrived:

«We went to the playground, I took the TV into the house to plug it in and check. The husband quickly also went home and slammed the door behind him. This guy started knocking, hitting the door, yelling, insulting — we even called the police, but by their arrival he had already left. Of course, the button was never fixed for us. It was all so mean that we decided to seek justice.»

Elena filed a lawsuit, and an expert examination was conducted there. It turned out that none of the works described in the bill were carried out, and those that were done were half done. According to the court, Elena received not only 9 thousand, but also moral damage, which, however, had to be given to lawyers.

There are thousands of such cases across the country.

The «base» found out that masters in such firms are taught how to deceive customers and extort money from them for non-existent work. For example, it is impossible to announce the price of the work at the beginning, it can only be called when the work is handed over. All the price tags are overpriced.

The master, who agreed to talk to journalists, describes the briefing as follows:

«The director told me that he was an electrician himself, somehow he changed 10 sockets to some grandmother and took 100 thousand from her. I didn't believe it, but they explained to me that it is real to deceive people, and they are ready to pay. Like, pensioners always have money for a rainy day, funeral and everything else. The director's name was Ruslan — a young man, younger than me, about 30 to him. How much he is, however, the director, I can't say, it's not written on his forehead, I didn't ask him for documents, but the dispatcher told me so.»

The salary of such masters is piecework, but they are obliged to give 60-70% to the company through which they receive orders. As a rule, such offices do not provide either a certificate of performance of work, or write on TIN checks, so you can't even go to court with these documents.

The prue «walking details» is often used. If the wiring departs from the heating element in the Bosch washing machine, it stops working. But the master does not tell the client anything. Instead, he removes the motor, the control unit and leaves for two or three hours for the «right» tool. No tool is required to attach the wire. The master has lunch in a cafe, does his business and returns, solders the wire and charges the client 10 thousand rubles.

If the master was called to a rich house, and the machine is not «Bosch», but «Mile», while the client also understands little about technology, the bill increases significantly.

One of the creators of this deception holding, Pavel Semenov, told about his «successes» in social networks: «The business that we pumped with my school friend turned out to be very successful and profitable. At some point I found myself a millionaire. Then there was so much money that I just didn't understand where to spend it.»

It is difficult to bring such «entrepreneurs» to justice, especially if the client has signed a contract in which it is written that all services have been rendered in full. To prove the opposite means to sue. And this is time and money, so many people prefer to just forget.

However, single masters are no better than «holdings». The author of these lines decided a couple of months ago to fix a massage chair that had one of the rollers fall out. After a short search, a young man named Aksenov Alexander Sergeevich arrived in Avito (tel. 901 753 89 37). Shaking his head and clicking his tongue, the guy complained about the complexity of the repair (only the assembly and disassembly of the mechanism, according to him, will take seven to eight hours!) and the complete lack of spare parts for this type of massage chairs (sanctions, however!). Therefore, a new part instead of a broken one will have to be sharpened on a 3-D printer, and then put another half a day. As a result, the repair price is 40 thousand rubles.

Two weeks later, Alexander Sergeevich returned with a new part. However, I did not put it on for seven or eight hours, but only for a little over an hour. The expensive spare part turned out to be made of cast plastic and did not pull tens of thousands of rubles in any way.

Oh well, I thought, as long as the chair worked.

However, a couple of days later, the chair returned to non-working condition.

And what about our master, who promised a guarantee and technical support?

Alexander Sergeevich Aksenov proudly declared that «he is very busy in the near future, » and then completely stopped paying attention to my calls and letters…