John Smith in St Albans | Best Phone, Laptop, and Computer Repair Services at Affordable Prices | Quick Fixes

Would’ve gone to small claims court had he not given me back a partial refund. Would’ve probably gained 80% of the money back under the consumer rights act of 2015 on the right to repair and replace.

Giving 2 stars and not 1 because;
Positives-
He’s clearly knowledgeable about electronics,
Offered a partial refund on the parts (not labour),
I feel like he’s a decent bloke outside of his work.

The negatives are;
75% of the time will call back the following day after you leaving a voicemail,
He did not choose to inform me prior to the payment that the PS140 was only for labour,
He couldn’t give me an estimate on the prices or time of the repair of anything,
He did not inform me that if the LCD screen is damaged (which includes 2 welded motherboards connected to it) the TV would be irreparable. Had I have known, I wouldn’t have wasted ~PS200,
He insulted my character and said I have issues,
Guilted me into giving him an additional PS35 for time, when removing the back of my TV, unplugging the broken motherboard, replacing it with another one, and screwing it all back together takes maximum 20mins. Can understand diagnostics taking longer than that, but he shared no evidence or information with me that gave the impression that he had tested other parts of the TV,
TV came back with a different problem once it was returned to me, and this new problem is a fire hazard,
He wasn’t aware it was getting hot once he returned it to me,
Doesn’t seem to understand that a customer coming to an electrical repair business means that they want their product repaired, and not “I’ll do my best”.

If you read this John, as a human being, you seem nice. You’re easy to to talk to. However, as an owner of a business, you must understand that a customer expects a service. I was very clear with you when I brought my TV to you that I wanted you to fix it, and would give 5 stars should you do that.

Even after all the problems, I was still going to give you 4 stars, until you said I had “issues” and seemingly tried to educate me about my “unhappy” life. I’m quite happy with my life, and am succeeding at what I’m doing.

The full story is below.

Took my TV to him. Screen was white all over and black round the edges. Previous to this, screen also had horizontal lines across the bottom inch of screen.
Paid PS140 up front for a very “reasonable” price of PS35 an hour.
John diagnosed the problem as a broken t-con board, which cost me an additional PS70. When looking on second hand websites (not eBay), I saw the same board for PS25.
Replaced the t-con board, and I threw in an additional PS35 as a courtesy.
He pointed out a corner of the screen that was cloudy before I picked up the TV and paid, but I said it was infinitely better than before, so it was ok.
Took the TV home, plugged it in, touched the screen in the cloudy corner, and it was ridiculously hot, a fire hazard.
Called him up (left a voicemail), explained the situation, and he called back, suggested a fix which would’ve caused permanent damage to the screen. After my personal attempt to repair my TV resulted in (another) non-repairable problem, I called up and arranged a refund on just the PS70 part. He demanded PS20 for the refund, which I negotiated down to PS10.
I returned the part, he refunded me PS60, and gave me back my old t-con board.
He then proceeded to complain about customers, complained about the cost of this business, and insulted my character and said I have issues and am not happy with life.

Would not recommend.

Where to begin… a terrible service overall. I found John online and made the mistake of entrusting him with the repair of my lovely Akai AA-1200 Receiver / Amplifier before reading the reviews. The whole experience was awful. In the end I gave up with him after paying out over PS300 with no repair provided. John was quick to respond on the initial enquiry. Also quick to take my first payment. But after that the weeks and months went by… John does not communicate on any progress, and takes a ‘please don’t contact me’ approach. He seems to resent any questioning and repeats phrases like ‘I’ll get to it when I get to it’ and ‘what you don’t realise is there’s only one of me’. I did visit John after a couple of months to collect my unrepaired amp. He talked me into continuing with it, I got the feeling he was on top of it and keen to complete the repair. I paid out more money, over PS300 now. No receipt given at any point. Then more waiting, more criticism of me if I tried to contact him. He just would not say when he’d get to work the hours I’d paid him for. In the end I gave up and phoned him to say I’d lost confidence in him, and would be collecting my property. It was very stressful and disappointing. On collection there were more of the same old excuses. He said he’d identified two parts he needed to complete the repair, but would not give me the parts when I was there. I’m not sure if John is just incompetent, or perhaps just way out of touch with reasonable expectations in the modern world. Reading other reviews (John tells me they’re largely not real people or ‘made up reviews’) part of me thinks it possible he’s untrustworthy in some way. I don’t know. All I do know is this service experience was the worst I’ve had in my lifetime. An upsetting and costly waste of time. Cheers John.

I took my Onkyo amplifier to John to repair. There was no written or official quote. He demanded an up front fee of PS140 to assess it (to cover 4 hours). After a week I’d heard nothing and realised he’d not given me a receipt of goods. After trying to get hold of him for 2 weeks, he told me ‘he’d get to it when he can!’. Then suddenly, he advised he had looked at it and needed more time to work out what the problem was. In the 4 hours he’d charged me for, he could not tell me anything about it, except it could be a transistor ‘at the base, which he hadn’t got to’ yet ( in 4 hrs?!). He’d not isolated them to test that theory though and he muttered something about powder solder! He told me he would need more time and money to investigate further. It was all very vague and suspicious so I collected it. Total waste of money!! Can’t decide if he’s totally incompetent, a con artist, or just odd. (think all of above!) Steer well clear!

Update: Further to Peter’s review below- I had EXACTLY the same experience. I am now convinced he’s a hobbyist tinkerer and trickster, who is in over his head and sees this as a great way to scam people. He had no idea what the issue was with my Onkyo either and gave endless vague answers too. In the end I turned up at his house to collect my amplified. He also tried to demand more money ‘to keep investigating’. He seemed annoyed I was ‘rushing him’ ( after weeks!). I don’t even think he’d ever opened it up honestly! He’s totally unprofessional in his work, giving no record of what he’s doing, no invoices, no receipts, no email answers etc.. He was so odd, that I was a bit scared of him also. This man should not be allowed to trade.