On May 1, 11:49*pm, "
wrote:
On Tue, 1 May 2012 13:44:08 -0700 (PDT), DerbyDad03
wrote:





On May 1, 8:40*am, "
wrote:
On May 1, 2:45*am, gonjah gonjah.net wrote:

On 4/30/2012 8:48 PM, cjt wrote:

On 04/30/2012 10:41 AM, Tamara Lynn wrote:
"Ed *wrote:

"Tamara *wrote in message
I was told about 16 years ago when I bought the house that the Lennox
central heat and air was on its last leg. *I am glad I have waited
this
long.

I have been cheated nearly every time a service 'professional'
comes out.
One drove a half a mile, slammed the doors shut and billed me $85
for 5
minutes of work. *I am a single mother, now unemployed and can't
afford a
new unit at this time. *But it is on my wish list...after the
election,
when I hope to be able to get a job. :-)

T
Once you get working, think about a new unit. *It may pay for itself
with
energy savings.

Oh, that tech worked more than five minutes, unless he lived next door.
And he has a lot of costs to maintain that truck and tools. *In this
area,
it is about $120 to ring the doorbell.

As I said above, it's on my wish list. *I had two bids to buy one at the
time I lost my job. *I have to live on meager savings, because my child
support is more than $367 per month, which means no foods stamps or
healthcare.

As to $120 to ring the bell, well that is pure bull****. *Not only am
I an
accountant, but have owned and ran several businesses over 25 years.
I am
not going to break down the costs for you, but he was practically
next door.
The one before him lied about a pound on the freon.

I may be a female, but I am not an idiot.lol

HVAC seems to attract crooks, IMHO.

Conjecture you can't back up with any meaningful stats. Fact is, most of
these techs work for companies that have no interest in screwing anybody
because they live an die by their reputations just like any business..- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Statistics? * I doubt there are any statistics and
how you would get any would take quite an effort.
It's not like traffic deaths where they are clear and
logged.

I have seen enough undercover and sting operations
over the years to believe that there are in fact plenty
of scammers. * Someone posted a link on here a couple
years ago to an undercover TV investigation in
Phoenix where they had two experts verify that an
AC system was working perfectly. *Then they just
pulled out the fuse disconnect slightly and called
4 companies they picked out of the phone book.
Two told the lady who was the homeowner that
the system was shot, couldn't be fixed,
and needed to be replaced. One of those even
stated that it wasn't a voltage problem because
he measured 240V at the compressor. *Of the other
two, one reinserted the disconnect and charged for
the call. *The last one did the same, but refused to
charge anything.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

That reminds of the time I was an instructor in an electronics
training lab while in the USCG. My job was to break the equipment and
have the students troubleshoot it back to life.

An o-scope was required test equipment and one test required a trigger
signal from the equipment in order to get a display on the scope.

I used to pull the fuse from the back of the scope and watch the
students try to get it working. Oft times they would assume the
trigger signal wasn't present in the equipment and decide that the
board that produced the trigger was bad. As soon as they asked for a
"trigger board" replacement it was points off their grade, but I'd
give them a new one anyway.

I'd eventually point to the scope and ask if they saw anythng
interesting about the power-on LED, which of course, was off.

A friend of my uncle's taught a course quite similar to what you describe.. *At
the time it was tube televisions and they'd simulate the problems by clipping
a pin off a tube somewhere. *Pretty soon, the students would catch on and pull
all the tubes looking for the missing pin. *Ok, so they stopped that by
deducting points for every tube pulled. *Some years later, he saw one of his
former students at work, pulling tubes and counting pins.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

My favorite story was years ago when I was in college.
There was an electronics shop in Cambride, MA,
that sold a lot of surplus,
used stuff as well as some new. I needed a couple of
IC's for a project and bought them from this place,
mostly because they had them and they were not
something you could get at RadioShack, etc.

So, despite trying everything, I can't get them to
work. I finally take them back and the owner is
telling me how it's impossible they could be bad,
he only sells new, fully tested ICs, etc. Finally
he agrees to give me two new ones. Right in
front of me he takes the two ICs I just returned
and tosses them back in the bin with the other
ones..... If you follow that process to it's logical
conclusion, eventually the bin will be 100% bad
ICs.

The replacements did not work either. I finally
had to go to one of the major distributors to
get them and those worked with no problem.