A friend of mine has a Tektronix Phaser 340 printer. He acquired it from his previous employer because it was broke and they were going out of business anyway so they gave it to him. He then sent it my way to see if I could fix it up for him.
The problem turned out to be fairly simple, one of the elements on the ink load heater was bad and the assembly needs to be replaced. In short, change this part and it should work.
Now the fun begins…
First a wed search to find the part. (made sense to be being a computer part and all). I learn the Tektronix printers have been acquired by Xerox. Ok, cool this happens all the time and Xerox is supposed to be a good company. I hit their web site and although I don’t find anything for replacement parts I do find a couple of local servicers plus the phone # to Xerox direct. Excellent, I’m on a roll….
I call Xerox, and after navigating their phone system I’m hooked up with a person who says she’d be glad to process the order, however she needed to connect me with a tech to get the correct part number. Cool by me, we’re still rolling…
Now I talk with Gary, explain what I got and what I need. He asks for the unit serial number. (not uncommon in looking up spares). Here comes the bombshell….
After being on hold for a moment or two Gary comes back to me and says he has the info right there but my unit isn’t under the proper contract so he has to charge me $25.00 for the part #, and he’d be glad to take my credit card number. What the loving hell?
To highlight my point, he wasn’t charging me $25.00 for the part, he was charging me $25.00 for telling me the number of the part so I could order it!
I was blown away! I have been in the service business my entire life and I have never heard of such bullshit!
I understand in the computer industry people charge for their time for situations like troubleshooting some software issue over the phone, but to look up a part # is fucking ridiculous.
Imagine calling your local car parts store and asking for a thingamabob for your 1998 whatevermobile and being told that.
Or even worse, going in to a store and asking for an item, then being told that they have it but they have to charge you to tell you where it is.
Blows my mind.
To make matters worse, after hanging up with good ‘ole Gary, I tried calling the local servicers. It’s really a whole other rant, suffice it to say they weren’t much help.
So the Phaser remains broke at this point, maybe if I don’t come up with another solution I’ll gag up the $25.00, but I’ll never speak kindly of Xerox again.
Umm… did you look on the old part to see if it’s marked with a number?
Yup. I probably should have mentioned that.
Jesus! I half-read the topic and thought someone was having a go at me!
Back to the OP; this is, quite simply, a crock of shit.
Why don’t you ring Gary back, ask him to find the part #, and tell him that you have to charge Xerox $25 for him to tell you the part. To avoid unnecessary paperwork (we’re all men-of-the-world, eh Gar?) we’ll just let them quietly cancel out.