DIFFICULT PROBLEM WITH A REPAIR SERVICE-


I sent off a Teac R to Reel (a 35-2B) to  guy near Chicago to refurbish. It had originally sold for $1700 when it was new, and it had a lot of useful features, including direct outs to an external preamp from the playback heads. When he dragged his feet fixing a part I sent him ANOTHER preamp unit I found on Ebay with a working switch.  Then he complained the machine had some distortion on playback and couldn't find the source. Initially I told him to try to sell the machine and give me a partial refund but he never even tried. This guy claims he has a 200 machine backlog (!)
In the past he did fix 3 Teacs for me of a newer vintage and they all came back working like new. He took his sweet time (of course) but I tried to be patient, etc. But THIS time around Dr.Jekyl turned into Mr. Hyde and no matter how many complements I gave him, PLUS a $300 deposit as an incentive, he is (now) the nastiest creep you can imagine.
So I told him to put the machine in a box, send me a invoice, and ship it to a really top-notch repair guy I discovered not far from where he lives. I've been reminding him for the last SIX MONTHS to do this, and STILL I can't get him off his lazy butt to do this. I just hate to see this super-nice machine gathering dust halfway across the country from me.
PLUS (OF COURSE) it belongs to me, not him. But since I "kept changing my mind" (only once but he's completely irrational) he is now not even answering my emails. I'm not an attorney, but I would like to make this person do what I requested and do it NOW. I ALSO would like to put a big dent in his reputation without using facebook. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you. ALSO- Happy Easter and Passover.
french_fries
Okay so here's what you do. Go on-line, learn everything you can about how to sue a guy in his District Court. Download the forms, write it up and you do it just like an attorney would, exaggerating every accusation and every damage, real or imagined, only in your case being sure to stay just under the total you are allowed to sue for in his jurisdiction.

Print it up, and mail it off to - and this is the most important part - a process server. 

The whole time this is going on, however long it takes and the longer the better, you do NOT try and contact the guy. You let him sit there chortling over the poor dumb schlub whose deck he keeps getting paid to sit on. Which he is really enjoying. Until the process server. And let me tell you, that will wipe the friggen smile off his face. That will create the public record and reputation you desire. And he will HAVE to appear in court, or risk summary judgment in your favor. 

Which by the way you do not necessarily have to appear for. If it goes that far you either hire an attorney to make just the one appearance, if your research even turns up that that is required. You may be able to arrange other representation. Point is, your guy will have to appear or risk summary judgment. Most people will do just about anything to avoid a court appearance.

Or you get yourself some bitcoin, hire some Russian hacker. Or you walk.

I'd go with the process server. 


(Sam Palermo) who apparently has a lot of time commenting on TapeHeads.net (Under SkyWave). He knows his stuff, or at least has a lot to say about repairing and adjusting decks. But his actual business model is "you'll get your machine back after I pet my cat while I play on facebook", etc. He wastes a lot of time doing something- who knows what. Tape Heats has a great forum, but I doubt you can write up a sponsor for mucking up your repair order. But I might try to anyway. He is a real jerk to say the least.

French-fries, I'm interjecting a comment from the perspective of someone who has owned many different brands of reel to reel decks, including a Teac 2000R. I'm also a retired "industrial" electronics technician who repairs his own stuff.

I had no success in repairing the Teac because it was not of the industrial quality that was meant to be repaired. plus I am not a professional R2R repair person; however, I bought my Technics RS1500 "used", over 20 years ago, and I have been able to modify and repair it with the Service Manual. It's built in the "industrial" manner that makes it "repairable".

Recently, one channel went out on my Sony KA3ES cassette deck; my troubleshooting indicated a bad "IC". All I needed to repair it was thing about half as big as your thumbnail. If I could have gotten the part, I would have had to take all of the inside out, just to get to it. Fortunately I had an identical deck, and took that large circuit board out of it, and inserted it into the bad unit. That deck was not constructed to be "repairable".

You have to know when to cut your losses short; apparently this guy has run into a "brick wall" and doesn't know how to tell you.

My comment is not meant to advise or help you in your current situation, but to advise you or anyone else in regard to any future purchase of reel to reels. There are only two decks, that are not super expensive, that consumers have not had a problem in getting repaired and maintaining, "that I know of", and they are Otari and Technics.