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
I sent my Sony WW-D6C off to Sam Palermo four + (count 'em: 4.5) years ago.  I bugged him once each year, just inquiring as to status.  He finally claimed to have opened mine up and found previous 'work' that was wrong.  As I have never opened mine up except to replace cassettes or batteries and had never used any wall wart except the factory-supplied one, I suspected he had the wrong device tagged to me.  So I dug out my original receipt & sent him the serial number.  Last October was the last word I got from him.  He threatens to send back complainer's devices.  I invited him to do exactly that.

Oh, and I ain't gonna file suit in Small Claims.  I'm a lawyer, licensed in an adjoining state, and I know how fruitless that'd be.
THAT'S THE GUY- SAM PALERMO. He is a big effing problem.
There is a discussion group called "Tape Heads" that he regularly participates on, and I was going to relate my experience with him on their site after talking to the site-manager.  He appears to know his stuff but has both an attitude problem and a business-ethic problem.  Maybe I'll go ahead anyway- I have saved dozens of his nasty e-mails so it could turn into a book. 
"SKYWAVE" is his moniker. In any case do NOT EVER send him a vintage machine. 

Wish I found this thread earlier... I had the misfortune of sending my high-end Teac cassette deck to Skywave Repair (Sam Palermo) almost a year ago. Since then, my experience mirrored the ones described above to the letter. The guy claimed that the deck was in far worse shape than it actually was, that he had tons of higher priority projects going, etc. After months and months of waiting, I gave up and asked him (multiple times) to return the deck back to me, unrepaired, at my expense. Now he is just ignoring my emails. What a crook. I filed a complaint with BBB, don’t know what else to do at this point...

Why doesn’t someone go knock on this guy’s front door and demand return of the unit (whatever it may be) you sent him for repair? At least then you are back to square one. He probably does have 100s of tape machines backlogged. He’s probably totally disorganized, and there may be no hope for any better outcome than cutting any ties with him. He’s nuts, in other words.