sigh. Yet another customer basing their decision on perceived price-

sigh. Yet another customer basing their decision on perceived price-

I try and explain that we're the least expensive based on several factors, not the least of which is that YOU ACTUALLY GET SOMETHING FOR YOUR MONEY...

It's pretty simple math, is $90 for nothing a better deal than $69?

In the first place, the guy pitching that deal PROMISES to come back for free (after giving you NOTHING, since he's not a trained technician, just a dude with a toolbox who's good at conning people or fixing the most basic of problems) and promises not to build the cost of the 2nd service call into the price of the parts you supposedly need.

Riiight. Sure.

People, let's all just take a deep breath and sip on a cup of common sense here, shall we?

Anytime someone tells you something is free, your hand should automatically move to cover your wallet out of sheer instinct. Anytime someone gives you (or SAYS they will, BIG difference there) something for free, it's sure they're making up that cost to them in some other way.

Unless you think this yahoo is some kind of modern day Buddha, wandering the countryside playing a flute and fixing stuff for free or half the cost of what anyone else can fix it for (well, saying he can anyway, sounds good until he's walking out your front door with your money, at which point the reality of the situation will slowly dawn on you as you never hear from him again)...

And let's break down the economics to show how his business model can't work unless he is scamming people;

Gas is $4+ a gallon, lets assume his car gets 20mpg just to keep the math simple. He will go anywhere for $90, even driving up to an hour or more sometimes, so his cost just to get to you (one way) is $4-12. Then, unless he's sleeping in his car, he has to drive home, so another $4-12. Then, if he's supposedly going to return if you need a part for free, that's another $24 (round trip cost) so just his gas (not even counting maintenance on his vehicle) is costing him $48 out of $90, so his profit is $42. $42 divided by travel time of 4 hours, actual labor of 2 hours (and this is an extremely conservative estimate, some jobs take longer, not everything can be done in an hour, period, absolutely. An absolute like that is just silly. Add a dash of administration in there, time spent ordering parts, etc, and you've got another 1-2 hours. All that adds up to 7-8 hours total time, which means his profit, before taxes (!!) is about $5-6 an hour. And in Los Angeles, you simply can't live on that. Nor would any trained technician accept that wage. Which also proves that he's a one-man operation.

So either this guy is living in his car, and is BOTH brilliant at fixing stuff and yet a COMPLETE IDIOT at math and somehow hasn't completely gone broke yet, or had an expensive enough mechanical failure of his car that has stopped him cold, or he's just a con man.

Those are basically the only possibilities, and it's not hard to see which is the more likely one.

We know he's a con man.

This promise of something free smells like something a kid says to get what he wants (i.e., whatever he thinks you want to hear or a wild promise that sounds too good to be true, and most of the time is) like the; "I promise I'll feed it and clean up after the great dane puppy, you won't even know it's there."

And don't feel shy about calling us if you do call this yahoo, and find out he won't return (which he usually won't, his business model is to maximize profit on the first call and discourage or flat out refuse to return- usually by just ignoring your call- that's why he prefers to deal with people via email, which is a red flag right there, who does that?) or just want to double-check his price, feel free to give us a call, we'll happily confirm that the price he's trying to charge more than pays for a second service call.

We've seen it plenty of times before.

Best, Eric