It seems I'm not the only one who's been having difficulties with this *****. He modded a mach 2 of mine a year ago and in December 2007 I think the compressor died, so I contacted him again to see what he could do. Turns out his 12 month warranty only covered parts he installed, and as the compressor was original it wasn't up to him to fix it for free, which was a bit cheeky as he didn't mention that before but he did have a point.
He said for £270 he'd replace the compressor for a more powerful & quiet 1/2 hp aspera one, replace the controller with a new Froster XE kit, and re-do the chilly1 head (& shorten the cap tube by 8cm as he made it way too long in the first place) as he did a crap job of sealing it to prevent condensation. This was back in early January, and he promised to have the unit finished and sent back by the end of January or early February.
I paid him the money upfront, and as soon as that happened he suddenly became nearly impossible to contact. He never answered his emails or his mobile, never returned missed calls, never responded to texts, and when ringing his landline, if he picked up he'd always pretend to be his brother instead of himself, if his wife picked up she'd take a message for him but he'd never get back to me, except for maybe one or two occasions when he logged onto MSN and chatted to me briefly, saying how everything was hunky dory and that I'll be receiving my brand spanking new repaired unit very soon.
He kept making excuses for his delays, firstly he said he had a big car crash & fractured skull yet he was making forum posts on a nearly daily basis all over the place during the time at which this car crash & hospital recovery was meant to be happening (and also it was his "brother" who told me on the phone that it happened). Next he told me that he finished doing all the work for me (i.e. replaced my compressor for the new one, changed cap tube length, redone the chilly1 head) but had a batch of faulty Froster XE units from his supplier in South America so allegedly he was waiting for a new shipment from his supplier that according to him took 2-3 months including releasing from customs.
Fast forward to last week, I got fed up of waiting forever and him not getting back to me, so I decided to hunt around for him on the internet to see what he's been up to online and whether he's been posting on any forums saying something like "hahaha I just scammed the hell out of this guy called Heofz" or something similar, and what I found was even more startling.
It turns out he's been selling units using these same Froster modules for the last few months; so essentially there was no "faulty batch", he'd been lying to me all this time, and I found him out. There was never any problem with the Froster modules and he should've done the work and shipped my finished unit back to me months ago.
When I confronted him about it (by email & text & eBay message; wasn't answering his phone as usual) he had nothing to say on the matter and I had to threaten to take him to court for £800 (he was selling units with 1/3 hp compressors for £600), as he had both my unit and my money. A few days later he texted me saying my unit was on its way. I asked him to include a receipt for my £270 and a 12 month guarantee of his work in accordance with our prior agreement, but he never replied to it despite repeated requests.
Fast forward to 2 days ago (Monday morning). The unit arrived and lo and behold it was in exactly the same state as what it was when I sent it to him over 5 months ago! He didn't even open the unit up to see what was wrong with it! Even the masking tape I used to hold down the loose wires was in the same place. In FIVE MONTHS! He did absolutely NOTHING!
The only thing that changed was that he replaced my carefully prepared packaging (i.e. huge load of bubble wrap & Air-Bags™) with a bunch of newspaper and empty cardboard boxes, and cello taped a cheque to my unit for £270 without so much as a note of apology for keeping my money for 5 months while doing absolutely **** all and lying to me about it the whole time.
So what did this ***** and I manage to achieve in just over 5 months? I swapped my bubble wrap for paper, and together we wasted about £40 worth of shipping fees in doing so. Oh, and I guess he got a free 5-month £270 loan out of it, of which I'm considering making a court claim against him for lost interest.
Anyhow, this leaves me kinda stuck with a unit whose compressor still wont start. The controller appears to function fine (LCD display gives correct status, i.e. "RESTART DELAY xx sec" and I'm pretty sure the compressor is all seized up or something because when it first went wrong it started making horrible loud clunking/banging noises, followed by horrible scraping noises, followed by complete failure & simply no starting up whatsoever. Though for all I know it could be the relay or maybe even the controller.
I'm absolutely sick of people trying to rip me off. I've already taken 3 other people/companies to court over disputes and every time I have won because I know my statutory rights and the people I've claimed against have never had a valid defence for their actions. Yet these complete and utter ****wits actually think they can keep getting away with screwing people over. I guess they rely on apathy but that **** doesn't work for me. Now that my exams are over, I've got nothing to do from now until October so I've got all the time in the world to sue any scamming ****s who try it on with me.
Is anyone able to recommend anyone who is actually trustworthy and can get my unit up and running again while actually keeping their promises about how long they are going to take, and can actually do a good job? As it turns out, this pazza316 doesn't even do his own units, he has to get his friend (with "30+ years experience") to do it.
I'm not exactly sure of what needs to be done with regards to compressor replacement but I imagine it involves discharging the gas, some brazing, and recharging the gas, which I can't do myself. There is a valve on my unit if that is significant. Also I live in south west London if that means anything.
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Originally Posted by Chruschef in regards to Thermaltake water cooling
) by Chilly1. He's not a qualified HVAC Engineer which makes me wonder how he can acquire licensed refrigerants such as R402a.
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