Overcharging and the CPA

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gunnerklee

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Port Elizabeth
I sent my DJI drone to a business in Port Elizabeth for them to replace a specific part.
They said I must leave my drone with them as they had to order the part from Cape Town.
5 mins after leaving I was driving and they called to say that they had to send my drone to be repaired by a Company in Cape Town because of the technical nature of the repair. Since this is basically the only drone shop in PE I agreed to the fix and was given a verbal quote/estimation of " just under R2000" beacuse I just wanted my drone repaired.
The next week I received my repaired drone and the bill was R2200. I was on the spot in the P.E business and just paid and was going to enquire about the product after.
I asked the company to send me the invoice and all they sent me was a bill showing "outsource for drone repair - R2200".
I asked if I could have the breakdown of the costs and they said that return freight to C.T was R500 (rather expensive) and profit for themselves was R100. Essentially making the repair cost (if the shipping costs are true - to be around R1600). They would not give me a breakdown of part, freight, labour etc.
I also found out that WeFix in a shopping centre close to where I live would only have charged R650 for parts and labour.
I informed the company of this and they said that WeFix cant be right (for which it was) and they would look into it - for which never took place after multiple requests.
I was finishing my LLB and did not have time to follow this up and then was away for the Holidays.
Early January I have asked numerous times for the repairer in Cape Towns details so I can enquire on why their service is R1000 more than the other repair companies. They have not been given me those details (suspicious) even after I reminded them of s27 of the CPA (disclosure of intermediaries) as they assume that I will eventually go away.

Does anyone have any reccomendations on the next step. I want acknowledgement of their overcharging and prevent unknowing customers to be taken advantage of in the future. I also sense

Thanks

EDIT - im not wanting my money back I just want the name of the company who actually serviced my drone
 
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To be fair, you took your device there, you said go ahead with the repairs, they repaired it and you paid for it. You didn't do any research on any other places, this is on you the CPA won't really have a lot to go on here.
 
They gave you a quote for just under R2000, you agreed. You can basically argue that they overcharged with R300 at most.
It would have been a pain in the ass if you only had R2000, but luckily for you, you had enough money.
If you didn't like the way they treated you just don't use them again. Doing anything more would be ridiculous.
 
I'm more confused by the OP only doing research after the fact. Some sort of reverse-logic logic?
 
You accepted a 'verbal quote/estimation'. In my experience, an estimate is rarely the same as what actually gets charged. The rest of the story is pretty irrelevant.

Is your drone working as expected?
 
Buyer's remorse which is basically what this is isn't applicable to 'services' such as repairs. You have no leg to stand on

I think most of us have been victims :)
 
riscbroker said:
You accepted a 'verbal quote/estimation'. In my experience, an estimate is rarely the same as what actually gets charged. The rest of the story is pretty irrelevant.

Is your drone working as expected?
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That's wrong, the quote should be what they charge you in the end and if they say about R2k, the final price should be about R2k and not R3000 as an example. If they're going to charge more they should inform you before they do the work.
 
rietrot said:
That's wrong, the quote should be what they charge you in the end and if they say about R2k, the final price should be about R2k and not R3000 as an example. If they're going to charge more they should inform you before they do the work.
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It's more than likely he asked for a general estimate,they said "should be in the area of 2k",he didn't ask for a confirmation quote before doing the work,and the 10% difference wasn't big enough to warrant them double checking
 
PsyWulf said:
It's more than likely he asked for a general estimate,they said "should be in the area of 2k",he didn't ask for a confirmation quote before doing the work,and the 10% difference wasn't big enough to warrant them double checking
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Not to metion the shipping could have been cheaper if op decided to wait. Drone via air would be expensive, send by vehicle and it will take a day longer at a fraction of the cost.
 
rietrot said:
That's wrong, the quote should be what they charge you in the end and if they say about R2k, the final price should be about R2k and not R3000 as an example. If they're going to charge more they should inform you before they do the work.
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The problem is that OP accepted, in his words, 'a verbal quote/estimation'. A written quote has terms and conditions whereas a verbal estimate is open to interpretation.
 
riscbroker said:
The problem is that OP accepted, in his words, 'a verbal quote/estimation'. A written quote has terms and conditions whereas a verbal estimate is open to interpretation.
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The benefit of the doubt generally goes in favour of the customer when there is a doubt, except if the customer is particularly unreasonable, which does not seem to be the case here.
 
f2wohf said:
The benefit of the doubt generally goes in favour of the customer when there is a doubt, except if the customer is particularly unreasonable, which does not seem to be the case here.
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Well, the customer is now moaning about another store wanting less for the same repair, not actually about the extra R200 from the estimate. That is a bit unreasonable. He should have shopped around first or he did ( because he stated they were the only store that could do the repair ) and couldn't get a a deal he liked. It's not overcharging, he agreed to have them repair the drone, even through a third party. The most he could say they overcharged is the R200 difference from the estimate, not the difference to R650 that the other company would have charged. Op is reaching.

What he should have done, when he learned it was going elsewhere, was get his drone back and done his own research on distant stores and repair costs
 
Kosmik said:
Well, the customer is now moaning about another store wanting less for the same repair, not actually about the extra R200 from the estimate. That is a bit unreasonable. He should have shopped around first or he did ( because he stated they were the only store that could do the repair ) and couldn't get a a deal he liked. It's not overcharging, he agreed to have them repair the drone, even through a third party. The most he could say they overcharged is the R200 difference from the estimate, not the difference to R650 that the other company would have charged. Op is reaching.

What he should have done, when he learned it was going elsewhere, was get his drone back and done his own research on distant stores and repair costs
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This is a dead end yes.

Challenging the R200 would be possible (but certainly not worth it).
 
f2wohf said:
The benefit of the doubt generally goes in favour of the customer when there is a doubt, except if the customer is particularly unreasonable, which does not seem to be the case here.
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I get that, but similarly, the service provider was also not particularly unreasonable, having billed R2200 on an estimate of 'just under R2000'. How do you quantify the extent of 'estimate'?
 
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Apart from anything else, OP is apparently a recent LLB graduate. Surely he should be familiar with the law governing the CPA, contract law, etc?
 
reactor_sa said:
I'm more confused by the OP only doing research after the fact. Some sort of reverse-logic logic?
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He was rushing to have it repaired as he needed it quickly and got caught by the urge-to-fix bug.
Now that he had it working he had time to research other options.
Happens to me all the time
 
gunnerklee said:
Im not asking for my money back I want the details of the company of whom it was serviced by. thats all.
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They are even under less obligation to tell you that than the price discussion so nobody is even talking about that
 
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