John Smith

FAQ

Reviews

• 

  Rachel Wilkinson

  I took my Onkyo amplifier to John to repair. There was no written or official quote. He demanded an up front fee of £140 to assess it (to cover 4 hours). After a week I’d heard nothing and realised he’d not given me a receipt of goods. After trying to get hold of him for 2 weeks, he told me ‘he’d get to it when he can!’. Then suddenly, he advised he had looked at it and needed more time to work out what the problem was. In the 4 hours he’d charged me for, he could not tell me anything about it, except it could be a transistor ‘at the base, which he hadn’t got to’ yet ( in 4 hrs?!). He’d not isolated them to test that theory though and he muttered something about powder solder! He told me he would need more time and money to investigate further. It was all very vague and suspicious so I collected it. Total waste of money!! Can’t decide if he’s totally incompetent, a con artist, or just odd. (think all of above!) Steer well clear! Update: Further to Peter’s review below- I had EXACTLY the same experience. I am now convinced he’s a hobbyist tinkerer and trickster, who is in over his head and sees this as a great way to scam people. He had no idea what the issue was with my Onkyo either and gave endless vague answers too. In the end I turned up at his house to collect my amplified. He also tried to demand more money ‘to keep investigating’. He seemed annoyed I was ‘rushing him’ ( after weeks!). I don’t even think he’d ever opened it up honestly! He’s totally unprofessional in his work, giving no record of what he’s doing, no invoices, no receipts, no email answers etc.. He was so odd, that I was a bit scared of him also. This man should not be allowed to trade.

  29-04-2023
• 

  Peter Sharp

  Where to begin… a terrible service overall. I found John online and made the mistake of entrusting him with the repair of my lovely Akai AA-1200 Receiver / Amplifier before reading the reviews. The whole experience was awful. In the end I gave up with him after paying out over £300 with no repair provided. John was quick to respond on the initial enquiry. Also quick to take my first payment. But after that the weeks and months went by… John does not communicate on any progress, and takes a ‘please don’t contact me’ approach. He seems to resent any questioning and repeats phrases like ‘I’ll get to it when I get to it’ and ‘what you don’t realise is there’s only one of me’. I did visit John after a couple of months to collect my unrepaired amp. He talked me into continuing with it, I got the feeling he was on top of it and keen to complete the repair. I paid out more money, over £300 now. No receipt given at any point. Then more waiting, more criticism of me if I tried to contact him. He just would not say when he’d get to work the hours I’d paid him for. In the end I gave up and phoned him to say I’d lost confidence in him, and would be collecting my property. It was very stressful and disappointing. On collection there were more of the same old excuses. He said he’d identified two parts he needed to complete the repair, but would not give me the parts when I was there. I’m not sure if John is just incompetent, or perhaps just way out of touch with reasonable expectations in the modern world. Reading other reviews (John tells me they’re largely not real people or ‘made up reviews’) part of me thinks it possible he’s untrustworthy in some way. I don’t know. All I do know is this service experience was the worst I’ve had in my lifetime. An upsetting and costly waste of time. Cheers John.

  28-02-2023
• 

  Peter Thornton

  Quite expensive for 40 minutes of basic analysis

  29-01-2023
• 

  Rob Gladwell

  Repaired my TV

  29-05-2022
• 

  Howard Phillips

  Most helpful and professional. Helped us out with a visit at very short notice to set up Freesat and video streaming.

  29-05-2022
• 

  ben edwin

  Positive: Quality

  29-05-2022
• 

  Sandra Hall

  Positive: Professionalism, Quality, Responsiveness, Value

  29-05-2022
• 

  Mike G

  Excellent service; John has in depth knowledge and brought my old VHS/DVD back to life so we can now play tapes of our treasured memories and transfer them to DVD. I was happy with the time it took to undertake the repairs and was happy with the price charged for parts and labour. Before starting, John fully explained the uncertainty of being able to predict the exact fault (or in this case, plural faults) without the diagnosis and careful testing. I would definitely use his services again with complete confidence.

  29-05-2021
• 

  Michelle Meaney

  Completely disappointed and upset. All in all an awful service. Spent 2 hours mostly talking and unable to help with repair at all, no real attempt was actually made. Then had the cheek to charge 2.5 hours labour. It wasn’t until leaving and checking the time that it was realised it was only 2 hours. Upon querying this after with John he denied this to be the case, but of course the clock does not lie. We know the time arrived and the time departed. A very expensive £90 for no electronic expertise or attempt of repair, just talking for 90% of the time. We were quite prepared to pay for the advertised service but not for a conversation. Also was not COVID safe, made no effort to socially distance. Lesson learnt, avoid and take your electronics elsewhere. Whilst I understand not everything cannot be repaired we can’t help but feel we were definitely mis-sold a top notch service for something well below average. It’s a huge shame. I do indeed hope that others come away feeling more positive. I only wish I had checked google reviews before hand, having looked now it appears I am in a long line of people that he has scammed. Trading standards all over this. Disgusting.

  29-05-2021
• 

  FJB

  LUCKY ESCAPE. He was asking £100+ just for a call out, then an extra £35 per hour, for a minimum of 3 hours, (I imagine he would charge for parts on top of that). In the end, I spent £10 for a part on Ebay and fixed this myself, it took no more than 10 minutes. I must be in the wrong business because John's making a profit of at least 2,000% !! READ BELOW FOR ADVICE. I am no expert on TV's, however I have built a few computers before and they are really not that difficult - you buy the parts and put it together almost like Lego. When it comes to TV's, its even easier because there are only 2 main components - the Main/Mother Board, and the Power Board. Provided that the damage isn't physically visible (ie. a smashed screen), your problem is likely one of these 2 components. In my case, i could find these components for less than £20 each. I put the model number of the TV (located on the back of the TV) into Ebay followed by the part I needed (power board) and ordered one part from a seller with very good ratings (99% positive from over 3,000 reviews) at just £10 (with free postage!). I unscrewed the back of the TV, took out 4 screws, swapped the boards, and VOILA! fixed. Is John a Con? - YES. I spoke to John for about 10 minutes on the phone. A very common sales technique is to gather as much information from a prospect as you possibly can before closing on a deal. This isn't necessarily a bad thing for the customer - it depends on the intention of the sales person and the questions that they ask can give you an insight. John asked me the make of the TV, it's age, model number and what the problem is - these are legit questions to ask and very quickly allows John to determine; if it can be fixed, if the parts are still being manufactured and what those parts may cost. John also asked me the size of the TV and how long it's been broken - These questions are totally irrelevant as the answers will make no difference to whether the TV can be fixed or not. HOWEVER, combined with the information from the legitimate questions, John can make a calculation as to the value of the TV and how desperate we may be to have it repaired, and therefore how much we may be willing to pay him. A big mistake I made was telling him it was out of warranty too, but he would likely have worked that out anyway when asking its age. What's the worst thing? I told John exactly how to fix it and what parts needed to be swapped, what I didn't know at that moment is that the parts would at most cost £50. And, he still wanted £100 just to look at it! NICE TRY JOHN! Whilst you will certainly fool others, you will not be fooling this savvy savant! Unfortunately, there are people that will find it understandably daunting to open up the insides of a large flat screen TV that cost them £1,000+ in the fear that they may cause more damage. However, if the TV is out of warranty and it is not working anyway, I urge those people to attempt fixing this themselves. As long as you are delicate in not forcing anything apart, and put the pieces back the way you undone them, you will not cause any damage. I hope this helps people. Look after your hard earned cash. Fix your own tech. And after all of this, you can sit back and relax with a nice cold pint of John Smiths bitter, knowing that you've narrowly escaped the clutches of an old school CON.

  29-05-2021