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Legal update to Austin Mac Repair dispute plus excerpted reviews

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Having received a threatening email from the owner of Austin Mac Repair (AKA Texas Mac Repair, we have discussed this situation with our lawyer.   After reading the review I posted on this dishonest repair shop, he said that as long as it’s true that I have the right to say it.  He also doubts any lawyer in his right mind would take the case against us.  If the owner somehow finds such a lawyer, then we are advised to counter sue.  Of course, that is what we had intended to do anyway, should this go to court.

It does make me smile that the owner of Austin Mac Repair is worried about my little blog, though I do admit that it comes up high in Google search results.  After all, that was my intent when posting my review.  I want others who are looking for a reputable Mac repair shop to avoid one that will rip them off.  Below I will paste some of the other reviews from yelp.com that are filtered, so you won’t have to go there and find them yourself.  I will only post snippets from reviews posted this year.

Oh, and I wanted to add that the owner has posted several glowing reviews of his own business!  Here is the one he just posted yesterday (yelp deleted it when they discovered it on June 1st, but you can still see the attempt at the bottom of the filtered reviews), and he has done it several times in the past.  You can see all three of his deleted attempts at the bottom of the filtered reviews.

FANTASTIC! This company has the lowest prices in Texas and I have taken advantage of that as many others have and do daily.
The people I met at Austin Mac Repair were friendly, kind, and have turned all repairs around in rocket time.
Excellent, wonderful, and everything else.
For the people that post such bad things I would suggest trying to call them and make peace.  Cursing and calling people names never helped anyone.
There is just no way everything stated here could even be true.
These people are sharp.  They have a great art gallery too.
From someone who knows these people take it from me that they are a great company.
I have worked there so please take it from me that these guys know what they are doing.
Every company has a failure rate but this companies rate is low.  Most people are thrilled to get things done for so cheap.

GREAT PRICES!

Jesus was  a maker of Peace.  We should be too.

Manager

The above fake review is just one example and further proves that the rest of the glowing reviews are probably fake too!!  I also wanted to point out that besides the fake review above, there is no other positive review from this year.  All the glowing reviews (and some are sickeningly sweet) are from 2010 and most are 2009.  Like I’ve said in previous post, the owner seems to be getting worse every year.

I also need to add that yellowpages.com did have 2 negative reviews before the owner of Austin Mac Repair posted the same fake review as I posted above (see for yourself here).  But the worst thing is that whoever is running yp.com decided to remove the 2 negatives (one of which was mine), but they left his bogus glowing review, even after I reported it.  tsk tsk yellowpages.com.  I can’t help but wonder what other truthful negative reviews you have deleted for Austin Mac Repair.  This same fake review is also posted at Austin City Search. I have also reported it to them, so let’s see how long it takes for them to remove the bogus review.

For those of you naysayers who are determined in thinking all of us are just bad people who like to say mean things, and decide to use Austin Mac Repair anyway?  Be sure to back up your hard drive first, even if you know nothing is wrong with it.  Then if they do come back and say anything is wrong with your hard drive, take your computer back and have the drive tested elsewhere.  The owner obviously thinks that bad hard drives are almost always the culprits. Either that or the memory.  He doesn’t seem to think he has to test anything else, and he actually can’t, not possessing the necessary diagnostic equipment.  You have been warned.  Go to Austin Mac Repair at your own risk.

And here are examples of what he has actually done to other customers besides me and my husband.

Monica J on 5/18/2011

“i wish I had read this thread before going to Austin Mac Repair. They were not kidding about that one guy not knowing how to interact with people. The customer service practices of this establishment left much to be desired.

I took my iPhone 3GS to have the cracked screen replaced, and they fixed it alright, but then the backlight went out. I told him that it was working fine before we took it in, but he just offered to fix it for a discount. Went ahead and left it for further repairs, and after resetting the whole phone, the problem was not fixed.”

Alan V on 5/14/2011

If you are planning on taking your apple product here, do it at your own risk. My iPod was working just fine prior to taking it to Austin Mac Repair. All I needed was a new screen. All these problems started to happen AFTER Les and his guys had my iPod. I left feeling like I got short handed, and had that bitter taste in the back of my mouth that can only come from sub standard customer service and dealing with a business owner that seems to hold his paying customers in contempt.

I sure would hate it if I brought a $1000 + macbook pro here for repair. Spend the extra few bucks and go to the Apple store of Austin MacWorks on 5h St.

Avoid

The rest of the excerpted reviews are in the filtered list (which you can access below the last allowed review)

Jenny S on 3/9/11 (and she’s afraid of the owner)

Everyone wants to give people the benefit of the doubt but PLEASE LISTEN TO US. WE WERE JUST LIKE YOU AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENED.
I feel so stupid for not believing these reviews before I went. I always thought only the unhappy people go out of their way to write reviews so it is always unfair and rigged and usually bad.

you know there is something ASKEW when I can’t even write a extensive review because I am scared these people and Les are going to read this, know who I am, and either ruin my computer or not return my computer(Les tried this before). Imagine what these people had to do and say to make someone develop complete paranoia.

Shane A on 2/28/2011

I feel these people are on a different planet than I am. I don’t know what the owner’s name is. But from the description of some of the other people on here,I am pretty sure he is the person I talked to. The guy is an absolute jerk, this is the worst experience with a service company I have ever had. The guy I talked with needs to take a class on how to interact with the human race. I don’t know how they are in business. I agree totally with  Elise R and Josh M. This was the exact same experience I had with these folks. I Joined Yelp just so I can warn everyone about this place. Do yourself a favor and take your repairs anywhere but here. And I leave you with a quote ” If you meet more than 2 a**holes in one day you can probably see one of them in the mirror” This guy probably meets 10 a day, I hope he reads this

Selena R on 2/10/2011

Absolutely do not bring your machine to this place. While they do have quick turn around time, they are rude, judgmental and defensive. The input for my cd drive was partially blocked – it was had to get discs in and out of the machine, but the drive itself worked perfectly. i took it in, described the problem, and came back to get it and they had replaced the drive and HADN’T fixed the problem I’d had in the first place. Apparently, they had thrown my old drive away, so they couldn’t even prove that any work had been done for the $200 I gave them. The only evidence of “work” was some physical damage to the computer case around the cd drive input. Andrew, the person who worked on my machine assured me that the drive was completely unworkable and the only thing to do was replace it, which was an outright lie. After he finally fixed the problem I had gone in for, he said “all you have to do if this happens again is get something in there to unbend the plastic.” This after I’ve paid for a new drive and after he’d been disrespectful to me.

Will B on 1/21/2011

My hard drive went out on my Mac so i brought my tower in to them to take it out and get the info off of it, keep in mind that this is a 150 GB hard drive they said it was bad and i need to get  a  new one I said OK left it with them a day loather  i got a phone call saying that they could pull off the stuff of the old hard drive i was like great!  They said it toke 10 hrs to get all that info all the hard drive.  So after 4 days a new hard drive and $750 dollars latter. (makes me sick) I got it back payed the man who was rude and shot me a lot of BS, and was rude.

When i got home turn on the tower i was think so i put the old hard drive in with the new one and it worked! and so i downloaded all my info and programs (which they said the could not do  in less the 1 hr not 10 hr)

Lesson
These guys are bad to do business with, Don’t trust.

There are many more scary reviews, but they are in previous years. There are a bunch from 2010, but you can read them and those above for yourself.  Just visit yelp.com.

And when the owner comes back to see if I caved after his threat, you don’t scare me.  And you asked for this by not doing the right thing. You said in your message that you’ve always been nice and have done the right thing.  Not according to your treatment of my husband.  And not according to the many other people you have burnt in Austin.  I just wish some of those people would also find my blog and contact me.  Your backing would help when/if this goes to court.

ETA that I have included the actual answering machine message the owner left last year, for anyone who would like to hear his threats to my husband.  That link is in the initial review I wrote, which is linked at the top of this post.  I also wanted to state that after hearing from his lawyer that posting truthful reviews are within our rights, George finally posted about this on his own blog.  So now you can read all this from him directly.  He also posts the phone message that I posted, in addition to another message that the owner also left.  The first message is 1:15 and the second one is just under two minutes.  Here is the link to his blog: http://grilldog.com/austin-mac-repair-unauthorized-mac-repair-center-austin-review/

Austin Mac Repair (Texas Mac Repair) Review – Beware of Dishonest Business

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My husband and I have been dealing with a very dishonest local business called Austin Mac Repair (AKA Texas Mac Repair). The owner is a loose cannon who explodes if anyone dares question what he does or charges at his repair shop on Lamar. My husband took his defective Mac in for repair and was told that it needed more memory and a new hard drive. While he should have run as fast away from this place as he could, he let the owner talk him into the upgrades. I was the one who went in to get the “repaired” (and I use that word loosely) Mac and was utterly shocked to find out how much the final ticket was. Assuming my husband had authorized all those ridiculous charges, I paid the bill and took the computer home. Hubby turned it on only to discover the same exact problems remained. When he called the owner of the shop to inform him of this, he was told to bring it back in for further testing. Not wanting to pay for more unnecessary upgrades, he asked for a refund instead and that he would return the products installed. At first the owner agreed but then changed his mind once my husband showed up. The refund changed from full to less than half, and this person added an unreasonably high restocking fee of 20%. On top of that he was expecting to keep the fees on the data backup and transfer, even though that was totally unnecessary. Once my husband removed the new products and put the old memory and hard drive back into the Mac, it ran fine. It still could not perform the high level tasks that had been the initial problem, but all files could be accessed on the old hard drive. The same hard drive that the dishonest owner told him was bad.

We put in for a dispute with our credit card company, which told us to prove the shop didn’t fix the computer. Hubby took it in the Apple store, which verified the problem was the logic board, which could no longer be fixed on that model Mac. So the owner at Austin Mac Repair merely created expensive problems that weren’t needed so he could push products and make money. He doesn’t care they weren’t needed, and he has done this before. To read about other disgruntled customers, visit yelp.com. After you read the 10 reviews this site allows to be shown, which gives Austin Mac Repair 3 stars, be sure to go to the bottom of those reviews and click on “28 filtered” to read the rest of the reviews. Yelp thinks they are doing good, but they clearly show bias toward the business by keeping the good and bad reviews in balance, especially since the bad outweighs the good (and most bad are filtered). And going by the date on the reviews, the owner is getting worse as time goes by. If I were you, I wouldn’t trust the good ones, since they are obviously either friends of the business or paid reviewers.

After reading all the negatives, several things ring true. The owner of Austin Mac Repair likes to offer partial refunds, he doesn’t like to be questioned about his charges or methods, and he gets very aggressive when cornered. He’s also very good at saying perfectly good hard drives are bad and need to be replaced. Unfortunately, the customers trust that he is honest, and that is our first mistake.

Anyway, back to what the Apple store told my husband. He also informed him that Austin Mac Repair is not licensed to work on Mac computers and that it does not possess the diagnostic equipment necessary to find common Mac related problems. Which is why he couldn’t tell the logic board was bad.

I almost forgot to mention that after my husband got frustrated with the owner’s attitude, the man called our home and left a threatening message on our answering machine (click link to hear message), telling him that if he dared fight him on this or tell anyone else about it that he would sue my husband and take away our house. Obviously the man is too stupid to know that Texas law protects a person’s home from people like him. Guess I should be prepared for him to direct his threats at me now? Bring them on! Freedom of speech is a constitutional right and so are posting reviews, and that is what this is. A review of a business that people should AVOID!!! Besides that, I’m not lying about anything and can prove everything I’m posting here.

We did have bad news earlier this week from our credit card company though, but I’m hoping there was just a mix-up. A new person is handling our case, and I don’t think he read all the documentation we provided. I’m still fighting it out with them, but USAA is very slow when it comes to dealing with disputes, which is why it has taken over 6 months to get this far. I have filed with the BBB, and the owner lied through his teeth as he responded. Don’t really expect much from them anyway, and mostly wanted the complaint on record. I also filed with the Federal Trade Commission as well as the Texas Attorney General. Still waiting on how all this will be resolved, but it’s been a nightmare so far.

The final thing will be taking the owner of Austin Mac Repair to small claims court. He cannot be allowed to continue the way he has and hopefully we can help put an end to his antics. If anyone reads this and has been burnt by him, please leave a comment. I would love to get a petition started to see how many names I could collect. If there are enough responses, I might do just that. Maybe if we all fight him together, it would make more of an impact.

Until then, we’re on hold until we hear more. I just want it to go away, but I can’t rest while that person has so much of our money with absolutely nothing to show for it. If not, then I’ll just publish reviews all over the internet. If I can spare just one person from going to Austin Mac Repair and getting burnt, it just might be worth it all. For those of you who honestly think all the negatives are fake, and those glowing reviews are all real, just keep one thing in mind. Going to this repair shop is like playing the lottery. You might win, but chances are you will lose. Why take that risk? Find another more reputable Mac repair shop.

5/27/11 update: The owner of AMR has contacted me, telling me to either remove this review or his attorney will notify us. I will not be removing it, since I have the right to post a review about my personal experience.  We are still debating taking the owner to small claims court, so if this person decides to contact a lawyer first, so be it.  We have a lawyer too and will be discussing it with him as well.

I also wanted to state that after listening to the message this man left on our answering machine, it surprised me that he actually admits the logic board was bad, but he doesn’t say anything about replacing that. Only that he felt it made the hard drive bad.  Now we know he couldn’t have replaced the logic board, but that didn’t stop him from putting a new hard drive into the machine.  Even though there was actually nothing wrong with the old hard drive.  Since he couldn’t fix that problem, he created a new one.  Just wanted to clarify that, since I haven’t listened to his message since he left it last year.  FYI all this took place September/October of 2010.

To read an earlier update to this situation, be sure to visit http://awesatious.com/2011/04/update-to-austin-mac-repair-review/

Seperating the Fact From Fiction Within Dan Brown’s Work

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The Da Vinci Code mastermind, Dan Brown, is no newcomer to the genres of mysteries and thrillers. Dan Brown is the novelist of four mystery-thriller novels. Each of his works includes a combination of, “extensive research, complex, intricate plotting, and intriguing conspiracy theories with breathless, edge-of-the-seat action.” Brown’s four novels include Digital Fortress (1998), Angels and Demons (200), Deception Point (2001), and The Da Vinci Code (2003). In each of Brown’s novels the reader is met with a prologue in which a corpse is found in an extremely awkward position. In each case the homicide victim embodies a riddle that becomes the plot or layout for the rest of the novel. In Digital Fortress, the beginning of the book informs readers of successive murders, and Deception Point kicks off with a “Canadian geologist being hurled from a helicopter to his death.” Angles and Demons also follows suit when a scientist, Leonardo Vetra, is discovered dead in his lab, as well as in The Da Vinci Code when Jacques Sauniere, the curator at the Louvre Museum in Paris is found murdered. Brown’s four novels also “conclude with an epilogue that brings each novel full circle.” The epilogue is always present after a tryst between hero and heroine has occurred.

This can be seen in Digital Fortress, when there is a romantic encounter that was postponed since the beginning of the opening chapter. This encounter in the Smoky Mountains precedes an epilogue linking Tankado to his alienated father who is in existence on the other side of the earth. Deception Point closes in a similar fashion in that its female and male protagonists, Rachel Sexton and Michael Tolland complete a tryst. This precedes an epilogue in which, “Ekstrom, NASA’s administrator, consigns his fake meteorite to the ocean whence it cam.” Angles and Demons follows this pattern with a tryst between Robert Langdon and Vittoria Vetra, which constitutes the epilogue of the novel, and in The Da Vinci Code, the epilogue “brings Langdon back to the prologue’s setting of the Louvre, where Langdon is at last able to solve the final riddle posed by Sophie’s grandfather, Jacques Sauniere” (Eder, L. Doris). Therefore proving that in each of Brown’s unique novels he focuses on different subject matter, however he continually uses an almost identical narrative framework…

To read the rest of this long review, please visit http://ezinearticles.com/?Seperating-the-Fact-From-Fiction-Within-Dan-Browns-Work&id=352544

Author: Paul Kennard
Article Source: EzineArticles.com