LaurenandLloyd.com

where our wasted time becomes your wasted time

John Harlan

The big haul

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So, Lloyd went to the UNL surplus auction on Saturdy with Sam, not me. (I was busy.) When I found out they sold lots of preschool furniture, I was very sad to have missed it, but when Lloyd showed me what he bought I realized it was good that I wasn’t there. I would have told him not to bid on so much, but as it turned out, these are pretty great deals!

The pieces are all made by Community Playthings, a place that makes high-quality, extremely expensive items. He bought:
Four tables
Two ironing boards
One doll cradle
Two doll beds
An easel
An art cart
A puppet theater
A book cart

According to their website, this is over $3,000 dollars worth of merchandise, just sitting in our basement, waiting for the new center.

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Not too shabby. Here’s the art cart, which needs a good once-over with a Magic Eraser:

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Here it is on their website. Note the price. *gulp*
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Here’s the puppet theater:
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Now here is ours.

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That puppet? Priceless.

Shame on you, John Harlan – Part 5 (of 5?) XHD3000 Repair

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[NOTE: you might want to read parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 before you read this. It explains that John Harlan ‘returned’ a computer monitor but the FedEx box actually contained a gallon jug of water.]

When last we met, things looked bleak for our heroes. John Harlan (johnslcdrepair, johnhis11_computers, xhd3000repairman4356, computerguru43560 and lcdrepairman8733, xhd3000repairman, lcdrepairworld and lcdrepairwarehouse on eBay) had anticipated their every move, and was now in possession of  The Monitor and The $353.24.

We were in possession of a gallon of water and an email from PayPal (oh, and we also seemed to owe eBay $27.45 for helping us sell the monitor and PayPal $11.88 for handling the money.):

As previously communicated to you, we received information provided by both parties and resolved the claim in the buyer’s favor. You have the right to appeal; however, an appeal will only be reviewed in the following scenarios:

  1. You received the item back in a condition different than what the buyer stated they received in their initial claim (beyond normal wear from shipping)
  2. No item was returned (empty box)
  3. Not all items the buyer received were returned
  4. The buyer returned the wrong item to you

If any of the above scenarios apply to you, please complete the following steps:

Contact your local police department and obtain a police/incident report. The police/incident report should detail how one of the above scenarios apply to you. This report should be on the law enforcement agency’s letterhead or stamped police documentation and clearly explain the details of your issue. This documentation must include the department/officer’s contact information, the reporting officer’s name, badge number and signature.

Okay, so we just have to decide which number to go with. I think you could make a strong case for 1, 2, 3 or 4. The big question is, “How do you prove it?” It would certainly have been easier if we had opened it in front of the FedEx guy. And it would have been pretty air-tight if we had videotaped the opening of the box. But we didn’t.

We did have a witness, and Lauren has had several of our Seward policemen’s children in preschool. It probably wouldn’t hurt that the Child Development Center is about 15 feet from the police station either. But even with material witnesses and Lauren’s impeccable character, would this turn out to be our word against John Harlan’s?

Well, it turns out that John made a mistake. In his haste to get our money from PayPal, he hadn’t put enough weight in his box –and we could prove it.

Exhibit A: Weight of our packages:

Exhibit B: Weight of John’s package:

Exhibit C: Weight of Monitor (from User’s Guide)

Lauren wrote up the whole thing with in exacting detail including twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against him. She took pictures of the approach, the getaway, the northwest corner the southwest corner and that’s not to mention the aerial photography. It was an impressive document.

Lloyd brought it to the police station on MLK’s birthday, as he had the day off from school. He explained the situation to the officer briefly and she looked at the packet. She looked at the 30lbs then at the 41lbs then back at the 30lbs then back and the 41lbs and said, “I can’t help you, it’s out of our jurisdiction.”

But Lloyd was ready for this turn of events and replied, “I know you can’t do anything to him. I just need a police report so that PayPal will give me my money back.” To which she replied, “That won’t be a problem.”

She had the police report to Lauren later that day and we faxed the impressive document to PayPal along with the police report.

Then we waited.

Four days later we received this email:

Dear Lloyd Sommerer,

PayPal has concluded the appeal of the following buyer complaint.

Transaction Details
——————————
Buyer’s name: Johns LCD Repair Shop
Buyer’s email: Jrhcomputerparts@aol.com
Transaction ID: 4AP629312C770533A
Transaction date: Dec 13, 2010
Transaction amount: $353.24 USD
Your transaction ID: 2RN668340Y2220703
Case number: PP-002-162-263-961
——————————

PayPal has issued you a refund in the amount of $353.24 for this claim.
The refund will be posted to your account within 3-5 business days.

Thank you for your patience and cooperation in this matter.

Sincerely,
Kamila
Protection Services Department
PayPal, an eBay Company

So, in a way, it’s over.  But the principal of the whole situation irks Lauren. Let’s cut back to her and get it in her own words:

I don’t like that a dishonest person tried a scam and almost got away with it. I still want him to get in some kind of trouble for this, not just have had to pay the money he should have paid in the first place. I’ve thought about taking out ads in his hometown newspaper that tell the story, or just a link to these posts. I want his mother or grandmother to know he did this – that should really be all the punishment he needs.

But then, I remember that I should perhaps take the high road on this, and that maybe anyone buying something from John (or Jonathan) Harlan from Sylvania, Ohio – owner of johnslcdrepair – might search for his name and information and just read about our experience with him and that will be enough.

Then maybe they will wish uncontrollable diarrhea on him.

UPDATE: For you, Disappointed. A little proof about the negative feedback that disappeared. 🙂

UPDATE 2: Some other reading, if you’re interested: e-mail exchange and a little advice.

UPDATE 3: Read John Harlan’s summons to appear in small claims court (fun game: find the typos!) and read how he didn’t show up for the trial (booooooo).

Shame on you, John Harlan – Part 4 (of 5)

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Note: You might want to read part 1, part 2 and part 3 first.

Okay, are you ready for this?

So, lots of time went by and I had kind of forgotten about the whole monitor situation. Then one evening we came home and there was a sticker on the door from FedEx saying that they had a package to deliver that required a signature. I asked Lloyd what it was and he said it was the monitor.

Hooray!

The problem was that we weren’t getting home until after 6, so no one could sign for it. We left a note for the FedEx guy asking if he could deliver it to my work.

The next day – he did!

Hooray!

He brought it to the CDC at noon; I signed for it; he put the big box in the entryway and I went back to the classroom. At naptime I went to go open it up. As I carried it into the kitchen I thought it was a little light, but thought that maybe John Harlan and Lloyd had worked something out and he was only returning some of the parts.

I opened it up and saw this:

It was one of those ‘time stood still’ kind of things because my director was right there and I had been explaining the whole ‘broken-monitor-sold-then-claimed-to-be-cracked-then-returned’ thing and as I’m digging through layers of packing materials – mostly packing materials that we had used to wrap the monitor – I’m realizing that there are NO monitor parts in here.

What?

Then I found this at the bottom of the box:

Yes, people. That is a jug full of water that John Harlan put in the box to give it some weight.

I will pause for a moment to honor first, your sympathetic shock, then, your sympathetic seething.

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Yes, John Harlan (johnslcdrepair, johnhis11_computers, xhd3000repairman43560 and computerguru43560 on eBay) mailed back a box full of packing material and water and I signed for it!! I was aghast, and then I was livid. I held up the jug to show my director and I believe I called John Harlan some bad, bad names.

I couldn’t believe it! People really do this?!? I walked around quietly venting to everyone about the situation (quietly, because it was naptime) and then called Lloyd. When I told him about the water, he said, “Did you open the box in front of the FedEx guy?” Well, of course, I didn’t! How was I supposed to know that treachery was afoot? Up until now I had been leading a blissful, non-villain-tainted life! Of course, as soon I signed for the package, PayPal knew that John had “returned the monitor”, so they closed the claim and he got his money back.

I kept venting and Lloyd said, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”

It wasn’t about the loss of money for me at all, it was about JUSTICE and – ok – REVENGE. I wanted to fly to Ohio and ring this guy’s neck doorbell and say, “Hello? Did your mother raise you to be a jerk? If so, she did a bang-up job.” I thought about many awful things to do to get even, but here’s the thing – I’m not a bad person like John Harlan of Sylvania, Ohio, so I only think them, I will not actually do them.

Instead, I’ll… tell you the end of the story tomorrow.

Shame on you, John Harlan – Part 3 (of 5)

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Note: You might want to read part 1 and part 2 first.

I was tracking the monitor and the accessories packages as they traveled through the UPS systems, so I knew when the packages arrived. I could also have told because John Harlan (johnslcdrepair, johnhis11_computers, xhd3000repairman43560 and computerguru43560 on eBay)  immediately opened a dispute with PayPal:

Hello Lloyd,

I received the screen today and I am really sorry to report that it appears as though the box that the screen was shipped in was either crushed or dropped from a significant height during transportation to me from you. The side of the box was all smashed in and it looked like someone tried to repair the box with tape. Sadly the LCD was cracked during transit there for drastically reducing the value of this unit to me. Normally I would send the unit back and ask for a full refund however there are some parts that I can still use such as the Power supply speaker and motherboard from inside the unit as these all appear to be in usable condition still.I have kept the box and all the packaging material that the screen was shipped in and am happy to take photographs for you so you can present it as evidence in a claim with UPS for damage while in transit.

Unfortunately my only recourse to recoup the money that I spent in this unit is to file this claim here on PayPal since UPS does not let anyone but the original shipper file a claim for damaged packages and this case that is you. I will be satisfied with a refund of $225 as I feel that this is a fair request since the screen is no longer usable.Im sorry about this and I will be happy to offer you any assistance I can to help you provide evidence in a claim against UPS for damaging the item.

John

Now, at this point, I do not know whether John is telling the truth or not. It seems to me that if he is on the up-and-up that he would contact me before opening a dispute at PayPal. I’m also pretty sure that you could have gone at our packaging with a baseball bat and not damaged the screen.

Apart from that is the amount that he thought would be a fair refund. He wants to pay $125.00 for a power supply that sells for between $140 and $200 on eBay (those are the prices of the last two that sold, not the asking price), a speaker-bar that sells for around $80 and still have the rest of the monitor to use in his repair business.  I guess I just don’t trust him. This was my reply on the PayPal dispute page:

John,

I would be glad to refund your entire purchase price upon receiving the items from you within 7 days of delivery as per our purchase agreement, but am open to other arrangements. Please send detailed photos to lloyd@lloydandlauren.com

Lloyd

That might seem like a pretty terse reply, but I used up every one of the characters that PayPal let me type into their little text box. If he was legit, he could either send me photos of the damage or send everything back for a full refund. He didn’t do either. In fact, he didn’t do anything. Weeks went by and we got closer and closer to PayPal’s claim resolution date.

Curiouser and Curiouser.

Read on to discover what becomes of our heroes.

Shame on you, John Harlan – Part 2 (of 5)

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Okay,  Gateway wasn’t going to be any help so I turned to the Interwebs. As you might recall from the start of this saga, I was not the only person who had the flickering monitor problem. Real Geeks had troubleshooted (troubleshot?) the problem to a specific chip on a specific board in the monitor. Apparently there is an overheating/poor-manufacturing problem that causes the chip to pull away from the board. But the chip could be reflowed. With the help of Lon Jungemann,  I gave this a try. It did not work. So now, instead of a monitor that flickered, I had a monitor that just stayed black. Not necessarily an improvement.

Oh well, I tried. I was about to throw it in the trash recycle it responsibly when I recalled reading when I was searching for a fix that people did actually repair these. So on the off chance that someone would need parts, I put it on eBay. I didn’t want to disappoint anyone, so it had a big, “not working. for parts only” in the listing. In fact, I didn’t include any information on it at all. I figured that only someone who knew what they were doing would bid on so sparse a listing.

Maybe I could make $50 toward my next monitor.

That’s right, $304.99 for my broken monitor. The winning bidder was John Harlan he goes by johnslcdrepair, johnhis11_computers, xhd3000repairman43560 as well as computerguru43560 (if you’ve found this post by searching for any of those names, you’ll want to read the next parts of this post as well –how’s that for foreshadowing?), and also had several of these monitors listed on eBay. So he knew what he was getting into. He asked some questions about how I had tried to reflow the chip before he bid, so everything seemed fine.

But he didn’t pay right away, and after a week went by another bidder contacted me and said that he had recently been outbid on several of these monitors by John Harlan and wanted to know if I would sell the monitor to him if this sale fell through. We even agreed on a price (he started at $25 and I started at $304.99 and we met at $250).  So I opened a “did not pay” dispute with eBay. Shortly thereafter John sent the money via PayPal. Now, in his defense, John did tell me that he was a little tight on money and would take a few days to pay (but not more than a week). But John did win the bid, and had sent payment, so we packaged the monitor up.

I didn’t want it to arrived damaged, so we packed it in two separate boxes. One for the flat screen and speaker bar and one for the bulky stand and power supply. Lauren helped and documented the process, because it looked like it might make a good post…

Yes, that’s a screen covered with a towel then 1/2 inch thick Styrofoam then 1/8 inch thick plexiglass  then 2 layers of bubble wrap then surrounded by air bags on all sides.

You’d think everything would be well, right? .)

Read the continuing saga in part three.

Shame on you, John Harlan – Part 1 (of 5!)

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(Lauren here: We’ve had a bad run-in on ebay in the past month, and while everything has turned out mostly alright, we thought it might be a good idea to warn people about John Harlan of Sylvania, Ohio, or as I like to call him: The Bad Man. Here’s Lloyd with Part 1.)

You might recall the really nice monitor I got about a year and a half ago. You might also remember it dying about a year ago. You probably didn’t know that although I was devastated, I quickly got over it when I realized that the monitor had a 12 month warranty.

What you certainly didn’t know, because I was too embarrassed to tell you, is that I did not buy the monitor during the first part of the summer (as I remember) but during the last part of the school year (as I didn’t remember). And that when I finally got around to doing the repair the monitor was 3 weeks out of warranty. I really wish I had someone else to blame.

I’ve been thinking about getting a new monitor for months now, but I always think about how much money I wasted on the last one, and change my mind. Recently, I’ve been using two monitors. That’s pretty cheap when you buy them for $25 at an auction. Anyway, I started thinking that if I was going to spend a couple of hundred dollars on a new monitor, I should at least look at spending some money to get my broken (but not yet two year old) monitor repaired.

My local TV/Monitor repair shop said that they could not get parts for it, So I thought I would contact Gateway and ask them who could repair it. Here’s how that email exchange went:

Me:

My monitor is out of warranty and the display is strobing/flickering. (like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMDXfQjnHy8 )How do I go about getting it repaired?

Gateway:

Dear Lloyd Sommerer,

Thank you for contacting Gateway. I apologize for the inconvenience that you have experienced.

I understand that you are experiencing an issue with the flickering display.

We have verified your product serial number and it shows that your product is out of warranty.

Do a power reset.

– Turn the monitor off and unplug the power cord and VGA cable from the monitor.
– Hold the power button on the unit down for 30 seconds.
– Release the power button and plug only the power cord back into the unit.
– Turn the unit on. What screen do you get? If you are getting the ‘No signal or cable disconnected screen on your monitor’ then your monitor is working fine.

Please be informed that we cannot pull your monitor to our depot repair center, since your monitor is out of warranty. So you may contact a local technician to resolve your issue.

For further clarifications please feel free to visit our web site: http://support.gateway.com

Thank you for contacting Gateway.

Have a great day!

Respectfully,
Gateway Online Technical Support

NOTE:Gateway customer support emails all contain a certain amount of boiler-plate language. To save you some reading, I’ll only include the text that changes from email to email.

Me:

Thank you for your prompt response. I realize that my monitor is out of warranty. I would like to know how to go about paying a gateway authorized technician to repair my monitor that I purchased less than two years ago.

Gateway:

According to your information we found that the product warranty has expired.  Please be informed that we cannot pull your monitor to our depot repair center, since your monitor is out of warranty. So you may contact a local technician to resolve your issue.

Me:

Thank you for the information that, “Please be informed that we cannot pull your monitor to our depot repair center, since your monitor is out of warranty. So you may contact a local technician to resolve your issue.” Could you please send me information about how I contact a local gateway authorized technician to fix my monitor that is not yet 2 years old?

Gateway:

From your email I understand that you like to get the details of local technician to resolve the issue with monitor. Please be informed that gateway authorized technician is not required to repair the system. You can contact any of the local technician in your area to resolve the issue. I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused.

Me:

Thank you for the help that you have thus far been able to offer me regarding my purchase of a gateway monitor. Again, I understand that this two year old monitor is not under warranty and that I will have to pay to have it repaired. I would like to know who I can have repair the monitor.

Gateway:

Lloyd ,Gateway do not offer repair to Out of warranty Monitors . Please contact local technician to resolve the issue.

Me:

Could you tell me who services Gateway monitors in may area: Nebraska, USA

Gateway:

Lloyd ,we do not have the specific information about the technicians located in your locality to repair the monitor.

Me:

I have a $1200.00 monitor that less than 2 years old and Gateway will not repair it even if I am willing to pay for that repair? And gateway can offer no help in telling me who will repair it? Does that seem strange to you?

Gateway:

Lloyd, I understand the situation and I really apologize for the inconvenience happened. I suggest you contact any local technicians to resolve the issue with the monitor. Lloyd ,we do not have the specific information about the technicians located in your locality to repair the monitor.

Me:

Thank you for your continued help in resolving my problem. I have contacted technicians located in my area and they say that they are not able to get parts from gateway. Could you provide me with a parts list for my monitor and tell me where I can order parts?

Gateway:

Please click on the link below to know from where you can purchase parts. http://gateway-us.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/7

Me:

Thank you again for you continued efforts to assist me in fixing my Gateway monitor. Unfortunately, the three companies that you recommended only sell parts for Gateway tower, desktop and laptop computers. I would appreciate it if you would find out where I can order parts to repair my Gateway monitor that I purchased less than 2 years ago.

Gateway:

I understand that you wanted to order parts for your Gateway Monitor, we regret to inform you that we may not be able to suggest a store or reseller from whom you may order monitor parts. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Me:

Thank you for your continued help and assistance. I have always thought of Gateway as a good company to do business with, so I think that I must have misunderstood something. Let me see if I understand you correctly:

1) Gateway is unwilling to repair my monitor even if I am willing to pay for the repair.
2) Gateway is unwilling to provide the part to repair my monitor even if I am willing to pay for the part.
3) Gateway is unwilling to provide information about where I can buy a part for my monitor.

Are any of these statements incorrect?

Gateway:

Lyod, Unfortunately we do no offer repair for Out of warranty Monitor and we do not sell parts for Monitor.

Me:

So that there is no misunderstanding, would you answer YES or NO to each of these three questions?

1) Is Gateway unwilling to repair my monitor even if I am willing to pay for the repair.
2) Is Gateway unwilling to provide the part to repair my monitor even if I am willing to pay for the part.
3) Is Gateway unwilling to provide information about where I can buy a part for my monitor.

Thank you again for your help.

Gateway:

The only option that we can suggest is to get the product serviced by a local technician. You can click on the link below to know from where you can purchase parts. http://gateway-us.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/7

Me:

I have contacted the three companies at the link you provided. They do not stock parts for Gateway monitors. They only stock parts for Gateway computers. How else can you help me?

Gateway:

We actually do not have the a local setup in US or Canada to take our machine for repair, and that goes true with monitor too. There are some authorized resellers who at times pull the machine for repair, but they too send the machine in our service facility in Texas to major complaint but that is in case of a Computer and not a monitor. So if you search for Gateway Service center you might not find any in your location, rather there might local repair center or technicians who would be able to locate replacement spares or components for Monitor and they might be able to assist you this situation, we understand that this too rude from our part to say this but our support option on a Monitor if out of warranty is limited. Kindly take our sincere apology on this inconvenience.

Needless to say, Gateway was no help, and the monitor remained broken. More to come tomorrow….

Click here for Part 2, but read the comments first – we have funny people on our team!