Anybody do in home/business service calls?

Xavier

Member
Joined
Oct 17, 2007
Messages
641
Reaction score
8
Location
Fort Wayne, Indiana
I don't think its worth it myself.
I was finxing a juke the other day then some people sat down right in front of where I was working, place was mostly empty. Once I got the main unit working a drunk starts playing with it while im still working on it. Tried to be nice and play some requests for him, then he starts playing with it again when those are over. At roller rinks and Arcades the kids shake you down try and climb inside the game. Its best to go before or after they open.
You tell private owners its serious work and might be an hour or more then after you get there they're like will this be long I need to go shopping, or they dont pay you or skip out on the appointment. People may call you at 2 in the morning.
I'll give it a couple more shots but I've been really trying to steer people into dropping off at my shop. I can do a much better job and take my time and get the needed stuff. They dont want to pay or decide its not worth it the great its allready here.
 
Last edited:
Not worth it, unless its your business. I only fix stuff for my friends.
1. Do you really know what your doing? A simple repair can get expensive if you get in over your head.
2. Be prepared to run a support desk. Once you fix something you own it it seems like forever.
3. Other then capping monitors it seems like it works out to < 10 bucks an hour to fix a board, and it just doesnt seem worth it.
 
I worked for a distributor in Denver for a few years. I HATED doing home service. Theres always some sort of friggin snag or BS. They would be told UP FRONT $100.00 for the repair plus parts if needed. I'd get there, fix whatever it is and they would piss and moan cuz it only took me 15 minutes.

EF U!

Home service is BS. I've worked in FEC's and for OP's for years so I'm used to kids being all over me.
 
By the time I worked for them it was called Game Exchange of Colorado (in the new building). I interviewed with Mtn Coin and GEC the same day. Mtn couldnt be bothered to give me more then 10 minutes. Chi, Rich and I talked for like 3 hours... I knew where I was welcomed and I loved working there.

Only thing that sucked was the home service calls.

I still do business with them to this day and will NOT buy from Mtn in Denver because of the way they treated me.
 
I'll do monitor swap outs on home calls. Bring working monitor, install, collect bucks, haul off old monitor to fix for the next guy.
 
By the time I worked for them it was called Game Exchange of Colorado (in the new building). I interviewed with Mtn Coin and GEC the same day. Mtn couldnt be bothered to give me more then 10 minutes. Chi, Rich and I talked for like 3 hours... I knew where I was welcomed and I loved working there.

Only thing that sucked was the home service calls.

I still do business with them to this day and will NOT buy from Mtn in Denver because of the way they treated me.

I made several raids/large purchases from them, pretty sure I lost big money on all of them. Oh well its were I got my stuff to start playing with. In my head I'd keep saying "Im buttering them up, next deals going to be the sweet one" I still have a Neo and another cab I bought from them, maybe a gameboard or two. Oh my Ms Pac mini I found through them as well. Three cabs ah ha ha.
Do Rich/Chi pay ok? Seems like many of these places don't like to pay much over minimum wage. If not ,oh well you get to play around with games for a job. Did you work with a guy named Tim? He seemed pretty badass. I tried to just deal with him. New place was a huge improvement over the old one.
 
Last edited:
I bought a truckload of broken ones from a guy trying to open an arcade and a bunch more from another guy who built LCD based 60 in 1s. So I have a bit of a stash of them (although most of them still need fixing).

Thats a good idea. Im short on working monitors though, my big bottleneck.
 
Yup, Tim was there while I worked there. Good tech and cool dude once you got to know him. He showed me a few things about modern monitors that I wasnt aware of.

Chuck is the buried gem in that place. That guy knows his shit inside and out.

GEC paid me just fine. I had another job so it was just play money but it was still good pay and well above minimum wage.
 
2. Be prepared to run a support desk. Once you fix something you own it it seems like forever.

This here.......Some days, my shop phone never stops ringing. I spend anywhere from 5-10 hours a week on the phone.....approximately 50% of this is "tech support" (and 95% of the people don't have a clue as to what I'm talking about).

Sometimes, when it get really bad......I just turn the ringers off and let everything roll to the answering machine. Of course, then I spend hours the next day returning calls.......well, except for the "I'm so important" people.......who managed to figure out my home phone number.....and call me that night, because they didn't hear back from me yet! I love those 9:00PM phone calls......"I called you today, you didn't call me back!"

Edward
 
Yeah, the numbnuts that think they own you after the fact blows me away.

I fixed the CPU on a pin a long time ago for some lady. About 6 months later a coin door bulb blows and she wants to know when I'm going to be there to fix the light "under warranty?"

That was enough for me.
 
Back
Top Bottom