Avoid Pinball Phil/Arcades at home in Chicago like the plague

Atlas100

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Avoid Pinball Phil/Arcades at home in Chicago like the plague

I had posted a thread earlier to ask for advice on fixing my pinball machines:

http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=157147

I called earlier this week and set up an appointment today with "Pinball Phil" from Arcades at Home. This was definitely a huge mistake.

I have never been treated so poorly by anybody in my life. We set up a time for him to come today. We took the day off from work to wait for him.

He was supposed to be here around 3 or 4 o'clock, but possibly earlier. He never showed up and he never called. I called him after 4 o'clock and he just said he wasn't coming. He was in the middle of a service call and told me to call him back to reschedule.

I called him back to tell him how disappointed I was and that I wouldn't be re-scheduling. He got very angry and started yelling/complaining about how busy he was. And this is my favorite part:

He then told me to "FUCK OFF" and hung up on me.

I am not making this up, I am not exaggerating and I am not kidding in the least. Don't give this guy a penny of your money if you value your time and don't like being cursed at. Do not waste your time. I will make sure nobody I know EVER gives this guy a dime of business.

Somebody will undoubtedly post that they know or have used Phil for service and that they had a good experience. I just wanted to share how he treated me and how he does business so you can not waste your time the same way I did.
 
Yikes, wow. Must be the holidays keeping him busy to not want new customers!

Seriously, I am still taken back by the whole thing. We were so excited to get these game fixed and up and running for the holidays. Now I feel like I got sucker punched.

This guy missed out on so much business from me and burned the bridge with everybody I know. I have other arcade games I would have gladly asked him to fix. This just isn't how you run a business, no matter how busy or frustrated you may be.
 
I had very good dealings with him. He was traveling and posted in my local CL about offering repair. I contacted and he did an amazing job on my bride of pinbot that had the GI wires soldered directly to the header pins. He replaced them, and did some shematic reading to fix some issues, and then went to fix a few other header pins and connections all for the quoted price before the extra work. He spent two hours making it right and only charged me for 1 hour of work. He went above and beyond for me and I am grateful.

Of course now I would be able to do the work myself, but I still would recommended him.

Your situation is noted, and not professional at all. I am not trying to take away from that, just saying he does good work and I was happy about my interactions with him.
 
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Phil was in sales for Arcade at Home in Lisle, IL before they went out of business about 2-3 yrs ago. I guess he does it out of his house now and makes house calls for repair. I had good dealings with him when he was at the store in Lisle, and he sold me my Arcade Legends machine back in '04. He repaired my machine once in-house and it wasn't cheap, but he was fair all around and professional at the time.

Sorry to hear you had a bad run-in with him. Sounds atypical, but word of mouth on bad experiences travels further than good, unfortunately.

BTW, what else do you need repaired?
 
I know Phil as a person but I have never done any business with him. He lives only a few miles away from me and does a lot of CL posting. I have friends who have a low opinion of him.
 
Fuck that guy!!! I dont care if he has been good to some people and does a good job. Customer service is top prioity. The fact that he let this guy wait around and didnt have the balls to give a curtiousy call is bullshit! Then on top of that he tells the guy to Fuck off, what an asshole. I hope this gets posted on every game forum on the net .People like that dont deserve shit for business. PS Fuck that guy!!!
 
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