SCAM ARTIST WARNING in SAN DIEGO on CL

ENDOFLINE

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anyone know who this guy is??

http://sandiego.craigslist.org/csd/tag/1332049476.html

SCAM ARTIST WARNING Greg McHugh Arcade Technitian is a FRAUD & THIEF (San Diego)

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Date: 2009-08-19, 4:12PM PDT
Reply to: see below

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Watch out for "Gregory J. McHugh" who claims to be a Arcade Technician advertizing on Craigslist. He is a known thief and scam artist. He will hack your arcade game or pinball machine and steal your cash. He quotes low but then he can't actually fix anything, so he needs to purchase new parts which doubles your quoted price. Then in a few days your arcade will start on fire and Gregory J. McHugh will not respond to your calls or emails. So you will be out the money and your arcade will be in worse shape than when you started. His pinball "repairs" consist of hacking your parts so that your machine will be unfixable by a real tech. He also stinks of onions and is really annoying. Do not let him scam you like he has scammed many others!!!

His info is...
Gregory J. McHugh
[email protected]
(619)417-6549


Location: San Diego
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
 
I saw that too ! Sounds like a disgruntled former customer OR someone who doesn't like onions ;)

- James
 
Why all the onion hate? Don't some of the older members carry one on thier belt? :)
 
Sorry to revive an old post but I know who this is and couldn't disagree more with your post.

He has helped me on a number of projects. Star Wars, 720, Paperboy, Dragon's Lair, Area 51 and Ms. Pac-Man.

Greg did great work from re-wiring from scratch a few cabs to rebuilding the monitor chassis for the Area 51 and a 720. He has done a ton of work for me.

Never had any problems and he is more than fair on his prices. Actually on the cheaper side.

Not sure how you had such a bad experience when I have had the exact opposite and continue to have him help work on my games.
 
I don't think that was EndOfLine's commentary in the first post... I believe it was the copy and paste from the CL ad that he saw... end EndOfLine was just inquiring about it.
 
he can't actually fix anything, so he needs to purchase new parts which doubles your quoted price

This part gets me... so a tech is supposed to be able to repair busted components? What wizardry is this?

"Looks like you'll need a new flyback... this one exploded"

"What?! You can't fix it?! What a joke!"
 
Who?

Who is this Greg guy. I've been messing with arcades in San Diego for a while now and I don't think I've ever heard of him. How much does he charge?
 
Odd this just got bumped. I picked up a GORF in San Diego a couple months back with a dead 90411 power supply board and some bad chips throughout the cage. The seller stated he had someone look at it but the guy didn't seem to know what he was doing and he never got it running correctly (it was playing blind). A sticker on the power supply proclaimed it fixed by G McHugh earlier in the year. I can't say for sure if he did it, but it was full of lifted pads/traces, etc. It ultimately needed a new -5v regulator and some traces/pins repaired. However he also subbed in some off value filter caps (which I don't think would have done any harm) and a questionable NTE equivalent, so I just fitted a Bob Roberts repair kit. The bad -5v fried a tantalum cap on a RAM board which caused no image.

Now, although I would consider myself somewhat adept at most repairs (excluding PCB logic), I would never call myself a "professional" and take someone's $$ without actually fixing anything. But I had the power supply diagnosed within an hour or so and had the game running again 7 days after pick-up. That includes the day I waited to order parts, 3 days to receive the order and waiting until the weekend to do the repair. Once I had the power sorted, with the help of the GORF RAM test ROM and a working spare GORF set (which admittedly did give me an unfair advantage), I had the remaining PCB issues diagnosed and fixed within a few hours.
 
Greg is solid. He doesn't pull parts. He used to be a tech back on the 80s. He is quite knowledgeable. If he doesn't know he researches it but never does weird stuff without saying anything. I have purchased a lot of broken games and this guy brings them back to life. He doesn't know everything but has saved me hundreds of hours of time.
 
Who is this Greg guy. I've been messing with arcades in San Diego for a while now and I don't think I've ever heard of him. How much does he charge?


He is a dude I found off Craigslist. He charges about $16 per hour.

He has rebuilt some monitor chassis, cap, re-flow ect...
He has also rebuilt some power supplies and re-wired some cabs.

He doesn't fix eproms on boards or anything like that but can trouble shoot other specific items on the board to get them going if its power related, bad caps, and or bad solder areas.

He also works on pinball machines form what I understand.
 
Okay

So I was warned to stay away from this dude. He's nothing but bad news amongst other things. He's fucked up games beyond repair, and even worse. i guess just use him at your own risk. After what I heard I'm gonna have to stick with the original posting of just stay away from this dude.
 
So I was warned to stay away from this dude. He's nothing but bad news amongst other things. He's fucked up games beyond repair, and even worse. i guess just use him at your own risk. After what I heard I'm gonna have to stick with the original posting of just stay away from this dude.


I'm not sure who is saying this stuff but it's bizarre. Everyone seems to be telling horror stories and can't even remember who they worked with.

I think it's unfair to post or spread poor reviews about someone unless you actually used their service. At least I can say I hired this guy a bunch of times and 100% of the time he has done solid work and is fair with his prices. Maybe I'm the 1% where it worked out? He has worked on 8 my games so I feel the guy is legit.

The person who started this post is also complaining about onions. It's a joke. This forum is full of strong options including mine. As for me I will continue risking my games life with this dudes service. lol
 
Cool

I'm just warning you because I know your a good guy I do t want to see you get fucked over.
I texted you. Hit me back when you get a chance.
 
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