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  • Report:  #527298

Complaint Review: Star-Tech

Star-Tech took advantage of my 75 year old grandmother, misrepresented condition and did not honor no charge promise Lake City, Florida

  • Reported By:
    providencefl73 — lake butler Florida USA
  • Submitted:
    Mon, November 23, 2009
  • Updated:
    Wed, February 20, 2013

This place is a huge rip off.


They sold my 75 year old grand mother a "refurbished" dell studio laptop telling her it was brand new. When I looked at it for her I discovered it was refurbished and didnt have the operating system that was labeled on the case.


We took the laptop back and asked about the 2 issues. They young guy at the counter tried to talk around the issues I had and acted as If I didnt know what I was talking about. In the end he agreed to take the laptop and upgrade the operating system to match the vista stickers on the case and there would not be a charge.


 A couple of days later my grand mother returned to get it and the owner charged her an additional $117.00. Do no do business with them they are not honest.


$854.00 for a used laptop and $117.00 to correct their error. They will not get our business again.

4 Updates & Rebuttals


Grant

Lake City,
Florida,
United States of America

AS ALWAYS YOU COME TO THIER AID, YOU MUST BE AN EMPLOYEE

#5Consumer Comment

Wed, February 20, 2013

Patrick, you seem to post this on all Star tech stuff, you must work for them.

I on the other hand have been in the computer field for 30 years.. as an independent consultant.
I can tell you that Star tech are all crooks. Check out their listing on YP.com or yellowpages.com
They have 40 feedback 38 negative with the ONLY 2 positives being from employees.

I have seen personally the horrors they have done to people, stealing parts, scams, broken systems, unlicensed copies of
windows, and Microsoft software..the list is endless

There are a few better places in Lake City to take your computer/laptop to. I have dealt with 2 others that are gems! I will not mention the names here...but these two other computer guys are honest and have been doing business in Lake City for over 12-13 years. And you don't stay in business in a small town that long doing wrong

One of Star Techs partners John Friskey was arrested for fraud...that should tell you something..check it out in Busted.com

All I can say, is these guys are what gives computer people a bad name, and hopefully they will not be around long




Patrick

Lake City,
Florida,
United States of America

He risked his microsoft license.

#5Consumer Comment

Fri, December 02, 2011

In responce i will start off saying to the same thing I had stated to the last person. Referbished is better it go's through alot more testing and costs less which means you pay less for a better system. Also it is a standard business practice to remove suplier information from computer's as hardware change's, warentee's are through the manufacture but are usually handeled through the purchaser and to be honest he probably did you a favor .Yes you have to pay for service, however you have much beter tech suport and may only loose the laptop for a matter of days instead of the month dell is known for  and there phone support aside from the choise few trouble shoot based on a prompted program instead of on a true tech basis. and as far as the vista hthe 117 was probably for the license you don't buy the program but the ability to use it he helped your grandmother putting his microsoft distribution licence on the line... that could also have meant jail time. I'm going to aply for a job here and also use his as a partial supplier based on your ripoff report. Again as I said not meant to insult however I would love the opertunity to assist you in the future if I get the job. tghere's alot more to computer's then people think. if you think i may be able to help you i would love the oppertunity to you can call me at (((ROR redacted))) though i would recomend going back and possably pulling this report cause its damageing someone that put there kneck out to help your grandmother.

CLICK here to see why Rip-off Report, as a matter of policy, deleted either a phone number, link or e-mail address from this Report.


providencefl73

lake butler,
Florida,
USA

Bull

#5Author of original report

Wed, March 31, 2010

That is a load of BS. Like I said she is old and took advantage of twice by your company. We were willing to over look the first issue with your company when your employee told both of us that to correct operating system would be put back on the machine at no charge. 

As for not complaining, why complain when we were lied to in the first place. It is your responsibilty to make sure your employee knows your policy not ours. That being said, you will not get any more business from us or anyone who asks us for a good computer shop in Lake City. 


Bryant jennings

Lake City,
Florida,
U.S.A.

Did not complain to us or let us explain. See Below

#5REBUTTAL Owner of company

Tue, December 22, 2009

We routinely put Windows XP on our better laptops because we feel Windows XP is a superior operating system to Vista.  That is an expense and adds to the cost of the computer.  It is cheaper to leave Vista on a machine.  Vista is NOT an upgraded Operating system.  The license/product key was located under the battery in this case.  We NEVER sell a computer without proper licensing.  In this case we left the Vista product key on the laptop so it cound be reinstalled later if the customer chose to.

 As for the refurbished nature of the laptop it was clearly marked on the bottom and if they understood it to be new then we failed to explain it as well as we should.  It sounds like it looked good enough to be confused as new so we see where there could be a misunderstanding.  In any event we are also very competetive with our price and stand behind the price we sold it for as a very good and fair value for what we sold.  These laptops routinely sell for $800 to $1,000 on ebay and none of them come with 2 licenses for Windows.  And of course you cannot get in person service and support from the internet which is a central part of our business.

We do charge $110 (2 hours @ $55) to re-install Windows and since this was by the customer's request the charge was valid.  However, if someone felt that any charge was not appropriate we would not charge them.  In this case there was no complaint or even a question brought to me, the owner, about the licensing or charges.  If there was I am sure we could have remedied the situation.   I would always prefer someone to come to me directly with any concern about our service or charges.  My goal has always been to be fair and honest and to that end I have 20+ years of good business and great family of customers.  Unfortunately I am not perfect but will continue to strive be good and fair with all those I do business with both as a customer and as a businessman. 

 

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