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Offline jagocheTopic starter

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Experiences with Retropassion in UK?
« on: April 06, 2022, 03:11:18 AM »
Wonder if anyone has sent recently MB for repair or recapping to Retropassion in UK? What are your experiences with them? How long does it take for repair?

I’ve been waiting for my repair for months. Wondering if this is how they usually work?
« Last Edit: April 06, 2022, 03:12:13 AM by jagoche »
A2000, Blizzard 2040ERC, Spectrum (alive again), Masoboshi MC702
A4000, A3640, VLab, A2301
 

Offline Gryfon

Re: Experiences with Retropassion in UK?
« Reply #1 on: April 06, 2022, 09:42:06 AM »
Sent one of my A1200 motherboards to RetroPassion when he was AmigaPassion, came back just under 2 months later. That was before COVID and the motherboard is working perfectly today.  I also bought Amiga OS 3.2 and some other bits and pieces from there. I’ve recommended them before, but as with all Amiga and retro specialty providers they are small (almost all one-man-band) organisations, so I’m always happy to give them more slack than I would bigger companies when it comes to things like waiting times.
\\"We should take off and nuke the entire site from orbit.  It's the only way to be sure.\\" Ripley, Aliens
 

Offline RetroPassion

Re: Experiences with Retropassion in UK?
« Reply #2 on: April 06, 2022, 10:00:16 AM »
Hello!

PM us you order number and we can check, I did try and work out who you are but nothing to grasp on to :-)

Thanks!
Offering complete Amiga recapping  services including add-ons, mods. We also cater for other makes and models of consoles and computers.
 

Offline danbeaver

Re: Experiences with Retropassion in UK?
« Reply #3 on: April 06, 2022, 08:10:50 PM »
I sent an Amiga, paying in advance, for recap to RetroPassion  and Steve Clifford told me it would be 6 to 8 weeks to get it back. After 12 weeks of no communication, he emailed me it would be another 4 to 6 weeks, but if I didn't want to wait, he would send it back right away. Little I could do since I had been forced to pay in advance. Then, 8 weeks after I got it back and had a problem, he refused to answer my emails.
 
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Offline RetroPassion

Re: Experiences with Retropassion in UK?
« Reply #4 on: April 06, 2022, 09:32:53 PM »
I sent an Amiga, paying in advance, for recap to RetroPassion  and Steve Clifford told me it would be 6 to 8 weeks to get it back. After 12 weeks of no communication, he emailed me it would be another 4 to 6 weeks, but if I didn't want to wait, he would send it back right away. Little I could do since I had been forced to pay in advance. Then, 8 weeks after I got it back and had a problem, he refused to answer my emails.

Hello!

Just reminded myself of this, and your recollection is different to mine and goes against the emails we sent each other. and just to clarify a few points:

1 - We received your A4000T board on the 15th March 2021 and it was sent back on the 10th June 2021 so it was completed and returned in 12 weeks (delays were down to the amount of work and of course COVID lockdowns which we advised before you sent as the board etc).

2 - We sent the invoice (feb 22) as we use this to track ad-hoc work but we never ask for payment in advance and the due date for the invoice was 60 days from when we sent it but you paid it the same day. We did not force or ask you to pay.

3 - You sent us an email 15th Nov 2021 (18 plus weeks after receiving it back as you got it back in June 2021) saying you tested the board when it arrived back (June 2021) and it was working well (your words) and now planned to sell it but then tested it again (Nov 2021) but had a green HUE and you asked if we were willing to have a look at it, of which we replied saying yes more and happy to have you still got our address? We also asked to check the basics like video cable etc. We never got a reply.

We are all for feedback both positive and negative, however when details are missed or incorrect we try and remind people of any facts or details missed.

Hope you got it sorted and it was something simple and it sold! :-)

Thanks!

Steve @ RetroPassion



 
Offering complete Amiga recapping  services including add-ons, mods. We also cater for other makes and models of consoles and computers.
 

Offline jagocheTopic starter

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Re: Experiences with Retropassion in UK?
« Reply #5 on: April 07, 2022, 01:15:22 AM »
Thanks Steve for replying. PM sent.
« Last Edit: April 07, 2022, 01:16:28 AM by jagoche »
A2000, Blizzard 2040ERC, Spectrum (alive again), Masoboshi MC702
A4000, A3640, VLab, A2301
 

Offline Noweee

Re: Experiences with Retropassion in UK?
« Reply #6 on: April 07, 2022, 02:41:38 PM »
Had a terrible experience, with a prototype Amiga 3500 motherboard (the blue one, on Amiga hardware) nearly killed. I've sent it for a battery repair. Upon receiving it, the FPU was done, the Zorro3 slots were dead, and it would have so many problems like overheating etc.

There was solder balls and poor soldering all over, sometimes covering several tracks.

Another dark point was that it had been sent in march; along with 2 CD32 mobos, a FMV and a CSMkII, Steve didn't return the lot until december, with barely any news, I had to send a letter to get an answer..

He sent it back to the wrong name (my google/fb accounts nickname). Of course for it wasn't to my name, it never got delivered, and went back to UK for me to pay for the shipping again, as if it were my fault.. And this time I had to pay the Brexit taxes, several hundreds.

A botched Amiga prototype, a terrible experience with a seller that wouldn't -ever- recognize any slight error on his side, not with the packing (he sent the items back in a single cardboard with the CD32 motherboards scratching on top of the 3500 motherboard) not with the name, not with the botched prototype. A prototype, is like, our common past. You would agree that it's important, and that was why I wanted it professionally redone. The job he did? I could do ways better. Even the FMV metal shield was torn, and the capacitors are too big, making the shielding protruding.

In total, one year of stress, 1000€ lost - that's without counting the damages on the 3500 - granted the CD32 are correctly recapped, but anything through hole isn't his stuff. The motherboard had to be retaken by another professional that built the list of the damages done by that man.

To think I didn't want to send it father than UK because of the "risk". Now I send my stuff to Scandinavia.


Some photos to show the wrong name (nowee eewon, my nickname, instead of my real name). The solder jobs, some of it. The torn FMV. The cardboard. Man I'm still trembling of furor right about now.

https://gyazo.com/5f7ec6300c215d94c6e91ed42514d538
https://gyazo.com/8aa104e0d2af573d8e45e190eff7ca69
https://gyazo.com/76fb2ddc8ba76984e6ebd06f32a05d1f
https://gyazo.com/1d9d7bbba35daa969cff85c888e240c4
https://gyazo.com/bbb21bf5faa35d71bc1cf71508d9db37
https://gyazo.com/a62d83beebe271d3642d5586840d6d63
« Last Edit: April 07, 2022, 03:16:24 PM by Noweee »
 
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Offline RetroPassion

Re: Experiences with Retropassion in UK?
« Reply #7 on: April 07, 2022, 05:15:16 PM »
Had a terrible experience, with a prototype Amiga 3500 motherboard (the blue one, on Amiga hardware) nearly killed. I've sent it for a battery repair. Upon receiving it, the FPU was done, the Zorro3 slots were dead, and it would have so many problems like overheating etc.

There was solder balls and poor soldering all over, sometimes covering several tracks.

Another dark point was that it had been sent in march; along with 2 CD32 mobos, a FMV and a CSMkII, Steve didn't return the lot until december, with barely any news, I had to send a letter to get an answer..

He sent it back to the wrong name (my google/fb accounts nickname). Of course for it wasn't to my name, it never got delivered, and went back to UK for me to pay for the shipping again, as if it were my fault.. And this time I had to pay the Brexit taxes, several hundreds.

A botched Amiga prototype, a terrible experience with a seller that wouldn't -ever- recognize any slight error on his side, not with the packing (he sent the items back in a single cardboard with the CD32 motherboards scratching on top of the 3500 motherboard) not with the name, not with the botched prototype. A prototype, is like, our common past. You would agree that it's important, and that was why I wanted it professionally redone. The job he did? I could do ways better. Even the FMV metal shield was torn, and the capacitors are too big, making the shielding protruding.

In total, one year of stress, 1000€ lost - that's without counting the damages on the 3500 - granted the CD32 are correctly recapped, but anything through hole isn't his stuff. The motherboard had to be retaken by another professional that built the list of the damages done by that man.

To think I didn't want to send it father than UK because of the "risk". Now I send my stuff to Scandinavia.


Some photos to show the wrong name (nowee eewon, my nickname, instead of my real name). The solder jobs, some of it. The torn FMV. The cardboard. Man I'm still trembling of furor right about now.

https://gyazo.com/5f7ec6300c215d94c6e91ed42514d538
https://gyazo.com/8aa104e0d2af573d8e45e190eff7ca69
https://gyazo.com/76fb2ddc8ba76984e6ebd06f32a05d1f
https://gyazo.com/1d9d7bbba35daa969cff85c888e240c4
https://gyazo.com/bbb21bf5faa35d71bc1cf71508d9db37
https://gyazo.com/a62d83beebe271d3642d5586840d6d63

Hi!

Thanks for your feedback as I say we like seeing feedback as it all helps, we also want to clarify a few points you raised as there are discrepancies that need to be addressed: 

1 - The A3500 was sent in for recapping only and your cyberstorm accelerator needed a new socket as someone had already tried to remove it and left half of it in the PCB (I still have the photos that you sent).

2 - The 'wrong' name was the name entered on the invoice that you paid, when paying an invoice we request confirmation (we do for all customers) of the name and address incase of any change and this data is also used by the bank.

3 - We returned the items to the address specified on the invoice, you then asked for tracking which we provided.

4 - You contacted us a while later to say it had not been delivered and we opened an investigation with the courier and found it was being held at your local GLS parcelshop as an attempt was made by GLS at your home a few days earlier (tracking showed this)

5 - You went to claim the parcel at the GLS parcel centre (after we traced where it was working with GLS) but it could not be found at the parcel shop and after a bit of back and forth I think you found out it was being returned as it was not claimed after 2 weeks (it was there all along).

6 - The name on the parcel was your online alias as you clarified above, which was also on the invoice and the box you used to send us the motherboards in.

7 - The returned boards arrived back to us from France after 4/6 weeks at which point we were out of the EU's 1 year transition period.

8 - As the name on the box was not our error (I will say the alias used are legitimate legal names btw, if Mickey Mouse or Neo was used then I think we would have contacted you) and the parcel not being collected after 2 weeks, we did discount the return shipping and we covered the extra insurance you requested. Any customs fees are the responsibility of the person receiving the goods.

I'm not going to challenge the quality of soldering as we also share all our work/photos on all the main social networks monthly if not weekly and I'm also aware we have recapped well over 2000 boards over the last 6/7 years. we also sent photos of your board after we did our work to you before returning as we were proud to service a rare board and we also shared a video of it working.

To clarify dates, you sent your boards to us in June 2020 and we returned them (first time) Oct 2020. you also blocked us twice on Facebook while we were trying to sort out the issue over the parcel which delayed resolving the issue.

I hope you are now using the 3500, and other Amiga computers/consoles as they deserve to be used :-)

Thanks!

Steve



Offering complete Amiga recapping  services including add-ons, mods. We also cater for other makes and models of consoles and computers.
 

Offline jagocheTopic starter

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Re: Experiences with Retropassion in UK?
« Reply #8 on: April 21, 2022, 01:32:27 AM »
@RetroPassion

Hello Steve,
If you read this, please, note that I am still waiting to hear about the repair status of my A4000 board. PM me if you have troubles sending an email.

Thanks!
A2000, Blizzard 2040ERC, Spectrum (alive again), Masoboshi MC702
A4000, A3640, VLab, A2301
 

Offline darksun9210

Re: Experiences with Retropassion in UK?
« Reply #9 on: April 22, 2022, 04:11:44 PM »
absolutely fine here.
They went the extra mile on a re-cap job on an A600 of mine and re-did the audio as well, as one side was scratchy and crackly.

i did have a couple of other questions i sent, but no answer to email... not sure if "hotmail.co.uk" is blocked by default these days...  ;D

i would now however, in a post brexit world, be very weary of EU<->UK shipping/post, and related time/tax+import charges.
i note that all the ebay A2000's based in germany usually state "no shipping to UK"  :(
i've had a vendor setup an additional office in Holland purely so they can get stuff out to EU offices. as otherwise it's an absolute joke. thanks brexit.

A500 Vampire2/minimegachip/lazarus/indyECS
A600 Vampire2/604n/subway/IndyECS
A1200 PiStorm32+Pi4/subway/IndyAGA
A1200 PiStorm32+Pi4/subway/IndyAGA
A1200 PiStorm32+Pi4/subway/IndyAGA
A3k C=040/CV64-3D/Xsurf100+RRoadUSB/Zoram256/acard scsi-ide-CF/IndyECS,
A4k CSMk3-060/CV64-3D/Xsurf100+RRoadUSB/Bigram256/IndyAGA, mediator+pci cards
CD32 TF360/IndyAGA
Plus an SGI O2 & consoles.
 

Offline jagocheTopic starter

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Re: Experiences with Retropassion in UK?
« Reply #10 on: April 26, 2022, 04:57:01 AM »
@darksun9210
Thank you for thumbs-up!

In my case, the shipping costs to EU-UK were acceptable. But the post required me to remove the battery from the board or else pay additional costs.

Will see about tax/import charges once the board comes back to EU. Thanks Brexit, indeed!
« Last Edit: April 26, 2022, 04:59:25 AM by jagoche »
A2000, Blizzard 2040ERC, Spectrum (alive again), Masoboshi MC702
A4000, A3640, VLab, A2301
 

Offline Marco074

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Re: Experiences with Retropassion in UK?
« Reply #11 on: May 09, 2023, 05:11:31 PM »
I've been waiting for the PiStorm32-Lite full package version since April, let's hope they don't delay in delivery. :'(