Mark's Electronics Inc.

Go literally anywhere else. Literally anywhere. Either the owner or the techs are gouging you and doing shoddy work as well. I'm not talking about paying $50 up front, that is not the issue here. And by the way don't expect any kind of status on your item, there is no accountability at this shop. The item is either done or it is not done so don't expect to be able to call and ask when it will be done or what repairs are being made. So lets talk about what is going on here. I took in an NES, fairly easy to repair with respect to modern electronics. Its a very basic system. I had already dissambled it and checked the components I could get to, looked at the pcb traces, inspected the ICs, checked the inputs. The only part I could not get to was in a soldered shut metal box and I didn't have the tool to remove that much solder or the patience to do it by hand. $50 for the downpayment cost, shouldn't really be more than that since I already did some troubleshooting right? Pretty sure I know what the issue is and it isn't an expensive one. The repair I thought that my system was in need of takes 2 hours maximum and requires one or two capacitors. They had my disassembled console for 3 weeks. The NES uses electrolytic capacitors, sounds scary right? Not really, they are the cheapest capacitors you can buy because they have been around forever, also incredibly easy to install since they slide through a hole and are soldered in place. My bill was $96. $25 for capacitors and $70 for hours. Capacitors you could buy for less than a or close to a dollar a piece. And hint, there are not 25 capacitors in the system. Based on the joints I see they replaced two maybe three capacitors. I wish I was their supplier because I would love to sell them components at 5 - 10x market price. Lets also talk about the joints, now when you solder the finished product should be obviously shiny, if it comes out dull then you have a "cold joint" which don't last as long and generally underperform when compared to a properly soldered joint. All the joints they soldered are dull. So they can't solder the simplest joints and charge you 10x market for components. Next up the techs attached a lovely note saying they could not test for functionality. So 96 bucks, couldn't be bothered to call me for any extra parts they might need, that I absolutely have, to verify that their repair works. Which it doesn't by the way. I do minor repairs on my own electronics, the only reason I didn't repair this myself was I thought it might be cheaper than buying a desoldering gun. Almost a hundred dollars later with no actual substantial work done and no real repair effort made I can see I was mistaken. The fact that they take $50 up front was no big deal. Until they came back and charged me essentially the value of the console. The $50 upfront fee covers the cost of you not returning for your item, understandable. However the jacked up prices no doubt serve to purposefully make you want to abandon your item so they can turn around and sell it. You are literally paying them to fix an item that they will sell if you don't claim it. Its one thing to charge a nominal $20 fee and get customers a quote then do the repair. Its another to charge a $50 fee, inflated parts prices, do the repair with no input, and never provide any transparency.