Pinball Perfect – Service not so!
Even though I’ve bought a new Apron for my TAF, it’s the wrong one (it’s a Hurricane) so needs some work doing to it in order to turn it into a TAF Apron (removing current decals, preparing it to paint, painting it black, applying TAF decals and then applying a lacquer finish).
Being lazy however, I continue to look for an actual TAF Apron and actually found a source at Pinball Perfect (www.pinball-perfect.de) in Böblingen, Germany. They actually offered me an Apron for 115 €uro – a little excessive methinks.
So, on a visit to Böblingen, I visited the said company and asked them whether it would be possible to negotiate a price.
Sure enough, from an old box, high up on one of their shelves they pulled out an old TAF Apron which looked a lot worse than my current one. Of course they could prepare this for me and on looking at the actual prices for a TAF Apron on the internet, concluded that I could actually have it for 70 €uro.
Well, this was still a bit excessive for me, so I declined.
Having returned home, I sent a follow-up email to Pinball Perfect, stating that as they had to prepare the apron, paint it, apply the decals and then clearcoat it, I would save them all that bother and expense and still give them 20 €uro for the original Apron.
Strangely, they declined my friendly offer, with the words: “unimaginable and therefore absolutely impossible!”
For a company that charges 48€ per hour for mechanical work, considering the amount of such work and the cost of decals plus paint that would be needed to repair the apron, it seems to me like this decision has not been made on a commercial basis, but rather based on G-R-E-E-D!