Do you have any or all your email and snail mail correspondence with the
shop? Also, do you have a serial number off the 500C? If you do then you
should be able to get the unit back either by talking to the service
shop or as a last resort by involving the law. It is not uncommon for a
service shop to fall on bad times and or to have the owner/operator get
sick and become unresponsive to requests. If the shop has gone under,
all items in the shop may have been seized by creditors. If you have
valid proof that you own a piece of equipment in the shop, they must
give it back to you. But, in many areas, while the liquidation of assets
for payment of past due bills is in progress, things might be tied up.
The bottom line is this. Print and save all correspondence with the
shop. Have a record of the serial number. If you can not get a response
from the shop owner then talk to the law or make an actual visit to the
shop and request your unit back and just take it with you. Believe it or
not, small individual home based shops like my own can be a lot more
responsive to your service requests because many of us will only take on
what we can actually handle and not stock pile jobs like larger shops
tend to do. Every shop is different. Some will give you a written
estimate with an ETA on when it will be done and others will just string
you along. I generally like to see the unit first, then I can tell a
person A, if it is worth repairing, B, a ball park figure of what it
will cost, and C, how long it will take. Once I start with your unit, I
work it till it is finished. I do not do several at once. When A person
does that, they tend to have a pile of half finished jobs and a lot of
****ed off customers. If I could not turn a receiver like a 500C around
in a month (unless waiting for some strange part) I would admit to the
customer that I am stumped and not charge them for anything other then
the shipping back to them. I don't charge for what I don't fix. Every
technician runs intot he unit with a strange intermittent problem. SOme
of these are very difficult to find. But 7 years? That is a bit extreme.
You could build a receiver from scratch in that time.

Larry Crimson wrote:

More than 7 years ago I sent a Fisher 500-C to Al Pugliese of the
Fisher Radio Corp to be repaired. I have pleaded with him to send the
radio back to me repaired or not for years. I have filed several
complaints with the Better Business Bureau without any success. My
question is, when you send someone an item to be repaired and they
refuse to return it, what recourse do you have?

Thanks.

Larry Crimson