On top of everything else, Geek Available (AKA GeekAvailable) had misdiagnosed what was wrong with my computer display. But the computer should be back in working order some time on Monday.

And to-day's additional Geek Available (AKA GeekAvailable) datum is that the fellow who goes by the name of Rafael Schneider is in fact Rafael Schneider Pereira.

(A datum for yester-day would be that the Better Business Bureau informed me that they had forwarded my complaint to Geek Available, and would again contact me in two weeks, or sooner if Geek Available replied within that time.)

It is possible for LiveJournal users to effectively beFriend me (in spite of my having deleted my old LJ), by adding external identity profile oeconomist.com to their Friends lists, and by adding the syndication journal oeconomist_rss to their Friends lists.

External identity profile oeconomist.com corresponds to my OpenID, and beFriending it would allow me to read and to comment to Friends-only entries. I have been pondering whether I should allow the profile to abide, because to me it looks uncomfortably like a LiveJournal account, and I of course chose to delete my LJ account in response to LJ policies. But I've decided that the distinction is sufficient that, at least for now, I will allow the profile to remain and will use it.

Most or all of you know about the syndication journal oeconomist_rss; it pulls the non-protected entries from this 'blog and temporarily makes them available on LJ such that they will appear on Friends pages. (The only present way to get the protected entries is to log into the 'blog using an ID and password got from me. Anyone who was on my old LJ Friends list can be assured of being given one upon request.) The syndication journal itself is actually not my creäture but that of 28bytes. Comments to the syndication journal itself are not registered here, and may therefore escape my notice.

Geek Available (AKA GeekAvailable) would not release my computer without my first paying an alleged evaluation fee. Rodrigo Pereira himself was not there; I spoke with Suelen dos Santos Ferreira and with Rafael Schneider. I told them that they wouldn't get to keep the money, because I would recover it by way of the Better Business Bureau or by way of the courts. Mr Schneider claimed not to know much of what happened, and for all that I know he may have been telling the truth. I related events to him, emphasizing that I could document essential points, and explained that, in the context of the delays and lies, and failure to let me know that they were attempting to obtain the part by way of a dubious channel, they were not entitled to any fee. Mr Schneider called Rod Pereira, who apparently insisted that they charge the fee. (Of course, things having played-out in this way precludes Pereira being able to claim that he hadn't intended to charge the fee.) Mr Schneider said that, as an employee, he was compelled to take the fee, and that I could do what I thought was fair in response. I told him that what I thought was fair and intended to do was to see to it that the business failed. I advised him to look for employment elsewhere.

So I paid the fee — writing under protest above my signature on the credit card form — was given my computer, and left. I paused in the hall to put the computer in its back-pack. As I did so, Ms Ferreira came after me with a form, telling me that she needed for me to sign it, to show that I'd taken receipt of my computer. I said I understand. and left without signing. While I of course won't pretend that I didn't recover my computer, I really had no reason to facilitate their paperwork.

Meanwhile, the review that I had most recently posted to Kudzu was again deleted, and when I attempted to repost it I twice got an error message about Kudzu being unable to understand my search. I wasn't attempting to search, but I figured that perhaps Kudzu might stop behaving oddly if I used a different account. That worked.

Recently, my website has again been slow. I've had to cool my heels waiting for content, and I've noticed that the LiveJournal RSS feed for this 'blog has repeatedly been thwarted by server time-out.

Last night and this morning, for a while, the site was really dragging. And a post that I'd made seemed to evaporate, then reäppear after I'd composed and posted a replacement, then vanish again. My inference is that FourBucks.net at some point was trying to resolve problems, and that the flitting into-and-out-of existence of that post was symptomatic of servers being swapped or of various back-ups over-writing each other.

It would have been better if FourBucks.net had locked things for maintenance, and declared themselves as doing so. Some 'blogger could have written a rather lengthy post and then seen his or her work utterly erased.

Rodrigo Pereira has now changed his eBay alias from geekavailable to rodrafael (Rafael Schneider being one of his associates at GeekAvailable.com), in an attempt to make his tracks less traceable.

This particular dodge is worse than useless for him — I can show that he’s done it with the eBay history of the account names, and it will make it more plain to the Better Business Bureau that he’s trying to conceal what he’s been doing.

Meanwhile, I note that my review was deleted from Kudzu. So I wouldn't recommend using them more generally as a guide to the businesses with which one should deal.

Up-Date: Now I note that the whole company listing has been removed from Kudzu, after I'd posted a new, brief review.

Up-Date 2: Actually, the entry for Geek Available (AKA GeekAvailable) was moved, with my review deleted. So I've posted a new review.

At Kudzu, I wrote a negative review of GeekAvailable.com (AKA Geek Available):^[1]

ThiefAvailable

GeekAvailable estimated a turn-around time of 72 hours, but did not even order a needed part for 48 hours (then lied about when they'd ordered it), and actually ordered a substandard or counterfeit part from an unreliable seller on eBay! After more than a week, they were still making excuses for not doing the job (because the eBay dealer was still waiting on a shipment of junk from China). Then the geek went into hiding, with my computer! Who knows when I'll get it back and what will have happened to it? (I've complained to the Better Business Bureau.)

in response to which Rod Pereira wrote the following:

Dear competitor: we don't order parts on ebay (that's why we have warranty on everything we sell/service and we don't accept installing cheap parts clients order there and ask us to install to make it as cheap as can be yet it means losing the job sometimes) and we can't hide any computers as we have a shop. If you had a computer with us you could just walk in and pick it up. The only computers that are on shop are either waiting for pick up or for authorization on the job. Please make sure you'll be a little more ethical next time. regards, GeekAvailable management.

So I simply tacked-on an addendum to my review, suggesting that people search for bids on eBay by geekavailable,^[2] identifying the number of the lot from which he tried to get a part for my computer, and explaining how I'd been told that the shop would be open until 15:00 but was closed before 14:10.

Then I tried calling his sales number, and Rodrigo Pereira answered, from some noisy venue. He professed amazement at what I'd done, replied with a bald Okay. when I told him that I'd already furnished the Better Business Bureau with proof that he'd ordered the part off eBay, acted outraged at a claim that he was in anyway responsible for his business being closed when I was told that it would be open, angrily told me that I could pick-up my computer on Monday through Friday, and hung-up on me.

So, basically, having been busted, he reäcted in a way that can be classified as some mixture of adolescent and sociopathic.

Up-Date: Having been busted, Rod completely rewrote his reply:

Dear Client: friday you called saying that wouldn't like to wait for the part to get to our shop. We said that we could meet you at the shop just so you can pick your computer back. Check in our business hours and you'll see that we don't open on saturdays. We would be there until around 3 to go through some house cleaning. My associate left the office at 2:30 as you haven't called or showed up by then differently than the other two clients that she mentioned that would stop by to pick up the computer. We could have just told you to come next week but decided to help you having your computer ASAP. it's unfortunate you couldn't make it but she couldn't wait the whole day as it was a favor she was doing for me agreeing to hand your computer back to you on a day she wouldn't even ordinarily be working. Please come to the shop on tuesday and your computer will be waiting for you as it was on saturday. Regards, Rod

I added another addendum, which made it plain that he'd rewritten his reply, that I had been there at 14:10, and that he had stolen many days of my computer from me.

---

^[1] Later, both this review and a positive review were deleted from Kudzu. Then the entry for the business was moved, then the positive review was restored. I can only guess as to what silliness will follow.

^[2] The account alias has since been changed to rodrafael , so the appropriate search would be for bids with that name.

Having been told yester-day that GeekAvailable.com (AKA Geek Available) would close to-day at 15:00, I arrived at their suite at 14:10. No prize for guessing that they were completely closed-up.

Had they told me yester-day that they would not be open to-day (in spite of their having been there the previous Saturday), I could have picked-up my computer in the late after-noon yester-day.

I left an angry message on their answering machine, noting that I'd been told that they'd be open until 15:00, and explaining that, when I got home, I would file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, that if that didn't produce satisfactory results then I'd take them to court, and that the reason that I was going to the BBB first was because it would actually take more out of the hide of GeekAvailable.com to have an outstanding complaint there.

I have indeed filed the complaint.

Poking around, I see that GeekAvailable ordered the replacement part for my computer on eBay. The part was ordered on 17 May at 13:26:22 PDT, about 3 minutes before the call from Rod in which he told me that he'd ordered it on Thursday or on Friday but couldn't find a tracking number for it in his e.mail.

And he ordered it from originalpartsglobal. Now, if Rod had used ToolHaus.org, then he might have learned that, while originalpartsglobal listed the unit location as Albuquerque, his merchandise actually ships from China. Not much chance of it having got to San Diego in 72 hours. Really, even without ToolHaus.org, Rod should know better than to rely upon a seller with 63 negatives and 107 neutrals out of 7926 feedback entries in the last year.

I called GeekAvailable.com yet again to-day, after the time at which they had previously indicated that they received parts, and asked them for the status of my computer. I was again told that they were trying to get a tracking number from the supplier of the needed part.

I asked them at what time they would close to-morrow, and was told that they would close at 15:00. I said that I would come to-morrow to pick-up my computer, as this has gone on too long.

I think that it's remarkable that a business would be so amateurish as to utterly alienate a customer to try to avoid replacing an relatively inexpensive part gone astray. GeekAvailable.com has already lost the cost of that part! Now they've additionally lost the profit associated with ordering a new part and installing it for me.