Originally Posted by Paniolo
Well, I'm in retail and I tend to look at this as in the time the lbs spent in haggling about $8 they could have just untangled the chain and gained a customer for future purchases. Instead they have likely lost a customer for ever. Their labor, overhead etc was not impacted at all by this, but they lost an opportunity to gain a customer ... not to mention the bad word of mouth mxu is spreading locally at his school etc. instead of the good word of mouth if they just fixed it. Sure they didn't owe him anything ... but they missed a no cost opportunity to gain a customer.
Well I'm going to agree with the above. 5 minutes to straighten out the chain and show him how to mount a rear wheel could win a long term customer and maybe many more. But many of you would pass that up in favor of squeezing $8 out of a kid. Bernie Ebbers and Ken Lay would be proud of you.