As I’m off on leave for a while I thought I’d toss this into the water and see how many ripples there are when I get back!

I have just got to have a moan about this as my most recent example of so called ‘Healthcare’ companies ripping off the NHS. I required one front panel button for a GE/Datex-Ohmeda Light Monitor for the ‘reset all’ function on the monitor. I Ring up GE for a replacement only to find that you have to buy a complete set of 9 buttons at a cost of £118. So to get what I need they rip us off for over £100 on parts we don’t even want. Yet another example of he worst kind of ‘customer support’ ever in my book! What is even more galling is that when the set arrived all the buttons were in individual packs with separate part numbers on them. Why is this if only complete sets are available?

What’s the worst spare parts or service rip off you’ve ever experienced?

Time for another visit to the Wall of Shame, then!

What an excellent find Geoff!

Could it be that the manufacturer receives 'sub-assembly kits' (as boxes of parts) from various different suppliers and then assembles those boxes of 'Parts' to build the device?

They then sell us the 'sub-assembly kit' rather than the part - because that is how they buy them in.

If this is the case, they need to give us a list of their 'sub-assembly kit' suppliers so we can get those 'original' parts... or the manufacturers need to look at the feasability of supplying 'sub-assembly' parts.

I am just in the process of ordering a replacement sounder. question is, do i order it from the equipment manufacturer(@ a cost of just less than £50.00 not inclusive of VAT etc), or buy it from RS at roughly a 1/5th the cost??
although i think the sounder from RS will have to have a connector fitted.

isnt it time someone stepped in and put a holt to these over inflated prices? sadly i guess they have "us" over a barrel, we cant just nip to the local shop and buy any old suitable 3rd party replacement part.

Looking at the "wall of shame" it appears that the companies that crop up most over there are the same ones that we have trouble with. My most recent "gouge" was with GE. I wanted a trim pot for a Marquette Solar monitor but was told that they only supplied the keypad module complete at a cost of £350. In the past we were able to order a similar part for the Marquette Eagle for about £50. We thought £50 was a bit steep, the part was available for about a tenner in RS.

Hi John me old mucker.
We needed to buy some battery covers for GE Marquette Apex S Telemetry boxes and this would cost us £27.40 each for a very small piece of plastic. If 6 are bought and you add VAT and £20.00 carriage this raises the price to over £213.00.

Rip-off or what?

Why not just nip out, Paul? Just as long as you know what you're doing, what's the problem?

At the risk of upsetting some of your sponsors, Huw, how about setting up our own gouges section? Perhaps it might even do a bit of good by "naming and shaming" suppliers, and embarrassing them into changing their greedy ways (but don't hold your breath on that one)! They would, after all, have the right of redress (ie, proving us wrong).

I "nipped out" to RS and bought the required part Geoff. That’s an extra £40 the top dogs can add to their payslip and pay rises etc teehee.

Just need a hot pointy thing to melt the metal glue onto the wires and sounder shiny bits ;-)

Shame no one has time to create a huge database of company part numbers and an alternative supplier with part number etc.

The worst thing is when you buy something from a supplier and they can't even be bothered to repackage it, it comes in an RS bag and then you discover you've just paid 5 times the already expensive RS price (but at least we won't be making that mistake again )