And you think YOU'VE had to deal with massive suckage...

[clod75]

WTH? I think he would have to have been throwing and threatening in order to be arrested, but the article makes no mention of that... and yet to be released without charge? that seems to me that the caller exaggerated the call. AND it's utter bullchips that the police officer tells the garage manager to lower it... BULLCHIPS!

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Geez. You slap a badge on some people's chests and they go around thinking they are God.

The mechanic couldn't have been acting in a manner worthy of disorderly conduct or some such thing if they released him with no charges filed.

[Hon'ya-chan]

Cheapskate calls cops on Mechanic

Shocking moment: Responding Officer tells mechanic to lower the price further before arresting him.

http://www.sundaysun.co.uk/news/nort...9310-21547006/

[Aethian]

Already posted dear.

[Hon'ya-chan]

Uh, where?

[JLRodgers]

I believe:
http://www.customerssuck.com/board/s...ad.php?t=33495

[Jay 2K Winger]

My... brain... hurts...

[One-Fang]

Ok, so where in the laws of Great Britain does it say that an officer of the law can tell a person working at a shop that he must sell products and/or services at a loss?

Nowhere, and since it didn't happen, there's no issue here.

The "he" in the quoted piece refers to the customer, who was saying it was the mechanic's "last chance". Not the police officer.

"“When I said the parts cost more than that, the policeman said ‘we’ve got a situation here..."

What most likely happened is that the mechanic somewhat indignantly refused the customer's "last chance" offer, perhaps with threats of physical violence. The police officer stepped in to prevent one person causing bodily harm to another, and hauled the aggressive one off to jail.

I'm sorry, but I really don't see that this guy is so pure and innocent as he claims. Police do not take people into custody for refusing to lower prices. However, people DO lie about how well behaved and good mannered they were, especially in confrontational situations.

I think we hae a sucktastic feast here, on all sides, including the cop somewhat, perhaps, but definitely on the mechanic and the customer as well.

Chances are, the entire thing could have been managed better by the officer. However, if an investigation determined that under the circumstances hauling the guy in was the best thing to do, then there was a valid reason for it.

[Kat]

That pisses me off. I'm sure the mechanic was more angry than he's making himself out to be, but I do believe he didn't swear or do anything to warrant an arrest.

Here are MY fun asshole police stories. :]
My father is driving out of a bar at 2AM. He plays poker there with drunk people and wins more often at that time of night. So he pulls partially-off the curb instead of out of the driveway because it's TINY and he has a dodge dakota which BARELY fits through. LOTS of people drive off the curb.

He'd been pulled over two days before around the same time by the same cop, but got to leave. Well, my 66 year old father is asked to take a sobriety test. He tells the officer he has an inner ear problem (which is true) and he can't walk a straight line. WELL, try it anyway.

So he does and - omgz - he fails, because... INNER EAR PROBLEM. SO he's arrested and taken to the county sherrif's office where he blows a .01 on the breathalyzer. The officer realizes he's wrong, and goes to get a second opinion. Well the second opinion is that my father NEEDS a drug test, because although he's explained his inability to walk a straight line one-foot in front of the other TWICE now, and he's WELL BELOW the legal limit, he MUST be on SOMETHING.

So his car is impounded, he's out about $1000, and the court has been pushing back his case because UH NOTHING IS WRONG. He'll be filing a civil suit in January if nothing is done by then for false arrest and for the exact amount, nothing more, than what he had to pay. I told him he should ask for more for having to deal with it, but he's not a dick. The thing he's most upset about is that the officer had a chance to make things right, and he chose not to.

THEN there's my cousin Mona. She's 12, and deaf. She's traveling on a road with her deaf friend, and someone comes tearing down a 50 road at 65. for TWO HUNDRED YARDS she's honking. Personally, I wouldn't assume this child is deaf, I'd assume it was RETARDED. But, I wouldn't keep going and move to the middle of the road - I'd fucking stop and bitch about where the hell this childs mother is and why the hell are they in the middle of the road etc. etc., because I saw them from TWO FOOTBALL FIELDS AWAY.

But no, this woman kept going, slowed to 45, and HIT my cousin. She fell out of her shoes. So instead of getting out and calling the police and being like "OHHHSHIITTT", she gets out, goes to the BACK of her car where a 12-year-old who is bowlegged and looks like they're 10 is not, and has a smoke. Then another. Then another. And then it's police time. Meanwhile, a 10-year-old deaf boy is freaking the fuck out that this girl is laying her bleeding.

So an officer shows up, makes sure the woman -- yes the woman -- is alright. Calls the hospital, an ambulance is on the way. He asks for license and registration, but ohhh her license has been suspended. Clearly nothing wrong here - no charges were cited and actually Mona had jumped out into the middle of the road, so it was her fault.

...I don't care if Mona threw herself in front of the car. The woman had a SUSPENDED LICENSE and therefore had no right to be on the road in the first place. Poor baby only had 3 cigarettes left, and had to wait around for almost an hour before she could leave.

And yes, Mona survived and after a medically induced coma, a broken leg, spleen, arm, and three (count them: THREE) ribs, she's out of the hospital.

Now that's not to say I don't respect the law or officers of the law, but I do not like power-hungry assholes who think what they say goes and don't give a shit about citizens, which is what their job is.

[Samaliel]

Okay. My Faith in Humanity is now officially dead. Time of death : 12:42pm (GMT+2), on August 20, 2008.

[Plaidman]

Okay. My Faith in Humanity is now officially dead. Time of death : 12:42pm (GMT+2), on August 20, 2008.

Which is 11 years and a day since Judgment Day ironicly.

Yeah. Cops a dick.

[Plaidman]

Not really fair. I'm damn sure Hon'ya-chan checked first. In the check it out section, since its a link, not a customer story.

[Samaliel]

Is it, now ? Where did you pick that from ? I love End of Times prophecies and whatnots.

[IT Grunt]

Probably referring to Terminator 2. Judgment Day was supposed to be on August 29th, 1997.

I have to agree that a police officer should not be able to come in and force someone to sell their goods at whatever price the SC or the police officer wants them to. The only potential 'disturbing the peace' on the garage owner's part I can see is if he put up a protest to these demands, which he was well within is rights to do IMHO.

[Shangri-laschild]

Ok, so where in the laws of Great Britain does it say that an officer of the law can tell a person working at a shop that he must sell products and/or services at a loss?

At one point the situation got to this level.


So where is it on the books, that stating that the offered payment is less than the cost of the parts is an arrestable offense? Granted that Devil's Advocate states that we don't know what the mechanic's true reactions were, but we do know that a police officer came in when called by the customer and dictated that the mechanic had to reduce the price.

“The customer then said he wanted it dropped to £850.

“I said I couldn’t do that, but I could take all the parts back and he could take the Land Rover elsewhere to be fixed. Then he argued my last chance was to agree to £550.”

I'm reading this as the 550 was stated by the customer not the officer. I don't see in there where the officer stated what the price should be. All it says is the officer thought there was a situation and he wanted to break it up. According to this article (whether he was in the right or not) he didn't arrest anyone for the price being wrong, he arrested him because it looked like things were going to get messy or already had.

I don't know if this guy was wrongfully arrested or not. For all we know, he was talked to and cautioned, but not charged because they were trying to do him a favor. For all we know, he wasn't actually polite. How many of you have had customers who claimed to your boss that they were polite and really they had been in your face asses about it? Once again, it's only one side of the story. And in fact, all he claims is that he was never rude while in custody. He never says anything about his demeaner while at the garage. For all we know he was being a complete ass while there.

I'm not saying for sure the cop wasn't in the wrong, but there's a bit more to consider before you just believe that what the mechanic is saying is completely correct and all the facts are there.