Ribbit Computers Expose (Wichita: sales, home, employment)

[Thr0waway1995]

First let me start by saying: this is not speculation or false statements from a disgruntled customer or employee. I am a former employee who got out before the place crashed and burned from the inside, and I would like to shed some light on how this seemingly good 'mom and pop shop' from good ol' Wichita is screwing its community. I've outlined each topic in case you don't feel like reading every subject.

PHONE REPAIRS:

There are a lot of places in Wichita to get your phone fixed. One of them being Ribbit. Some people won’t experience any problems with their phones, and that's great. However from my experience I would say one to two of every 5 people who come in experience problems. And for the people who do experience problems, this is what it will be like:
Your screen may not sit down completely. If it's an android it's due to the glue under the screen. Ribbit reuses the glue already there, which is half or a fourth as sticky as it used to be once the old screen is removed. If it's an iPhone it’s because the frame of the phone is bent and doesn't allow the glass to sit flat.
So there's a good chance the screen or 'glass' will come back up causing it to be accidentally broken. Usually within the first 30 days. Which is the length of their Warranty. Sounds good right? WRONG. Because if you come into Ribbit with a broken screen due to their careless repair it won't be covered under warranty. Regardless of what issues you had related to their repair, all they see if a broken screen and refuse to cover it under warranty.
You can cry and complain all you want but you won’t get it for free (If you do you are very lucky and deserve some sort of award). You might get a discount. A 10 to 15 dollar discount on it..When the repairs are $99+ and you just paid full price for a screen a month or less ago. Their cost on almost all their screens are under 100 dollars, with 25 being the cheapest. Most likely over 100 on the most recent phone releases (And when I say most recent I mean in the last 6 months or so. The prices drop drastically over the course of a few months). So they can afford at the very least to 'break even' but they choose not to. If you get a screen replaced and the screen WILL NOT sit down properly all the way, they replace it anyway, charge you full price, and tell you to 'Get a case for the phone that covers the edge of the screen to keep it down. They required us to tell the customer upon pickup to get a case for it, otherwise the screen wont sit all the way and could break.

Another thing about the screens...They're not genuine Apple or Android manufacture's screens. They're parts made illegally in Asian countries. How do I know this? Well one give away is if you look the parts they have stickers placed over anywhere the part has a illegally placed brand name on it. Because it has to pass through customs and selling a non OEM screen with a brand's name on it without their permission is illegal. So it gets covered up. But legal points aside it's not a big deal right? I mean any place in Wichita you go is going to give you a knock off. Except Employees are told that if a Customer asks if they're genuine parts you're either to tell them Yes, or deflect the question. Which has caused problems for some customers and even voided their manufactures warranty. Employees know it will void the warranty through the provider but they're supposed to withhold that info unless questioned by the customer. Even then they're told to say things like "Oh I think it’s genuine, I'm not sure though" or something of that sort. Where that runs into issues when you want to do a warranty claim through your carrier, or in the case of one customer, where there was an iOS update that came out and if you had a non OEM screen on your phone, during the upgrade process it bricked the phone. He had Ribbit replace the screen thinking it was OEM and it wasn't and basically lost his phone and all his data on the phone.

One last thing on the topic of phones. The owner bought a handful of 'Otter Box' cases for all the stores. Most if not all of which have been sold by now. One employee found out they were counterfeit Otterbox cases, and brought it to the owner's attention. He said to sell them and anyone caught telling customer's they're knock offs will be immediately fired. This isn’t the first time he's done something like this.

RECYCLING SERVICE

The next thing I'm going to move on to is Ribbit’s recycling service or I should say resale service. This might not be that serious to some people but I think it's really shady. Ribbit charges 5 dollars per piece of equipment brought into the stores to be recycled. Seems reasonable right? Except, anything newer, or worth reselling, is done the same way. They charge you 5 dollars to recycle it...'refurbish' it and sell it for several hundreds of dollars. So not only are they making money from 'recycling' it, they're making hundreds in profit. One might argue "But OP! They got rid of it, it's at Ribbit's discretion to do what they want with it"...Right. But they could offer the customer money for it. Which they do with Apple computers now, because they realized people aren't so quick to just hand over an Apple computer that has a resell value of 400+ dollars. Also we were told if a customer asks if we do trade ins or buy used computers, we're to tell them "No, but we can recycle it for five dollars." and if they do and it's a newer computer in really good condition, they're to send it Downtown right away to be refurbished and resold. They also won't let employees take the stuff home for free or or at a discounted price. They can 'purchase it' for the resale price the customer's would pay after it's been evaluated and refurbished.

PRODUCT QUALITY

Next on the list is products. While a good amount of stuff that is stocked in the stores is decent stuff, A LOT of it is cheap junk. Things that last you barely a month. (Return policy on purchased items is 5 day return/10 day exchange unless it's computer hardware and that’s 30 days) Employees are told to back items whether they know they're good or not, just to make a sale. Items that are purchased for cents, and marked up thousands of percent. One example is cables. Most cables sold there (At a reasonable length like 6ft or 10ft) are bought for under five dollars (HDMI cables being the most expensive, and printer/USB cables being the cheapest). HDMI cables there cost under 5 dollars and are sold for 12 to 20 bucks a pop. USB cables like Printer cables and USB extension cables are purchased for mere cents. 65 cents, 80 cents. Resold for 10 dollars, 15 dollars or more. I understand you have to make a profit, but that markup is insane.

Going back to the topic of selling things they know are junk, Ribbit had issues with their Gamer builds a few years back. Customers were coming in anywhere from a week to 6 months after purchasing the Gaming pcs with blown power supplies. Upper management refused to let the techs replace it with a different power supply of higher quality. Even if the customer paid out right for it. Why? Because if the power supply happened to go out again they would have to cover that new, more expensive power supply under warranty. However they were okay with us replacing a more expensive one with a cheaper power supply if the original PSU was not something we normally stocked. So basically you come in order a 120 dollar Corsair power supply for your custom Ribbit built computer and a year later that power supply goes out, now you're going to get a 60 dollar Kroger brand power supply of equal watts. To this day they still sell the Rosewill brand of Powersupplies that caused them so many warranty claims. This stuff isn't recent either. I was told at one point they had gotten a shipment of refurbished desktop computers several years back. About 50 of them. 10 sent to each store. Of those 10 at each store, at least 6 of them had blown capacitors on the motherboards. (Which unless you know how to fix that, it's a bad motherboard). When it was brought to the owners attention he said "Sell them anyway" After so many of them got returned he finally took them back from the stores and most likely had them returned or just marked them off as a loss, because we never saw them again. But there’s no telling how many people bought one of those in that time period and got screwed out of a computer because it only lasted a few months or a year.
As of recently the stores have been getting parts pulled from recycled computers for resale. Not really mentioning that they're used. The sale stickers just say 'PULL' on them. Which means they've been pulled from recycled computers. I'm unsure of they were ever tested as a handful of them we tried to use were bad. Based on that I would assume they were never tested. So you might keep an eye out for that if you shop there. (It's mostly on RAM)


SERVICE (COMPUTERS)

For the most part Ribbit's service prices are really competitive. For what in-depth stuff the technicians do, their prices truly aren’t bad. They're actually cheap for the most part. The problem I have is the issues lie with what they're told to do, or tell customers when they bring in a PC. Technicians are expected to half diagnose the issue on the spot. Give the customer an idea of what they think the issue is, and what it may cost to fix it. However they are supposed to talk the customer into checking the computer in so that they can make 50 dollars (At least) for the diagnostic. There are a handful of steps you can take to eliminate most issues and narrow it down to a few things. If you're a good technician there are two really simple things you can do to narrow it down to a motherboard issue. One includes removing all the ram and see if the computer beeps at you when you turn it on. The thing is, even if the technician is pretty confident that it’s a bad motherboard they're supposed to check it in and have it evaluated so that they can make 50 dollars off the customer.

Some other things include hard drive replacements. Hard drives can have hard errors or soft errors. Soft errors are issues with data and can be repaired with HDD testing tools, or check disk. Hard errors are physical damage to the hard drive platter (The disk surface). Hard errors cannot be fixed and requires a drive replacement. However testing software can’t tell the difference between the errors you can just try to fix it. If the repair works its soft if it doesn’t work it’s hard.
Soft do not warrant a drive replacement. However Ribbit tells all their employees to not bother to see if it’s hard or soft errors. If the drive fails the test with even one bad sector they're to call the customer for a hard drive replacement, windows reinstall, and Data backup (If you have important data) A service that fully costs between 150 to 230 dollars before tax. That is a lot of money to spend for no reason.

The last thing is an over charge for certain repairs. One being power jack and screen replacements in Laptops. Most laptops nowadays come with a power jack that is attached to a cable and that cable is ran across the case of the laptop into a connection on the motherboard. Some have them soldered directly on the board but they're few and far between. The majority have the aforementioned cable connection. A part that costs between 10 to 25 dollars and a repair that usually takes about 30 to 45 minutes if that. They charge 150 dollars for that. But Employees were told that if the customer asks they're to fabricate the truth and say "the power jack needs to be soldered on and it’s a really extensive process and that’s why we charge so much"
Laptop screens are the same way but a little more understandable. Screens can range from 40 to 100 dollars for the replacement part. Takes about 30 to 45 minutes and people are charged 150. If it’s a touch screen they're charged usually 200 to 250 for no explained reason. If it’s a 17 inch screen it usually costs 200 for the repair but the price of the replacement screen is USUALLY the same as a standard 15.6 inch..All of which are purchased through random vendors on EBay. The same is done for laptop motherboards but to a worse extent. They purchase USED motherboards on ebay (Because used are the only boards you can get from Ebay) and they tell the customer they're new and charge a premium price for them. Any where from 250 to 900 dollars. I'll admit that motherboards on ebay arent cheap, but when they mark them up quite a bit as well.

SPECIAL ORDERING PRODUCTS:

Basically you're looking for something. A part for a computer, a battery for a laptop. Etc. and they don't stock it. You can have an item special ordered in 5 to 7 business days. Sounds fine. Here's the problem and it mostly involves laptop batteries. While you're standing there and the technician is 'checking our venders' what they're really doing is going on EBay and looking up the part number and finding the cheapest part. Sometimes it’s OEM sometimes it’s not. They then mark it up either 30% (Which is fine) to 200% and charge over 70 dollars for a battery that runs 25 dollars (Or less). That has a 30 day warranty on it (Through Ribbit). But it's something you can do on your own at home, on Amazon (or eBay) by just typing in the laptop model with (Battery) after it. You can even go to Batteries Plus and have them order one. It will be more expensive but it will last a lot longer. Not to mention you could go through your computer's manufacture and get them for the same price or a little more and probably have a better warranty on it. Now when it comes to computer hardware they're more likely to get it from Newegg and mark it up. It's more reputable but still something you can do on your own. Recently they started pushing this hardcore because they know they make a lot of money off special orders. Employees were told that if a customer comes in and asks for something and we don't have it, ALWAYS offer a special order to them.
Another instance when that pulled from recycles thing comes into play is this. On a handful of occasions while employed there, I put in a special order request for a NEW part, only to get a part that was clearly used. Most likely pulled from a recycled computer to be resold so they could make free money. While I can't prove this for sure, I'm pretty confident you wouldn't get a powersupply that was clogged with dust and smell like an ash tray from a seller on Ebay that calls themselves an electronic outlet.

EMPLOYEE KNOWLEDGE AND STAFFING:

Employees at Ribbit for the most part are really good people. The owner/upper management has a knack of hiring good people. They get a few jerks from time to time, but they're mostly good people. The problem on the customer side lies with the turnaround rate. Right now aside from upper management there probably isn’t an employee there that’s been there longer than 2 to 3 years. If there is, there’s only like 1 or two. Most employees are a year or less old in the company. The problem with that is there is no one who is really knowledgeable to teach them how to do their job. It's mostly the blind leading the blind. The reason behind this is that anyone who had the knowledge is either fired over something stupid (And its speculated it’s because they're thinning out the higher paid people) or they quit and move on because they're refused more money. I've been told there was a wage freeze sometime around 2012. So now people only get a raise if they're promoted to manager. Employees start out usually at 8 dollars but can start as low as minimum wage. If you're promoted to manager and have been with the company a year or less you are told you're not deserving of more than 9 dollars an hour (yes as a manager). If you've been there for more than a year you MIGHT get 10 but that’s a pretty big if. The most someone will ever make working there is probably 10 or 11. I knew a guy who had worked there for 7 years and when he quit he was only making 11.75 as a manager. Not to mention managers have to work 6 days a week with one day being an 8 hour weekend shift. If managers want two days off a week they have to convince the other manager to work the same schedule of 3 normal shift days, One full weekend day shift (8 hours) and one 12 hour (All day) weekday shift. If you want time off as a manager it’s nearly impossible. For techs it’s not so impossible but the other tech usually gets shafted working more hours than they want.

This wage issue leads to people not trying, or wanting to work to their fullest because they feel unappreciated. Especially when the owner goes out and buys flags to go outside that kept tearing in the wind (because flags are such a good idea in that Kansas wind.) More recently he bought those mechanic signs you've probably seen in front of all the stores, for 3 THOUSAND dollars apiece. That's almost 10 grand he spent on signs that boosted sales when he first got them, but now people are 'immune' to them and don't pay attention. 10 thousand dollars that could have went to giving employees a raise...Even if it were just a mere 25 cents. Or upgrading the internect connections to make things go faster at their stores. Or even upgrading their Point of Sale machines that were built in 2008 and are out dated and slow..anything to better the company.

All employees who are hourly are all part time. No normal hourly employee can work more than 39 hours in a week unless it’s been approved. The company always remains under a certain number of employees so that the owner doesn’t have to provide benefits to the employees. And salaried employees are worked to the bone and asked to do stuff like drive the owner around or help him with this other businesses so they're constantly burned out, stressed and on the verge of walking out. I've been told stories some of the employees back in the day were asked to wash and wax the owners BMW but I don't know how true that is. However I wouldn't put it past him. This past year during Black Friday, he ordered all employees to show up at 8:30AM on Black Friday, (And Saturday, and Sunday) and work ALL DAY. No exceptions. An 11 hour shift Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. No one could take a vacation. So if you had plans to visit your family Thanksgiving weekend, you were SOL. Also most employee’s days off fall on or around a weekend day. So anyone who's days off were on Fri-Sun, they didn't get a day off. So they worked the week of Thanksgiving, (Minus Thursday), the weekend, And then another full week. The majority of the managers had to work 14 days straight. Some techs had to work 10 days. Upper management worked, but only on Saturday until 5, and they didn't work at all on Sunday, despite the fact that the stores were open Saturday and Sunday for 11 hours instead of their normal 8.

THE OWNER

The owner comes off as nice for the most part, but the man is very condescending and has a god complex. I'm not sure if that's just his personality, or he feels because he owns a few successful companies in Wichita that he's a god or something. Anything selfless he does in the eyes of the public is done to boost PR with the company. Not to mention that he treats his employees who aren’t upper management like they're expendable and mean nothing. When employees leave or get fired he talks bad about them behind their back. And it doesn't even have to be an ex employee, it could be a current employee too. He just talks down to everyone. Employees are constantly being threatened with their job, and if you have plans and the owner does some sort of surprise after hours task, he talks down to you because you wont stay. Why? Because he'd rather ruin the night of his employees to save money than hire someone to do the job right. A few months back they started requiring all managers to go to a 'Manager's Meeting' every Thursday after the stores close. In the email they sent out, it said "Anyone who can't make regular accommodations to come to the meetings should seek employment elsewhere". That is not something you tell people who you value as employees. Not to mention most of the manager meetings I've been to have been a total waste of time. Things that could be said in an email, or discussed in an email. Instead they waste an hour or more of the managers time, after they've already been at work. (Granted they get paid to be at the meeting but still.)

You can take what you want from this, but this company has very shady work ethics and the owner who seems like a good guy is a giant arrogant jerk. It's undoubtly the worst place I've ever worked for. I also don't think its fair what is done to their customers, and I feel they have a right to know especially if it's costing them money.

[Mid America Lifer]

One thing I haven't liked about Ribbit computer, they demand your name and contact information when making even a small purchase, that was one thing about Radio Shack that turned people off.

[cattalk1]

Like techs better than Geek Squad. Ribbit would show more than half a brain and offer to reform hard drive....Better to get desktop computer and learn it all yourself including phone glass. Own operating system disks for computer and know how to do system image, or cheap Windows 10 factory reset for no OS disk computers.