:shock: they are to me :D :D
"Not so sure some of the machines are a "viable piece of merchandise"...

another thing I noticed as I worked my way through the dealers (looking to add to the pack :) is that none of them really take trade ins. I was looking for a used machine...

To my point...dealers do not deal in used machines....nor do they likely have the time/desire to do ebay or CL...

what do dealers do with machines that they trade if one upgrades under a buy back guarantee?

I haven't been asked for a deposit, but it wouldn't bother me. As said before pay now or later. It's all for the same cause.

I take my Bernina in and never have been asked for a deposit. Wouldn't bother me if they did, I won't forget to go pick it up.

There are used machines and there are used machines...a used upper level machine is salable...many of the machines taken in for repair are not in that category, but a repair shop cannot have a policy of deposit for one machine and not another. I think this is like someone else said...very much dependent on where you live. But why would anyone care if there was a deposit, it would be taken off the price of the repair anyway.

I don't know if the reason for asking for the deposit is the same, but a TV repair shop owner that was a good friend of mine started asking for deposits for TV repair when years went by and folks didn't pick up the TV's. He had to stor them and finally get rid of them and it was a HUGE expense
to him with all the charges HE had to pay to get rid of the unwanted items. This may be the same for the sewing machine repair man....

That's the same thing I went through here in Macon. I dropped my machine off and they were going to charge me $25.00 to have the repair guy take the embroidery unit with him. That wouldn't have been applied to any service work, it was just for him taking the unit with the machine.

I brought it back home and took it to the dealer I bought it from in Kentucky when we went up there for a visit. They never charge for the service man to take the embroidery unit.

Hey, we have service people here in NY who charge a fee just for coming out to your hse to give an est. Anywhere from 60-80 has to be pd in advance even if you don't use their service after you get the est. to fix the object...

The great guy who services my machine has a deposit up front. I asked him why, thinking like you that there is no way I would abandon my $1000 machine. Not only did he charge a deposit, he had a contract that said that if I didn't pick up my machine within 30 calendar days after he notified me by mail that my machine was ready he was free to sell it. He said he would telephone first but if after 3 or 4 calls, all he got was a machine or no answer, then he'd mail a letter and the time period would commence.

He took me to his storage room. Turns out that a fair number of people really do abandon their sewing machines. I was flabbergasted. He had 10 or more sewing machines in there that customers had abandoned and they weren't all cheap ones, either. He'd accepted them before he instituted contracts, so he felt he couldn't sell them or give them away. All he could do was let them take up room in his storage area.

He said that people still abandoned their machines at least a couple times a year, but with the deposit and the ability to sell them to recoup his costs, it didn't bother him so much.