Hardware

I think you miss and misuse the point of this forum.

I would remand you to a court of lower jurisdiction.

if he does such shotty work then people will soon catch on when their "repaired" systems start failing them. Then it will go back to being just your shop on the street :)

He just really is that clueless, or there will be a catch when the time for replacement comes around.

I can only advise you do what I did at the time. I said "We have different approaches to our work, I follow a professional outline and work ethic that I use. I advised you of the problem as I saw it, you chose to go elsewhere and they see a different problem. I've no trouble with that as it's your system and your money. I can only say I don't get systems back with the same problem, I don't know about him."

That way you can't be got at for putting him down, but you leave a seed of doubt in the client's mind. Then you sit back and wait for the client's next visit.

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The worst case I had was parts for an older Compaq weren't available and the local Compaq rep said the system couldn't be repaired, the woman should throw it away and buy a new one. She couldn't afford that. I replaced the hard drive with a new one that was different, because it was the Compaq version of Windows wouldn't run, so I loaded a new version of Win 98SE, the original was Win 95. I got the system working with more RAM, a bigger hard drive, and a newer OS than the original set up.

While she was away on holidays her sister's kids were allowed to use system while visiting their gran, they picked up a virus off the Internet. Gran took the machine to the Compaq dealer who immediately wiped the legal copy of Win 98 SE as the manual said Win 98 doesn't run on that machine. He did a format C and also wiped all the data as he made no attempt to back it up and complained about the system being faulty as the standard image for that system wouldn't run on it. He charged $100.00 and gave it back not working after two weeks.

I went back to the shop with the woman's mother and ended up getting the owner called in and getting her money back as they not only failed to fix the machine but made it worse.

Interestingly that shop was out of business after only 18 months of operation, and I wasn't surprised. the techs all had Compaq certifications but all they could do was run Ghost to re-image machines and do blanket swaps of parts from stock, no real knowledge of the hardware or how the systems worked.

...I promise you the problem will correct itself.

the HDD when it fails, and needs replacing, will suddenly be a different problem, and needs to be purchased. Either that or he's got a stack of free HDD's somewhere?
There is a catch whatever the case.

Whatever you do though, you really should keep from badmouthing the other shop. Not only is it unprofessional, if the loser there is a jerk, he may hit you with a slander suit. Best is to avoid the possibility.

Likely if you have been giving good service and have satisfied customers, you will keep many customers, regardless of what is in his window. The other shop will likely pull some away, however, if these people are unsatisfied, you will likely find them return. And in these cases, you may end up with lifetime customers.

I wouldnt worry too much about it, unless you charge way, way too much or put out shoddy work.