The owner of Santa Monica’s Computer Palace won a $689 judgment from a customer who purchased a custom-built computer there last November but refused to pay for it.
Defendant Alan Fox, of Santa Monica, testified that salespeople at the computer shop gave him misleading promises, made appointments they didn’t keep and ultimately sold him a piece of equipment that didn’t work.
“To top it all off, the motherboard was defective,” said Fox, who used some of his own hardware to customize the computer.
Computer store owner Navid Zolouk had a different story. He told the court Fox had been difficult from the very moment he arrived to pick up his Pentium 4, 40-gigabyte computer.
“I was 20 minutes late (to open the store) because my four-year-old daughter had an emergency,” Zolouk said. “And he was yelling and screaming, wanting his money and parts back. It was very embarrassing for us.”
Despite the embarrassment, Zolouk said he offered to have a technician remove parts from the computer that Fox had installed. Fox then took the computer home.
When Fox did not return to the store, Zolouk charged his credit card for the full $918 invoice. But Fox canceled the credit card payment, saying he had removed his parts from the machine and was awaiting Zolouk’s retrieval of the remaining items.
Fox further claimed the store’s merchandise was defective — though he admitted he had disassembled the computer and later pieced it back together.
In court, Zolouk offered to fix Fox’s computer and provide him with a new warranty, but said he was unwilling to refund cash at this point, nearly a year later. Zolouk’s claim, which was for $1,064, covered the $918 bill for parts and labor, as well as a 2 percent monthly interest charge.
Fox did not accept the offer, saying he had since purchased a new computer. Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Pro Tem Michael R. Graham ruled in favor of Zolouk for $689, plus court costs. He reached the figure by taking 75 percent of the original invoice, which he estimated would cover the computer shop’s costs.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 16, 2002. Read the original PDF.