A family friend has a lovely G5 iMac, which is just short of its first birthday. The headphone socket’s in pretty much constant use, and a few weeks back it broke. Due to a mix-up over warranties (said Mac is under warranty but the shop thinks it isn’t), my friend has been invoiced.

For £700.

You might think that £700 for a new headphone socket sounds rather steep. I do too. Worse still, the authorised reseller didn’t provide an estimate before carrying out the work, and until the warranty situation is sorted out is refusing to return the machine until the £700 is paid.

Just out of interest, if the warranty situation isn’t solved, would the iMac owner have a legitimate claim under the Sale of Goods Act? A headphone socket that breaks in less than a year because of, er, plugging headphones into it, and which costs nearly as much to repair as the entire computer costs to buy, doesn’t strike me as “fit for purpose”…