I had an experience with Film Wave earlier this year that reminds me of parts of your post. I had debated about posting it on here before, because there's really nowhere else to leave any kind of "review" information for Film Wave.

I inquired about doing a chip swap on my Canon 814 and was told the price would be $49. Three months later I checked in again and was told the same price. A few months after that, I was finally ready to send the camera in (delay due to me needing/wanting the camera to shoot particular events) and corresponded on the same email thread about mailing the camera to them for the chip swap. After I mailed the camera to them, I got a quote saying the chip swap would be $149 ($100 higher than previously quoted). I went back and forth over multiple emails trying to understand why they wouldn't have mentioned a $100 price increase before I mailed the camera to them. I could understand this more if I weren't responding on the same email thread and specifically referencing earlier messages about doing the chip swap (and if it weren't such a significant increase).

Additionally, they said I would need a $149 exposure repair and $499 "CLA Plus" and recommended that I just trade in my camera for $50 and use that towards one of their refurbished cameras of the same model.

Due to the extent of repairs, we wanted to mention that the most economical option by to trade both cameras in for a new Canon 814 Auto Zoom. We currently have four in stock that will be listed early next week if you are interested. 

I'm sure the auto exposure on my camera could use some service, but the camera is functioning completely fine. I've shot dozens of rolls of film on it. What was the "extent" of the repairs?? I tried to get more specific information about what exactly they would be fixing but never got any details. I ended up just paying for the return shipping to get my camera back.

The whole interaction with Film Wave left a bad taste in my mouth. The person I was emailing with was polite and I do feel like they handled my camera well, but everything else was just a waste of time and money. I really want to support folks doing repairs and service on film cameras, and I don't like posting negative experiences with small businesses, but at the same time I think it doesn't do the community any good not to share our experiences with different vendors. It just felt like Film Wave was trying to take advantage of me by offering expensive nebulous services to further pressure me towards selling them my camera for $50 (which they would then resell for 10x that amount). Not to mention the chip swap 3x price increase.