You need to find more competent people. They clearly had no clue or didn’t want to be bothered. Could you perhaps locate a luthier in your city/region? Sometimes you find people fixing and maintaining guitars/basses as a side business to their day job - usually they are rather enthusiastic about everything guitar/bass and generally a good source of advice and help. Such a luthier will hopefully be able to tell whether the bass CAN be fixed at all or whether you might have to get a new/better one (because issues with the neck/truss rod, or frets are too serious to warrant repair on a fairly inexpensive bass).
Hopefully he is more attentive when you get a new dress
