Price sounds pretty high, especially if they reused the recovered refrigerant. If the refrigerant was contaminated by the failure of the compressor then you paid for all new refrigerant and the disposal of the old. Looks like R-22 sells for about $5.00/lb and R-410 for about $10.00/lb on ebay. I don’t know how much disposal costs.
.02
Yeah, if the pump took a crap and let loose any particles into the system, then you have to purge the lines and clean them out (wouldn’t want anything getting stuck in the orifice or TXV valve), then fill the lines up with nitrogen when brazing the new pump in, then you have to pull a vacuum and let it sit for awhile to make sure there are no minute leaks. Then charge it and balance the system. $100 an hour probably, 3-4 hours plus misc. supplies. Doesn’t sound like the guy hosed at all.