The person who handed over the lap top & the bag smiled after checking the amount I paid, a couple of times....I considered it good customer care etc etc I read in many ‘HOW TO’ books, which I gathered cheaply from the footpath! I loved to think that the same books I took from the footpath must have been read by the sales persons & the person who sat stoically at the cash counter as well, as their behaviour was the same what I read in those ‘HOW TO’ books on marketing, customer care, selling, handling the curious customer etc! I smirked at the thought that they too must have gone for those pirated copies of all those ‘HOW TO’ books which come cheap as they are GENUINLY COPIED from the GENUENLY ORIGINAL! It was a feeling of brotherhood or better I should call it the Brotherhood of Pirates!
Smilingly when I left the H.P store seldom did I knew that why they smiled was totally for some other reason than what I thought of, like the sales & marketing etiquette of the sublime nature etc....But, for that to dawn on me it took a couple more days of my life! But, when I understood the reason of their smile & the free gift of carry bag it was already very much late.......!
A couple of days after I successfully purchased the laptop something stopped working; I don’t remember what it was! I carried it to the shop I bought it from! All the people in the shop were busy selling the HP laptops to the buyers & giving them free carry bags! I waited till I grabbed the attention of an attention grabber who told me to wait for some more time that they could come to me after selling the laptops with the free carry bag & attend to my problem. I waited and after around one hour or so someone came to me, who looked like a person who failed miserably in selling any of the laptops with the free carry bag that particular day!
I told the problem to him & he all of a sudden told me that it SHOULD BE taken to the NEAREST ORIGINAL HP SERVICE STATION which is 10 kilometres away from me, as all the problems would be solved by the experts there! And, if I dared to take the risk, he continued, he could try his hands at problem solving; I readily agreed as taking the thing again to the ORIGINAL HP SERVICE CENTRE would take another couple of hours away from my life. He, as a master magician, kept opening some windows & closing some, intermittently, as I kept my vigil over...he seemed to work as one possessed.....And, at last he set the things right by clicking the ‘going back to the default settings'! Though all the software I loaded after purchasing the laptop went for a toss I got the problem for which I went there solved! I put the laptop back into FREE CARRY BAG & giving him truck loads of 'THANKS' left to reload all the software I had loaded before the expert hit the 'Back to Default Settings' button!
I didn’t have time to go to the ORIGINAL SERVICE STATION OF HP in the 1 year guarantee period, despite small problems related to my laptop continuously creeping up on my nerves! I just tried to wish the problems away & kept on with whatever I had to do, though I suffered mentally thanks to the performance of my newly acquired HP laptop! Before crossing the one year guarantee period, all of a sudden, my DVD drive stopped working & as I didn’t have time to focus on this problem I kept it disturb me continuously! Whenever I wanted to watch a movie or so I would switch on my other HP Laptop which I rarely used as it was a just15.4" against our Lead Role 17", of which I have been writing over! I kept the problem persist for another 1 year or more & when I felt free to take it in the FREE CARRY BAG, I took it to the ORIGINAL SERVICE STATION OF HP!
When I entered the service station, the guard at the entrance asked me a hell lot of questions that I thought I would have cleared the IAS examination if I would have known answers to all the queries he readily dished forth! He asked questions to me like he was questioning a criminal who had just murdered the CEO of HP! When I entered, after the quizzing, I was asked to collect a coupon & wait there till I was called. I obliged as there were no other option as I saw a very large number of people who waited there patiently, with their empty FREE CARRY BAGS in their laps!
When my turn came, I went to a counter where I was told by an Original HP Service Personnel that I had to give him 250/- for just checking the problem & to verify whether what I told them as problem was a problem at all! I obliged the Original HP Service Personnel & then he took my 17" laptop inside; I waited for the result! After 20+ minutes the Original HP Service Personnel, who took the laptop inside after collecting a Verification Charge of 250/-, came to the counter & beckoned me there to inform me the GREAT FINDING that as I told him it was a problem with the DVD drive & I had to fix the problem ONLY by changing the mother board as the DVD drive was integrally fused with the mother board & the Original HP Service Personnel couldn’t repair it separately and the bill would be somewhere around 25000/-! I thought what they charged for repair was something like 100 times the checking fee! I took the lap top back from the Original HP Service Personnel & walked away to something/somewhere more sensible things happen!
I consulted a Non Original HP Service Personnel & he told me that I could buy a USB DVD drive for around 4000/- & watch whatever movie I wished to watch on my 17"! The next moment I bought one Samsung USB DVD drive & went home, with a sweet feeling of saving a minimum of 21000/- from an Original HP Service Alligator!
But my happiness didn’t last long; my 17" hard drive crashed shortly after & I was in the danger of losing whatever data I had in the laptop; I reached the Original HP Service Station & I was told that they didn’t take THESE KINDS OF WORK and asked me to contact a particular Non Original HP Service Personnel who’s visiting card the Original HP Service Personnel provided me; obviously the Original HP Service Personnel had commission from the Non Original HP Service Personnel if ever I reached there & got fleeced!
I didn’t go to the Originally HP Recommended Place & got it done for 2000/- as I was sure I would have been forced to part with my entire savings for that work to be done in the secret place of the Non Original HP Service Personnel, recommended by the Original HP Service Personnel! Within months, HP 17" struck again! This time the screen went blank! As usual, I went to the Original HP Service Centre where I had been told that it would lighten my purse by around 20000/-! I went to my Non Original HP Service Personnel & got the screen changed for 5000/-, saving 15000/- in the process! Misery hit me again within months in the shape of battery failure; the battery failed to get charged. This time I didn’t go to the Original HP Service Personnel; I took it direct to a Non Original HP Service Personnel who gave me a NON Original HP battery for 2500/- which would have cost me my fixed deposit if I would have gone to the Original HP Service Centre! Now what ORIGINALS I have on my Original HP 17" Laptop are the shell of the laptop & motherboard, nothing else! The DVD player, Screen, Battery, Hard Drive & all are Non Original HP Products & they are working fine for the last more than 1 year!
Now, what I am concerned is about the motherboard which is the ONLY ORIGINAL WORKING THING on the OTHERWISE GREATLY PERFORMING NON ORIGINAL 17" HP Laptop! And, I regularly have nightmares on meeting one of my close friends who bought the same HP 17” on My Very Serious Recommendation! Till date he has changed his battery, screen (Twice!), DVD Drive etc & now is involved in a last ditch battle to save the chipset & motherboard! Now I perfectly understand why those people years back gave the carry bag free & why the sales persons smiled when I bought it 3 or 4 years back, as they then & there knew the people like me who bought these sorts of laptops would be running around carrying their laptops regularly to the Original HP Service Centres - SHOULD SAY 'ORIGINAL (OR HP CERTIFIED )FLEECING CENTRES'!- for this problem or that till they burn their laptops in public & live reclusive lives in the far away islands where they will never see even the sign of HP, again!
Special Note!
It is STRONGLY suggested that BURNING THE PRODUCT IN A PUBLIC PLACE is the one & only choice for all the customers of international brands in India! What the customers here in India always get is Ill Treatment, Misbehaviour, Arrogance, Qualityless & Stupid Analysis of the Problems the Customer Is Facing with the Product Bought, Reckless & Inefficient Repair, Extremely Greedy Customer Care & Service Centres etc!
I asked them to check the mobile then & there itself that I could have collected the info on the problem there itself that I could decide on the next step! The person who collected the phone from me, who was just seen whiling away time there, told me that as a lot of work was pending they would only be able to check it the next day & they would call me the next day to inform me about the solution & then according to my opinion move forward, in the matter of repairing the mobile.
As, I didn’t get any call from the centre till 5 ‘O’ clock next evening I called them & they told me that they were still in the process of checking it & they would give me a call as soon as they finished checking! But that call didn’t come.....I have been waiting till date for them to call me, today being 25-01-12! And, now I am seriously thinking about BURNING MY MOTOROLA, after taking back the mobile from the stupid fellows @ the fleecing centre, as well with the HP Laptop @ a public place that people come to know what is actually happening to “The Customer King”!
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