Jun 08, 2007 07:04 PM
15308 Views
We purchased an O-General AC on June 4, 2007 only to find the unit shut down within 12 hours. Upon complaint, O-General sent a representative Mr Mohideen who resorted to the most shocking lies to escape taking blame for the defective unit. The representative claimed a fault in the transformer which he said had been caused by the absence of a feature called “delayed start” in our stabilizer. Not just this. He claimed that he had advised us to replace the stabilizer which was not acceptable to us. In other words, it was our fault that his half day old AC was not working. Having made this outrageous claim, he offered magnanimously to replace the transformer. We insisted that the company replace the unit as it was found to be faulty within 12 hours of purchase.
There could not have been any problem of high voltage as we had 2 other machines a 2 ton Whirpool split A/C and one Samsung 1.5 ton windowA/C working at home at the same time for several hours
We disputed the company’s claim that we had been advised replacement of the stabilizer. Having purchased the costliest AC in town( Rs 25, 000 as against Rs 14, 000 for other models and because it is peak of summer here in Chennai and this was the only A/C and model available immediately) we are hardly likely to have insisted upon keeping a faulty stabilizer. Indeed, at the time of installation we had asked the dealer’s representative - if we needed to change the stabilizer to which his reply was that our stabilizer was fine. So it was. A quick check after the departure of the quarrelsome company rep (date June 6) showed our stabilizer to be in perfect working condition – the delayed start was in order and the voltage output within permissible limits. O-General had not only provided us a defective unit, they had resorted to lies, and far worse, blamed us for what was entirely their fault. We have since spoken to the dealer, who privately accepted that the company had behaved badly, indeed that their claim about our stabilizer was complete fiction, and that they had made up their mind not to replace the unit. The company needed an excuse to not replace the unit, and this excuse was provided by our allegedly malfunctioning- but in fact perfectly functioning - stabilizer.
Today thanks to Mr. V. Babu of dealers Iceberg Engineers we got a replacement of the machine. I asked Mr. Pradeep who came to install the new machine to check the stabilizer again and he has confirmed that the stabilizer is perfectly OK and it does provide a DELAY of 3 minutes at start.
We supposedly live at a time when the consumer is king – a wide range of white goods to choose from, and companies competing with each other to provide us the best service. In truth, the consumer was and will remain at the mercy of unscrupulous and unethical manufacturers who would defame the consumer rather than accept their fault.
Sowdhamini C dated June 7, 2007
