Dec 23, 2009 05:01 PM
11396 Views
I was one of the many customers that Eureka Forbes traps into its net by their dubious unqualified sales personnel. The product per se is not bad but the tactic that Eureka employs deserves some unique award!!
The sales personnel go around houses that are under construction and start trying every trick that they have been taught to convince you that this is the best security system and you absolutely cannot live without it. Most of these guys are just working for some comission and perhaps are not even graduates but you get an impression that they are all MBAs.
I bought EURO VIGIL HW 200 integrated wireless intrusion alarm system. I went for wireless because the wired system needs proper planning well in advance during construction for wiring and I met Eureka guys after the construction was almost complete. I was told that the CMS (central monitoring system) charges will be just Rs. 100 per month every year. Anyways, the system costed Rs. 16, 500 and after two or three follow ups the product finally arrived and the installation guy promptly showed up couple of days later. When he came he told me that the system I bought was very basic one and I would need couple of more sensors to actually completely secure my house! each sensor would cost me around Rs. 5000!! now you see the Eureka game plan.
Since I already had the system I was left with no choice but to by one more sensor. Installation person was very friendly although not an expert in security systems, he knew what he was doing. Anyway, I am sure he did not know everything that the system was capable of performing and he was not able to explain it to me either. Anyways, basically I learnt how to activate and inactivate the system and that was sufficient. He also explained that once in a while I might get some beeps and what I need to do in that case.
I used it for one year and there were multiple false alarms which was very annoying as I had to ask someone to look into it whenever I got a call while at work from the control room about alarm and once even had to ask the policemen to look into it as I was out of town. When I complained about this to the service center, they just said they will keep my system under observation for 3 days and will visit my house if they get a false alarm again!! Nobody ever visited from Eureka after I bought the system. Every once in a while the system starts beeping out of blue and that requires resetting the system.
After one year I got a call from the service center for renewal of my control room service!! They were very prompt in continuing their business. To my shock, they said monthly charges to CMS will be Rs. 200 and I will get a discount of 50% on that only if I go for the annual maintenance contract!! This was never explained to me when I bought the system in the first place!! All this was coming to about Rs. 4000 per year!! It would be ridiculous to spend 25% of the equipment cost every year to maintain it! I decided not to take the annual maintenance contract and asked them to only continue the CMS services without any discount (RS. 200 per month, Rs 2400 per year). It has been 4 months since the Eureka guy gave me the quotation and nobody ever showed up to either check the proper functioning of the system or to continue my CMS services!!! Interestingly, I could not even find EURO VIGIL on eurekaforbes.com web-page!! For now, I just have a fancy security system that probably does not provide any security to me due to the pathetic company which sold it to me!!
So, dear customers, if you really need a security system, do your homework and get complete information on what you are getting for the money that you are paying and make sure that they don't hide future expenses from you. Take your time before you decide.
GEEYEM
