Tuesday, March 10, 2009

And I thought I was getting a good bargain...

How often do we walk away in glee that thinking we've gotten ourselves a good bargain? ... that after all the bargaining and visiting different shops, we've got ourselves a good price? Twas my lesson...

Sentosa Plaza is well known in Alor Star as the handphone supermart. The whole place is filled with mobile phone stalls/shops. End of last year, I wanted to get a SE c905. So, where else to go but the mobile mart, right?

Then last week, one of the buttons started to act up... what to do? Phone had to go back.... Got there but they said I had to go back to the guy I bought it from. But at my insistence, one of them finally took a look at it and tried to run the software through. Didn't work. So the guy said I had to go find the original guy.. took them a while but managed to find him at another shop (Shop D).

I had bought the phone from Shop A but he didn't have the colour I wanted. So he went to Shop B and got one. Then he went to Shop C and uploaded the songs for my phone. And the other day, when I sent the phone for repair, I found out that he actually was manning Shop D. That was not it... as we couldn't locate him, I followed another guy in search of him... somehow I got the impression that there is another Shop E. I wonder how many more shops belong to the same owner!!

So we think we're smart trying to get the best bargain under this one roof... for all there is to know, there're probably only a few players there... they provide a semblance of competition but it's all buat-buat.. Just like the plot in The Pearl by John Steinbeck... many pearl buyers but all work for the same person!

Anyway, I think it's better if you buy a phone from a 'shop' rather than from a place like Sentosa with many stalls/shops... they have too many runners, salespeople who keep changing and if your phone does develop a problem, it's a big headache trying to get it sorted out. Plus the service is not that great... anyway that was the lesson I learned!

And my reason for getting my phone there.. convenience. But with this lousy service, I think this will probably be the last phone I'll get from there.

3 comments:

♥ debbie ♥ said...

I always have this impression that these hp sellers are swindlers. Haha... It's the one thing I'm extra wary of buying in Malaysia. I just cannot understand why they break the box seals and wrap the phone in cling wrap to display. When you ask for one in a sealed box, they say, they open all to check if it's working! Warranties oso strangely split in 2.... original or dunno what other company.

At least here in Sg, they open the seal in front of you. Warranty comes from the original phone company.

AJ7 said...

We all still 3rd world mah... agree with you about the box seals thing. I was rather irritated that the serial no on the box and the phone was different. But was told that it's like that... here we have the 'underwater' and 'non-underwater' for a same product... very no professional. We are still in the Bolehland mentality....

Justine Lim said...

Well I have to say thanks for your post on Sentosa Plaza.. I am now still considering where to buy SE C903 but yet I'm afraid the sellers might give me "semi-original" parts on the phone. And now I will have to find some other place for a good bargain of that phone.. Hope to get it under rm800!

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