Recently I purchased a wet and dry vacuum cleaner. The salesperson was very nice (all the salespeople are nice in the first meeting, right?). The cost of the unit was 8690/- (exchange price of 1000/- for the old vacuum cleaner). I decided to pay by credit card.
The salesperson asked for 1000/- by cash and the rest would be charged to my credit card. He said that he has to go to his office to initiate my credit card transaction (for 7690/-, since I had paid 1000/- by cash). This was on a Saturday (19th July).
He promised to deliver the vacuum cleaner on the coming Monday. A few hours later, I got a message from my bank saying that my card has been used for transaction of 8690/-. I called up this salesperson; he said that he is not aware as the transaction was initiated by his manager. Giving him benefit of doubt, I believed him. He promised to return 1000/- in cash when he came for delivering the vacuum cleaner.
Monday came, this man neither turned up not called. I called him; he said that he can deliver a vacuum cleaner manufactured in July 2008 on Tuesday. I said OK. Tuesday came, this man again did a disappearing act and he was not reachable on phone. Finally he managed to deliver the vacuum cleaner. We had told that we had guests on that day and had told him in advance to come for demonstrating on some other day. He did not return 1000/- cash on that day.
Now that his job is done, he was onto his favorite pastime; disappearing act. I tried calling him several times. Sometimes he picks up the phone and sometimes not. Every time he picked up the phone, he had ready and innovative excuses, some of them were his son is not well, he is not well, he is attending somebody’s shradd, etc. It seemed that he had mastered the act of excuse mongering! He would promise every time he answered the phone that he would come on a particular day at a particular time and he never turned up those appointed days and times. One fine day (29th July), he turned up at a time when nobody was at home (certainly not an appointed time) and dropped a post-dated (1st August) personal cheque for 1000/-.
A few days later, he stopped responding to phone calls.
I called up the Eureka Forbes on Euro helpline, 39883333. I explained the story to the dumb lady on the other side. She gave me a complaint number. This was on 25th July. (She asked me for the salesperson ID available on the receipt, as though she would trace him and resolve my case) She said that it will take 2 working days to sort this out. I told that I can not wait for 2 days and then she said that I will get a resolution by the same evening. There was no resolution till the next Tuesday. I called up the helpline again and gave the complaint number. Another dumb lady who was at the other end asked to explain the whole story all over again, in spite of giving the complaint number. As for the resolution, she did not have any. In the meanwhile, I had lodged a complaint from Eureka Forbes’ website. As expected, nothing happened.
Finally, I managed to hold of the evasive sales person. He has been a salesperson for several years and churned up more excuses! I asked for his supervisor’s name and number. I talked to him on 31st July. He promised to call me back the same afternoon along with the evasive salesperson. Yes you guessed it right, he did not call.
The next day, I managed to talk to the salesperson and he promised to show up on 3rd August. This time he showed up, though not on time and as expected had plenty of excuses for all the things that went wrong. He returned 1000/- by cash and I returned his personal cheque.
I got a call from Eureka Forbes on 5th August; the lady was inquiring the status of my e-mail complaint (after all, one department does not know what the other department is up to), which I had lodged about a week back. I asked her the reason for the delay. She said that her system was down!
This is my ordeal with Eureka Forbes, who claim to provide HAPPY, HEALTHY, SAFE & POLLUTION FREE HOMES AND OFFICES. I wonder if there are any happy homes and offices!
I am in Pune, if anybody wants to avoid the salesperson that I encountered, then send me an M2M message, I will give his name and number.