22 Nov 2008
I bought a new Senator IFB Washing machine before Diwali. I was quite happy to replace my old WM from Voltas which was semi-automatic by new IFB fully automatic Senator. However our jubilation and happiness was short lived.
After a week, the detergent started leaking out. I called up the service centre the next day and after two days the service person came. He did not do much and the problem persisted. After exactly one month of this incident, the WM started making loud voices. I again made a call to the service centre. The service person again appeared after two days and he just informed my wife that there is a coin inside which is making noise.
Now, if there is coin inside ( which I am sure is not the case), why did he not open the WM and take it out? He also informed my wife that the drum is damaged and has to be replaced on payment! I have checked the drum (from outside the way he did, as told by my wife) and did not find any damage. No effort was made to determine the source of noise and rectify the problem. I again informed the service centre about the same and requested them to send the person when I am at home so that he does not get away without doing anything.
I think that the service dept just wants to reflect its own productivity in-house and for this they are trying to make the customers pay for none of their fault. This is quite misleading and amounts to extortion! If anyone is contemplating buying it, my advice will be to review buying IFB. better safe than sorry!
05 Dec 2008
since my last comments, it is now more than two weeks and I have gathered four Ticket IDs for the same complaint! I must admit that service centre is very efficient in attending calls and allotting Tickets. here is the list of ticket IDs as a proof:- 2452314, 2432316, 2452315, 2502218.
after initial tries, When I started complaining more, I was told to Contact one Mr Ashok, mob- 9350566142. when I asked him if he can do the needful, he gave me another number - Mr Amit Anand, mob - 9350158592. every time I contacted him, I was told that the Engineer ( actually mechanic!) would visit by evening. After listening to empty promises for a week, today (05 Dec 2008) I rang up service centre again. I was given number of Ms Monica! When I rang up Ms Monica (she picked up the phone after XX tries), she gave me the number of Mr Yograj Swami, mob - 9310615183.
I told my whole story again to Mr Swami including the fact that when my wife had rang up Mr Amit Anand, he asked her to give a written commitment that we will pay for the reassembly of the WM!!
Mr Swami tried to justify all the actions of his department. he told me that his mechanics are so expert that they can diagnose a problem without opening or physically examining the WM! (However, they can’t reassemble it easily if it was opened up! So we have to pay for the reassembly)
I got more horrified when I was told by Mr Swami to speak to Mr Ashok! I informed him that I have already completed one circle of speaking to every one in IFB starting from Mr Ashok and he was the fourth person to whom I was speaking. I have again been assured that someone will now definately come today or tomorrow to see the problem.
these IFB people think that customers are all dumb. for any fault in the machine they would insist that it has occured due to a coin inside and customer has to pay up for the repairs, more so if the spares involved is costly. they are insistent that drum has been damaged due to a coin but actually the manufacturing quality of parts is third rate and it has serious heating problems due to which drum and the sockets get damaged.
I just want to warn all potential buyers to take this seriously and buy IFB appliance at your own peril.