RutSum

My LG 700E Is Killing Me

It’s been over two and a half years since I bought my current system, without any major hardware problems. A little hiccups with the Sony DVD Writer, that’s all. But now is the time that I start regretting buying an LG monitor over a Viewsonic one.

I have to admit that when I bought this PC, I was not really tech savvy, at least not as much as I am today. But I still had spent a lot of time and had done a lot of market research before buying it. Because of budget reasons, I chose to get a cheap 17″ LG monitor, dumping the idea of getting a Viewsonic.

A few days ago, we had some voltage fluctuations at our place after which the display on my monitor started flickering (even after the voltage fluctuation was over). This was inspite of the fact that the monitor was connected to my UPS. The flickering gradually increased and eventually led to a complete blackout the day before yesterday. So the monitor is stuck in this position - with the power light on steadily, but the display flickering. By trial, I found out that I could somewhat fix this problem by banging the monitor on its sides. So I used for another 2-3 hours by banging it every 5 minutes when the display went out. To avoid my frustrations from blowing off beyond my tolerance levels, I decided to finally shut the machine down and call the LG customer care.

This was when the real problems started. Finding a working number for the LG customer care without access to the internet (my monitor isn’t working, remember?) was a nightmare. I had the warranty card for the monitor, but all the numbers given on it were useless. None of them worked - most of them gave a ‘does not exist’ tape, others ended up in people from some remote village picking up the call and saying, “Wrong numberva lagaye ho aap“. A particular number (39010909) redirected me to a tape which asked me put an STD code for Gurgaon to reach a call center for Delhi!

When I finally got hold of the new toll free number for LG, which is 1800 180 9999, I booked a complaint for my monitor and the executive told me that an engineer would contact me within 2 hours.

As expected, nothing happened after two hours, three hours. I decided to call again. Another executive picked up this time and told me that he had reforwarded my request as ‘urgent’. This time I got a call after 10 minutes, but the guy over there told me that all the engineers alloted to the area where I reside had gone for training that day! I mean how convenient an excuse! He told me that an engineer would call me tomorrow at 10 am and would visit me soon thereafter.

You guessed right, nobody called at 10 am. So at around 11, I called back at the number from which I recieved the call. The same dude picked up and said that the engineer is on-route and will contact me soon.

Another 3 hours pass away. Nothing. I call that dude again. This time he tells me to hold the line and calls the engineer, who is supposedly ‘on-route’. He speaks loudly enough so that I can hear him, and tells him to go to my place ASAP as my job was urgent. The guy said that he could be at my place earliest at 6 pm. This time, my fuse just blew off. I told him that I had been frustrated again and again by the customer care guys, whom I had clearly told that my work was urgent. He apologised for the ‘inconvenience’ caused and said that he would be there at 6 pm.

Aha. This is customer care. Things don’t have a happy ending here. Nobody showed up at 6 pm. I called the same dude again. This time he chose not to pick up the phone at all. I called twice, thrice but he did not pick up the phone. I called the toll free number, and surprisingly, they had somehow blocked my number from there too! My call got automatically disconnected once the tape on the toll free number ended.

After retrying the number without success, I called the guy from whom I had originally bought my PC. He gave me a direct number to an LG dude, who in turn gave me the number of the engineer who was ‘on-route’ to my place. I called the engineer, and boy what he said was really shocking and funny at the same time. He said that he was very ill and was just walking out of a hospital. He then said that he would reach my place by 9 pm.

So well here I am, writing this post using a flickering monitor, waiting for the clock to strike 9, and then waiting to pick the phone and start again, the chain of calls.

UPDATE : The engineer came to my place (point to note : he did look sick, and took a pill as soon as he arrived at my place. He looked like a pedophile, something else to be noted too) and fixed my monitor within 5 minutes. He just opened up the thing, and renewed a few connections using a soldering iron. He then gave me a feedback form to fill in which I put out what I have written in this post, in about 4 lines.

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