RutSum

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.

It’s been over two months now since I started giving the Indian Engineering Entrance Exams™, and thankfully, today was the last one - for Jamia Millia Islamia University. These two months truly deserve the title of being called the longest two months of my life, not because I spent them burning the midnight oil, but because I was just lying around doing some work that in totality amounted to absolutely nothing. Nevertheless, I am happy that this phase is over and the results of some of the exams have made it sure that I at least won’t have to ‘drop’ a year and do the same thing again, next year.

The first result that was out was that of VITEEE - 2008 (Pronounced as ‘witty’, do remember to pronounce it like that, or their spies/secret agents will put a bullet in your head). VIT was smart to release their results the earliest on 9th May, 2008 and to organise their counselling before all other big institutes. I got a rank of 7624 over here, which was 1624 ranks below the cut-off for the first counselling session. Today, I got another SMS notfication from VIT, informing me of the IInd phase of counselling which will begin from 26th June, 2008. To take part in the IInd phase, you have to send them an SMS confirming that you are interested in seeking admission to VIT. Though VIT is one of the last options I am considering for admission, I have still sent them the SMS to book a seat at their counselling for me.

The next result was the most awaited and biggest shocker - the results for the IIT JEE 2008. Here, I got a rank of 6512, unlike my expectations. I did not expect to even get a rank, as my total came up to to 169, whereas the expected cut-off was near 190-195. Even though my rank is supposedly no-good, but I am still proud of the fact that I qualified the IIT-JEE, one of the most difficult exams in the world. I will nevertheless attend the counselling and try to persuade them to give me some course at IT-BHU or ISMU Dhanbad. I am in no way expecting anything out of this rank at the 13 IITs.

On June 3rd, CBSE chose to give us an Ekta Kapoor style surprise and they released the AIEEE 2008 result without any prior notification, 4 days before the expected date. In the AIEEE, I got a decent rank of 5499. Though this rank isn’t good enough to get me into a ‘highly-demanded’ course at the NITs, but it can fetch me Mechanical Engineering at some of the reputed NITs, and Computer Science at Thapar University. Maybe I can get a good course at PEC too. Currently, getting a good college through my AIEEE rank is my first priority. One more thing that I’d like to mention over here is that Thapar promises to return all your cash back (except for a nominal Rs. 1000) to you in case you withdraw it BEFORE the second counselling schedule, which is a month after the first phase of counselling. I think this is a good thing considering that you can keep your options open without the fear of losing another due to clashing counselling schedules.

Then somewhere at the end of the first week of June, GGSIPU released their results for the B.Tech 2008-09 aspirants. Here I got a rank of 1166 which I feel is OK as a backup; IP was meant to be backup in the first place. I have no idea when the counselling is, but I sure will go over there and ensure that I get a seat in case I am left out by all other institutes.

Last but in no way the least, most of us Delhites are eagerly waiting for the CEE 2008 Result. It should’ve been out by now, because the Information Bulletin said that it would be out within 2 weeks from the date of the exam. I just hope that I get a good rank over here because then I can go to college from the comfort of my home and I won’t have to stay in a hostel. As soon as the results are out, I’ll ask Sneezy to post on the expected cut-offs for various courses.

This post was guest blogged by Sneezy Melon of The Goofy Express.

It was bad. And that’s in subdued terms. It was so bad, I can’t actually remember why I dropped Shutter for it after all. Overacting? Yep. Bad Direction? Yep. Weak-In-The-Knees-Script? Yep. Character-Funnily-Resembling-George-Bush? Yep. Not-Jokes? Yep. It had it all. And it had nothing. You could make out it wasn’t a Hindi flick though. I bet Yash Raj could have easily created a three-hour blockbuster out of the same story. Maybe he would. I mean, who wouldn’t want to see Shahrukh Khan try convincing his angry wife Kajol Devgan how her school-time ex Saif Ali Khan is evil?! The good part- the movie got over before one could yawn. And the nachos, at least until the hidden hair was discovered.

I’ve recently noticed that a lot of ads from one.com, a popular webhost, are appearing on RutSum. The ads said that they promised a 1 year free account along with the domain. Now when you read on a page by, lets say, Google, that it provides a free service, you know for sure that you won’t have to yield a single penny from your pocket, neither would you have to provide them with your credit card number.

But one.com chose to fool their customers by using fine print, using a small asterisk and putting this text, below, in a font about 60% smaller than the rest of the font on the page.

* Setup fee USD 13.80. All prices are without VAT. 1 year free domain + hosting offer is only valid for companies and individuals in India.

Now this was very very disappointing, and to clear things out I clicked a button that said “Click here for live help”. A customer support executive called Arjun popped up.

Arjun: Thank you for using One.com 24/7 Interactive Online Support. How may I assist you?
you: Your homepage lists that you would provide a domain and hosting for free, for 1 year.
Arjun: Hi
Arjun: Yes we do
Arjun: for the 1GB package
you: But there is a “setup fee” of USD 13.80
Arjun: Yes that is only the setup fee being charged, the domain and hosting is entirely free of cost
you: How is it free if you are charging me 13.8 dollars?
you: I do not know what this money is for
Arjun: This is charged because we need to setup your webspace, assign your IP address, register your domain, etc
you: Of course!
you: I know that takes money
you: I can go and buy it elsewhere
you: But how is it free if you are charging me for it?
Arjun: fine
Arjun: the domain and hosting is entirely free of cost
you: That is absurd
Arjun: Is there anything else I could assist you with?
you: You can use the word “free” only if the person can avail an entire service, in whole, without weilding a penny from his pcket
you: pocket*
Arjun: alright
Arjun: Is there anything else I could assist you with?
you: Yes. I would like you to forward a request to a senior at your company, to please remove the word “free” from your advertisements, as it is misleading, and instead, put a banner that says, “1 GB free hosting with domain for one year in $13.80 flat”. That would indeed get you more customers.
Arjun: Thank you for chatting. Good-bye.

I thought that companies cared about customers. I hope that with this post, you lose at least 10 of your potential Indian customers. With this, I am also banning you from advertising on my blog. I don’t care if I lose revenue from you. I do not believe in misleading people who visit my blog. I provide information, clear and open.

UPDATE : After I published this post, I went back to one.com and asked another live support executive to read this post and forward the matter to a senior at his company. When he opened the link, my amung.us logged the visit and the map over there told me that this executive was located in UAE (United Arab Emirates).

About an hour later, I get a comment from a guy called Akki, who says this -

Anyway, when u find out its not free just leave the damn company dont bargain !

This comment came from the IP address 80.227.44.122, a quick look up on which reveals that this IP too, belongs to Dubai, UAE. Of course it isn’t a coincidence.

That’s right. He called his own company damned.

It seems that Facebook doesn’t like people who are not very established socially, to use their social networking service. They have a policy - if you are a high school student, you have to get another person from your high school network to verify that you are currently studying at that school.

When I joined Facebook, I was asked to do the same. I looked around in the network for my school, but I couldn’t find any known names. It was full of alumini and kids from the 9th or 10th grade. So I temporarily ignored this step, and tried to move ahead. I could use Facebook like a normal user, but a notification was displayed on my home page each time I logged into Facebook. I tried finding help in the help section, but there was no way to contact anybody from the Facebook team or report a problem.

A few days ago, when I tried to login to Facebook, I got a message that my account had been disabled by an administrator, because I had failed to verify my high school membership.

I read the FAQ, and all that it contained was information on why I was kicked. No contact forms, no alternatives, no solutions.

This is totally unbearable. What does a person do if he doesn’t know anybody in his school network? I mean I did try sending a message to random people asking them to verify me, but guess they never cared to do it, most probably because they never came online after that, or they just got fed up with the thousands of notification e-mails Facebook sends to their inbox everyday. So here is the harsh truth - Facebook, which is supposed to be for people who are introverts and are too shy to actively socialise in the real world; it throws out those very people from its userbase. You have to live with it.

And no, I am not going to make another email id just for the sake of creating another account on Facebook. I have better things to do.