IFB Washing Machine Advertisement in Times of India
October 25th, 2006 by ashish
One would expect companies to be more consumer oriented. However, I don’t think that this feeling has really set in. Around 2 weeks back, IFB had an advertisement in the Times of India essentially stating that you can get a new fully automatic washing machine for around Rs. 10,000 ($ 220). Our current washing machine was getting a bit old and unreliable, so we thought that we will go ahead and take up the offer. It took a bit of time to get somebody to respond to the offer, in the sense that the phone number mentioned in the ad was unreachable for around 1 hour, but finally we got through.
So far okay, not the best of experiences though. Someboody took our details down, and a man from a collection agency phoned and we set a time when he could come and take the cheque. The next Saturday, I dutyfully handed over the cheque to the collection agent, who disclaimed all knowledge of anything other than the fact that he had to pick this cheque up.
Now the fun starts, it’s a week now. We have been phoning up, and there does not seem to be any system in place to find out what happened to the order. You phone up IFB, and they seem very detached, claiming that they are not related to the offer, and do not know anything more. You phone up the number mentioned in the ad, and they say that they will get back, and interestingly do not ask any contact details, so one wonders how they will get back to you. If not for the fact that the ad came in the Times of India, and was also accessible through their 4 digit SMS service, one could actually end believing that it is a great fraud. IFB is strange, it is impossible for them not to be involved since there is a sale of a probable large quantity involved. One thing I do know is that I will be much more careful the next time such an ad occurs. This sort of bad customer service is not something to be expected from the Times of India and IFB.
[...] I wrote a post some time back about buying an IFB washing machine through a paper ad in the Times of India. I forgot to add a piece to this story which made the whole experience even more interesting (maybe not very positive). I had this company (IFB) guy coming to my house to install it. Turned out that there is a series of clamping bolts that he had to remove before the washing machine could be started. And for some reason, they were not coming out as easily as had been hoped. Hence, I had the site of the technician using a blade to cut away some pieces of rubber, and then start to remove various parts of the machine right there in order to remove the clamping bolts. Once all this was done and the machine was installed, came the pitch to sell additional stuff. He proferred a powder that was necessary to run in the machine once in a while to remove scaling (which was additional expense), the connector to connect the machine to the tap was extra (that blew me out, something like buying a motorbike and being told that the pipe connecting the fuel tank to the engine is extra). Then came the clincher, he wanted me to buy additional warranty for the reason that the the spare parts of the machine were more expensive than for other companies, and it would be beneficial for me to actually buy this additional warranty. What a reason, maybe it will not be a surprise that the next time I will not go and buy an IFB machine. Filed under Consumer, Extra Charge by ashish [...]
Sir, Unfortunatly, I bought an IFB washing machine (Elena) during Nov 07. I took the extended warranty too.On 19/03/08. the machine stopped working. I called the call centre, they dutifuly noted my complaint and then I waited. On 26/03/08 a technician appeared and reported “control board” to be replaced. It has to come from Banglore. So far OK.To day is 04/04/08 I am still waiting for the control board to appear, I think somebody is walking all the way from Banglore to Cochin with the control board.They say consumer is the KING, But as far as IFB is concerned consumer is worse than a SLAVE. POOR CONSUMER.
sir mine is the case of similar complaints an awful gadgetry which takes your peace , no after sales service and a very expensive product