Sales Gimmick

See the picture, it all started like this....

One evening, I flipped the newspaper and saw an advert with some interesting electronic stuff on sale.

This is almost everyday's thing given the season-end is just around the corner. Moreover with business looking sluggish for many, the economy not looking rosy, what a good time and better way to increase business. OK, fine, there is nothing wrong. The consumers will benefit.

So happened I was really looking forward to changing my DVD player. When you use a non-branded one, don't expect too much from it e.g. last longer. After all, stuff like this is pretty cheap nowadays. And off I went the next morning to inquire my new DVD player. Following my instinct, I went to check the advert that I saw last night - circled. Pretty interesting. In fact, I went to three branches, two shown above.

First one, I was told the' Crazy Bargain, Storewide Sale' did not apply to that particular branch - not included in the advert too. OK, off I went to another branch, another place.

Second one, yeah they had it. I was quite ecstatic. Why was I anyway given the fact that DVD players were dirt cheap nowadays? The fact that I could get a bargain price for a "branded" (as advertised) DVD player made me 'a little naive' in a way. With 2 years FREE warranty thrown in, who wouldn't be happy....until reality set in.

Third one, I went there and they too provided me a China-brand, different from my phone inquiry earlier in the day (when I was at the 2nd branch). They must have communicated.

What you see is what you don't get!!! Let me list down what's my problem with this company at the 2nd branch,

1. It's a China-brand, though popular in a way but I was expecting an established brand to be called "branded". Was my expectation too high??? Hmmmm.

2. When I asked for a branded-as-advertised one, the sales person gave me a brand that retailed at RM145.00. If that was the case, then after "saving" RM80.00, the price I supposed to pay should be RM65.00. But hell NO. He also got the cheek to tell me that the RM199.00 set no longer in stock!!! No stock in the first day? This guy was kidding me.

3. Then I insisted the sales person called the BM branch (3rd one) to check; I called to check a couple minutes earlier. That branch gave me a contradict answer but was what I wanted to hear. However, the sales person came back to me and told me the China-brand was the correct one!

4. I said "if that was the case, why this China-brand did not have the karaoke-jack (function) as advertised?". He was totally blurred, got himself twisted.

5. To press on, I further asked him how did the '2-Year FREE Warranty' apply to this set and he again made himself looked like a fool (what a pity) by saying, "actually it's only 1st year and for 2nd year needed to pay extra or join membership". Huh, FREE means what??? You guess.

Points raised. Would you feel cheated in this scenario? I bet you do. I did! So, I walked out in disgust and shortly called up their HQ in Penang to file a complaint and followed up with an email. I got a verbal and written apology and explanation in the end.

But that's no my point here. I just felt cheated and wasting my time with such sales gimmick going around. Worse still, many established companies are doing this. Who are we to complain to, what action can be taken, who is monitoring this....the known grouses go on and on. I know many have fallen victims to this so-called 'SALE' in many forms.

Like the saying goes....Malaysia has many laws but the implementation is weak and sometimes the interpretation is overzealous. Third-world mentality it is. So, many consumers don't bother to complain, thus suffer in silence.

As for me, I speak up and stand up for my rights as a consumer. I'm a happy customer to a LG DVD player now. How much did I pay - RM245 with an additional HDMI cable. Where did I buy - Jusco, BM. I got what I wanted and happy paying a little bit more.

The next time you face this tricky situation, ask questions as a consumer. Don't take everything (sweet words) thrown-in in adverts. It'll be a sad story if you do.