Good bye Bad Customer Service( Nokia) Hello Blackberry !( god knows their services) Why & How i bought a Blackberry ?

It was a nice sunny day and i wanted a pair of  bluetooth headphones accessories for my nokia N97 mini phone.  I searched the internet if any company could cater to my demand, Yes ! hooray nokia has it for me.
Did basic  pricing search, I was even ready to buy at full price MRP. It was expensive Rs:4299  ( i think around US $ 80 approximately)

Next 3 days i tried and visited 5 Nokia outlets , they had everything nokia sells, except my headphone set which i wanted to purchase asap. Finally a small "Nokia authorised" sales outlet offered me the same headset. Model No : BH-505 a bluetooth stereo headphone set.
I paid the price, unboxed it on site and put it to use.
AAAAHHH i was in technology nirvana!! Literally music to my ears.

Later within 15 days of use, i saw their manufacturing defects come out, the headset's right arm cracked,Later 2 more cracks surfaced. I took it to their 3 service centers in different parts of the city.
Each one spewed out adhoc policies. "This piece cannot be repaired , has to be exchanged but we cannot exchange it as it seems to be  physical breakage' .
I offered to pay them costs for repairs, let me  listen to my guru's speeches and  self improvement works, on my mobile "phone, please, please", but they didnt help at all.
They summarized to meant to say "BUY A NEW SET. once again ."

"Yeah ? oh yeah ?"You want me to spend $80 for a new defective product line? thanks, fool me once you are a fool, fool me twice i really become a fool.

Usually i do not take shelter with abusive language, but in their case my mind started thinking differently. I was a faithful nokia user since past decade and here in my time of need, which i am ready to pay, no help came across. One service center manager took a photograph saying he would ask the company to replace and call me. Its been months, no call came through. Least the center manager could do was call me and say e couldnt  get a replacement ? too much to ask for? Todays, world seems "just pay and buy now, forget service. Thanks to foreign culture permeating the indian culture i think so. "

To make long story short, but to keep it memorized, i write it here for my own record. 

Kept suffering with a broken bluetooth headset, which made me feel perhaps i should junk the root of this cause of discomfort.
I said to myself, "if NO nokia mobile, then  no need for bluetooth headset.

Remove the cause, the effects  will stop".

I forgave Nokia and forgot nokia, - My self concept of forgive  then forget.

So the next religious opportunity i received, i changed my mobile from NOKIA to BLACKBERRY.
One thing lead to another and i bought a BLACKBERRY 9860 (Torch).
Yes, now i use a wired basic cheap headphone set and i  would never ever will i allow bad customer service to affect me. Even it its at a cost. Live Life Kingsize always within your own means.

Good bye Nokia ! Hello Blackberry!

How a Big company named Vodafone conned me

My personal experience and comments about Vodafone.
 
In the month of May 2012,  i  entered my mobile number on the vodafone.in website requesting information on Mobile Number Portability ( MNP).

Subsequently someone from Vodafone called me up, offered me to do a MNP process -change to  Vodafone , with similar features as that of my existing MTNL prepaid plan" and i thus i opted to switch to  Vodafone.

On 18th May 2012 the Vodafone representative came over to my office, filled in the requisite papers and "sold" me a Vodafone sim card.
The plans explained and offered and signatures taken  althroughout mentioned full Blackberry plan of Rs:695 per month,at a promotional  discounted offer rate at Rs:399 per month.

Till the 1st June 2012, i was on Mtnl network, then i tried Vodafone sim card and i would make outgoing calls, but not receive any incoming calls, which is absurd, 1 mobile number half functional on each SIM Card. LOL, i duly informed them to do their changes, Absurd!! I informed them of the same . 
Did you know Vodafone charges 0.50 paise per 3 minutes for speaking to a telecaller assistance? ( incidentally they made me  wait, twice upto 45 minutes  to "find out" my issue ( unresolved).
Now where is the cheating?

The promotional offer was 1) Voice plan & 2) Blackberry plan.
While they  switched me over to Vodafone with voice plan, they did not do anything about blackberry plan.
After calling up everyday for 18 days,writing various emails  and listening to their  false promises to start my promotional Blackberry offer, they finally informed me the reason for such delat is "that plan is now closed," and they dont have any such offering recorded in their system - thus no such offer was ever made.
This basically means, either i am dellusional or their executive who filled in my form was a liar/cheat/con/fraud.
Incidentally when i called up the executive who visited my office,i found out it was outsourced agency and that agency too is a cheat as there is no one with that name existing /present. They just listen to your issue and if they cannot resolve it, click and cancel  your call. Tried & experienced their behaviour for 18 days.

As,  I distinctly had a witness/colleague in front of whom , the promotional offering were explained this means the latter of the above sentence.

On a side note, now today i have a glimpse of problems faced by foreigners and may be i understand why foreign countries were against outsourcing from India in the earlier years.

Due to the information from Vodafone, that i cannot switch over from their MNP for 3 months as lock-in, and finally my desire to remain connected to my office colleagues,friends & Acquaintainces, and also to enjoy benefits of my expensive ( Rs:21600)  Blackberry 9860 ,all i could do is enroll for a full paid blackberry plan at a current full rack rate.

I feel Vodafone has cheated me by promising me discounted promotional rates and then backing out saying no such plan exists and thus, I  would like to warn all fellow MNP'ers please  be careful, whatever they promise, take it in writing , take xerox copies of the forms they make you fill up, ( i trusted the big company and i didnt do this) and dont Trust anyone. 

Else you too will end up writing a post on your blog about the day a big company conned up  into paying more than your existing .
Moral of the story :-
On my prepaid MTNL i was enjoying blackberry for Rs:-291 + Rs:0.50 per minute voice call.
Now in Vodafone i pay blackberry plan Rs:599 per month ( for same as above features) and a separate voice plan.
It may be a big company but  would i ever recommend them,? Never. 
Like Robert Stevenson once said " try exceed customer expectations" , but this Vodafone company does not even meet up their own  offerings.Thus i assume its not a company which is "Beyond Excellence".
In the end they too shall know, a  stone tossed within a pond,  changes the shore.