Digital Diatribe

Wow! I just got a comment from someone who I don’t think I know, which means other people are reading this blog! Awesome!
They too will soon realise how crap Strathfield Car Radio is and hopefully never buy anything from there ever.

But looking at the comment reminded me that I haven’t actually written up mch of a coherent report on what’s happened recently.
So here I go:

I suppose I’d better introduce the key players.
On the Strathfield Car Radio side we have…

Michael. He is the prick that wouln’t accept the return in the first place and probably organised a forged reciept so that I could tak it back to Apple and so he wouldn’t have to put up with the returns process. It’s probably his attitude that caused the entire process to fuck up.

Melissa. She is the one that processed the return, and her name is on the reciept.
I rang her about every week after the day my ipod should have come back. I have an answering machine message that promises my ipod will be in on wednesday. That wednesday was about 5 months ago. It never turned up.
She also told me I was getting an ipod photo, and then denied that she said any such thing.
She basically fobbed me off to Apple in the end, saying it was Apple’s fault as they had lost the ipod.

Brook. The district manager for the store in which Imperial Arcade is a part of.
He is the person I’ve been hassling about this lately.
Always seems to think the case was resolved the last time we spoke, although never seems to remember that he told me he was going to call me back.

On the Apple side we have he following players…

Indian Call Centre Man. I always have to wait for about 20 mintes and then talk to this guy before I can get through to anyone in Australia, unless I hassle reception.

Louise (I think). Denies all knowledge of the case and refuses to talk to me about it. Melissa told me to call her and warned me she was a cow.

R (can’t remember her name). Some call center person who doesn’t even get her own extension and thus is almost impossible to get a hold of. I spoke to her a few times, but didn’t really get anywhere.

Some other person whose name escapes me.
She told me the ipod had been sent out to a strathfield employee weeks ago. This may have been another case, or it may hav been an opurtunistic strathfield employee trying to score a free ipod. I guess we’ll never know.

So after getting the run around in December from both Apple and Srathfield, I filed for a hearing with the Consumer Trade and Tennancy Tribunal, which is the NSW version of the small claims court. I wrote strathfield a letter with the relevant case number on it and told them they had a couple of weeks to get it sorted out before I went to Canada for a month. After which time I wouldn’t be able to withdraw the claim.

I spoke to the person who sent my ipod off for repairs in the first place, and she said I was now getting an ipod photo, which would have been pretty cool. So I left her with the letter, and said if they managed to get me the ipod photo I’d be happy with that.

So someone from Apple called and said they had a replacement ipod for me and just needed my address (which they already had). I asked them what ipod they were sending and they said it was the same model as what I’d sent in for repiars, a 4th gen model, which by now was obsolete. I told them what Melissa from Strathfield had told me which was that I should be getting an ipod photo. They said they normally wouldn’t do that so they would have to look into it.

The day before I was set to go to Canada I went and spoke with Melissa again. She told me she never said that I was getting an ipod photo (which is crap, but she probably got told to deny it by a manager) and she said that a 4th gen 20gb ipod had been shipped to me that very afternoon.
So I went to the post office and asked, as I hadn’t been given a notice of attempted delivery, and there were no parcels for me.
The ipod never arrived.
About six weeks later, once I was back, I went to the hearing. I even took a taxi there so I wouldn’t be late. I needn’t have bothered.
Strathfield didn’t even show. They didn’t send anyone, which shows you how much contempt they have for consumer rights.
I attempted to explain my position to the tribunal and in the end, they gave strathfield another month to repair, replace or refund the ipod.
I couldn’t beleive it, it was like the whole procedure had been a massive waste of time and only told me what I alread knew. What I was after was a decision. Not another 30 days for Strathfield to do something they clearly had no intention of doing. The tribunal didn’t even seem to care that they didn’t bother to show up. They don’t have anything like contempt of court, so I can’t see any reason for anyone to turn up to these things unless it’s in their interest.
The whole process is a sham.

So I called Strathfield and told them the outcome of the hearing.
Brook told me he thought the matter had already been resolved so they ignored the hearing notice and thus didn’t send anyone. I told him if it had been withdrawn they wouldn’t have got a notice. I told him given they didn’t turn up it had been decided in their absense and that they had a limited amount of time to comply or I’d take the case back and the outcome wouldn’t be as favourable for them the next time.
I told him I’d be happy with a refund, and he said they’d already tried to deliver the ipod an it just got returned to sender with the package torn open. The tone of Brook’s voice suggested I’d ripped it open and then returned it to sender because it wasn’t an ipod video.
What had happened is some dumbshit at Apple had left off my unit number, so it never got delivered. The post office probably ripped it open to see if it was worth sending back.
I spoke with Brook for about 20 minutes about how they were trying to send me a bit of now obsolete hardware to replace what was at the time of purchase pretty much the top of line model. I actually rang an Apple Store to ask what the current equivalent model of ipod was to the one I used to have. They told me it was the ipod video 30gb model. So I asked Brook for one of these. He was adament that they didn’t have any obligation to give me a new ipod. He didn’t seem to care at all that he and his company had stuffed me around for about 4 months at this stage. I was about to get into a shouting match with him after about 20 mins of this stupid circular argument that all people in customer service here seem to love to get into when dad took the phone off me and talked to him.
Brook was complaining about all the time this case was taking, when Dad pointed out to him that he actualy gets paid to deal with this stuff and I have to take time out of whatever other work I’m doing to chase this up. By the end of it, Brook agreed to talk to Apple and try to get a new ipod out of them, and he would call me back the next day.
Well, naturally, I never heard from him again.

Which brings me to where we are now.
I emailed Strathfield through their website and told them I was sick of trying to call people and getting the run around. After this I got an email back from Brook, still pleading complete and utter ignorance stating that he thought the matter was sorted after he got off the phone with me the last time.
I told him I wanted a full refund, or I’d be taking it back to the CTTT or to a higher court.
The last email I got back said that the CFO had signed off on the chegue and I should have it within a couple of weeks.
Well, it’s been about a month and still nothing. So I sent another email and have yet to hear back.

I’ve pretty much cracked the shits with this and I’m ready to take it to the next level.
But before I do something silly, does anyone know a good consumer rights lawyer?