Cav's Place

Yesterday, nearly a month and a half after dropping it off, I could finally go and pick up the replacement for my new mouse, which had failed after barely a month. Even more annoying, however, is the fact that I could have done so as early as January 12, so after only a week, but they failed to notify me of this and then didn’t reply to the messages I sent during this time asking what was going on.

The messages I’m talking about were an e-mail sent I believe on January 20, though I recall it was around midnight so I’m not entirely certain it wasn’t still 19, then a message using the form on the site on January 22, and then a comment on their Facebook page on January 29. Admittedly, the comment was snarky and didn’t include identifying information, but they could have still asked what I was referring to even there, and the first two messages were very calm and reasonable and explaining exactly what I was asking about. In addition, the service sheet is tied to the account I made on their site, so at any point they could have confirmed who I was and checked my contact information.
After that, I didn’t contact them again until this Tuesday, when I sent another e-mail, this time also to their parent company, merely notifying them that 43 of the “no more than 15” days since I dropped off my mouse already passed, meaning that in 30 more the product will be in service for 10% of the total warranty period and I’ll be entitled to other reparations, the least of which being having it replaced with a new one with a warranty period starting the day I’ll pick it up. I also said that a less reasonable and patient person may have done so already, but I only intend to file a complaint to Consumer Protection if I still won’t have it by then.
The result of that still wasn’t a reply, but a call some 15 minutes later. Obviously, I don’t answer if I’m not expecting a call and don’t know the number, but I did make the connection and looked up the number, finding that it belonged to the service. As such, I plugged in my phone, so it won’t turn off after a few seconds of talking, as it otherwise tends to, and decided to answer if they’ll call again. They didn’t, however.

The next day I was woken up at 10 AM by another call, from a different number. Correctly assuming that it was also related to this issue, I crawled out of bed, somehow managed to plug in my phone without being quite awake yet and answered when it rang again, as it had already stopped the first time before I managed to do that.
The caller was the manager of their complaints department, who said they were contacted about this by their colleagues at the parent company as well and he’d like to inform me that my mouse has been replaced and waiting for me since January 12. Those responsible with contacting customers informed him they attempted to call me multiple times and I didn’t answer, but yes, when people drop off items to be repaired they’re told they’ll be contacted by e-mail and SMS and he can’t understand why that wasn’t done, and also can’t tell me anything about why my messages weren’t replied to. He apologized, said he’ll investigate the matter and to ask for him when I’ll go pick up my mouse. As for the warranty for the new one, it will start the day I’ll pick it up.
So I ate something, checked some things on-line, then was once again there at the outskirts of the city at 1:45 PM. Somewhat amusingly, I went through the door labeled “reception”, which was where I was told I should go, and was sent right back to the “service” area, being told that’s in fact the reception, being used both to drop off and to pick up products. Not sure whether the fact that I pointedly stared at the writing on the door was lost on the person who gave me that information or not.
Once in the proper place, I handed in the service sheet and gave the name of the person I spoke to, saying I was told to ask for him regarding why I wasn’t informed that I can pick up my mouse for over a month. Then I received the new one and was told to sign to confirm picking it up, but also that the warranty will continue from the original date of purchase and won’t even be extended with the period the mouse spent in service unless the certificate clearly specifies this, which it doesn’t. It does, however, specify that the customer benefits from all rights granted by the relevant consumer protection laws, and I’m fairly certain this is specified in the law, but I didn’t know the number, year and article to use them against the guy, so I simply waited until that manager arrived.
When that happened, he shook my hand and once again apologized for the issue, saying there may be errors that cause text messages to get lost, but he still doesn’t know what happened regarding the e-mails and the lack of replies. Also said the warranty starts that day, repeating himself and stressing the words when the first person I talked to expressed his confusion at this, then wrote this on the service sheet and signed and stamped it. Obviously, this was something offered to me to prevent further complaints, and possibly also because I was calm and reasonable about it, because the law only requires it to be done once the total amount of time spent in service by a product exceeds 10% of the warranty period. On the other hand, the law would have required an extension, which must be specified on the service sheet, and the first person wasn’t even willing to offer that.

After the fact, when I read that service sheet more carefully after leaving, I found the cause for the lack of an e-mail notification, assuming that one was sent in the first place: They wrote my e-mail wrong twice. The first time, the 1684 was written as 164, but I noticed that on the sheet when I dropped off the mouse and asked for it to be corrected, which I was told was done in their system. However, the new sheet had the 164 replaced with 168, so any e-mail that may have been sent likely ended up nowhere, or perhaps at someone else in the highly unlikely case that that address exists.
Now it may seem that they have certain excuses for the initial lack of contact when you pair this with a not entirely impossible error on the part of my mobile carrier which may have caused a text message, assuming one was sent at all, to get lost. However, the e-mail mistake is theirs, not mine, so that’s not good enough even if you stop there. In addition, as I have stated previously, they could have taken the correct e-mail address from the account made on the site, which is tied to this particular service sheet, and they most definitely could have replied to my messages and notice that mistake in the process.
Moving past that, they could actually have someone tend the chat every so often, as the site supposedly includes one but I kept checking and always saw it say they were off-line. They could have also sent another SMS if I didn’t give any sign of having received the initial notification after a few days or a week, or if they absolutely insisted on calling, they could have waited until the voice mail kicked in and left a message that way. Or I guess they could have nagged me enough to make me look up the number or perhaps even answer earlier, which may require four or five calls from the same number in a day or at least one per day for a full week, which they most definitely didn’t do.

In the end, I’m content with how it turned out, pretty much having the warranty extended by a month or so above what I’d have normally been entitled to, though I’m of course hoping I won’t need it. Whether I will or not, however, remains to be seen, and if this mouse will fail again then I definitely will have quite a number of scathing comments to post about it on the site of any shop I’ll find that sells it.