[Resolved]  Philips / Home Theater System — Philips Service Bangalore - Cheating/Fraud

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Bangalore, Karnataka

Hi,

Summary: My worst experience with Philips and Philips service.
My Philips Home Theater System Model Number HTS 4750 was given for service and we found that Main board is changed and they are trying to take money from us, to replace the changed board with our own non-faulty board.
Since, I already had several bad experiences with Philips service, I had taken a pictures of the main board for reference, when compared it was completely different board and the chip number and the serial numbers are different.

They did not expect us to check the board, when asked the service engineer, he does not have answers and bluffs with shiver with some annoying answers like the service people checked it and may be they replaced, and asked for three days and will let us know what happened to the original board. Until now we have never heard from them, we are totally frustrated and worried about the system.

Please read through the below, I have explained the complete history. Please help us to get our original non-faulty system and an appropriate answer from Philips/Philips service for this unethical behavior.

Experience in detail
[protected]----
Let me explain the problem I had from the beginning with the Philips and Philips Service Centre.

I purchased the Philips Home Theater System Model Number HTS 4750 sometime during December 2007 from eZone, Koramangala, Bangalore. Within a year it had problem with the woofer and a Service executive [Rajendran] from I-tel Services, JP Nagar 2nd Phase, Bangalore told that the main woofer speakers have problem and need to be replaced. So I paid Rs. 1500 for the new speakers are replaced it.
Note: They refused to give me back the original old speakers . A Service Executive Rajendran told me that they would need to send back the speakers to the Philips company for analysis and then give me back latter, but still now they had not returned my old speakers.
Then within next few months, the system again started giving trouble and I contacted the Philips Service Center and the same service executive Rajendra came home and tested the system and this time he said the CENTER Speakers of the HTS is gone and needs to get replaced. So, this time they charged me Rs. 3192 for the new speakers and replaced it on[protected].

Then within a week, the system started to hang when playing a movie or music or even FM. It plays for about 5 minutes and then hangs. I again called the service people many times and there was no response and after few weeks couple of service people came to my home and tested the system and said there is no problem with the system it's just a software upgrade that must be done to resolve the problem and asked me to bring the system to their service centre. At that moment I got totally frustrated with this system that had frequent issues and taking it for repair and spending thousands on it every time.

After few months of gap, I took the system to their Philips Service Centre on 01 - OCT - 2012 and told them to upgrade the software and give as they said earlier. But, they said they need to open it and check and that might require another couple of weeks.

So I left the system with them and waited for nearly 2 weeks and they did not call. Every time I call them, they would say that they will call me back in few minutes and never called back. Latter when I called they said the main board IC is gone so they need to send the board to Pune to fix it. On hearing that, I went to their place to find out more details. At that time I asked them how the software upgrade turned out to be an IC problem now, but they gave all craps which I did not understand and left with no other choice other than getting it repaired to use the system again, so I told them to go ahead with that and asked them for the estimate which they did not give me at that moment. But they told me that they will let me know latter after they get the feedback from their Pune office. I got suspicious about these crude people this time hearing their contradictive response for the complaint. So I took the picture of the Main Board [both front and back side of the board] with the Mobile Phone camera, when they removed from my System before they sent to Pune. Then even after 2 weeks no cal camel from the Service Centre and every time I called them they behaved very irresponsible. One fine day, when I called, they put me on hold for about 5 minutes and connected me to one of their service engineer and he told me that the board cannot be repaired and must be imported and it would cost me Rs. 5432.

Please Note the 3 different responses for the same complaint, First it was,
1. "Just a Software Upgrade"
2. IC problem - can be repaired at their Pune office.
3. The Problem is in the Main Board and cannot be repaired and must be imported and it would cost me Rs 5432.

I totally lost trust in them and asked them to give me back my system without doing any repair. For that the system engineer offered me a option to select a Phillips Home Theatre system which was in the range from Rs 20,000 to Rs 69, 000 and he will take my old system and give me a discount on that. But I was not interested in that. So I asked them to give back my system as soon as possible. After that a week later I called them to find the status and they said the board has come back and I can take back my system. So, last Saturday 13-OCT-2012, I went to their Service Centre and they brought my DVD player to me. I asked them to play it and show and I was shocked to see there was no audio or video. So I asked them to open and show me the board, he did that and I was shocked to see that the main board was totally changed with something very old and it had a different serial and chip number when compared with the one I had on the picture in my mobile. In fact, they had stolen the original main board from my DVD player and replaced with some junk to make money by replacing this faulty board with my original board if we ask for a replacement/a fix.

It makes me think this way because, I can't believe a Philips Authorized Service Centre is so unprofessional and they don't even have a systematic procedure to keep track of the spare parts that was removed and fixed back into a system?
Can they be so careless and irresponsible and harsh the Consumers like this?

I believe Philips being a well-recognized brand will not do such a lame thing.

I got annoyed and asked the Engineer what was it. He did not expected us carrying an evidence of the original board and he could not even explain what had happened. He had asked for another 3 days time to figure out the original board. I am still waiting for it and it's been almost 45 days since I had left my Home Theatre system in their service centre. It did not get repaired but instead, my original Main Board is missing from the system.

I want Philips as a trustable Consumer company to look into this problem and take appropriate measures and help me get my original main board in the same condition like I gave to this Service Centre [on which I have no faith at all].
After all it’s hard earned money.

Service Center Address
I-tel Services
# 248, 4th Cross, 7th Main, KSRTC Layout,
J.P. Nagar, 2nd Phase,
Bangalore - 560078
PH : 4168 4609


Thanks and Regards,
Kishor & Franklin Raja