Friday, October 26, 2007

An Encounter with ACER: Are ACER Stupid?

I own an ACER laptop.
A funny thing happened a few days ago. The power cord got cut from the inside (I don't know how!) and two wires shorted which led to the plastic sheath of the cable melting. Obviously the cord was now useless.

Before I proceed further I need to explain the construction of the power cord. It is made up of two parts.
The first part consists of the adaptor and the cable which plugs into the laptop. The second part consists of the power cord which connects the adaptor to the power socket. The two are separate because the power cord changes from country to country (depending on the pin shape) where as the adaptor remains the same.

Now the adaptor bit was working perfectly and I just needed a new power cord. Since I am an optimist, I started believing that ACER, which has a brand presence in India, would be able to solve my problem in a jiffy. Oh yeah! Good customer service HAD come to India. But something at the back of my mind told me 'Dude, you are in deep shit and you don't know about it!'.

Of-course had I been in UK when this happened, getting a replacement would have been almost boring. Just go online and buy the power cord.

Anyway, so I went online and found out the Delhi ACER office (in Okhla Phase I) number (+91-11-40568000, 40568001 / 2).
Called them up and they told me all these bits are sold by their shop (The ACER Mall opposite Home Saaz) in Lajpat Nagar (these days the Toughest Market to Shop at in Delhi, coz of the crazy traffic rules and HCBS/Metro construction).
So I called up the shop and asked them about the power cord. Well.. I don't have the words to describe what I was told, but I shall try my best!
They said that they only sell the adaptor (which I didn't need) and NOT the power cord. Furthermore they suggested that Nehru Place market would be the best placeto find a new power cord.

But the only thing in my mind was ARE ACER STUPID?
I mean who sells half the power supply? How idiotic is that?

Its like you damaging the cover of the headlight on your car and the car manufacturer saying that they can only supply you with the headlight case and not the headlight cover.

What good is half the power supply in any case? I wonder who all can go around Nehru Place looking for an ACER power cord. I am lucky that I live not very far from Nehru Place.

Looking at the brighter side, I am quite happy that the person answering the phone was able to point me towards Nehru Place and didn't leave me hanging without any info.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

So how did this get resolved? I'm a yank looking to relocate to Dehradun and, like you, I need to replace the power cord for my acer laptop (as well as a couple of hard drives). I thought it would be easy enough to do in Delhi, but your narrative is making me think otherwise.

Azahar Machwe said...

Just did what the person suggested, went to Nehru Place and searched around for the power cord. I got a cheap one for about 80 rupees which lasted about 4 weeks. The second time I got 2 power cords.
So I would advise you that either buy 2-3 cheap power cords or go for a more expensive one.

Acer should be able to get you the hard disk. In case they are not or if you want the problem resolved quickly I would suggest getting it from Nehru Place and installing the hard disk on your own (especially if your laptop is outside warranty cover).