Cyprus-Forum.com

[agnostos_x]

Hi all,

I wanted to talk about the goods or the services that we are really being sold by Cypriot companies and more specifically how we are being manipulated into buying a product that is really not worth it.

For example I bought a mobile phone from a well "respected" company in Nicosia (well the only thing indicating that that is a respected company is the fact that it advertises on TV which makes us beleive that that is a well operating company). To make the long story short, i had to return the phone 4 times to upgrade its firmware because of operational problems with the old one and eventhough they stated every time they had upgraded they really did not. So finally I had to do it via a friend of mine who works in another mobile phone company.
Now when another operational problem appeard and after I took the phone for inspection of the problem, they changed some of the equipment inside without asking and charged me for it as well (bare in mind that they claim to have 1 year waranty and this problem occured on the 6th month). They actually held my phone as hostage untill I paid for something I never told them to do and for fixing a problematic phone that they sold me as "new" and not second hand. They also refused to let me talk to the manager of the store or anyone higher than the desc clerck. They simply didn't care about my complain or my problem.

This is just one of the many frustrating incidents which cost a lot of money to us consumers I might add. The Cyprus Consumers Association cannot really help us because of either fault in the laws or more inportantly because there is no incentive for them to help us.

Now am not really sure if we could post the name of companies that tried to trick us or in similar situations, but I propose that we share our consuming experiences not only as punishment to them but for eductational purposes as well.

Ok i talked long enough I think for one post

[devil]

On condition that every word of what you say is strictly true and you have proof, you can publish the company name. If, for example, you surmise the phone was not new when you bought it, then you should not publish this as fact. It would be a public service to publish the names of rogue companies and they would be foolish to turn against you, if you can prove it. Libel becomes libel only if it is untrue and can harm a company's reputation without a foundation of fact.

[agnostos_x]

If, for example, you surmise the phone was not new when you bought it, then you should not publish this as fact

Se devil that would be a problem. Now the reason I know that the phone is not new its because the support guy told me so after I pointed out the phone's obvious problems. So I can't really prove it ... unless the support ppl back me up heh .

Thank you though I really wasnt 100% sure about what is considered libel and what is not.

The post wasn't just about that specific incident though. I wanted to start a post where we (the consumers) can inform eachother about our experiences with the Cypriot market and offer our critique.

I have tones of other examples of frustrating incidents and now I know better, I will only mention facts that I can back up. But this is not about me; I would like to hear from others as well.

[Sotos]

agnostos_x, the best would be to publish the name and some proof like the invoice they gave you. If you just say "Cypriot companies" is not good first because you put everybody in the same basket and second because it doesn't do anybody much good since in the end those that live in Cyprus will have to buy most of their products from here anyways.

[pantheman]

Hey agnostos_x any one else for that matter,

i would publish the name of the firm that sold you a poor service and if they have the bulls or intelligence let them sue. Hey what good publicity it would be for them to make public such shitty service.

I bet they would even want to try. Furthermore, tell them you will publish their name on forums for everyone to see and then see what reaction you get. (extreme case would be a beating up from the owner), but then he could be done for assult as well.

tell us who it is. Its no good bitching about a poor service or goods if you ain't gonna tell us who provided them.

We wait your response.

[Pete_D]

Ok, my 2p's worth.

Firstly: re. publishing details of the company.

On another forum I am a member of, there were some problems when this sort of thing was done. Despite these posts being personal opinions (something you could reiterate if you publish names), companies threatened legal action against the owners of the forum. Bear in mind that these fora are read by many people, members and non-members, and words within posts can appear as results from search engines. Additionally, note that it is possible that said company(ies) may be sponsors of the this forum or its affiliates. So, it is possible this may cause problems for this forum and this something you could discuss privately with the Administrator.

Secondly: regarding the mobile phone

It is an unfortunate fact that ALL mobile phone companies have quite terrible FFRs ("field failure rates"), this is what we call it when a phone goes wrong after it has been sold. Company confidentiality means I'm not allowed to tell you what the FFR is for the company I work for, but suffice it to say it is really quite shocking and it is not much better in the rest of the industry.

Your phone may be one of the many suffering a problem. Now, this may be able to be resolved by updating the software (which is what you have had done), or it may be a mechanical problem needing a repair or new handset. Regarding the software issue, what happens is that the manufacturer will make "upgrade" releases of the software for any particular phone because the software is constantly being matured (bear in mind the software for any one phone is near identical to most other phones sold by that manufacturer). So, it is possible you have suffered from having a phone older than you were led to believe in that your problem has been "fixed" on newer phones. This in itself sounds like a reason to be given a new phone... it sounds like the problem with yours is not going to go away easiest.

Alternatively, most manufacturers will have dedicated repair centres, and if you have no joy with the retailer perhaps you could find one of those. Although typically this is a long process.... the phone is sent away and then in practice what happens is either a new handset is given or the software is upgraded, and usually there isn't much else that can be done.

If you provide information on who manufactured the handset and what exactly is the nature of your problem, I may be able to assist you further, but no promises. You may PM me if you wish.

(Note that I do not want to reveal in the public domain who I work for, and there are a number of very good reasons why I do not want to do that).

Regards,
Pete

[pantheman]

Ok, my 2p's worth.

Firstly: re. publishing details of the company.

On another forum I am a member of, there were some problems when this sort of thing was done. Despite these posts being personal opinions (something you could reiterate if you publish names), companies threatened legal action against the owners of the forum. Bear in mind that these fora are read by many people, members and non-members, and words within posts can appear as results from search engines. Additionally, note that it is possible that said company(ies) may be sponsors of the this forum or its affiliates. So, it is possible this may cause problems for this forum and this something you could discuss privately with the Administrator.

Secondly: regarding the mobile phone

It is an unfortunate fact that ALL mobile phone companies have quite terrible FFRs ("field failure rates"), this is what we call it when a phone goes wrong after it has been sold. Company confidentiality means I'm not allowed to tell you what the FFR is for the company I work for, but suffice it to say it is really quite shocking and it is not much better in the rest of the industry.

Your phone may be one of the many suffering a problem. Now, this may be able to be resolved by updating the software (which is what you have had done), or it may be a mechanical problem needing a repair or new handset. Regarding the software issue, what happens is that the manufacturer will make "upgrade" releases of the software for any particular phone because the software is constantly being matured (bear in mind the software for any one phone is near identical to most other phones sold by that manufacturer). So, it is possible you have suffered from having a phone older than you were led to believe in that your problem has been "fixed" on newer phones. This in itself sounds like a reason to be given a new phone... it sounds like the problem with yours is not going to go away easiest.

Alternatively, most manufacturers will have dedicated repair centres, and if you have no joy with the retailer perhaps you could find one of those. Although typically this is a long process.... the phone is sent away and then in practice what happens is either a new handset is given or the software is upgraded, and usually there isn't much else that can be done.

If you provide information on who manufactured the handset and what exactly is the nature of your problem, I may be able to assist you further, but no promises. You may PM me if you wish.

(Note that I do not want to reveal in the public domain who I work for, and there are a number of very good reasons why I do not want to do that).

Regards,
Pete

Thanks pete,

but , regarding the legal issues with forums, well this is already an established fact that the forum cannot be prosecuted as it did not do the writing. a recent case has shown this.

Regarding if the company is a sponsor, well thats just hard luck. If they sponsor a forum such as this they should make bloody sure its readers get a better service. The administrators can publish a list of their sponsors for all to see or even monitor such posts.

With Regards the th FFR as you put it, well i understand what you are saying, but it doesn't help the customer when the support service is crap. Its no excuse its still a failure and its still the sellers responsibility to fix it. I worked for a big household name electronics firm and i can tell you we went through great lengths the help the customer to the point where we would despatch an engineer to another part of the globe to see what the problem was.

So FFR is no excuse, and so i would (and i'm sure others too) want to know who the hell to stay away from.


Thanks

[agnostos_x]

If you provide information on who manufactured the handset and what exactly is the nature of your problem, I may be able to assist you further, but no promises. You may PM me if you wish.

Thanx pete, but I have already fixed the problem myself... well not me but a friend of mine that works in a rival company from where I bought the mobile... free of charge .
It wasn't even that big of a deal, he just connected the mobile via USB with a PC using registered software from the manufacturer and the whole process took something like 5 minutes.

If you just say "Cypriot companies" is not good first because you put everybody in the same basket

You are right Sotos and I apologize my purpose was not to generalise the problem, but just to point out the trend by some companies to provide bad service and foul products.

and second because it doesn't do anybody much good since in the end those that live in Cyprus will have to buy most of their products from here anyways.

Well ok I live in Cyprus too, but for electronic products at least I prefer to buy from abroad, preferably within the EU. Even bigger products such as TV sets. I have bought from most of the “big” electronic retailers in Cyprus and empirically speaking, I really don’t see any reason to pay 50% more for a product just because they claim to have warranty (which at the end of the day it’s just what the Legislation for Consumer Protection states). Whereas I can buy online from European companies and with delivery charges included the total price comes to much lower that that of most local companies.

Some companies don’t even have the products on stock and the customer has to wait for a couple of months, like with many retailers of imported Furniture. Now having no stock should be enough for them to reduce their price (since their cost is lower).

[Sotos]

I buy things from abroad too. But what if you are unlucky and you get a defective product? Once I got a book from Amazon and the CD inside was broken. I could have returned it and wait for a replacement but that was too much time and trouble. Buying from abroad is cheaper but I think it has more risks.

[Pete_D]

With Regards the th FFR as you put it, well i understand what you are saying, but it doesn't help the customer when the support service is crap. Its no excuse its still a failure and its still the sellers responsibility to fix it.

Quite true. Part of the problem is that the network providers / distributors sell the handsets rather than the manufacturer selling directly. But the manufacturers do lose out on the faulty products of course, the reason they all want to reduce the FFR is because this costs big, big bucks for the manufacturers.... for the larger manufs we are talking a fair number of billions of euros a year on faulty products! Hence why, for example, where I work there are huge efforts made to identify problems before the product hits the streets, and we are constantly having it drummed into us to improve our quality and a large part of my incentives scheme is based on reducing the number of errors in our products! So if your phone breaks, it hits me in the pocket as well!

Pete