November 8, 2010

We were at Gaisano Grand Mall this past weekend and stopped in at "Handy Man Hardware" to buy a key chain, but I couldn't help remembering a funny experience we had there this past summer when we returned a defective coffee maker.

As a rule, they won't accept returns or exchanges in the Philippines.  In fact, we bought a dvd player 2 days ago but before we took it to the cashier, the young salesmen took it out of the box, then plugged it in, placed batteries in the remote, inserted a dvd, then showed us that everything is working properly before we took it out of the store.  Not that I expect a problem with it but if there was I would never be able to return it.

Back to the coffee maker... unlike the dvd player they didn't try to make coffee before I paid for it.  The 1st time I used it I put plain water in it and ran it through just to clean it before I made my coffee the following morning.  No problems.  In the morning however, when I poured the water in the reserve it all came gushing out from the bottom after passing through the electrical components.  After cleaning up the mess on the floor I repacked it, then returned it that afternoon.

I didn't expect they would satisfy me, but after Rhea explained to them what happened, they put it on the cashiers counter and poured water in (I guess they didn't believe me).  I knew what would happen so I turned and walked away because I couldn't control my laughter!  I heard the young lady who was posted at the cashier yelling at them when the water saturated her counter and paperwork.

Well, to my pleasant surprise they exchanged it with an identical one, but we had to use our original decanter because the new one had been exchanged with a different size.  After thanking them we left the store, but not before noticing the young man and the security guard disassembling the defective one to see if they could find the problem and fix it, even though the water had passed through the electrical components.  I wonder what will happen with the next customer who purchases that unit!