The LCD of my husband’s laptop conked out just a couple of weeks after the one-year warranty expired.
Although we feel bad, we have no choice but to find a replacement. We really do not have a budget for this, as we thought the laptop would last for at least 3 years. This is used primarily for my child’s videos and while she is watching, I can get to work. But instead, after only a year, it has so many problems. Enough about that, I will make a separate rant about this.
Anyway, we have been scouting around for the best replacement that we can afford. We don’t have the money yet but if charged to our credit card, I am willing to shell out a maximum of P5,000 for this matter. Not more than that. If we can get it for less, why not right? We have to find something that will give us value for our money.
We scouted around and the LCD replacement is pretty expensive. So our best recourse is to buy a separate LCD unit. When we went to SM Supermarket, we found out that they are selling Coby LCDTV. Well, we thought, it would be nice to get an LCD with a TV feature so that at least, we can watch television when our child’s videos are not being shown. We really wanted a Samsung LCDTV but it is way beyond our budget. Their LCD is a little more expensive than the Coby LCDTV. So like my husband said, “it all boils down to what we can afford.”
So finally, to make the long story short, we settled for the Coby 15″ LCDTV because it was on sale for P4,999 and it just fit our budget. And I have P400 worth of Sodexho gift certificates courtesy of my HSBC credit card and so we got the unit for only around P4,600. Cool. Just enough, after all, we still need to buy a bracket (so that we can hang the LCDTV on our wall and thus save space) and a connector for the laptop to the LCDTV.
When we got home, we tried everything and it was okay. But when my father in law learned about it, he wanted to change it to the next bigger unit. We told him it costs around P1,700 more but he was willing to pay for the extra. And so we decided that we wanted to change the unit.
After dinner, we called SM Supermarket Customer Service at 468-0122 in order to know if we could have the unit changed and what time they are closing for the night. First the line was busy. After several tries, the call went through but my husband said that the phone was lifted and then was hang up. Really?
So I made the call this time. True enough, the phone was hung up because I got the recorded message that the phone was not accessible at the moment. Thankfully, when I called the SM Prime office, a guy answered. I asked if I called up the Admin office, he said yes. I asked him about the Supermarket hours and was told that they close at 10pm.
Well that was good at least we knew and we got our unit changed.
But the Customer Service people should not do that. I understand they are busy, but they should not hang up the phone like that. I am thinking of letting their supervisor know on my next visit so that at least they can also check on their employees from time to time.
