Buying a Notebook in Thailand

There's always a Catch to Good Deals

Is this a scam? Depends on how you take it. Depends on your mood and your bias towards things in Thailand.

I was at IT City. I was looking for a notebook with very specific specifications for my work. 1600 x 900 resolution at 14", i5 and above, must be Windows 7 (now all of them are coming with Windows 8), memory and hard disk I have no concern of as I can upgrade them myself. I learned it's very rare to find 14" notebooks with that high a resolution, people here don't do much serious graphical work that needed portability. Anyways, there I was, speaking to a salesman who sold me a "clearance" stock notebook that's still on Windows 7. The newer Windows 8 model cost 36,000 Baht. Mine cost 28,000 Baht. Grab. Paid in full, to collect my notebook the next day.

Dented

When I collected the notebook, the special VGA cable that was promised to me, not included (my notebook comes with a special VGA connector that needed an external converter to get it onto DB15 VGA). I had to order that myself in a last minute dash to another store before it closed for the night. And so I brought my notebook home to discover only late in the night that there was a dent. The box looked suspiciously old, and the notebook did not have all the protective lamination attached. In Thailand, all goods are entitled one-to-one exchange within 7 days of purchase. So off I went to IT City the next day.

"But i told you this is clearance stock" the salesman said.

There is a difference between selling me a clearance stock and stock which had been damaged, a display set, a used set or whatever I countered. I demanded an exchange.

"We have no more this model, you have to get the Windows 8 one, top up 8,000 Baht extra". That's when I blew my top at the shop.

He went to look for his manager. I mellowed down. He returned to tell me he would offer a full refund. I told him it's simple to resolve the issue, IT City takes the notebook in and send it for repairs, change the dented keyboard, win-win situation. No, IT City does not send notebooks for repairs he highlighted, I have to do it myself. And so off to the service center I went.

"Warranty does not cover physical damage" the service center said, and then added "It will be chargeable". I told them my situation, I told them my whole ordeal. People are nice if your are nice to people to begin with. They brought me to a corner and whispered to me to declare the keyboard as faulty, they will replace it. Wow, karma, I must believe in it. I once helped a customer worked things out by maneuvering the grey areas in my course of work, now someone is helping me.

As notorious complaining Singaporeans, we would treat the whole situation at IT City as a big below the belt scam and the set the place alight in our fireball of loud complains. I tend not to now. Instead, I blame myself for being careless in this whole episode and being a cheapskate buying clearance stock. The outcome turned out good at the end. Me here, blogging on my new notebook.

And here's a previous entry about my trip to the service center, where I encountered someone that was really pissed with the brand of product which I bought.

Quality of Electronic Goods in Thailand

Measuring a Brand's Quality

Just part of the Queue

I was at a service center sending in my notebook for repairs, reasons for which I will elaborate later in another entry. A very pissed customer was on location and his speaking to himself but needed everyone else to hear performance caused quite a situation there. Already many were tired, growing impatient for the 40 or so queue, we did not need him to add fuel to the already burning fire. He went on and on, spoken aloud that he had sent his phone in since 2 weeks ago, and no one from the service center had givenhim a follow up call. He had to call in day to day lately, just so to check the status of repairs by himself. There was one good point he brought out during his self instigated broadcast of many topics. Before buying something, the way to measure the reliability of a brand is to pay their service center a visit. If you see crowd day to day, it indicates that QC is questionable. There are some truth in this marvelous claim. Products used to be made in reliable USA, Japan or Korea but now with the competitive price war, most brands are made in China. Thais perceive made in China goods to have inferior quality. People who were there mainly brought in their large LED TVs and smart phones. Through the chap's questioning some of the customers there, I learned that many had to send their equipment for repairs within one or two months of usage. That chap said, if he had knew, he would not have bought that smart phone. I sat silent and agreed.

Picking up Girls in Pubs

What's real and What's Not

When guys get together over drinks after a day's work, one topic that's sure to abound - girls. Hunting girls from nightspot nowadays in Thailand is a daunting task for my many single and young hot blooded male colleagues here. Firstly, we need to know how to distinguish girls from guys wanting to be girls.

You can't trust a face when you see one too. Double eyelids are created by strategically placed concealed sticker of some sort. Sometimes there's a glitch and we could spot them especially when a fly gets stuck up on their eyelids. And then there is the "big-eye" contact lens trend going on, makes their eyes so mesmerizing to look at. Talking to them staring into their eyes for extended time, you need your mates to bring you to a hypnotist the next day to put you out of your trance. To add to that, there is this thing we have seen too many on YouTube that not so pleasant looking girls can transform themselves into the ultimate desire of guys by heavy makeup. A good long time ago, when all the creative makeup techniques were not that widely practiced, all we needed to do was to bring the girls to the nearest Seven-Eleven. This is because all girls are pretty under the palette of colors and strobes in pubs and a well lit Seven-Eleven will reveal their true features. Nowadays, we need to bring them into the high-beams of our cars just to make sure. To be doubly sure, we need to push them into the pool. To have a hard guarantee revelation in case they use very resilient makeup, we need to tie them to shopping carts and send them into an extended automatic car wash. I have also heard the story of someone who was about to get married only to cancel the whole arrangement. One day, he visited the girl's home when she did not have her make up on, it was like he was about to marry his own mother.

Perfect ass to breast ratio is also difficult to determine at first glance. I attended a wedding with my girlfriend. Her friend of a few years was one of the bridesmaids. Wow, I never knew she have boobs. After the dinner, the bride invited the pack of bridesmaids to her room where they changed to their casual clothing. Looking at her after the change, she was back to her normal figure which I knew. I immediately asked jokingly, where did her breast go. She literally showed me her breasts in her hands, two large pink silicone padding. I wanted to keep them for souvenirs but my girlfriend objected strongly.

The daunting task now is even made more challenging with the popular cosmetic surgery that many Thai girls keenly put themselves under the knives for. One guy then mentioned in the midst of drinks that we can only tell the truth when our kids are born. "So how if our daughter do not genetically inherit the beauty of our cosmetically altered wife which we found out too late?" I asked. They all agreed to one conclusion, send our kids for cosmetic surgery.

Dangerous Thai Roads

The Death Ramp

Up, Over and then the Downwards Plunge

Right about 2 years ago, a close colleague departed from our world. We were all saddened by that episode. In his mid-thirties and with the whole world ahead of him, he left unexpectedly. His wedding was recent then, in fact he got married for just a few months when his BMW 3 Series decided to take him along with it after it plunged from an elevated highway somewhere north of Bangkok. It was 3am, the roads were dark, he went up the ramp at high speeds, the beamer went airborne, flipped and landed on her roof. The few days that followed, police were there to take pictures and do their routine stuffs. Damaged properties were repaired and with that the case was closed. The funeral soon proceeded and that was the first time in my life I had to hold the cold hands of a corpse that had his head bashed in and cosmetically reconstructed. It was tradition, I held my friend's hand, gave a prayer and bided him farewell. The death ramp awaits her next victim.

Life terminating accidents on roads can be caused by many factors, sometimes not just the driver. If someone digs a 10 meter deep trench in the middle of the road and did not put up warning signs, who is to blame? We can blame the driver, he should have spotted the deep hole and avoided the accident. It is controversial the blaming game. I know for sure that in certain countries, we can sue the shit out of city authorities for having dangerous settings on roads , but not here in our "culture".

What then does it take to get the authorities to look into these death ramps seriously and take preventive actions? Over the course of 2 years passed, there were more reports of road deaths from similarly related accidents of people plunging to their deaths from these death ramps. It was only after a big hoo-haa over the media when someone famous died somewhere along Ratchada Viphavadi intersection that the authorities decided to put up barriers in front of that death ramp. The guy who died was a movie star. We had thought that after the flood of news, all such death ramps that exist in Thailand will have theses life saving barriers put up. We were wrong. Many of them are still as it is up till today. Maybe the authorities do have plans for all such locations to be made safer, but it is to be carried out in phases for budgetary reasoning. We do see barriers put up on other locations too but not many. Maybe we need more movie star sacrifices, maybe we need some tourist to be flying off them death traps. Whatever the reasons, whatever the delay, drive carefully guys, watch out for the death ramp.