On the second day, we waited for Ah Wah to come and fix our car as he had promised. As time passed by, our hope diminished and our anger intensified.
At 9am, Ah Wah wasn't there yet. Well, maybe it was the Chinese tradition of being late, we told ourselves. So we decided to wait a little longer.
At 9.30am, still no show and no call. We called him at his mobile phone and he told us that he would send a technician to us right away.
At 10.30am, still no sight of any technician. We called again but no one answered the phone and the call went into voice mail. We called and called and called, for so many times that i've lost count of it. But the only sound came from the other side of the line was the multiple "doo doo", followed by the oh-so-familiar lady's voice of "please leave a message after the tone". Obviously, Ah Wah was avoiding our calls for whatever reasons.
Well, to say that we were furious would be an understatement. I doubt there's a word to describe our rage. Let's just say that if our dear Mr Wah were there, i would have greeted him with the F word and the longest finger on my hand, plus sending my warmest regards to his mother. I might have even ripped off his head and kicked it all the way from Cameron Highlands back to JB.
So it was the time when we told ourselves, "enough is enough". No more idiotic waiting. We asked John and Joan to drive to the battery shop that the local had told us about on the previous night and asked for help.
They returned in less than 20 minutes, with the technician Ah Boy from the battery shop arrived soon after. Ah Boy looked at the battery and told us that it was actually theirs, which was sold to Ah Heng the night before. He checked the engine and connected the wires directly to the battery since he didn't have the type of fuse for our car. And just like that, in less than 10 minutes time, our car came alive again.
Ah Boy then told us that the car should be fine now with the temporary wiring, but we must fix the fuse immediately when we got back to JB. He also revealed that Ah Wah's company was in the towage business and they didn't know much about servicing cars at all. This piece of information sure came as a shock to us! How could Toyota send someone who didn't know cars well enough to fix our cars?!
I immediately made a call to the 24-7 hotline again to raise my disgruntlement, but only to be informed that i would have to lodge my complaints to their supervisor, who was not working on weekends and i gotta call back again on Monday.
For the service rendered, Ah Boy charged us RM50, plus the battery cost of RM150. So in total we gotta pay him RM200, as opposed to the RM250 that Ah Heng had asked for the previous night.
Carol raised a concern that Ah Wah might come to the hotel later and demand us to pay him. We agreed that it would be best for us to pay Ah Boy and then for him to settle the amount with Ah Wah instead. It was good too because i didn't have too see that asshole again or else i might really rip his head off for being such a dishonest irresponsible SOB.
We followed Ah Boy back to his battery shop and he made a call to the SOB with the telephone in the shop. And guess what, that SOB picked up the call! So he was indeed avoiding our calls earlier!
Finally, the whole episode ended and the Wonder (Ah) Boy saved the day. We could continue with our touring and the car didn't give us any problem even for the long drive home. But of course, there was unfinished score to be settled -- I WAS SO GONNA KICK THAT SOB'S ASS!
Last Monday, both 贝 and i were on leave to have our car serviced at the Toyota Service Center. Other than getting the fuse fixed, we were also there for a mission -- we wanted Toyota to bear the cost of fixing the fuse as well as compensate us for the RM200 paid at Cameron Highlands.
The night before, we even did a mini-rehearsal of what we were gonna say. I was ready to turn on my bitchy mode if they didn't agree to pay us back the cost. I was even prepared to tell them that "ok, this is all going to the newspaper, the National Consumer Complaints Centre, your HQ in Japan, and my blog!"
(Well, in the end, it still went into my blog, but only my blog.)
On Monday itself, i repeated the stories four times: 1) to the supervisor (Yati) of the 24-7 hotline, 2) to the service officer (Sandiya) who attended to us at the counter of the Service Center, 3) to the supervisor (Farid) of Sandiya, and 4) to the Customer Service Officer (Mr Ow) of Toyota 1800-freephone (KL HQ).
(In fact, other than the above, i've also repeated the story later to my mom, my aunt, my colleagues, and now in this blog. I've talked about it so many times that i'm sick of it already. I'm not gonna talk about it anymore after i end this blog!)
We were told by Farid that the 24-7 hotline doesn't belong to Toyota. It was actually a call center that Toyota appointed for servicing their customers. He advised me to call Toyota HQ in KL directly and that was why i contacted the fourth person.
When we were recounting the incident, we made sure that we emphasized on these points (which they couldn't repudiate):
- We trusted the name of "Toyota" and it failed us.
- A simple job of fixing the battery in a few minutes turned into a total disastrous marathon of messing up our new car, spoiling our holiday, putting us under unduly stress, and wasting our annual leave to deal with the consequence.
- The car was still under warranty and the battery shouldn't be so lousy that it had to be changed just for such small matter
All the latter three persons were extremely understanding of our grievances. They were sympathetic and very helpful on our request. As for Yati, since her company had to be answerable to Toyota, and they were the one who appointed Ah Wah, she would of course try her best to deny any wrong-doings. So she told me that she would call the SOB to find out what happened. I sneered and asked her if she indeed thought that the SOB would admit it was his fault. She still insisted to check with the SOB and later when she called back (coincidentally we were with Farid when she called), it was a totally different story.
According to Yati, this was the SOB's side of the story:
- His technician had completed his job after jump-started our car and we were able to drive off.
- We forgot to switch off the head lights for so long until the fuse was burnt.
- He sent his wire man to fix our car the next day and everything was done perfectly.
I had only one word for his claims:
I rebutted without even blinking my eyes:
- He jump-started our car two times, and if it was really done beautifully, why would we still need him back the next day?
- So was he saying that Toyota made such lousy cars that by not switching off the lights for a mere 3 hours would burn the fuse? Then what would happen if the lights were on for the whole night? The whole engine would explode?
- The so-called wire man he alleged that was sent by him never turned up, and the guy who came to our aid was sourced by ourselves, whereby we had a receipt as proof.
When i refuted her words, i raised my voice as i was extremely upset with that SOB being such a f*cking liar. Yati was dumbfounded at my reaction and questioning. She told me that she would have to bring the issue up to the higher management.
Actually Yati did us a big favour in telling me what that SOB said. As Farid had heard my conversation with Yati, i told him that the SOB was pushing the responsibility to the customer and the car maker, for claiming that Toyota's fuse would burn so easily. I told Farid point blank that if what the SOB said was true, then the issue was no longer with the technician but with Toyota in making non-reliable cars, and this was a very serious allegation. These remarks somehow agitated Farid a bit and he immediately repudiated the SOB's accusations and reassured us that there was no way such thing would happen to their cars. I believed this had somehow discredited the SOB totally and nailed down our case.
The whole thing dragged on for the whole of last week and it was on last Friday that the issue was finally settled after i spoke to the manager of the southern region. He told me that out of goodwill, Toyota would give us a free service for our next round of servicing. On the same day, after not having any news for three days, Yati called again and asked for the receipt of the fees we paid and my bank account number so that her company could pay us back on the amount.
Having gone through this hoo-ha, i would say that i'm still rather happy with Toyota's customer service. I'm glad that they didn't just shove us off as a small and insignificant customer; instead, they took our case seriously and genuinely wanted to appease us. However, i do think that they should seriously scrutinize the people they appointed to serve the customers on their behalf to prevent such incident from happening again.
I could say that we had won the battle, but there wasn't really a war to be fought in the first place. All we did was simply stood up for what we thought was right instead of just said "tough luck" and swallowed the loss of RM200.
As i've always believed, there's always lessons to be learnt for every plight in our lives. Yes, the memories of our holiday may have been tarnished, but the lessons learnt could serve us well into the future.
And with that, it's the end of this long series of posts on our trip to Cameron Highlands.
Labels: travel
