New Asus motherboard dead after two weeks!!

Suppliers **** to me about laptop specs upon purchasing and the laptop stopped working after less than 2 weeks! Not to mention a vast amount of irreplaceable hours lost and nearly a R1000, in airtime and petrol combined, wasted.

Here are the exact details:

I went to Makro Cape-Gate on Sunday the 20th of August to purchase an Asus Vivobook max notebook. It was my first time ever looking to purchase from Makro. I waited 20 minutes to be helped by a sales rep, with none around to be seen. Being a busy Sunday I waited patiently. Eventually I found a sales rep by the name of Robert who was unhelpful, unfriendly and disinterested. I queried if the laptop had a free Ram slot available (as I wanted to add another 4GB at a later stage). The tech guy was unsure and eventually the manager said she will contact the supplier the next morning and let me know.

The following day, Monday 21st August I received no feedback the next day but went back to Makro at 4pm once done with my obligations at university. I waited 35min to be helped by Robert and was told he was on a Lunch break. Once he helped me he informed me that the suppliers had given him an answer regarding the ram but he just had to check in his file. He then told me he was unsure. Him and the manager tried to contact the supplier but could not get hold of Mustek. The tech guy thought that it had 4Gb on board with one unoccupied slot so I proceeded to purchase the laptop anyway as I wasn't coming back again. I waited another 15min after paying for the laptop for Robert to fetch it.

I phoned Mustek in the week to confirm the Ram specification and the Technician from Asus, Kevin, told me that it had 4GB on board and 1 slot open.

I had tests all week and proceeded to setup the new laptop on the Saturday the 26th of September. I used the laptop for a week and a half. On the 6th of September, I switched the laptop on and it went straight into the Asus BIOS. It did not give me any boot options and could not read the drive. I restarted the Laptop several times and then seemed to be fine again... Two days later on the 8th of September it did this again. I restarted it several times but it just kept opening the Bios page. I phoned Makro and they told me that I should rather phone Asus's warranty provider: Mustek, as they might be able to help and the process would be much faster if I deal with them directly. So, I phoned Mustek to report the problem and the technician available said that they do not deal with the operating system (windows).

I took the laptop to Computer mania the following day to see if they can fix the 'windows' issue. I watched the technician at Computer mania trying to identify the issue for nearly 40min. He eventually concluded it must be hardware and opened the back of the laptop to see why the laptop wasn’t reading the hard drive. He tried plugging in a different hard drive into my pc but it would still not read any hard drives. He said that he thinks the SATA controller is dead. He also showed me that the Motherboard did not in fact have 4GB dedicated Ram memory and that in fact the 1 slot it had was probably occupied by a 4GB Ram.

I phoned Makro several times to inform them but the staff were useless and I wasn't being put through to anyone who could help me. I decided I would take the laptop straight to Mustek myself as the refunds department of Makro had advised me earlier anyway. I managed to take the laptop to Mustek in Cape Town on Thursday morning the 14th September (as I wasn't able to take off class before then).

After booking it into Asus, a technician: Kevin, checked the laptop for me to see if he could quickly fix the problem. He confirmed that it is the motherboard and will need to be replaced. He said he can apply for credit and the part as well to see if things could be done quickly. He informed me that Asus would probably notify him the following Monday.

The following Monday afternoon (18th Sep) I phoned to find out if there was any news and Kevin told me he had not received any confirmation. I phoned on Wednesday (20th Sep) and Thursday afternoon (21st Sep) again with the same feedback. I did not once receive any initiative from them to update me and had to make the phone calls myself to track the process.

On Friday the 22nd of September, I received a phone call from Kevin, just before lunchtime, saying that my credit has been approved by Asus. He told me my options would be: to receive the same replacement or credit Makro. I chose to receive my money back as how could I possibly trust the exact same laptop again? He told me it would take a day on Mustek’s account side to be processed and then I would have to wait another few days for Makro.

I phoned Makro on the 27th of September to see if they had received the credit from Makro. After waiting 16 minutes on the phone I was eventually put through to a gentleman from the accounts department who introduced himself as Karim. He said he would follow up on the credit with the appropriate person as he was unsure and would call me back in a few minutes. An hour passed and I received no phone call. I contacted Makro once again. The receptionist was unfriendly, impatient and not particularly helpful and after a long while of bad listening on her part she said that I would need a credit copy from Mustek. Kevin told me that he would email me the credit note but after failing gave me the credit note number and said he would forward it to Makro Cape Gate and notify the correct employee at Makro.

Today the 28th on September went to Makro to receive my money back. The process took more than an hour and a half. I arrived at Makro Cape-Gate at 1 o’clock. Upon arriving I was blocked off from the main entrance by a huge group of Makro staff that were on strike. I nervously drove around the area and managed to find a side entrance to enter. At the refunds department, I waited to be helped. There were a group of about 7-8 staff members all and none of them seemed interested to help me even upon politely asking. I then spoke to a staff member, Michaela De Waal, whom was quite distracted and confused that I was sent there by Begonia Geduld. After receiving the credit slip from her she told me to go to a till and they would give me all the money in cash as I paid on a debit card. I went inside and asked the floor manager, by the electronics side, Lisbe which till I should go to and she abruptly pointed and told me just to go to the one in front of me. The cashier at the till told me that they do not have such a large amount of cash at the till and I would have to go to another one. I then informed the floor manager who blatantly ignored and I had to repeatedly say ‘excuse me’ for her to respond to me. She rudely told me just to go to the front. I waited in the long purchasing line close to the exit for nearly 15minutes. Upon reaching the cashier, I was told that they also do not have that kind of cash at their till points. The cashier advised that I should go and speak to the floor manager and give the till point in the electronics section my credit slip. I informed him that I had already done so and was sent to the front. The cashier then called the till’s supervisor who I then followed back to the electronics department. The supervisor then led me to the bulk food till points where we waited another 10 minutes until being helped. The till point there then sat and counted the cash which was given to me. I had to sift through all the cash many of the notes were slightly torn and badly folded in some corners. I politely requested that they change the very damaged notes as the bank ATM will not accept them, to which they reluctantly responded. After spending an hour and a half I had to leave Makro with a very large amount of cash on my person and drove home nervously as I do not know the area well.

This whole process of constant long periods of waiting over the phone and *********** staff, has forced me to need to purchase airtime excessively this month and I’m also expecting to receive a large bill from Telkom for telephone calls made to Mustek and Makro. Additionally, I drove more than 400km in total dealing with Makro and Mustek.

After all my patience, I’ve been rewarded with such appalling product quality and downright sloppy customer service. I’ve been working overtime to try and manage my varsity studies and tasks without a laptop for about three weeks now. And will have to continue to struggle until I source another notebook. I am studying Medicine, and this is a major inconvenience for me to say the least.

A month later after purchasing a new laptop I now need to search for another notebook, in between my studies, within my budget once again. Who knows how long this will take. I am disgusted with this whole experience and feel like making this shocking experience very public.

How can this be acceptable product quality or service from Asus, Makro or Mustek?