Please note, this is ‘my experience‘. It is very likely that others might have had a very good experience with them. I still think eTechies would have been a good experience for me too, if I had the 5-7days time they normally take for a service request. That said, as you’ll understand from the blog below, I made it very clear in my conversation with them that I didn’t have the time! And no one seemed to have listened! I know it’s not fair to blame the entire company because of the mistake of a few employee. This blog is written in the hope that some senior(s) people from eTechies will notice and take appropriate action(s) and hopefully improve their service.

Now, about the issues “I faced“. It may sound like a rant, that’s because I am pissed!!

My laptop crashed on 30th March(around midnight, or 31st early morn.) Suddenly heard some cracking noise near the fan and it crashed. Upon restarting the laptop, the fan didn’t work. It kept crashing every 10-15mins due to overheating. Here’s my tweet about the same: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/gnlpvf

Tweeted/FBed asking for repair centers that friends might know of. Also called Just Dial on the 31st of March, looking for laptop repair centers near Koramangala.  I got a few leads from Just Dial. Spoke to a few and asked a firm from Jayanagar to come and pick up my laptop to repair it. They promised return of the repaired laptop the same day, I understand there could have been a delay here as well. JD must have shared my query, after about half an hour later someone from eTechies calls me up, tell me how they are a ‘professionally’ run firm, very organised and trustworthy and guarantees good service, unlike the other local ones. The person told me about how a ‘certified’ technician will come and try to fix my laptop at my place. If that didn’t work, the technician will take back the laptop to the lab and return it within 5-7 working days. I didn’t have that time as I had a lot of work and told them I cannot part with my laptop for that long. I am flying out of Bangaloire on the 8th and needed to finish a lot of work before that. All the data needed for this work is on the laptop. The person(Naren, if I remember right) I was speaking to transferred the call to a technician(a lady whose name I don’t remember) and after a long discussion she reluctantly guarantees return in 2 days. I was still not willing to part my laptop for 2 days so I ask for the technician to come to my place, try to fix it and if that didn’t work I said I’ll take the call about giving the laptop to the service center then. They said a person will come before 12:30, the person can around 3. Understandable delay, as there may have been other clients.

The ‘certified technician’, Mr Md Rafiq, tries to fix the problem by cleaning the dust with a handheld air blower, taking out and cleaning the hard-disk and RAM, clearing the temporary files, by moving the files from my desktop to another drive, disabling auto update, etc. When that didn’t work, he tells me the problem is with the motherboard connector/link(?) and that the laptop has to be taken back to their lab. Yes, the ‘certified technician’ did just that! He said, the laptop will be returned within 7 working days. Again, the same conversation about how I don’t have time and can’t give it for that long. I asked him not to bother with my laptop, that I’ll pay your charges but will take the laptop to someone else the next day. He speaks to Mr Kailash(in charge of Bangalore is what he told, now I am not very sure!!) of Bangalore, Mr Kailash promises me that the laptop will be returned the same day, March 31st. It was 3:30pm already. I told him to take one more day and return my laptop by Sunday afternoon. I even told him not to bother with the software upgrading, antivirus/OS fixes, et al and to check and if possible fix the hardware problem(s) only. If that cannot be done, I want my laptop back on Sunday anyhow. He promises to do the same, I trusted him and gave the laptop.

Forget delivery, no one from eTechies even bothered to call me on Sunday. I waited, thinking Sunday might have been a holiday. No communication from eTechis till monday afternoon, I was getting restless thinking about all the work!! Lucky for me, my boss wasn’t yelling! I called up the customer care, gave my service ticket and asked for Mr Kailash, the person who promised me the delivery in one day. He said he was on leave yesterday, will check the status and call back. I kept my cool and said okay. Few mins later a person called, told me that “the laptop has been fixed and it is with the delivery guy, I’ll get it before 6pm”. I was happy all this drama was finally going to end. It didn’t.

After about an hour, I got a call from Mr Kumar of the service department of eTechies.in, Bangalore. According to him, my laptop is in ‘diagnosis’ stage and the problem is the motherboard link(Same prob that Rafiq told) and that it’ll take another 3 days to fix! I told him about the conversations I had with his colleagues earlier. He says he ‘understands’ and what he’s telling now is the truth. He himself kept asking me to trust him now, and mentions that his colleagues had made false guarantees and kept apologising for the same. Yes. I told him “I trust you, but I need my laptop back now.”. He cosults another colleague of his and says there’s nothing he can do today, at which point I ask to talk to Mr Kailash again, he gave me a mobile number to call.

Called the mobile number, Mr Kailash’s colleague picked up, I gave my service ticket and he says the same about needing 3/4 more days. The only difference being, the problem now is with the laptop fan and that it needs to be replace and they need my approval!! Not very sure if the ‘motherboard link’ and ‘changing the fan’ are the same problem, I am guessing different. Now I don’t know who to trust anymore, ask him to please return my laptop today without repairing. He says okay, but he won’t be able to give the refund. Some slightly heated conversation on this, they said they’ll call back. They are yet to.

I am not sure what to say/do, hence this blog! Now, I understand/assume they have spent some time on my laptop, opened it up to check the problem, probably did some work and that they need to be paid for the same. But, how about – they made false promises, lied multiple times, wasted two and a half days and the laptop is still in the same damn condition I gave them!(slightly clearner, maybe).

Like I mentioned above, I am only hoping people from eTechies notices this blog post and offers an explanation, some actions maybe!

But I ‘think’ my happiness will be short lived and the friend will ditch Ubuntu and go back to a pirated Windows copy. Don’t get me wrong, Ubuntu is a brilliant OS. I use it, and will continue to use it. It is just that, for a non tech-savvy person, I feel, the shift from Windows to Ubuntu(or any other OS) can be a bit difficult. At least in the beginning. A lot of learning to be done, bit frustrating at times…. especially when it comes to fixing a problem.

Well, I can only hope that he sticks with Ubuntu long enough to fall in love with it… like I did