The PS Box war

Notice the guy in the centre is whispering to the storeman ("He's taking a picture")

Update on my Xbox360 saga. Part one here, part two here.



So after some time, I decided to collect my X360, get it repaired independently and then begin my publicity campaign. However, yesterday I went to the shop to collect it and was told "It's not finished". "What do you mean? Where is it? You said you wouldn't fix it" I said (in very bad Thai, with customers noticing my agitation).

The storeman said something nervously that I didn't understand. I waited around for a while as I rang Mr Manager who was not in the store as usual. There was no answer. I stood and took a picture of the shop, which seemed to unsettle the storeman. Lo and behold, my wife got call less than minute later from the manager saying my x360 had been sent to Sapham Lek ......."to check. They are closed today but the x360 will be back in the store tomorrow".

I think it's likely they have trashed my x360 as revenge. I'm not sure I'll ever get it back.

The store have my system, my money and seem remarkably unconcerned about the threat of any other authorities being notified. Could there be a link between this and their blatant sale of copied games? (Yes that was a rhetorical question).

All I can do now is go ahead and notify as many places and people as I can. I have written a note which I will get translated hand out to customers in The Mall. It's risky and I don't like doing it, but it's either that or allow these people to effectively rob us then spit on us.


Do not buy from this store: PS Box in The Mall Bang Khae

Thailand's BIGGEST LIAR: the saga continues

I refer readers to my first blog on this situation.

Since then, the manager who seemed helpful refused to return several calls as to the status of my Xbox 360. On Christmas Day, he finally returned our call. His news was this: we could either replace the melted chip at a cost of 5,000 bhat wit a guarantee of seven days or replace the entire board at a cost of 15,000 bhat.

Naturally, my response was "I am not paying a single bhat, you will cover the costs. In any case, your storeman told us the repair price was 1,500 baht"

The manager responded that his shop would not pay. We could pay for the new chip at a "discounted" price of 3,000 bhat (still double the original price quoted) or....wait for this.......we could sell the Xbox 360 back to the store for 7,000 bhat!!!!


Yes that's right. The system I bought for 25,000 bhat from the shop that worked for four weeks, they were now planning to buy back from me at a loss of just 18,000 baht!


My wife told them to go back and arrange a free fix for us. Today he rang again, and offered a fix for 2,500 bhat. My wife accepted on condition they provide a guarantee of far more than one week. He refused. My wife responded that we would go to the Thai equivalent of Trading Standards, he replied "Do what you want" and hung up.


And it still doesn't end. We managed to contact the repair company and were told that actually the repair charge for a chip was 3,000 bhat. The manager's quote of 5,000 was another con.

It's now been four months since my system worked. Since then I've been cheated and lied to and nothing else. Sadly, we will have to take this further.

The problem is, I've lost the original receipt. Probably it was destroyed by my son who loves to play with my wallet. I do have the repair receipt though.


I could use any advice here. In the UK, we have a watchdog group called "Trading Standards" that assist consumers in problems like this. I understand there is a similar group in Thailand but nobody can seem to translate the name. Can anyone help?

Any ideas for my next action? I'm planning to contact the police, the manager of The Mall Bang Khae , post a message on pantip.com and write to every newspaper. Perhaps my best tactic would be to hand out letters in Thai to customers in The Mall but of course then things could get nasty.

It's a real disappointment that this has happened but we either let these people get away with stealing 25,000 bhat from me or we fight it out.

Oh and by the way NEVER BUY ANYTHING FROM PS BOX IN THE MALL BANG KHAE unless you want this to happen to you!

Me, the Xbox360 and Thailand's BIGGEST LIAR

About two months ago, I decided to treat myself to a new Xbox360 games system. After checking a few stores, I decided to purchase my system from a shop inside The Mall Bang Khae that for now shall remain nameless.

I emphasise this was an indoor shop near the IT section and not some dodgy, outdoor market outfit. Still, I should have sensed something was wrong when after taking my credit card, swiping and presenting me with the receipt, the man handed me another bill for 600 bhat and said "This is the extra charge we add on to credit cards".

I explained I had only paid by card to avoid the two minute walk to the ATM, I insisted he reverse the transaction and allow me to pay by cash but alas, nobody in the shop knew how to reverse a basic transaction. My wife had to talk them through it.


But it was all forgotten when I got home and - like the overgrown kid I am - started to enjoy my new games. All was well for about a month, until my Xbox 360 started to freeze more and more often, until eventually it died completely. I was disappointed but I had read that it was a well known batch problem and had cost Microsoft one billion dollars in repairs already. There is no Microsoft office in Thailand so I had to rely on the seller for support.

I took my system back to the shop and was surprised to discover they expected me to pay for the repair myself. "It's only a one month guarantee so it has expired" the man told me "We'll call you when we know the repair cost".


Two days later I got a call telling me the cost would be 1,500 bhat. I couldn't be bothered to argue so I agreed to pay. "We'll send it to Chinatown for repair and call you when it's done" I was told.

So I waited......and waited.....and waited. I visited the shop three times, and each time I was told "Yang mai set". Finally, after six weeks of waiting, I got my wife to call and get to the bottom of it, and that's when the lies really started to flow.

We were told that the repair was serious. It was not covered under any guarantee and a new part had been ordered. They had tried to call me several times to let me know (no missed calls showed on my phone). The new part would definitely arrive but it might take some time so I could come and pick up my system in the meantime.

We would eventually find out that not a single one of the things we had been told were true.


Sensing something amiss, I went to the store to pick up my system. The man in the shop (it was the same man we spoke to every time) actually told my wife "Your husband tried to use the system on the internet and that's what caused the problem. The chip has melted". Anyone who knows anything about Xbox systems or computer systems will know how laughable that line was. We were also told that if we didn't want to wait for the new part to arrive, we could take the system to Sapham Lek and get it repaired ourselves. (So why didn't they take it themselves then?)


By now, I knew that we had been cheated and lied to. But as unsatisified as I was, I also knew that if I could get it repaired myself it would save a lot of hassle. So, on my next day off, I took a little trip to Chinatown to hunt down a repair man in the Hong Kong style Sapham Lek Market, and sure enough I found one.

It took about thirty seconds for the repairman to open the system, look at the mainboard, laugh and tell me that someone had already tried to repair it and had burnt the ram insert to a crisp. A repair now would be impossible, my system was ruined. You can probably guess how I felt.


My wife asked around and found out the name of the shopman at the sales store in Bang Kahe and, usefully, the name of the owner. That same night we marched to the shop (my wife is so cool when she gets ticked off!) and demanded to speak the manager. After getting his number my wife made the call.

I already had my list of promises ready. If I didn't get a refund or replacement, I was going to write to every newspaper I knew, make leflets and hand them out to people walking into the shop, and tell all my new friends in the Thai Police and the manager of The Mall shopping complex. I still had the receipts from both the sale and repair of the system and they knew it.

To my relief though, the manager was a lot more helpful. He told us systems had a guarantee of six months from the shop and repairs were done through a contact at an electronics company in Chit Lom. When told that the storeman had mentioned a repair at Sapham Lek, there was concern. "Mr. Manager" promised to investigate and call us back.

Thirty minutes later the call came. Mr. Manager sounded worried. He confirmed that indeed my Xbox had been sent to Chinatown when it should not have been. The damage had been confirmed as serious but a replacement had not been ordered. Mr. Manager also apologised for the storeman suggesting I pick up the system and take it to be repaired myself. This should not have happened.

Obviously, the storeman had let me wait six weeks while my system sat in his cupboard in the vain hope I would forget about my computer. When that failed, he told me a bare faced lie about a replacement part on its way and when that lie failed too, he simply tried to get me to go away and deal with it myself.

Mr. Manager seemed apologetic and promised to meet my wife today. But the storeman was still not finished. Today my wife got at call saying "Sorry, the manager wanted to meet you today but he can't make it, can you cancel and come another day?". My wife agreed but - based on past experience - called Mr Manager to check. Surprise, surprise, Mr Manager knew nothing about the cancellation and was looking forward to meeting my wife as arranged!


And that's where we are now. But my question is this: just how stupid are some people?

Just how moronic is the storeman to think that telling us a whole string of shameless, bare faced lies was going to get him out of trouble? Did he really think that if he didn't call me I was eventually going to forget that he had my computer? Did he honestly conceive that we are going to believe that I melted my Xbox's chip by "using it on the internet"? Did he really think that we wouldn't check about the "extra part order"? Did he think atall?

I have become accustomed to Thai businesses having "laid back" ways of doing things and I am familiar with the concept of a "kind lie" in Thailand, but this is the only the second time I have been told an entire string of shamless lies to my face. It has never worked on me and it never will. All it does is make me lose any shred of respect and grows my contempt for the person telling them. What makes things harder is that as I'm in a foreign country it is a lot more difficult for me to use the usual methods of recourse I would use back home (contacting media, watchdog groups, etc.).

I'd be interested to hear from Thais and farangs alike about any similar experiences in Thailand and how they were dealt with (if at all!)