Acer strikes back

The second visit to Acer was a little less pleasant as compared to the first visit, primarily because during the first visit I didn’t have the guts to entrust my laptop to them. Unfortunately I didn’t have the luxury of that choice this time around. There is only so much you can do with a laptop once you can’t even switch it on. And Acer has been kind enough to have just one repair center for the whole of Bangalore.

I gave them my laptop and I was asked to collect it later in the day. They promised to call me up and inform me once the power button was replaced, something they didn’t bother to do. I had neither asked nor requested them to call me once it was done, so why exactly did they make a commitment they had absolutely no intention of keeping is beyond me.

2 Hours Later

Anyways, I went back to collect my laptop. At times, I haven’t bothered to properly inspect my car once it has been returned by the service center, but somehow I didn’t feel that I could afford to make this mistake here.

I switched the laptop on (Thankfully the power button was working), but I just couldn’t click on the “logon” icon. I pointed it out to the person who had supposedly replaced the power button. His prompt reply was, “Sir, your OS is corrupted and therefore you are facing this problem”. WTF (Yes, I said that). Needless to state that this innovative piece of bullshit kick-started a brief exchange of words in which he tried to give all kind of bull explanations (I would much rather not repeat any of what I told him). Finally he made the mistake of trying to move from the realm of bull to facts.

He said that “I can prove it to you that your laptop’s operating system is corrupt and this is the reason the mouse is not working“. Obviously I didn’t let this opportunity pass. It would take some serious amount of technical skills to prove that the root-cause of an issue like this is a corrupt OS, and frankly speaking someone incapable of replacing a power button properly (and which is incidentally his job) is unlikely to possess such skill.

I said earlier that he tried to move from the realm of bull to facts. Actually I was wrong. He had moved from bull to bull++. His new arguments were twofold.

1. He said that he had tried it out and that the mouse works properly in the safe mode and therefore my OS is corrupt. (WTF)
2. The power button had nothing to do with the mouse and therefore I shouldn’t blame him for that. (Yeah right. I give you a laptop that works, you return me one that doesn’t and I shouldn’t blame you for that. Fortunately for me, this clown had actually logged into my system and hence he couldn’t claim that it wasn’t working earlier.)
I asked him to prove that that the mouse works properly in the safe mode. He tried. Actually he kept trying for the next 5 minutes.

30 minutes later

He came back with my laptop, and it was working. I was informed that while cleaning the laptop, somehow one of the cables was dis-connected and this was the cause of the problem. I logged in and in my opinion I checked it thoroughly.

2 Days later

I couldn’t use the mouse to scroll. :D

One part of me wants to go back there and give them a mouthful. The other part of me is reminding me of an old saying in Hindi, “Bhaagte bhoot ki langot bhali” .