A defective electronic product and an unresponsive salesperson is an experience most of us would have had. But a city resident on Monday took a different road to make a popular electronics store accountable for its mistake.
After the salesmen refused to replace a defective tablet he had purchased, Sruthi Balaji, a light music artiste, staged a dharna in front of the shop on Anna Salai in Triplicane along with his wife and three school-going girl children.
The peculiar sight of a family staging a demo with slogan charts on the busy road soon attracted the attention of mediapersons.
As reporters gathered at the spot, the Triplicane police intervened and the store finally agreed to give Balaji any other product in the shop matching the price of the tablet he had purchased.
“I had visited the shop eight times to complain about the poor battery backup. As the battery lasted hardly 10 minutes, I asked them replace the tablet. But the salesperson started making fun of me saying that I still had two years warranty and I could give the tablet for servicing any number of times even though the defect was not fixed,” he said.
Balaji, who runs an orchestra troupe, said he purchased the tablet for Rs 9,999 from the shop last month.
“He wanted it to store lyrics of songs so that he did not have to use books while singing on stage. Since we would be using it for other purposes as well, we went in for the low-priced product. But the battery hardly lasted a song,” said Seelima, Balaji’s wife, who is also a singer.
“I was really angered when a salesman said that they were just introducing the product and could improve the product after customer feedback like mine. I decided to stage the demonstration along with my family since it was our hard-earned money that was at stake,” said Balaji.