In December, my family purchased a Efun Nextbook tablet (which Groupon is allowing preorder now
here). We were happy and excited. Hey, we thought it was a good deal.
But no, not at all.
Before I begin the freak incident I have been through, I need to mention that there are 4 parties in this, namely myself, Groupon, Efun Nextbook and DinoDirect.
Nextbook - Company that made the tablet, based in US
DinoDirect - Sold the tablet
Groupon - Collaborated w DinoDirect to sell the coupons
Myself - Consumer. Extremely unhappy one.
The tablet was a faulty set. Everything works fine until you press the lock button - everything will become unresponsive, the touchscreen and even the on/off button. The only way to get the tablet to become responsive again is to use a needle and poke the Reset button at the back of the tablet and restart the device. The same thing will happen the moment you press the lock button.
I contacted Nextbook, and they replied almost immediately, telling me that the set was faulty and I had to register warranty to get it changed. I went to the warranty page but I could not register because the company was based in US and I have to have a valid US or Canada address for them to ship my tablet back, etc.
25 December 2011 - Emailed Groupon
I complained about the false advertising on the Groupon page (which I will talk about later), as well as the faulty set I received, and got a support ticket number. I did not expect a reply immediately, because hey, it was Christmas! It was totally fine w me.
2 Jan 2012 - Reply from Groupon
This was the reply I received:
Yes not bad, prompt reply, nice and polite. BUT NO, I did not receive any reply from Calvin at all. I waited for a few days, before emailing Groupon again.
6 Jan 2012 - Second email
This was the email:
Still no reply. This time I waited a week.
12 Jan 2012 - Called up Groupon
I called up Groupon in the afternoon, and was attended by Fahanah. I asked her about warranty instructions, and who to contact, and she emailed me the relevant details. I was supposed to email DinoDirect, and I did.
And btw, don't forget that Calvin, the Groupon Support guy I emailed, was supposed to help me CONTACT the relevant merchants and get back to me. Nevermind that he did not.
13 Jan 2012 - Reply from Calvin
I did not reply his email. It was NOT my responsibility to tell him how I, a consumer, contacted the merchant, when in the first place he was supposed to contact the merchant for me.
16 Jan 2012 - Emailed DinoDirect
Received no replies, as of today.
23 Jan 2012 - Email from Groupon
This time Groupon asked me to RATE their customer support service. I tried to click Dissatisfied, but my ticket number did not exist. Whatever. What was I supposed to rate? Their lack of service? Calvin did NOT assist me in ANYTHING at all.
And also it was my birthday + CNY, why should I reply Groupon and make myself angry?
3 Feb 2012 - Email to Groupon
No reply.
6 Feb 2012 - Called up Groupon, at 5pm
Because the previous email was sent on a Friday, I gave Groupon / Calvin one whole working day to reply me. Please note that he promised to find out the details for me on 2 Jan 2012, and he did not.
Anyway, I received "reassurance" from the Support person that she will find out the relevant stuff and get back to me. Once again, another empty promise, because she did not find out ANYTHING for me at all.
7 Feb 2012 - Email from Calvin
My reply, almost immediately.
ONCE AGAIN, NO REPLY. Surprise surprise.
And yes, I ran out of patience. The support I received was a surprising NO SUPPORT AT ALL!!! I did not receive a SINGLE USEFUL reply from Calvin!! What sort of support is that Calvin? And you asked me to rate your service? Or maybe rate the lack thereof?
Also, as I was saying, FALSE ADVERTISING.
Look at the highlighted parts above. What is 10.1 camera? My mama and her boyfriend misread it as a 10.1 MEGAPIXELS camera. Silly I know because it is impossible, but SERIOUSLY what's 10.1? Misleading much? It turned out to be a 2megapixels camera.
Also, thousands of apps? I think they forgot to mention the lack of the android market. The market that they used was their own efun/nextbook market. Blame it on our own luck for not finding out properly. But once again, MISLEADING ADVERTISING FROM GROUPON.
Really really really angry with this. Now let's see how Groupon will reply.
And my advice to everyone, is
DO NOT BUY FROM GROUPONIt might be nice and cheap if everything goes well. But when things go haywire, Groupon will really just give you lousy or even NO support.
It's really $219 down the drain.
