Nokia Care Center Nightmares Pt. 1

By S V | in Other | on December 4, 2007 | 20 Comments

Care Center: Panjagutta, Hyderabad (India)

I’ve been a Nokia user right from the days of the mighty 5110, and since then I’ve used most of Nokia’s successful models. In the early days these phones are so simple and reliably built, so they rarely had any major complaints. As phones began to include new functionalities and started becoming computers, they grew complicated and very susceptible to both hardware and software damage. This is where the Nokia Care Centers come into the scene. I’ve heard more bad than good about these places in the past and I want to share my personal experience today.

I never had to visit one of these centers until last month when my brand new N95 8GB was bricked while updating the firmware using Nokia Software Updater. After the update, the display kept on blinking and the phone wouldn’t switch on. I took the phone to the Nokia Care Center on the 23rd of November, waited for twenty minutes to talk to a customer service rep, and told him I bricked my phone to which his response was like “Bricked? What?!”
The rep tried to switch on the phone and seeing the display, he entered the reported fault as “Power: Switches off, Display: Blank Display” in the service job sheet. I tried to explain him that the problem lies in the firmware and the phones needs a reflash, and he reacted “Reflash? What?!”

Finally, after a long discussion with this dumb rep and the manager (who seemed to be less dumb!), I understood that they don’t have a firmware copy in the Care Center! They’ve been selling the phone since late October, and they still didn’t have the software needed for repair. Wonderful! The manager promised me that he’ll get a copy and get the phone fixed in four days. I left the place with my own doubts.
Since then, I’ve been calling them every four days, and their answer every time is that it will take four more days. Freshly today, they promised me to deliver the phone by Friday evening. They don’t even let me talk to the technician or their manager.

On a side note, I want to write about another customer’s experience at this Nokia Care Center. He was arguing with one the manager about the replacement phone offered to him. He was offered a replacement for his faulty N72, but he soon figured out that the phone was not new and had been used for 325 hours! Apparently, Nokia just put a new casing on a used phone and offered it as a new phone.

-S V