Shopping in Bangkok - arghhh!
Fountain in Ayuthaya - no particular reason, I just like it.
OK, I'm trying not to be negative here but there's a distinctly bitter taste in my mouth. Entertaining the daughter and taking her to some bookshops aside I had two objectives for this afternoon's trek to downtown Bangkok and sadly achieved neither.
I recently bought an expensive Canon digital SLR camera. Nothing wrong with that except I bought it from Pantip Plaza - big mistake. From a shop on the second floor (first in the UK system), not far from the top of the up escalator, called AV Center that "specialises" in digital cameras. Within days of buying the thing the auto-focus stopped working. I couldn't do anything about it as I was back in the UK at the time. I checked with a local shop there and they confirmed that it was the lens and not the body that was at fault.
Today I finally got around to taking it in to try and get something done under the "Thai guarantee". The sellers were all smiles when I went in, until I told them I had a problem. Then they became uncooperative and rude, trying to avoid me and avoid giving the answer we all knew was coming. And the answer being: guarantees in Thailand are worth sod-all. It came out in the end. This is not the first time I've had this problem in Thailand. I don't want to appear negative about the place, I like Thailand and I enjoy living here most of the time but customers get zilch protection. A case of caveat emptor.
The second objective was to buy some legal software. Stop laughing, it's true. I want Adobe Premiere Elements (called something like that) in its original format and legal. Possible? Not a chance. IT Square, Pantip Plaza, Data IT, Central World, Power Buy and Paragon. Any chance? None. Try asking sellers for legal software and they laugh. I asked a guy at an "IT" shop in Paragon straight: Is it possible to buy legal, original software in Thailand (except MS Office and Norton)? His faced turned red and he laughed, very embarrassed: I don't think so sir, Thai people like copy.
Some years back a company in China started selling fake Singha Beer in China. You could hear the collective squeal for thousands of miles. How dare China copy a Thai product without paying fair dues? Hmmmm!!
Shopping in Bangkok - arghhh!
Fountain in Ayuthaya - no particular reason, I just like it.OK, I'm trying not to be negative here but there's a distinctly bitter taste in my mouth. Entertaining the daughter and taking her to some bookshops aside I had two objectives for this afternoon's trek to downtown Bangkok and sadly achieved neither.
I recently bought an expensive Canon digital SLR camera. Nothing wrong with that except I bought it from Pantip Plaza - big mistake. From a shop on the second floor (first in the UK system), not far from the top of the up escalator, called AV Center that "specialises" in digital cameras. Within days of buying the thing the auto-focus stopped working. I couldn't do anything about it as I was back in the UK at the time. I checked with a local shop there and they confirmed that it was the lens and not the body that was at fault.
Today I finally got around to taking it in to try and get something done under the "Thai guarantee". The sellers were all smiles when I went in, until I told them I had a problem. Then they became uncooperative and rude, trying to avoid me and avoid giving the answer we all knew was coming. And the answer being: guarantees in Thailand are worth sod-all. It came out in the end. This is not the first time I've had this problem in Thailand. I don't want to appear negative about the place, I like Thailand and I enjoy living here most of the time but customers get zilch protection. A case of caveat emptor.
The second objective was to buy some legal software. Stop laughing, it's true. I want Adobe Premiere Elements (called something like that) in its original format and legal. Possible? Not a chance. IT Square, Pantip Plaza, Data IT, Central World, Power Buy and Paragon. Any chance? None. Try asking sellers for legal software and they laugh. I asked a guy at an "IT" shop in Paragon straight: Is it possible to buy legal, original software in Thailand (except MS Office and Norton)? His faced turned red and he laughed, very embarrassed: I don't think so sir, Thai people like copy.
Some years back a company in China started selling fake Singha Beer in China. You could hear the collective squeal for thousands of miles. How dare China copy a Thai product without paying fair dues? Hmmmm!!
Shopping in Bangkok - arghhh!
Labels: Thailand
posted by Life Out East at 20:25
2 Comments:
I upgraded my computer in Pantip. Great in theory, but the external harddrive is buggy and the RAM has caused some minor problems already. And my brand new lpatop that I bought has fake Windows on it so now I have even more problems.
The last time I upgraded my pc myself, much easier and less problems. Quite easy to add memory and extra hard-drive and doesn't involve other people knackering your system. I use a laptop now so not quite so straight forward.
Panthip is ok but I wouldn't buy anything big or expensive from there again.
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