Complaining about everything is also a bad habit about Malaysians and this habit has to be toned down. It is good we now have the Consumer Claims Tribunal and the Consumer Protection Act. The objective of the Act is good because the retailers have been getting the upper hand all this while. Now the Tribunal has to play the balancing act between punishing bad retailers and also rejecting frivolous claims from consumers.

Actually we now do have some consumer laws here with the Sale of Goods Act and Consumer Protection Act. However, many people (incl retailers) are ignorant of them and hence the retail culture here is still lagging behind.

That said, there are still limits within the law. It's not to say that the consumer gets everything in their favour. You said: "If the sound quality isn't as good as you expected you SHOULD be able to get your money back." This needs to be qualified... meeting your expectations is very different from a manufacturer's defect or salesman's sales pitch. You can't say I bought a Kancil and expected BMW performance and get your money back. Models are displayed for you to view and test. If the sound quality is off due to a defect, of course you can claim. But the law doesn't have a satisfaction guarantee (although some manufacturer's, especially overseas, will voluntarily give a satisfaction guarantee).

Well said !
Reasonable complaint is acceptable..

Of course, what I mean is that if you never heard the TVs sound quality before hand, or it sounded better in the shop than it does in your home, you should get your money back or replace the set.

For example, I bought a wheelchair in the UK for my gran. We took her to the zoo and had all sorts of problems with it not moving on gravel paths etc We brought it back because the sales assistant did not inform us that it wouldn't work in an outdoor environment and it was not specifically stated that it was for indoors only. I got my money back as they didn't have an alternative that was better. In Malaysia, I probably would have been chucked out of the shop.

yes in malaysia you will be kicked out of the shop already haha

well said...

I know the speakers in the 32" lcd tv will not be able to churn out loud or good quality sound, but at least it can be turn to a reasonable volume where my family can enjoy watching in a room. I'm not even talking about good bass or surround sound quality here.

In fact the salesman did not even warned or informed me about the sound quality of the said model when I was in the shop. Based on my experience watching other 32" lcd tvs which a few of my relatives owned, the sound quality was ok and the speakers did not "break" when you turn on the volume.

Indeed the retail culture in UK, USA, etc is much more consumer oriented than here. Truly customer is king over there. That's why it's easy to find satisfaction guarantees or money back guarantees over there. I don't think this extent is even mandated by the law there, but has evolved due to stiff competition and retailers offering better service to win customers.

As a consumer, sure I would like to get that kind of service too. On the other hand, consumers also have to do proper survey. Following your example "if you never heard the TVs sound quality before hand" - whose responsibility is it to demo the TV sound quality? If you just bought the TV without hearing it should the shop be responsible if you didn't like it?

Or the other part about "sounded better in the shop than it does in your home". Can depend on the situation. Now I'm talking more about hifi than TV. If you go to a shop, of course their room is acoustically treated and they know the optimal positioning for the speakers they sell. When you listen there it will sound good. Then you buy and bring home and it sounds worse because maybe your room or positioning is not optimal. Can you then complain the speakers you bought are no good and get money back?

At the end of the day, it takes 2 hands to clap so we have to be savvy consumers and we also hope to have good retailers that can give good advise. However, we can't control the retailers quality and especially here the retail culture has much room for improvement. So best to improve our knowledge as customers, continue to fight for our rights and be wary of the retailers and salesman sweet talk

Yes, a good salesman should have warned you and then tried to upsell you a better model.

I think here you just assumed that the TV should be ok since other 32" LCD TVs you saw sounded ok. Well, not all TVs are created alike and seems that the lower end Samsung is not very good. Anyway, glad you got a better TV now.