Here's my complain.
I'm a mac user for a while and a long time pc/sgi user. I'm very familiar with devices or platform issues. Atleast that's what I had told the salesman at mac asia. At that very moment, I was enquiring informations about Macbook pro which I desperately wanting to buy one.
But problem is, due to the one of the salesman which I feels better to talk to not around that day. I have to look for other salesman to ask about the macbook pro. The moment I steps in, I feel I wasn't really attended or they don't really pay attention to ppl who doesn't dress like rich enough to buy their machine.
ok... i can understand that. I know i was dressing up like a low wage designer anyway.
So I took the initiative to ask one of the guy about the laptop i had my eye on. But unfortunately he doesn't really sounds friendly to me at all. No good from the sales and marketing point of view. He sounds a little cocky actually.
What I was trying to find out was the upgrades for ram if i want to tops it up with 2 gigs and see if there's a chance to trade in the 512mb ram comes with it.
I was surprised that they don't willing to do it. This really pissed me off because this is not the way that business suppose to be. and the most pissing thing about it is the way they address the matter. They even said the 2 gig ram going to cost me about RM 1700 - 1800 (800-900 each gig). Which comes to my suprise that kingston also selling those (what they so called custom made ram) PC2-5300 for RM430 each at lowyat. And keep argueing that those ram from lowyat will damage the machine.
Well... he sorta like commented that I didn't do my research b4 visiting them.
At some point, I feel I'm abit offended here.
The ram they were talking about is the exact ram that we are using in our pentium M processors laptop at the moment. And it's the exact ram that we are using for the latest duo core pc laptops. how come it's not compatible with macbook pro?? they are selling it for higher price. i'm ok with it. but wtf they wanna make it sounds like going to void the warranty (that's exactly what he said). I read it from somewhere that mac laptops ram is self-serviceable since a few years ago. I guess our local Mac asia is misleading our local mac users.



anyway, I've got better service from some other shops at lowyat. In fact I've visited 2 shops yesterday. 1 at 2nd floor Cycom which is selling mac at a corner. They willing to trade in back the ram and install the market priced 2 gig ram for me at a reasonable price. While the ground floor mac shop (which is authorised dealer, seems like not Mac asia) does gave me a better feeling. atleast they treat me like a customer and willing to give me quite a few free gifts like Mouse and a carry case.

I guess i'll be back to lowyat for the purchase in this month.

Does anyone out there got the same feeling as I do?

taiko is like that one lo, unless u show them the "card" infront of them then they will respect u a bit la.

ar... always? LOL some of the sales person thought that we need to do our "investigation" b4 asking "stupid" questions. from a customer point of view, if we r to do it ourselves then what is the sales person doing at the shop? "GOOD QUESTION" LOL...

usually i juz walk away when this happens... there r lots of other places where we can find things we want, so go to another shop like u've suggested, cycom and etc... which provide better "customer service".

easy way to get restecpa: flip out the platinum card, wave it in their faces, and ask them 'eh this piece of shit card can use here one ah?'

guarenteed they will bend over for you like there's no tomorrow.

ya, last time I go to thats shop too. they look at me like I didnt have money just because I carrying helmet. I asked them one item, then they start passing me to each others.

very simple take out a stack of cash n show off

need to boycott these shops... there just seems to be more of these problems surfacing these days, and its quite frustrating, really...

wanna screw them up ah? Head over to http://mymug.org/forum/index.php and post this story there and kasi them kaw kaw...

If you really want to pursue this case further, I suggest you look for their boss. I believe his name is called Mike. He is usually running around between all the mac shops and pda shops and laptop shops. Just ask for him and if they say he is not around then ask for his hp number.

If you really want to pursue this case further, I suggest you look for their boss. I believe his name is called Mike. He is usually running around between all the mac shops and pda shops and laptop shops. Just ask for him and if they say he is not around then ask for his hp number.

okay... this has gone on for long enough. I work for MacAsia, as both our members, wei and azxel will attest to. I prefer not to argue about this issue here.

I'd like to know which store (1 Utama or Bangsar Shopping Center or Great Eastern Mall) this happened in.

my name is Jeyadev, and you can find me at MacAsia 1Utama. Phone number is 03 7724 1334.

to address a few points here,
1. we will not give out anyone's cellphone numbers to general customers. no matter how pissed off or angry you may be.
2. we don't treat customers differently based on their cash or clothes. The only reason we ignore customers is they've said they don't need help.
3. the guys in LowYat, please make sure they're an authorised AppleCenter. I can't find their address or contact details on Apple Malaysia's website. There's quite a lot of trickery going on here, please don't throw accusations.
4. this RAM issue, its not the same. If you want technical specs, sure, fine I will be glad to share them here. The RAM you guys buy in Low Yat are not the same that you get from Apple.

Finally, to the thread starter, kfc please note that you are smearing our company reputation here if you have a complaint, a public forum isn't the place to make it. All you had to do was ask for the manager's email address, and write him an angry email. We in MacAsia take our customers seriously... And I'm sorry that you didn't have a good experience in our store.

This post has been edited by xaw5126: Apr 3 2006, 05:19 PM

Kfc,
It really does not matter if you are a big Mac head, a NooB or just trying to kill time waiting for the girlfriend to finish her shopping, if you felt that the shop did not help in assisting you in your queries, why bother buying anything there?

My opinion is to stop patronising the shop, PERIOD. If they can't do a decent service of answering questions, they serve no use to customers, future or past ones.

Thanks for highlighting MacAsia as a bum dealer, btw, which retail outlet is it?

guys, please don't generalize.

he's referring to A SALESPERSON - not MacAsia.

people are people, there are good staff and there are bad staff.

I know how it feels because most of the time, when i shop, i'll wear bermudas and t-shirt. that's all. I'm used to these treatments. However, some salesman would see what i wear... equal treatment i would say..

I repeat, BigRedBarr, don't simply badmouth the whole company. As far as I know, only 1 salesman was rude to him. This works out as slander... please hold further comments.

guys.
i didn't say all salesmen are like that. just that particular day and particular time i was attended by that fella that got up to my nerves. well... generally I don want to point finger to the exact shop (in damansara area) because i do feel some other sales person actually serves me quite well. that's why i bought mac in the 1st place.
The things that bug me most in the most case is i feel alot of them are not professional enough to know enough computing (pc part especially the intel stuff) which greatly related to what they are selling now.
They don know what the heck is PC2-5300 or they actually pretend to be not knowing it. But it could be all due to sales target. but being ignorant to potential customer as an "effort" to close the sales... I rather they be a little honest as in the case for the RAM in macbook pro. Even if they really donno what happening in the pc market. fine... atleast don't tell me that the pc2-5300 from pc notebook will "void" the warranty and "damage" ur macbook pro. Atleast I did my research b4 I say this.
I've visited mymug just now. seems like isn't a good place to rant about it but i'll post it anyway.

Actually, I do feel that the experience in buying a mac is different from buying a pc. It's just like comparing to buying a Gen2 (which is not bad) to buying a BMW. Atleast I feel selling a real BMW requires u more knowledge in the car than bullshitting about using fuel other than Shell will "void" ur fuel tank warranty and making ur BMW crawl under it's feet.

Really, I don't mind buying Kingston ram from apple cost 800+ if it's different from the Kingston ram (350-430RM) selling out there. But atleast do some homework to make sure u can convince me that it runs better or show me prove that there's really difference between those rams.

anyway, I'm still going to buy the macbook pro anyway. for sure I won't buy it from the salesman I've mentioned.

Cheers....

hmm... that's a reasonable response. kfc, I'm glad that you aren't put off

the Kingston RAM is different, but don't take it from me. Take it from Kingston themselves.

http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/configurat...&submit1=Search

http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/configurat...e=DDR2+PC2-5300

The first one, is Apple's configuration and the memory spec is KTA. The second one is the generic configuration and the memory spec is KVR. Thats all.

And if you read through the terms and conditions of the warranty, one of them is that use of non-Apple RAM may cause all kinds of strange errors.

xaw5126 : Thanks for the info.
I'll take a look in to this matter and going to find out about this. About the non-apple ram may cause strange errors. I guess that could be a long beep after an standard ram installed in 1st boot. other than that. I guess it shouldn't have any problems.
The thing about mac that i know all this time is they always mislead their consumers. for example, I've got an ibook g3 dual usb version. they claim tiger is not supported but i got it work anyway. They said the hd got to be from mac but i've changed it anyway.
another experience with airport card which is I got an info from their salesman that airport card (non-extreme) is not compatible with ibook but i've double check it from internet. it's compatible with my ibook.
Even the batteries for ibook has got an issue with them. i end up buying it from mail order because the pricing here is crazy (imagine 700 vs 380RM).

at some point.... i'm just a little disapointed with how they handle customers.

I guess for now i can conclude that all i need to find out is whether the standard pc2-5300 really has got that much of difference from apple kingston ram. if it does, is it cheaper to order from kingston dealer than buying from apple? for this, i believe kingston dealer can do it tho.

Cheers and have a nice day.

by the numbers (again )
1. non-Apple RAM has been very very strange... I've heard of random kernel panics. if you need your Mac for a zero-failure application, please stick to Apple RAM
2. iBook G3 dual-USB isn't officially supported, but Tiger even runs on a PC so yea, wierd things are possible. Just don't be suprised if wierder stuff happens later The reason Apple doesn't say its supported, is that the general consumer will expect a perfect experience which that specific machine may not deliver.
3. Airport card non-extreme is definitely compatible with your machine, its the Extreme version that will not work. I think you just seem to attract bad salespeople
4. The pricing here being crazy, well... its not the retailers who are at fault. The tax is quite high, hence the reason for iPod being 15-20% cheaper in Singapore.
5. being disappointed with salespeople is quite common. I personally have given up on PC salespeople here in M'sia who only know about current hardware. What I do is, I go straight for the experienced ones. Yes, the ones who know the difference between PowerBook titanium and PowerBook aluminium

[quote=kfc,Apr 3 2006, 03:40 PM]

They even said the 2 gig ram going to cost me about RM 1700 - 1800 (800-900 each gig). Which comes to my suprise that kingston also selling those (what they so called custom made ram) PC2-5300 for RM430 each at lowyat. And keep argueing that those ram from lowyat will damage the machine.
Well... he sorta like commented that I didn't do my research b4 visiting them.
At some point, I feel I'm abit offended here.
The ram they were talking about is the exact ram that we are using in our pentium M processors laptop at the moment. And it's the exact ram that we are using for the latest duo core pc laptops. how come it's not compatible with macbook pro?? they are selling it for higher price. i'm ok with it. but wtf they wanna make it sounds like going to void the warranty (that's exactly what he said). I read it from somewhere that mac laptops ram is self-serviceable since a few years ago. I guess our local Mac asia is misleading our local mac users.

----------

I understand how the feeling being treated like that, If I were you I will do the same too. Anyway, what they said about the RAM is right. As an user of PowerBook for the past 3 years, I noticed that the PowerBook really picky about the RAM. I had once bought 1GB RAM stick (50% lower price than Apple RAM) from Low Yat years ago with the same specification as stated in the booklet of my PowerBook but it lead to my computer crashed and blue screen syndrome. It doesn't mean that the Kingston PC2-5300 from Low Yat on par with the Kingston from Apple. I would suggest as Apple products are superior than it PC counterparts, by investing in Apple RAM it does save your investment in the long run and thats why i just bought 2GB Ram for My Intel Imac. (RM899 each) or perhaps you can bring your would-be MacBook to Low Yat to test with the RAM before you buy any.

This post has been edited by 76radius: Apr 3 2006, 08:37 PM