Avoid Extech Computer (shop 114) Ground Floor Pantip Plaza

[Trevor]

I bought a Kensington combination lock for my laptop for Baht 300 from this retailer on the ground floor of Pantip plaza in the right rear aisle. Whilst attempting to change the combination from 0000 to my desired code, the whole mechanism seized up. The salesman could not even free it but refused to replace the device or refund me a single Baht. He even tried to sell me a key-locking version to avert similar problems.

Admittedly the cost of this cheap Chinese knockoff was a mere quarter of European prices, but I was here in Bangkok and needed the security.

Well, I can suffer the loss of B300 but what I found most distressing was the attitude of the salesman who was a southern Chinese not born in Thailand and speaking Thai with a foreign accent. Like some of his counterparts in Hong Kong this arrogant individual seemed to delight in belittling me and was not going to budge an inch. On seeing me look up at his shop sign he challenged me to take a photo, so I did! He’s the one in the white shirt. I feel sure that this post, with a significant Pantip-user readership, is worth more than B300-worth of lost business to him. But ‘face’ seems to be a far more valuable commodity.

Reminds me of my first trip to Honkers in 1980 when I attempted to compare prices on a camera at different shops. Returning to the shop which had offered me the best price, the salesman flat refused to sell it to me because, “You lost your chance.” Weird … really weird. I thought this was standard procedure in the Orient.

I was so glad to leave that Pantip accessory shop and get back into the real world of friendly Thai people. True, similar things can happen but at least they would turn you down with a reasonable attitude, or offer some concession.

It would have been difficult to “Check the goods” before purchase as the lock was encased in a thick, clear-plastic enclosure. He would not have broken it without money-in-hand, and could then have refused to refund an opened package. Best advice : look at the attitude and friendliness of the staff, and avoid those who are not Thai-born natives who may have their own set of rules and behaviour.

[Guest Reimar]

That's Pantip Plaza!!

Mostly shops owned not by Thais but by Foreigner. Many of this Teens running around, touching you from the back following by :"Sex Movie Mister..." are even not Thais there Malay or Burmese etc..

But even if the owner is Thai, that means: nothing.

At Pantip there are exact 3 different companies where I buy something from, that's all! Many Hardware you can buy at Pantip is smuggled in to Thailand or is stolen in some other countries if not in Thailand itself! Even if you buy, let say a harddisk with Warranty lable from D-Computer, that's maybe not ok.

I have some problems in the past with that one, or with AMD CPU's "imported" from LIN Computer, while 90% of this CPU's are so named "remarked" CPU's, easy to find out via AMD if you get to know this facts. In the past I have bought a lot from Famous Computer but stopped on the same day as Famous Computer didn't accept a claim from burned and remarked CPU's and that was business from several milion per year! And what's today with Famous Computer? Take a look at the owner Chuvit and you know! How he looks so the goods he selling are: dirty and rubbish, cheapest 3. party products from China. Or the Ink, he fill up by himself and lable also the bottles by himself maybe even "enlarge" by mixing with....?!

There a lot of stories to tell from Pantip. Better you go to IT-Mall at Fortune Town, or Laksi, or Seri Center!

[solo siam]

I'm gonna call bullshit on the "not opening it before purchase" rant. How do you know he isn't born Thai? and what would that have to do with your actual purchase?

In regards to your HK purchase 20 years ago (weird) surely he just offered you a once in a lifetime deal in a desperate and honest attempt at closing a deal quickly, which you turned down to go try find somewhere else cheaper and turned up last at his shop which screams "you are making the least money on this item in HK".

I'm starting to think this is a slate your competitor thread.

[ajarnmark]

I bought a Kensington combination lock for my laptop for Baht 300 from this retailer on the ground floor of Pantip plaza in the right rear aisle. Whilst attempting to change the combination from 0000 to my desired code, the whole mechanism seized up. The salesman could not even free it but refused to replace the device or refund me a single Baht. He even tried to sell me a key-locking version to avert similar problems.

Admittedly the cost of this cheap Chinese knockoff was a mere quarter of European prices, but I was here in Bangkok and needed the security.

Well, I can suffer the loss of B300 but what I found most distressing was the attitude of the salesman who was a southern Chinese not born in Thailand and speaking Thai with a foreign accent. Like some of his counterparts in Hong Kong this arrogant individual seemed to delight in belittling me and was not going to budge an inch. On seeing me look up at his shop sign he challenged me to take a photo, so I did! He’s the one in the white shirt. I feel sure that this post, with a significant Pantip-user readership, is worth more than B300-worth of lost business to him. But ‘face’ seems to be a far more valuable commodity.

Reminds me of my first trip to Honkers in 1980 when I attempted to compare prices on a camera at different shops. Returning to the shop which had offered me the best price, the salesman flat refused to sell it to me because, “You lost your chance.” Weird … really weird. I thought this was standard procedure in the Orient.

I was so glad to leave that Pantip accessory shop and get back into the real world of friendly Thai people. True, similar things can happen but at least they would turn you down with a reasonable attitude, or offer some concession.

It would have been difficult to “Check the goods” before purchase as the lock was encased in a thick, clear-plastic enclosure. He would not have broken it without money-in-hand, and could then have refused to refund an opened package. Best advice : look at the attitude and friendliness of the staff, and avoid those who are not Thai-born natives who may have their own set of rules and behaviour.

Yes I can recognize this guy. This guy is real lousy. I never buy from him.

[Trevor]

I'm gonna call bullshit on the "not opening it before purchase" rant. How do you know he isn't born Thai? and what would that have to do with your actual purchase?

In regards to your HK purchase 20 years ago (weird) surely he just offered you a once in a lifetime deal in a desperate and honest attempt at closing a deal quickly, which you turned down to go try find somewhere else cheaper and turned up last at his shop which screams "you are making the least money on this item in HK".

I'm starting to think this is a slate your competitor thread.

As you can see from the above posting, I'm clearly not alone on this guy. Why don't you just see this as an honest attempt to whistle-blow on a cheat for the benefit of all forum members?

[nikster]

I'm gonna call bullshit on the "not opening it before purchase" rant. How do you know he isn't born Thai? and what would that have to do with your actual purchase?

In regards to your HK purchase 20 years ago (weird) surely he just offered you a once in a lifetime deal in a desperate and honest attempt at closing a deal quickly, which you turned down to go try find somewhere else cheaper and turned up last at his shop which screams "you are making the least money on this item in HK".

I'm starting to think this is a slate your competitor thread.

As you can see from the above posting, I'm clearly not alone on this guy. Why don't you just see this as an honest attempt to whistle-blow on a cheat for the benefit of all forum members?

Trevor said this guy's fishy and somebody else backed him up. Make whatever you want of it. Personally, I have seen many fishy shops in Pantip and so I just avoid the place altogether (when in BKK).

On the other hand, I had nothing but good experiences with everyone in Chiang Mai Pantip and Chiang Mai Icon Square.

[sabajja]

Maybe we could put up a "Thailands most wanted" poster on the web somewhere, with pictures(mugshots), of all the shops and shop keepers to stay clear of

Edited January 21, 2007 by sabajja

[Tororoso]

I too recognise this fella. When I was in the shop, he was also with another Chinese-looking guy who was on the phone speaking Chinese. They were so engrossed in the phone conversation that they didn't even bother attend to us. Just looked at us as if we were lost.

I, for one will never set foot in his shop again. I've always had bad experiences with Chinese (Taiwan, HK, Sing.,malaysia). The Thai-Chinese though, seem to be ok. Dunno, just my opinion.

[sniffdog]

Report him to the Labour Department and Immigration Police. That'll teach him extracting THB 300 from poor farangs!

[Trevor]

I too recognise this fella. When I was in the shop, he was also with another Chinese-looking guy who was on the phone speaking Chinese. They were so engrossed in the phone conversation that they didn't even bother attend to us. Just looked at us as if we were lost.

I, for one will never set foot in his shop again. I've always had bad experiences with Chinese (Taiwan, HK, Sing.,malaysia). The Thai-Chinese though, seem to be ok. Dunno, just my opinion.

Agree. The Thai Chinese are kind of unique in Asia in that the positive traits of Thai culture and society have pretty much bred out their baser ethnic behaviour. Says a lot for the land of smiles. Mr Whiteshirt of Extech Computer still has a lot to learn if he wants to make a business success of himself in a land where civility and customer service are largely intact.

[backflip]

"I bought a Kensington combination lock"

No, you did not. You bought a counterfeit lock on purpose to save money.

"Admittedly the cost of this cheap Chinese knockoff"

See, you admit you were part of the fraud.

If you bought a genuine Kensington lock and had problems with it, I'd sympathize with you. But, since you were trying to cheat Kensington, you got exactly what you deserved.

[indothai]

Is there a good way of telling what is real and what is not? I mean, I haven't seen packaging that says "fake", "knock off", "imitation"... I don't mean to sound sarcastic, but in China pretty much everything is fake and seriously hard to distinguish. I almost bought some stuff there, but a friend I was with said "Not real Cisco". The fakes there were priced to match the original stuff which made it impossible for me to tell the difference.

[backflip]

Let's see...the price was only 25% of the real item - that might give you a hint that it's fake. Other hints: misspellings and grammatical errors on the packaging, incorrect logos, products that do not exist (in Shanghai, I saw an 8GB Sony USB memory key...for $50US), poorly finished parts, non-sensical labels or printed comments, incorrect typefaces.

A (Chinese) friend bought an extra battery for his Sony phone. The "S" was a different typeface than the "ony". Too, an internal label read, "when discharged, place battery into the gharger".

[Trevor]

"I bought a Kensington combination lock"

No, you did not. You bought a counterfeit lock on purpose to save money.

"Admittedly the cost of this cheap Chinese knockoff"

See, you admit you were part of the fraud.

If you bought a genuine Kensington lock and had problems with it, I'd sympathize with you. But, since you were trying to cheat Kensington, you got exactly what you deserved.

I bought what was available in Thailand. Do you know that Kensington has a patent on this product registered in Thailand? They are probably content to sell at high prices in the West without worrying about third-world copies. Even patents can be negated by slight design changes. If they tried to sell here at European prices, no-one would buy. My post was trying to highlight the ruthlessness of some traders here, coupled with lack of consumer protection which makes sharing of knowledge our only defence. You will fall flat on your face if you try to apply Western legal principles here in south-east Asia.

[toptuan]

Trevor, don't let any of the naysayers or armchair experts discourage you from posting warnings like this. I, for one, appreciate it as I had planned to do some shopping for electronics in BKK in the next few days. I've emblazoned your posted image into my mind and will avoid the place.

Similar warning: My first trip to Thailand, I bought a Sony Walkman as a gift, for about $150. I didn't know about the importance of "try before you buy" here, and I was in a hurry. So I immediately jumped on a bus. While on the bus, I took it out of the package and installed the new batteries I'd bought seperately. The power wouldn't even come on, and switching to known good batteries didn't work. I immediately got off the bus, found my way back to the shop and presented the defective merchandise less than 1/2 hour from the time I bought it. Naive me. They just smiled that "you fool" smile and wouldn't budge a baht to help. They even accused me of switching merchandice to a defective unit. I was screwed. But it was their smug attitude that irked me the most.

Location of my tormentors:

Saphan Kwhai BTS station. Electronics shop at the base (street level) of the southwest entrance. The same crooks are still there.

Edited January 28, 2007 by toptuan

[markah]

if I need to buy anything computer related it would be the real item, I need my laptop for work and if I was to lose the info stored on the hard drive in any way it would cause me big problems. anything from hardware to software. its better to be safe then sorry, even if it does cost a couple of thousand more.

Panthip Plaza is the last place I would go shopping, anything you buy from there could be knocked off or fake and I think there is no need to take chances. if you do not have the money to buy the real item then save up, it will be worth it in the end.

[xbusman]

Okay computer geeks of Bangkok, I need to do some heavy maintenance on my Dell. New hardrive, disk drives, replace the mother board battery, etc. How bout some recommendations of great shops at Fortune IT that will do all that.

Thanks

[Barney_the_Dinosaur]

Trevor is often unlucky in matters of commerce.

Just ask his local Nat West Bank ! (Trevor got banned from the banking hall- which was rather xtreme of them)

Edited January 29, 2007 by Barney_the_Dinosaur

[sohb]

Okay computer geeks of Bangkok, I need to do some heavy maintenance on my Dell. New hardrive, disk drives, replace the mother board battery, etc. How bout some recommendations of great shops at Fortune IT that will do all that.

Thanks

DELL Thailand???

[Naam]

Report him to the Labour Department and Immigration Police. That'll teach him extracting THB 300 from poor farangs!

ten years to life for sure!

[nikster]

Okay computer geeks of Bangkok, I need to do some heavy maintenance on my Dell. New hardrive, disk drives, replace the mother board battery, etc. How bout some recommendations of great shops at Fortune IT that will do all that.

Thanks

DELL Thailand???

Seconded - just call Dell Thailand

On the other hand, new motherboard battery? How old is that thing? If more than 3 years old consider just buying a new one...

[xbusman]

Hey!!! Its only five years old and still working just fine. I have to crank it a bit on cold mornings but other than that it crashes just as well as the newer window models. The hard drive is making some funky noises though, as I never turn it off I can only imagine the wear and tear after five years.

Actually, I am turning the office all to Macs, started last year and have about five more to go. Since I am Kee Neow, I thought I could get another year out of this old dell with just a new hardrive.

Where is Dell at Fortune IT? I have not seen a Dell shop around.

Thanks for all the comments..... mostly

[Trevor]

Trevor is often unlucky in matters of commerce.

Just ask his local Nat West Bank ! (Trevor got banned from the banking hall- which was rather xtreme of them)

absolutely true

they would not admit their clocks were running fast thereby inconveniencing customers by locking the doors before the posted closing time

when i pressed the point they just closed my account and threatened to call the police if i didn@t leave their premises

RIP the UK there is life beyond the shores of one@s birth

[Crossy]

Hey!!! Its only five years old and still working just fine. I have to crank it a bit on cold mornings but other than that it crashes just as well as the newer window models. The hard drive is making some funky noises though, as I never turn it off I can only imagine the wear and tear after five years.

Actually, I am turning the office all to Macs, started last year and have about five more to go. Since I am Kee Neow, I thought I could get another year out of this old dell with just a new hardrive.

Where is Dell at Fortune IT? I have not seen a Dell shop around.

Thanks for all the comments..... mostly

Dell don't appear to have service outlets in Thailand (or didn't last time I tried to find one).

Memory and hard drives (about the only upgrade options available on a laptop) are readily available in Fortune, the hardest part will be locating the exact memeory type needed for a 5 year old box.

[aznyron]

Hey!!! Its only five years old and still working just fine. I have to crank it a bit on cold mornings but other than that it crashes just as well as the newer window models. The hard drive is making some funky noises though, as I never turn it off I can only imagine the wear and tear after five years.

Actually, I am turning the office all to Macs, started last year and have about five more to go. Since I am Kee Neow, I thought I could get another year out of this old dell with just a new hardrive.

Where is Dell at Fortune IT? I have not seen a Dell shop around.

Thanks for all the comments..... mostly

Dell don't appear to have service outlets in Thailand (or didn't last time I tried to find one).

Memory and hard drives (about the only upgrade options available on a laptop) are readily available in Fortune, the hardest part will be locating the exact memeory type needed for a 5 year old box.

Hi I just want to post a recomendation when I live in bkk I shopped at cerri center for my pc parts I went to the 108 shop the lady name is Kitty she speaks very good english and is a very nice lady and will do what she can to help you with any thing you bought from her she also had a true internt desk there if she still has it I don't know there is also IT pc shop in seacon square which I have gone to with out any problems but I like 108 better because Kitty does go the extra mile to help you as for panthip thanks for the info I will avoid that place since there are many dissatisfied customers going there thank you Ronnie

[Macx]

Hi I just want to post a recomendation when I live in bkk I shopped at cerri center for my pc parts I went to the 108 shop the lady name is Kitty she speaks very good english and is a very nice lady and will do what she can to help you with any thing you bought from her she also had a true internt desk there if she still has it I don't know there is also IT pc shop in seacon square which I have gone to with out any problems but I like 108 better because Kitty does go the extra mile to help you as for panthip thanks for the info I will avoid that place since there are many dissatisfied customers going there thank you Ronnie

Thanks for the tip!

Where is Cerri Center?

[Axel]

That would be the Seri Center on Srinakarin Road:

http://www.sericenter.co.th/menu11.htm

[mads]

I too recognise this fella. When I was in the shop, he was also with another Chinese-looking guy who was on the phone speaking Chinese. They were so engrossed in the phone conversation that they didn't even bother attend to us. Just looked at us as if we were lost.

I, for one will never set foot in his shop again. I've always had bad experiences with Chinese (Taiwan, HK, Sing.,malaysia). The Thai-Chinese though, seem to be ok. Dunno, just my opinion.

Agree. The Thai Chinese are kind of unique in Asia in that the positive traits of Thai culture and society have pretty much bred out their baser ethnic behaviour. Says a lot for the land of smiles. Mr Whiteshirt of Extech Computer still has a lot to learn if he wants to make a business success of himself in a land where civility and customer service are largely intact.

Customer service is largely intact

I never experienced a country that lagged more

in the department of service than any other country ive

been in. Its like thais only think that a farang is one sale

and thats it. They dont believe in service......in few cases maybe

but mostly not.

[Orangutan]

I wanted to add 1 GB of RAM to my MacBook. I went to Maccenter at Siam, and the Apple Store at Pantip, both quoted B8000+ (can't remember exact amount). I called the Apple hotline and they gave me a list of Apple Authorized shops. If you need a Macintosh shop at Pantip try UC CON 02-256-0807 Ground fl. & 3rd fl. The same 1GB of RAM installed is B5500.

-O

Edited February 28, 2007 by Orangutan

[steffi]

For that sort of thing just go to the very top floor and buy from there. Although the sales people are quite pushy you can probably find something there. Otherwise there are a lot of other shops in Panthip but generally speaking I never have high expectations whenever I've already handed over my money when shopping in Thailand. Possibly those electronics shops that stock all those hubs etc from china etc may have it also. The ones on the 3rd level.

I bought a Kensington combination lock for my laptop for Baht 300 from this retailer on the ground floor of Pantip plaza in the right rear aisle. Whilst attempting to change the combination from 0000 to my desired code, the whole mechanism seized up. The salesman could not even free it but refused to replace the device or refund me a single Baht. He even tried to sell me a key-locking version to avert similar problems.

Admittedly the cost of this cheap Chinese knockoff was a mere quarter of European prices, but I was here in Bangkok and needed the security.

Well, I can suffer the loss of B300 but what I found most distressing was the attitude of the salesman who was a southern Chinese not born in Thailand and speaking Thai with a foreign accent. Like some of his counterparts in Hong Kong this arrogant individual seemed to delight in belittling me and was not going to budge an inch. On seeing me look up at his shop sign he challenged me to take a photo, so I did! He’s the one in the white shirt. I feel sure that this post, with a significant Pantip-user readership, is worth more than B300-worth of lost business to him. But ‘face’ seems to be a far more valuable commodity.

Reminds me of my first trip to Honkers in 1980 when I attempted to compare prices on a camera at different shops. Returning to the shop which had offered me the best price, the salesman flat refused to sell it to me because, “You lost your chance.” Weird … really weird. I thought this was standard procedure in the Orient.

I was so glad to leave that Pantip accessory shop and get back into the real world of friendly Thai people. True, similar things can happen but at least they would turn you down with a reasonable attitude, or offer some concession.

It would have been difficult to “Check the goods” before purchase as the lock was encased in a thick, clear-plastic enclosure. He would not have broken it without money-in-hand, and could then have refused to refund an opened package. Best advice : look at the attitude and friendliness of the staff, and avoid those who are not Thai-born natives who may have their own set of rules and behaviour.