I gave in my Blackberry for repair on the 9th of April at the Dubai Lamcy Plaza Aptec mobiles counter. The phone had an audio issue which the guy at the counter, Vijay, clearly wrote down on the Aptec Quick Service Receipt (number 19444). This was the only problem that the phone had. After receiving the Quick Service Receipt I left the counter. The whole process hardly took five to ten minutess (which I was pretty pleased with). I was told that someone from Aptec would get in touch with me to let me know how much it is going to be, etc.

After a few days I got a phone call from Aptec informing me that the phone also has an 'Application Error', this was a total surprise to me, as at the time when I gave it in, the only problem my phone had was the audio issue. I asked the person that called, how did this application error occur and he advised that he received it this way when he tried to switch on the phone. I informed him that this is not possible as when I gave it in, it was a perfectly working phone except for the sound getting cut off sometimes. I advised that I have never downloaded any applications on my Blackberry ever, I am not even connected to the Etisalat internet. I was very upset to hear this and advised him to return the phone without fixing now both the issue (audio & application error).

Now this is where things get a little interesting, I went to collect the phone at the Aptec Lamcy Plaza counter and when I enquired how the phone got damaged after submission, Vijay at the counter advised that at the time of giving it in, he showed in my face that the phone had an application error, this is completely not true. If this was the case, he should have mentioned this on the receipt. Also I have no reason to lie on this matter. I also asked him that if there was an application error, why did he not put in down the receipt? Later he also accused me saying that I was trying to get a bigger problem resolved by giving it in for a smaller problem and that he has been working in this industry for more than 10 years. This behaviour and accusation absolutely annoyed me.

For the last one week, to prove my point I have been liaising with Lamcy Plaza Customer Care authorities to obtain a video footage to prove what happened at the time of submission of the phone, unfortunately the CCTV footage is not clear and only partial portion of the video is available.

Now getting the phone fixed from an expense point of view is not what i am concerned about, my real problem is how did the application error happen after I gave it in for fixing the audio problem. Now you can blame it on the Blackberry phone itself, but it is really strange all these software and application error and everything occurred exactly after I gave it in.

I wrote a complaint to Aptec mobiles customer service email address [email protected] and [email protected]. Both email addresses do not work and when I phoned to enquire, Aptec mobiles quite happily informed me that those email addresses do not work, I asked to speak to the manager, they refused to put me through, I asked for his number, got refused again. Finally the guys I was speaking to told me to send the email to his personal email address, till date no response.

I have now gotten my cell phone repaired through another shop. But wanted to keep everyone informed that Aptec mobiles arguably has the worst service and absolutely no compassion for its customers. It is not that I do not have an extra AED100 to fix the application error, but it is really more about the customer service and obligation that Aptec has in taking care of its customers' phone and making sure that additional issues with the phone do not happen after giving in for repair.

If you need any further details from me to investigate further, please let me know.

Regards
Jubu Abraham
[email protected]
+971 50 356 2240