I recently bought a new car. Well actually, it was almost a year and a half ago, but it was a really cool new car, one of the flagship models from a leading car manufacturer. It cost me 40.000 Euros. The car moves like a dream and I was really pleased with it. After a couple of months I started buying and installing some extra equipment, an upgraded stereo, some extra lights. And I even had an engine upgrade for 5000 Euros.

Then, one morning, after a year and three months, the car suddenly wouldn't start. For no apparent reason. When I called the dealer they asked me to send the car, at my cost, to their repair center in France. Can you imagine? After a month I got a message back – my warranty doesn't cover the malfunctioning car and it will cost me another 25.000 Euros to repair (more than half the cost of the new car), so it makes more sense buying a new car. Oh, and if I want the car back, I also have to pay the return transport from France, whether they fix the car or not.

Do you recommend me to buy my next car from the same dealer? Or from the same manufacturer? Didn’t think so.

Why should I or anyone else accept such poor customer treatment for an exclusive item of any kind? That it should just break down beyond the point of repair after a year, and that the manufacturer and the dealer both say that it is not their business?

The story above, is a true story, almost. I didn’t buy a car, however. I bought a mobile phone. The latest model, the Milestone from Motorola. And the dealer in my case was a company called Expansys.

Lessons learnt:
• The first consequence of this story is that I havet o get a new phone = Unsustainable consumption.
• The second consequence is that I am so pissed that I will never buy anything from Motorola or from Expansys again (and I encourage you to do the same) = unisustainable economics.
• The third consequence is that in the web 2.0 age I am spreading this story to the world over the internet = very unsustainable economics for Motorola and Expansys.

As little as we can afford to have expensive stuff that breaks beyond repair after a year in a world with limited resources, as little companies can afford to dismiss their customers with bad service in the web 2.0 era.

I hope this little story becomes a lesson not only to me.