Penalize companies with horrible online services

Online selling has become a booming business in this era when cyberspace is fast becoming our true reality. One sees this in the mounds of merchandise, wrapped in plastic packages, ordered online, and sorted out near city buildings where they await distribution. One also sees this in the proliferation of motorcycles carrying packets ordered online and delivered in rural communities.

The rise in online sales has spawned many forms of fraud. Horror stories abound, of customers who make purchases after being lured by online ads, and who end up receiving substandard or totally different items. But online sales are not the subject of my grievance today. There’s a very comprehensive law, the Consumer Act of the Philippines (Republic Act No. 7394), which defines and penalizes every form of fraudulent sale and deceitful advertisement that proliferate online. The focus of my complaint are businesses who have diverted their customer complaint and after-sales departments to online services that amount to a brick wall.

The practice of so many businesses now is that they have delegated their after-sales services to online call centers and independent service contractors. This is true for any complaint about a newly purchased item, a need of repair services for an old product, or a grievance against a service that one has signed up to. There is no physical office that one can go to and talk face-to-face with an employee. One has no choice but to listen to an online recording or ring a call center number that is virtually impossible to reach. I’ve had two recent horrible experiences that show that there’s a gaping hole in our laws and regulations that need government action.

I’ve been a holder of a particular credit card for the past 20 years. For years, I was receiving my paper billing statements through the mail until the pandemic came when the card company shifted to emailing my monthly bills. However, I lost access to my email recently and, as a result I failed to receive my bill notices. What followed was days and weeks of failed attempts to reach out to the card company even to merely request for my bills to be sent to my new email, and to even simply learn of the details of the charges to my card, before I make my payment. My secretary and I had to waste considerable time in our multiple attempts to reach a call center agent. When I was finally able to get through a call agent, she refused to disclose the details of the bill charges, ridiculously reasoning out that they had already sent the details to my old email. It was only after I threatened to discontinue my membership that she relented and proceeded to give details of the charges. The whole experience was so infuriating, and I’m sure that many clients and customers have gone through similar ordeals.

My second experience happened when our not-so-old air conditioner broke down. I got hold of the manufacturer’s service contractor and they came to inspect what was wrong. I was told that a component needed replacement and it would take one to two weeks for the parts to arrive. I gave my approval for the replacement. Two weeks past but no call or visit from the contractor. My secretary and I made repeated calls for a period of two weeks and, each time, I was assured that the contractor will call me “in 15 minutes.” Not a single call came, however. My family was already egging me to buy a new aircon unit, but I felt that to do so would be surrendering in defeat. In a last ditch attempt, I wrote the manufacturer and threatened to sue the hell out of them. In no time, the service contractor agent called me up, on the verge of crying, and apologizing while explaining that she’s all alone in dealing with customers in need of repair services in the city where I live. My aircon unit was fixed, taking them only a few minutes to install the replacement part.

By shifting their after-sales service departments to call centers and outsourced contractors, companies are saving considerable costs because they save on physical space and manpower. In so doing, however, these companies are leaving clients and customers with services that make one’s blood boil. After ensnaring customers to buy their products or engage their services, these companies maintain after-sales services that are horribly inaccessible or outrageously negligent. To top it all, customers end up paying for the services of these call center agents.

Online services are supposed to provide ease, convenience, and lesser costs for business clients. However, if these services become mere schemes for businesses to reap more profits but provide horrendous services to customers, the government must step in. There’s an urgent and dire need for laws and regulations that require minimum duties and impose penalties on companies that abuse online services as schemes to stonewall on complaining customers.

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