Salem-based channel company Rams, has filed a legal suit against Redington
and Ingram for not complying with warranty promised. The dealer has filed a suit
demanding for Rs 25 lakh from each distributor.
“In the past four to five years, we have been facing several warranty-related
issues, due to which we have lost several crores of business. Besides,
reputaÂtion has taken a hit due to this,” said GV Ramanan, Customer Relationship
Manager, Rams.
The partner has alleged that when he brought the material from Ingram and
Redington he was assured that they carried a warranty of three-years but the
distributors refuse to confirm the same.
“We deal with corporate customers and when we ordered the products we also
placed orders for Care Packs for extending the warranty up to three years.
However, warranty has not been upgraded in any of the products till date. When
our customers checked with HP service team, they were informed that we have sold
the products with a one-year warranty only. Now the customers are questioning
our code of conduct and are alleging that we have swindled them,” claimed
Ramanan.
The partner approached both Redington and Ingram about two months back, to
check the warranty status of the products but he is yet to get any update from
them. Generally, the vendor provides one-year warranty for any products and
upgrades the warranty to three years by adding another product called warranty
extension pack or Care Pack, which costs approximately Rs 5,000. Ramanan claims
that the warranty extension pack or the Care Pack is neither shown in the bill
nor does it get updated in the system.
“There is a serious contention, which every channel partner has to think of.
Every commercial product is sold with three years warranty and the Rs 5,000 the
customer pays for the Care Pack is either taken by the vendor or the distributor
or by both. This amount, when added up, will lead to several crores as more than
one lakh PCs are sold on an average across the country. The vendor or the
distributor is also not making things clear on who should upgrade the Care Packs
and things will get solved once we know this, as there are no proper education
from the vendors on the Care Packs,” Ramanan alleged.
Ramanan also supplied The DQ Week with copies of the invoices of the products
which he brought and no invoice from the distributor carries any specifications
about the product including the warranty.
When Manoj Shankar, former Branch Manager, Ingram Micro, Coimbatore was
contacted he confirÂmed the news that Rams has filed a legal suit against the
company.
“We have given our part of solution to Rams and generic issues such as
warranty are to be addresÂsed with the vendors, as distributors won't be able to
give any solution. We have passed on this notice to our legal department," said
Shankar.