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The experience of repairing a computer monitor made me deeply appreciate the difficulty of online consumer rights protection.
As young people's consumption activities are mainly online, consumer rights protection is also mainly carried out through e-commerce platforms. However, unlike the convenient consumption process, online rights protection still has the problems of slow response, poor communication and shirking of responsibility. To some extent, artificial intelligence that is deeply embedded in the platform hinders the protection of rights.
Image source: Visual China
The experience of repairing a computer monitor made me deeply appreciate the difficulty of online consumer rights protection. Less than a year after the purchase of this monitor, there was a clear black line, and according to the "three guarantees" regulations, it was in the free warranty period. Because this "with fish screen" monitor cost thousands of yuan, although it has not yet affected the use, but out of concern for its performance, I decided to repair it as soon as possible.
At that time, I had two choices, one was to directly seek the manufacturer to deal with, but the premise was to send the faulty machine to the repair point; the other was to apply for the platform after-sales, the platform will arrange for the courier to pick up the goods, repair the original road free of charge. Obviously, for ordinary consumers, repairing through the platform is a more convenient way.
The first application seemed to go smoothly, and soon after the maintenance application was submitted, the platform customer service called to understand the situation. At that time, the customer service first advised me to send it to the manufacturer for repair, but I hesitated and refused. The customer service did not insist, and then arranged for the courier to come to the door to receive the goods. Unexpectedly, this hesitation was the beginning of the bumpy road of rights protection.
After the display is sent back to the platform, the customer service says that it needs to be sent to the manufacturer for repair. This result is not surprising. After another week, the platform said that the repair was completed and arranged for a courier to return. However, when I opened the package and tested it with great anticipation, I found that instead of fixing the monitor, the black line had become a large black screen. This monitor is completely unusable.
I immediately submitted the after-sales application again. The customer service of this call does not seem to understand the actual problem, but re-opened an after-sales order. I understand that in the eyes of the platform, when the display is returned to my hands, it means the end of the last after-sales service. At this time, I was facing different customer service, and it was also the second after-sales service.
This time, the platform after-sales said that the display has appearance damage, which means that the attribution of responsibility is doubtful - according to the relevant terms, if the user damages the appearance of the display, he will have to bear the maintenance costs. I then objected because the platform didn't mention an appearance issue during the first repair, and the monitor was sent back to me within a few hours of finding that it hadn't been fixed. Regardless of whether there is cosmetic damage or not, the platform blames my subtext, which is unacceptable.
So, I got into a tug-of-war with the platform. The platform unilaterally arranged to return the display to the courier station, and I refused to accept it (once the signing was "appearance problem", it was even more unclear). The courier who is usually responsible for the delivery of my family area helplessly said that he was also very embarrassed. According to the provisions of the platform, the maintenance goods are damaged, and if it is not the responsibility of the consumer, the loss will be borne by the courier. Compared to the huge platform, the courier and I are weak and now have to "hurt each other".
Later, after the help and struggle of the industry, I finally got the "attention" of the platform. After that, the platform gave me two options, one was to replace the monitor, and the other was to refund the money at a discount. From the beginning, my appeal was not a refund, but a functional monitor, so I accepted the "replacement" without much thought. But when I opened the courier box again, I found that the "new monitor" still had some black screen problems.
At this time, exhausted the normal means of rights protection and personal connections, I had no choice but to accept the reality: first "make up for it". The process of reviewing rights protection, seemingly convenient platform services, buried many hidden dangers and inconveniences. After experiencing exhaustion and unsuccessful rights protection, my feeling is that compared with "whether it can be repaired", "how to find customer service" makes consumers feel anxious. In reality, only the platform customer service takes the initiative to call, I can speak, and when I take the initiative to call, either the "customer service is busy" no one answers, or it is transferred to the customer service that does not understand the specific situation at all, and can only passively wait for the customer service responsible for my order to call.
What's more, to find the entrance to human customer service, itself is not an easy task. Many times, consumers have to repeatedly listen to the invalid programmatic information of "intelligent customer service". In such a process, instead of feeling the convenience of technology, I have a feeling of not being respected: Is it so difficult to find a responsible "person" to clarify the problem?
Written by/Namgi
WeChat Editor/Huang Shuai
Produced by China Youth Daily and China Youth Network