Asus Trivex Service Center Scam + Horrible Attitude from Manager

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xtremecoder

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Sharing my horror experience during a recent encounter with Asus’s Singapore Service Center at Trivex. I hope to make other users wary of the shady business practices from Asus, and the exceptionally bad and untrained staff located at their service center.

On 2 September 2022, my friend brought his out-of-warranty Asus PC to their service center to diagnose an issue where the BIOS setting is reset every time on boot. Usually, this indicates that it is an CMOS battery issue, but as my friend didn’t seek my advice then, I was not aware.

She paid $64.20 for Asus to evaluate the PC. The lead time was said to be 5 to 7 working days.
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However, she only got back the desktop on 21 September, and that’s when things got worse.
First, she rejected the repair as she was quoted over the phone $500 to perform the fix. We took the computer back, but we had to pay the diagnostic fee. We would have no issue with paying the diagnostic fee, but when I saw the diagnostic result, it was ridiculous.
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Being a hardware professional myself, I swapped the CMOS battery myself, which I only had to pay the cost of 1 CR2032 battery. This solved the issue, and proved that their diagnostic report was inaccurate, and thus I decided that I would help my friend to fight for a refund of the diagnostic fee as the diagnostic did not provide the correct issue, and thus I kinda “did not get what I paid for”.

On 23 September, we went down to the service center, and demanded to speak to an engineer to understand the situation. The frontdesk lady went in to get more documents for me, and when she came out, I was shocked by the documents I saw;
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First, they gave me this diagnostic report, proving that they knew the issue, but insisted that it was the motherboard that was faulty.
Within the diagnostic report they claimed that battery is bundled within the motherboard. However, it is not.
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Secondly, remember the original $500 quotation for the motherboard? It was not.
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$1349 for the motherboard, $80 labour fee, $100 GST, -$64 diagnostic fee offset, total $1464.
This was a whooping x1500 times the actual repair cost.
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Finding this unacceptable, I asked them to ask the engineer out so that I can talk to him. The engineer, known as Alger, was a very rude man who insisted that the battery is part of the motherboard and they cannot change the battery only, instead having to change the whole motherboard. They claim that they do not do repairs, however, it was stated in the invoice that they do provide “L3 Repairs”. I understand that the engineer has nothing to do with the policies or whatever fine print was on the invoices, so I told him to ask the manager out. This manager, was by far, the worse manager I have encounter in my entire life, and I believe that Asus should take action against her. She is none other than Suganthi, a young lady who is very arrogant and clearly does not have the basic respect and ability to manage customers.

Suganthi came out, and I started to talk to her about how the diagnostic test gave me an absolutely unacceptable result that was essentially invalid, and how I am unsatisfied with Asus trying to upsell me the out-of-warranty repair by charging me x1470 the original repair cost. I outright branded the scenario as “SCAM” as the charge is unjustified.
She explained to me that Asus’s policy is to change the whole motherboard as they can only order the battery with the motherboard. She claims that the battery is a special battery and they cannot only replace it. Immediately, she said that she does not provide parts repair at this service centre and only replacements.
I proceeded to challenge her with the fine print on the invoice stating that L3 Repairs are done here, but to my horror, instead of saying she would check, or the form is outdated, or any other reason, she said; “That is not a signed document. We don’t have to honor it.”
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I immediately released the slimy and shady tactics that Asus was doing. She then went on to explain that the definition of repair was not explicitly defined, and replace can fall under repair. It felt like talking to a CS manager who was trying to take on the role of their Legal Team.

Knowing that there would definitely be a signed copy out there, I asked her to pull out the signed copy. She complied. I took a read on the signed service contract, and saw that one of the clause mentioned that “Asus will repair / replace the defective components …”. I proceeded to confront her that the signed document indicates that there are repairs done. Again, her response is something that nobody would have ever expected. Instead of checking further, saying its an error, etc, she said;
“I do not wish to serve you further. You are being very unreasonable and you are also calling our company ‘scam’”.

I was very mad. This should never be said to a customer by ANY customer service manager. Customer Service Managers should be there to handle and help all customers with pride, not decide that they don’t want to serve and just outright tell the customer they don’t want to serve the customer.
I composed myself and replied, “You are also being very rude. Would you like to pull the CCTV footage and have a look?” She replied; “I don’t agree with it, so no.”

Being absolutely mad and pissed with her service attitude, I said, “I’d like to speak to your supervisor. I’d like this case escalated up. Your attitude is unacceptable.”
And she said, “I don’t agree with it, so no.”

Never have I thought that a customer service manager can reject escalation. It’s the same as saying “I’d like to complain you”, but the person you want to complain doesn’t agree, so you cannot.
Left with no options, I called AsusCare, and asked to speak to the overall IC of the service centres. The Overall IC called be back within 10 minutes and managed to approve the refund within 2 hours. Not only that, she was very understanding and apologised for my experience.

With my experience, I hope to warn everyone of a few things;
1. Never do out-of-warranty repair with Asus because they will find ways to scam you by upselling you the actual cost of the fix by up to x1500 times and potentially more.
2. Never visit the TRIVEX service center because the CS manager has no ethics or anything and isn’t even polite nor knows how to handle customers apart from discharging herself from her duties
3. If possible; just avoid Asus because of their dirty and slimy tactics.
Asus has a solid reputation for their products, and I hope that their management can be aware of this and take action to improve the quality of service provided at their service centre. I also believe I’m not the only one facing this issue, as if you look at the google reviews, the centre is rated at 3.2* with a huge amount of 1* all saying the same issue : upselling charges, not honouring warranty, and finding all sorts of excuse.
 

wwenze

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It's a good reminder for everyone

1) Do not trust repairmen except those that you know very well. I could go on deeper, but I won't.
2) Do not trust any shop which doesn't give free quotation.
3) Always document with proof the original conditions and parts of your PC.

Ironic as just a few days ago (or weeks? time has been passing weirdly for me lately) there was a thread here with some guy saying that he can't pay repairmen high salary because their jobs don't require skill/knowledge. Well what you are seeing here is exactly what happens, as lemon market theory predicted.
 

xtremecoder

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Manned by R-Logic, but the manager claim to be Asus Employee. Say the invoice is RLogic issue one so Asus dun have to honor.

Throughout she try confusing me about Asus and R-Logic and I gave up and just told her "all this invoices and documents come from this office which you work at, so it is from you."

Alrd complain to Asus, Asus gladly refund the cost already. But I still think need to let more people know and hope less people fall for their scams.
 

Phen8210

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This is why ownself learn to diagnose and all that is worth in the long run. I've seen plenty of such BS in this industry. Some technicians really have no idea how to diagnose, just anyhow hantam.

Even those whose senior titles also can be bullshiatter, don't think too much of it.
 
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blackie83

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Most probably they don't do repair. Part change and labor.

$500 might as well top up buy new one.
 

qhong61

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Manned by R-Logic, but the manager claim to be Asus Employee. Say the invoice is RLogic issue one so Asus dun have to honor.

Throughout she try confusing me about Asus and R-Logic and I gave up and just told her "all this invoices and documents come from this office which you work at, so it is from you."

Alrd complain to Asus, Asus gladly refund the cost already. But I still think need to let more people know and hope less people fall for their scams.
So what happened to ur PC now?
 

watzup_ken

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I think the practice is not something all that surprising. Most "reputable" brands don't like to entertain out of warranty repairs, and you can clearly tell from the outrageous charges. Personally if I knew it was a CMOS battery issue, I won't have ask for the PC to be brought back to the official service center knowing very well they will quote all sorts of rubbish price. Don't get me wrong, I am not defending these sorts of practice, but its been around for many decades. That's why those 3rd party repair shops thrive because there is 0 point to go back to official repair center when a product is out of warranty.
 

watzup_ken

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Most probably they don't do repair. Part change and labor.

$500 might as well top up buy new one.
That is the objective of these official service center. One to deter you from giving them more work, and 2 to get you to buy a new one instead, when the product is out of warranty. In warranty, they have no choice but to take it in because they have been hired by Asus to do the repair/ after sales service.
 

xtremecoder

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So what happened to ur PC now?
Ive fixed it, Asus Call Center already refunded me the diagnostic fee. So nothing lost.

But want to share experience to ensure other people dont fall into their scam.
Especially the manager who is super attitude, which CS manager can say she dun want to serve customer?
 

Phen8210

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Ive fixed it, Asus Call Center already refunded me the diagnostic fee. So nothing lost.

But want to share experience to ensure other people dont fall into their scam.
Especially the manager who is super attitude, which CS manager can say she dun want to serve customer?

should be fired if its true, cannot have this kind of corruption lurking around
 

qhong61

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Ive fixed it, Asus Call Center already refunded me the diagnostic fee. So nothing lost.

But want to share experience to ensure other people dont fall into their scam.
Especially the manager who is super attitude, which CS manager can say she dun want to serve customer?
So how much u finally paid?
 

sacredrays

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wah.. their smoke bomb level so try hard. already got exposed but don't want to back down.

now your friend know who to call for it support. hope he use the refunded money to treat you a meal or something. :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:
 

uncle_josh

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Asus Service Centre in Singapore is very well known for their notoriety in this forum.
That's why never recommend anyone to buy Asus laptops at all, no matter how good.
Cos the service centre sucks Big time.
 
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