The column for anyone fed up with bureaucracy, frustrated with delays or furious with poor service. Tell us your complaint and we'll try to fix it... Ho Hee-hwa of Ap Lei Chau wrote to express frustration that Fortress was being unreasonable in refusing to exchange a cordless phone he bought for a more expensive model he was willing to pay extra for. 'I would like to voice my dissatisfaction with the service provided by Fortress in South Horizons on my recent purchase of a cordless phone,' he said. 'I bought a Uniden cordless phone at Fortress. After looking at the packaging at home, my wife found out that the phone is an expandable system and is capable of monitoring a baby room. The manual said I needed another handset for this feature to work. 'My wife and I just had a new baby and thought that this extra feature would come in handy for us. I went back to Fortress to explain my situation to them. I wanted to return the unused product and upgrade to another Uniden model, a package that included two handsets. I was willing to pay for the more expensive model. 'The sales rep refused to accommodate my request, although I assured him that my initial purchase was untouched. It was their company's policy to accept return of faulty product within 10 days, but not to upgrade to a product with more features. 'I was asked to call the customer services hotline and met with the same company line. I can't believe the management of Fortress can be so inflexible. I am especially infuriated since I have been a long-time customer at the store, having bought most of my household electrical appliances from them. Perhaps actor Andy Lau Tak-wah, as in his customer service commercial, should teach them how to do business in Hong Kong and keep their customers happy. The management at Fortress should have better common sense, but I guess being a big chain-store in Hong Kong, losing a loyal customer is no big deal.' Fortress agreed to an exchange after a Take Action inquiry. 'We are sorry to learn about the frustration of Mr Ho and apologise for any inconvenience,' a company spokeswoman said. 'It is the policy of Fortress to guarantee an exchange within 10 days of purchase if the product is unable to meet the manufacturer standards. Our representative has contacted Mr Ho to explain the above policy. As a gesture of company goodwill, we have specially arranged for Mr Ho to return the unused product and upgrade to another model. He is pleased with our arrangement.' A resident of Pacific Palisades in Braemar Hill wonders why its management office, run by the estate management under developer Sino Land, allowed her drinks delivery worth more than $580 from Wellcome to sit in its office for more than a month without trying to contact the supermarket or her. The delivery was made in late January and apparently the estate office did not return it to Wellcome until early last month. 'Wellcome brought the delivery to the wrong address in another block, so it ended up with the management office,' she said. The resident had no complaint with Wellcome, which has already refunded her, but she wondered what the estate office was doing. 'It weighed at least 100 pounds and took up space. What would the estate staff possibly be thinking? They claimed there was no name or address on the boxes, but Wellcome computerised everything, so if they had called earlier, they could easily have found out the purchase belonged to me.' The resident has had previous and ongoing disputes with the management and owners' committee, and she wonders if the estate management was being deliberately unhelpful. Sino Estates Management said it was Wellcome that failed to collect the delivery for more than a month. But it did not explain why it didn't try to work with the supermarket to identify the correct flat owner to which the goods belonged. According to Sino, the delivery was taken to the wrong flat on the eve of the Lunar New Year holiday on January 7. That flat owner took the three cartons of goods down to Pacific Palisades' customer service centre, which, however, had closed and remained closed for four days during the holiday. A security guard left the goods in a public area so that the right tenant could claim them, because apparently there was no address on the delivery boxes. No one came to claim them. After the holiday, the centre contacted Wellcome on February 1. Wellcome said it would come to collect them but did not do so, according to Sino Estates. 'As the cartons were not picked up after a month, the customer service centre called Wellcome to inquire. Wellcome said the purchaser had already been refunded on January 28 and there was no urgency to deal with the goods,' a Sino spokeswoman said. Wellcome eventually collected the goods on March 3. Sino Estates said the centre had acted appropriately.
