Is it a case of few factory defective products that came as part of a huge bulk from East Asia and which somehow found their way into the market or is it a case of large scale injection of fake versions of such products by clever Nigerian salesmen with eye on quick profits? This is the question triggered by an on-going customer’s experience with such a product.
The customer whose name and receipts Intervention has redacted for now approached this platform to narrate his ordeal. He said he bought a particular brand of a rechargeable fan from C. J Electronics Superstores, an LG outlet in Jikwoyi, a suburb of Abuja on December 6th, 2023. The sales officer who superintended the sale told him it required six hours to be fully charged before he starting to use it.
Is it an LG problem or a problem of this particular shop?
According to the customer, he fully complied with that. To his chagrin, however, there was never a time the indicator that will show that the product is now fully charged never ever turned green. And the fan never worked up to 20 minutes once it is unplugged from electricity.
Eventually he had to take the fan back to the outlet. After some hot exchanges with a man who appears to be the owner of the shop and at the intervention of a woman who happened to take interest in the exchanges, the obvious proprietor offered to change the fan. But he did so with a request for additional N4000 which the customer refused to pay. At the end of the day, the customer added N2000, taking the price to N39, 000 and for which a receipt was issued reflecting the new price.
According to the storyline, one issue that came up during the exchange between the customer and the shop owner was the number of hours that the fan should have been charged before use. Contrary to the six hours which the sales officer or sales boy told the buyer, the shop owner said the fan did not work because it was not charged for 20 continuous hours before use. And that this must be done before the exchanged fan is put to use. Although the shop owner contradicted his salesboy who was standing by during the exchanges, he never indicted him, giving the buyer ground for suspicion that they had found in him a fool in the manger through whom to do away with products they knew were completely defective.
What the customer told Intervention is that as impossible as it is to get where there is electricity supply for continuous 20 hours in Nigeria, he complied but the fan does not work for even a minute once unplugged from electricity. That means it does not retain electricity.
While he is still contemplating the next course of action, his immediate concern and reason for approaching Intervention is the poser as to whether this is a large scale phenomenon or just a single case of a salespoint disposed to unwholesome, sharp practice. He is, according to him, interested in alerting potential buyers to this question
A redacted copy of the receipt
When Intervention called at the outlet, the shop owner whose name was not obtained said they had to see the receipt to determine if the product was from their shop. The customer did not take photographs of the first fan that didn’t work but he showed Intervention a screenshot of the first receipt as well as the second receipt which Intervention has redacted as already indicated. One interesting feature of the two receipts is the serial number. While the serial number of the first receipt issued on December 6th, 2023 is 1218, that of the receipt issued on December 13th, 2023 is 0574. Unless the shop uses different receipt booklets, the serial number seems to regress rather than otherwise.
According to the customer who declared going to whatever length to get back his money, the last time he called the shop, the only one of the three lines that responded said the shop was still on Christmas holidays. The man at the other end in fact told him he was speaking from his Village in the East.
Electrical and electronic products pouring in from China and the Asian tigers into the Nigerian market are understood to be serving those who patronise them wonderfully well. Most of them such as telephone handsets or rechargeable fans have been produced with the electricity supply crisis across Sub-Saharan Africa in mind and are fitted with rechargeable facilities that can last for hours.
But some of the products also come with problems. What is though not clear is whether the problems arise from defective factory exceptions or from injection of fake version by clever Nigerian salesmen.
