I have discovered that Philips which I presumed to be a reputed Brand name is actually run by thorougly rogue and callous people who care two hoots about delivering quality to their customers whether in product or in service. They have put products in the market which are made from sub-standard quality just to be price competitive.

My Philips Home Theater system (model no: HTS3152) was bought from Vijay Sales, Borivali West on 15th August 2008 at their special offer price of Rs.7,500/- whereas the usual MRP was quoted to be Rs.9,900/- something.

The product just stopped functioning in February 2010 whereby we launched a complaint with the company’s call center number provided in their booklet. The service engineer called me before visiting and was keenly upfront just about one thing – the money that he would charge us irrespective of whatever may be the cause of complaint. The charges were: Rs.300/- for the superficial visit itself just for checking the problem. If the set had to be taken to their service center which was very likely, another Rs.250/- just for transportation and plus whatever cost that would be derived after diagnosing the problem. Having no choice, I agreed to these terms too.

After almost a week I received a call (that too after repeated follow-ups from my side) stating that a component would need to be changed as it had undergone corrosion which the service engineer said was a common enough problem with their products in sea-facing areas. The cost of replacing the component (which was the only solution offered then) would be Rs.1,200/- odd apart from all their visit & transportation charges, plus applicable taxes. Again, having no choice I accepted. The set was delivered back after almost a month again after repeated follow-ups. Again the set stopped working in a day’s time whereby we again had to summon the service engineer who took the set again & returned it after a week which again promptly stopped after couple of days. This continued for two or three more times, after which I was thoroughly fed-up and asked the engineer to once & for all resolve the issue. It was then almost 3 months that this was going on and I got a final reply from the service guys that my set was beyond repair (which now they have technically termed as “beyond economical repair”) On being asked what was wrong and if they had fitted such a faulty part it was their duty to replace the same free of cost I got the following explanation (all orally ofcourse): “we just changed one component but the entire circuit board is corroded due to humid air. The cost of replacing the whole board would be more than what you paid for & also it is not possible for us to repair the same. So, you can busy another set from us again for Rs.7,500/-“ (isn’t this just too much??)

Since then, I have been struggling to get the company to show some morality & ‘till date have failed to get any genuine response from their side – only callous attitude & foolish offers are being made that too after long gaps – phones are not picked – even cell phones of their senior personnel go unattended and there are long gaps between communication that too is after repeated follow-ups.

Philips is seriously the worst company and I am still encountering a harrowing experience of being an unwitting customer of such a callous & thoroughly unscrupulous organization

I think u r right. I bought a PHILIPS Home Theatre HTS3181 from BIG BAZAR 2k cheaper than the market rate of 11k. In the manual it was written that it can play DVDs of region 3, 4, 5 and 6. I had couple of DVDs bought in INDIA from EXCEL VIDEOS which have region 3 and guess what PHILIPS cannot play them. When I complained PHILIPS care said that PHILIPS can only play region 5 DVDs. That is not the case other DVD players like Sony, Videocon etc