I was hoping I will never have to vent it out but I saw this thread here about Lynx and I had the urge to just add one of my most harrowing buying experiences.
I will not go into the minute details as it boils my blood to even try and remember that. Sometime back I decided to purchase the Asus Xonar Essence ST from Lynx as it was not available anywhere else. I knew what I was getting into as I had read many bad incidents that people had had over a long time dealing with the guy owning this shop. But I wanted that sound card so bad that I just could not resist buying it. I was hoping mine would be one of the rare pleasant experiences that customers intermittently had with Mr. Dhillon's customer service. But I was not destined to be in that league of extrodinary gentlemen.
I was shocked to see how brazen the guy was even from the moment I called to check if he really had availability of the sound card. He spoke as if he was really doing me a favour by talking to me. I think he should be sent to a customer service rehab. He was very prompt till the time the money was given to him. But the harassment started from his end right from the next very day.
- No concrete answers about delivery at all.
- Numerous calls to him on his cell & to his guy who handled telephonic queries - but no help
- Starting a thread on his own forum - still nothing
- Even prayed to get my money back or get the product, yes got that desparate, but nothing happened.
It never got shipped and neither did he update the order status on his website. I was repeatedly told that he had placed the order but it was not provided to him by the backend.
Finally, having lost my patience, after I think a couple of months of putting up to this bizarre behaviour, It struck me to escalate the matter. I found out that Rashi Peripherals was dealing with Asus Xonar imports in India. So I called up at Rashi's office in Chandigarh and told them how the guy that is their reseller, is cheating me and asked them to confirm if he ever placed an order with them. They confirmed that probably the order was placed but no one from Lynx ever bothered to follow up with them. Imagine, I had to ask the importers to contact Mr. Dhillon to confirm if this order was pending to be shipped from his end or not. I thank Rashi so much for being so helpful and doing that for me. Turned out that Mr. Dhillon never cared to check with Rashi and get the card picked up.
Finally I had to shake Mr. Dhillon up from his slumber and ask him to at least get the product picked up from Rashi's office and ship it. It was miraculous that he acted finally and the next day I got my card. Phew, what a nightmare.
All I can say is people who had smooth transactions with Mr. Dhillon should consider themselves absolutely lucky and they definitely can be considered as a species unto themselves.
Lastly, Lynx's business tagline should have been - We offer the best orDEALS !!
The only good part about that experience was that the Asus Xonar Essence ST sound card is a gem of a product for the money it asks. Brilliant stepping stone into hifi.