Product returns

Being a tech person and familiar with computers I like to offer solutions when I think I can.

Hương needed a new printer and also wanted her daughters' computer, in a different room, to be able to use the printer if possible. We went to a local store and looked over a number of printers. She settled on an HP M1132 printer, copier, scanner with my help.

The solution to printing from another room? A print server. We bought a D-Link DPR-1020 print server at the same time as the printer.

Vietnam amazes me with services available for little or no cost.

At no additional cost, purchase was about $250US, a technician delivered the printer and print server and set them up!

Unfortunately the print server didn't work reliably. Hương's laptop has Windows 7 and the daughters' computer Ubuntu Linux. According to D-Link's web site the print server works with both. A little digging on my part and I discovered the problem was the print server's compatibility with the printer. I found plenty of posts that it didn't work with the particular printer regardless of Windows or Ubuntu on the computer sending the print job.

The typical reaction I'd have would just be "return it." Not so fast. Seems in Vietnam merchants accepting product returns is not a common practice. So first Hương called to make sure we would be "allowed to return it." Her words, not mine. Once that hurdle was cleared we went back to the store with the product and the receipt. Then things got interesting.

First we went to the purchase desk where payment for a purchase is made. From there we were directed to the merchandise pickup desk where purchases are delivered to the buyer. They looked our paperwork over and directed us upstairs to the testing department. Testing looked the print server over and sent us back downstairs to the purchase desk. They filled something out and sent us over to merchandise pickup again. Merchandise pickup took the device back, gave us some more paperwork and sent us back to the purchase desk. They filled out some more paperwork, called someone, and we waited. The "called someone" came to us and we followed her to the 3rd floor and waited outside an office. After a while she came out of the office and gave us some paperwork. It included a new receipt without the print server on it. Now, at last, we went back downstairs to the purchase desk, gave them the paperwork and got the refund!

I told Hương that next time she's in the US we're going to buy something and return it just so she can see how easy the process is here.