TV Media disputes consumer agency charges
JAKARTA (JP): PT Telemedia Internusa, better known as TV Media Indonesia, has charged the Indonesian Consumers Foundation with exaggerating customers' complaints about its service.
Dharma, area operations manager of Singapore-based TV Media, said last week that the foundation has a "biased" opinion of his direct response business.
"I was pretty disappointed .... it is very biased against TV Media. The whole content is totally misunderstood," Dharma told The Jakarta Post.
TV Media, established in early 1995, was the first company to run a direct response and information commercials business in the country. It also has offices in other countries.
Dharma said that the foundation officials he met admitted that they spoke in general and they knew there are four other companies which run direct response businesses in Indonesia.
Earlier this month, the foundation announced it had received many complaints from the public about TV Media's late delivery and shoddy goods.
Foundation chairperson Tini Hadad said yesterday that most complaints were about the late delivery of TV Media products.
"We received complaints from the consumers, by telephone and through the newspapers about TV media. From newspapers, we recorded four complaints," Tini said.
Dharma said, "Of course there are complaints. There's no such thing in any business as no complaints. We don't sell one piece ... we sell thousand of pieces. ... we don't want complaints to happen too, but they do."
Consumers in East Jakarta and South Sulawesi wrote in newspapers last year that the company had failed to send their products at the time it promised.
"We never mentioned the delivery time of what was spent, what we did is provide the delivery," Dharma said.
He explained that when the consumers called, it was their top priority to inform prospective customers that the delivery time is normally two to four weeks on general items. "But for really, really hot, saleable items, we normally inform them the delivery will take four to six weeks," Dharma said.
A consumer in East Jakarta told the foundation that the Sumi knife he bought broke while his wife was using it to cut an apple. Another consumer claimed that a TV Media official refused to refund his money although the super slicer he bought did not work. The official finally agreed to replace the super slicer with a new one after a bitter argument.
Besides TV Media, the four other companies who conduct direct response businesses are: GAMA, MOG, Nabela TV Shopping and Teleshopping 2000.
Tini added that other direct response businesses also received complaints.
General manager of GAMA, the first national company which ran a direct response business, Iwan S. Surya, said that his company takes consumers' complaints seriously.
"As a newcomer in the direct response business, we take consumers' complaints seriously... to evaluate our services, whether we've done a good job or not. If it's not good, we will use the input to improve the company," Iwan said. (31)