TV Media disputes consumer agency charges

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)