[blued]

Originally Posted by Snappy!

Not an iliad, but a mobile phone for me. I had a mobile from Siemens many years back and when I got it, I was surprised at the difference in icons and menu on it when compared to the advertised images.

I sent an email to their HQ in Germany, and they tried to explain that it is because the units in my region is localised and hence the difference, while the ad images are standardized worldwide. I replied charging that they are having false advertising and lying to customs about the look and feel of the mobile. The international verion of the mobile phone is not available locally, so they flew one in to Asia for me from Germany! wooo hoo ...

ok, I know, there are usually fineprints with "Product images are for references only. Actual product may vary." but I guess they played nice, and I give them brownie points for that! ... not that it's worth anything much ..

Thanks for the anecdote. Although to a lesser degree, this is very much like case iLiad. Sadly, even large and faceless companies like Siemens seem more reasonable than iRex. I guess it's the thing that iRex only has one product(having their eggs in one basket) that they can't allow even one crack in their return policy.

I guess it's Fight club's 'The formula' applied to iLiad:

If a new car built by my company leaves Chicago traveling west at 60 miles per hour, and the rear differential locks up, and the car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside, does my company initiate a recall? You take the population of vehicles in the field (A) and multiply it by the probable rate of failure (B), then multiply the result by the average cost of an out *of *court settlement (C). A times B times C equals X. This is what it will cost if we don't initiate a recall. If X is greater than the cost of a recall, we recall the cars and no one gets hurt. If X is less than the cost of a recall, then we don't recall.

Of course here it's 'number of iLiad's sold A' times 'the ratio of customers wanting a refund B' times 'the loss of sales due to damage to reputation per customer feeling cheated C' equals X. If cost X is higher than the cost of doing the right thing and giving refunds to those who want it, then they do it. Otherwise they do not. Only thing we can do to encourage them is to try increasing the value of X.