APC slapped with a ban in Panipat

Pooja Sharma

New Delhi

October 1st 2007

American Power Conversion (APC), manufacturer of UPS and network-critical
physical infrastructure (NCPI) solutions, has been slapped with a ban in Panipat.
The Panipat Computer Dealers Association (PCDA) placed a ban on the company on
28th September, owing to service issues.

Confirming the same, Ajay Singla, Chairman of PCDA said that there were
several service issues that were pending and were thus piling up from the
company's end. Customers thought that because they have logged a complaint their
service issues would get meted out. But nothing of the sort happened.

"We had issued a billing suspension order against APC products last
month. This was due their repeated negligence pertaining to poor after sales
services," Singla informed.

It was learnt that a month ago the association had held a meeting with APC
representatives, which included Anuj Kudesia, Regional Sales Manager; Om Batra,
Partner Sales Manager Neeraj Tyagi and Debashish Ray. During the meeting several
issues pertaining to services were discussed and the APC representatives had
then promised that there would be an improvement in the services of APC products
in future. But instead the service efforts were got worse even after conducting
a meeting with the vendor representatives, said Singla. This aside he complained
that even the service centre was manipulating the call status and earning money
on the cost of the customers. "There were so many complaints which are
still pending as per feedback given by the customers. But according to company
records the said calls are closed. Customers are suffering a lot but no one is
paying attention to their problems," said Singla.

The association stated that it had the documentation of seven such calls and
Singla was sure to receive more complaints. When he got in touch with APC's
Debashish Ray to inform him personally about the imminent ban, he only got more
assurances, but no solutions.

According to the association, the statements given by the call centre and the
APC people contradicted each other leading to further confusion. When the
association had tried to contact Sanjay, another representative from APC he not
only ignored them, but also showed no signs of taking the matter seriously.

When contacted, APC's, Anuj Kudesia, Regional Sales Manager, said that he was
unaware of any intimation or notice sent to APC by the association. However he
did mention that the issue was sorted out and was not pending for over a month
as reported. "Had we not settled the issue earlier the dealers would not
have continued to buy the products from APC," added Kudesia. He also said
that the complaints that were made earlier were all sorted out as promised
within 96 hours and hence were closed.

At present the association has stopped all billing to the company and placed
a ban until someone from the company takes note of the same. An email
notification has been sent to all the APC representatives.