Rajasthan partners left in the lurch by Olympia

Amrita Tejasvi

New Delhi

July 26th, 2007

Channel partners in Rajasthan are stumped about how to resolve the issue of
post-sales support of Olympia brand of RAMs purchased from New Delhi-based Palm
Technology one and half year back. Dealers across the state have lodged a
complaint that Palm Technology has disappeared from Jaipur all of a sudden and
since then they have not been getting any support from the head office located
in New Delhi.

The reason these dealers are worried is because their customers have returned
defective products to them and dealers are unable to provide any post sales
support which is hurting their business. They claimed that they have tried
several times to reach the head office and get in touch with the owners but were
unable to get a satisfactory response.

"Olympia was a famous brand in Rajasthan and dealers were quite happy
doing business with the company. The way it vanished indicates that it was a
pre-planned move and looks like they wanted to earn well and go away from the
state. I have 16 RAMs still with me that require warranty service and this has
cost me Rs 30,000," said SS Verma, CEO of Jaipur-based CTC Point.

Pavan Aggarwal from Jaipur, who has 60 RAMs with him, added that when he
sent the RAMs to the Delhi office, initially they sent back the same products
with changed packing and later they started rejecting the courier packages.
"The owner of the company never gets in touch with us. When I once spoke to
him with the help of their Jaipur manager, he clearly pointed that the office is
running under loss and therefore they won't be able to provide any kind of
service in Rajasthan," Agarwal added.

Naresh Jain from Kota highlighted that he is suffered a loss of Rs 1 lakh and
whatever RAMs he sent to the company for replacement never returned back.

Rakesh Mittal, who was the erstwhile manager of Palm Technology in Jaipur and
had to quit when the branch was closed said that he does not have any idea of
the reason for closing of the branch. He agreed however that around 80 to 100
dealers in Rajasthan suffered loss due to this move.

When contacted Nandlal, an account manager of Palm Technologies, said that it
was not true that the company is returning back the RAMs or is denying any
support on warranty issues. "We are ready to give replacement services to
the partners provided they have cleared their outstanding payment with us.
Warranty has been denied to those whose bills and payments were not clear. All
their allegations are not false and baseless," he commented.

Partners also informed that besides changing the official address, Palm
Technology also changed their business and now are dealing in inverters and real
estate.