Can Money buy Good Quality Products?

Philips Customer Car Center with the Problem Vacuum Cleaner on the Bench

Finally I have settled down after staying in north America for a long time and be able to concentrate on some art work, but yesterday, my routine suddenly got disrupted.

I bought a SGD$500 Philips vacuum cleaner at the end of May. It was only used for about 15 days considering the long absent in between May and now.  Yesterday, while I was enjoying playing piano with my daughter and planning to do some painting after that, my maid came to told me: "Mame, the vacuum cleaner is not working". I checked the machine and hope to find that there was no problem, only that she forgot to turn on something. But after tweaking here and there, I realized that it was spoil and my whole day was ruined.

Because it is a fairly expensive machine and it was used only for such a short time, I cannot just through it away and buy a new one. I need to send it over as instructed by the customer service officer from Philips and get it repaired. It took me 3 hours to carry the heavy machine to the service center.

There are so many types of vacuum cleaners in the market from about SGD$100 to SGD$600. I thought if I buy expensive one, it will perform better. But actually I found the logic doesn't hold any more now days. Here is another example.

Silver Titus Watch With Crystal Dropped Off

I like Silver Titus watch very much. If I need a new watch for gift or for my own use,  I usually just went to City Chain and got a Silver Titus watch. But last year, I bought a about SGD$250 Silver Titus watch from City Chain and a crystal dropped off and crown became loose only after one month. I couldn't adjust time back to Singapore time after coming back from Germany. The ridiculous thing was that when I went to City Chain store the store men told me that the crystal and crown were all outside parts and they were not included in the warranty. Only after I argued with them for a long time, they agreed to send it to be repaired for free.

Now the watch has 2 more crystals came off and 3 crystals turned to black. I feel so sick to look at it and I just through it away somewhere so that I will never see it again.

It is very confusing now days as which brand is good or bad and who can be trusted. You cannot buy good products just by paying more money.

Luckily Singapore has introduced so called "Lemon Law" and will be effective by September 1. I hope by then, things will get better.