What do you do when sen lek arrives at your table instead of the sen yai that you ordered? What will you do in protest when dtac's service inevitably goes down again? How about taxi drivers who won't take you to your destination unless you accompany them on a joyride to a gem store first?
Most of us probably suffer these injustices in silence and muster the mai pen rai attitude to move on with our lives. However, some consumers out there have gone to lengths to make companies and authorities pay. They might give you some ideas of what to do the next time you receive sub-par service.
CRUMBLING CAR
One way to make use of cars that are beyond repair
The cause for complaint: A brand new car worth B1.3 million which kept breaking down.
The consumer: Duenphen Silaket, a clothing shop owner, smashed her red-license-plated Honda CR-V with a sledge hammer in front of Shinawatra Tower III on Vibhavadi Rangsit Road on January 27, 2005. Why? She thought it was a piece of crap.
Before destroying the car, Duenphen, then 28, said, "My dream car was actually a Honda CR-V. I set a goal to buy one because I love it." Apparently after too many trips to the mechanic to get her new baby fixed over two months, her dream car turned nightmarish. "The repair center people told me out of 100 units one is bound to be problematic. They asked me to lower my expectations," she added. She claimed Honda execs offered an apology but refused to do anything, saying they didn't want customers to have power over the company. Who said the customer is always right and god-like anyway? Not Honda.
Spurred by the manufacturer's alleged indifference, she decided to pull the smashing stunt and obviously didn't forget to alert the media about it. She placed a sign on the problematic car which said, "If it's good, I won't smash it. I would like to mourn for Honda." She then destroyed the SUV's front window with the sledge hammer 10 times and went on to attack the hood with a shovel, probably thinking of the Honda staff she had been dealing with. Shards of glass flew and cut her fingers but it didn't seem to stop her.
The compensation: Kom Chad Luek reported that the Office of Consumer Protection Board acted as a mediator between her and Honda representatives. Honda eventually agreed to buy back the smashed car from her. Duenphen said she was very pleased to receive her money back and later bought a Toyota Wish with it. Honda didn't cover the cost of her shovel, sledge hammer and bandages, though, in case you were wondering.
BLACK HOUSE
No relation to the story whatsoever; we just think the house is sooo cute!
The cause for complaint: An illegally built home.
The consumer: Auntie Rattana Sajjathep bought a two-storey townhouse in Sukhaphiban 2 Road of Bangkok in 1992. Two years later, her neighbours extended their house, causing cracks in some of her walls so she went to the Bung Kum district office to report her neighbour's wrongdoing. This led to her discovering she had bought a house that had been illegally built on a space meant to be kept vacant in case of fire, as required by the law. The district issued an order for her house to be demolished.
The auntie went on a complaint campaign, making her plight known to various government agencies, with no success. She upped the ante by painting the unlawful house black. That was when her case started to gain more media attention. Her case also raised questions about how the authorities allowed the home developer to build the illegal house in the first place.
Her fight accumulated to a decision to live on the streets. Her family moved out of their infamous home and camped in front of the BMA in 2005 in order to pressure the authorities to address the problem, risking real hobos and mosquitoes in the process. It wasn't a particularly fun family experience, she admitted later, but it worked.
The compensation: After intentionally becoming homeless for four months, she finally received a compensation package worth B12.5 million. B6.5 million of it came from various real estate businesses. The rest came from the government. Well, we think she deserved more than that for the fight which took her a decade to win.
FLY AT YOUR OWN RISK
Lack of airport security may also result in snakes on a plane
The cause for complaint: The possibility of being held hostage while flying in an aeroplane.
The consumer: Former senator Jermsak Pinthong took a business trip to Nakhon Si Thammarat on Aug 16, 2008. He had to catch a Nok Air flight back to Bangkok at the province's airport. Before boarding the plane, he noticed the absence of a walk-through metal detector so he asked an employee of Airports of Thailand (AOT), a company which is supposed to oversee the security of the airport. The employee simply replied that it had been borrowed by a university.
Jermsak told Krungthep Turakij, "I was shocked [by the answer]. Had someone brought a bomb on the plane or held the captain at gunpoint, I could have been held hostage too." He asked where the hand-held metal detector is and received the same answer. He added that the Nok Air crew didn't do anything to address his concerns.
After arriving at Don Mueang Airport, he filed a lawsuit to hold AOT and Nok Air accountable for their substandard security measures. His case was the first lawsuit to fall under the Consumer Case Procedure Act, which had been put into effect two day earlier.
Being the brainiac that he is, he calculated the cost of compensation at B6 million. He reckoned his death should be worth B4.5 million baht; his stress caused by the unsecured flight, B500,000. In case of his death, his wife would be without his support so he wanted B1 million for her as well. Self-valuing assessments sound a little problematic to us.
The compensation: Despite the reputation of the Thai court system, the lawsuit was surprisingly finalised in only a little more than three months. On Dec 14, Jermsak was awarded B50,000 for the fearful flight which came out of AOT's pocket. Well, at least, he can use the money to buy more Nok Air tickets.
SIDE EFFECTS
Can you tell which one the mother is?
The cause for complaint: A droopy eyelid caused by a wayward botox injection.
The consumer: Actor Worawit "Wit" Kaewpetch said he went to Pewdee Clinic in Central Chidlom for a Botox injection on Jan 28, 2009. He alleged it caused his left eyelid to droop, giving him the appearance of a half-awake man. He claimed he had received Botox injections from other clinics without any side effects before.
Given the importance of his face to his job, he sought almost B3 million in damages from the clinic for loss of income. He filed a complaint against the clinic at Lumpini Police Station after he and the clinic couldn't agree on a payout. Both parties tried to come to a settlement at the Criminal Court several times to no avail.
The compensation: Eventually, the actor and the doctor kissed and made up in July instead of enduring a lengthy legal battle. The doctor agreed to provide him with a lifetime supply of treatment. We just hope he won't sue her again 10 years later for making his face void of expression from too many visits.
THE THIRD KIND OF CUSTOMER
Q: Which of these four ladies is actually a man? A: Trick question, they’re all men!
The cause for complaint: Being denied access to an establishment because of your identity.
The consumer: On Jun 22, 2007, Suttirat "Mod" Simsiriwong, then 34, went to a pub in Novotel Siam Square with a male foreigner friend. She was stopped by a receptionist who asked to see her identification card. She didn't have it with her so presented her driving licence instead. The receptionist told her it was against the hotel policy to allow her kind into the pub. You see, Mod looks all womanly but her name is preceded with "Mr".
Mod told Kao Sod, "I asked the receptionist, 'What did you just say?' so I could hear it again. I thought I hadn't heard right." The staff apparently repeated the grossly discriminating policy.
Mod said that the hotel execs can't assume that all ladyboys were there to cause problems or proposition male patrons. She commented they should look at these problems case-by-case and shouldn't think that all ladyboys would behave the same way.
Mod insisted she didn't want any monetary compensation but wanted to fight for the rights of ladyboys to be treated as human beings. However, if the hotel were to pay her money, she would forward it to a charity for the blind.
"It was serious discrimination. I never thought I would have had to deal with it in a developed society. I knew I had to make an example out of this even if it meant hiring a lawyer," Mod added.
The compensation: The hotel publicly apologised for the incident and insisted they don't discriminate against ladyboys in a press conference held by the hotel, the Bangok Rainbow Organization and Mod. The hotel said the whole thing stemmed from a "misunderstanding" and "miscommunication" on the receptionist's part. But, to us, it sounds like throwing the little guy in front of an incoming bus being handled by a driver who has had one too many energy drinks.G
