For people living in Germany, dealing with bad service is something we must do on a daily basis. Whether we’re shopping, dealing with the German bureaucracy or paying our electricity bill. There are exceptions, though. And until recently, I considered Amazon.de to be one of those exceptions.

When I started looking around for an affordable netbook, Amazon.de wasn’t the cheapest place to start from. But since I had to deal with their customer service before on a number of occasions and usually found their personnel friendly, competent and helpful, I decided to buy a Samsung N130 @anynet from them instead of other retailers. After bad experiences with German electronics chain stores, I made a conscious decision to give up a few points on the price scale for better service.

Here is what happened: While searching through all available netbooks, I found the lack of systems that don’t ship with Windows preinstalled quite annoying. I didn’t intend to use a Microsoft OS this time. Even if I wanted to, I have accumulated a respectable number of various Windows XP versions over the last years, and since I started studying at university, I was able to get most Microsoft software for free through the MSDN Academic Alliance anyway. So I didn’t see the point of paying for yet another Windows system that I wasn’t going to use. Fortunately, I don’t have to!

When you run a new Windows PC for the first time, you will be shown an “End-user License Agreement”, or EULA. As an end-user, you’re free to choose whether you want to use Windows or not. You’re not obliged to agree to the license terms. In fact, if you reject the EULA, you’re entitled to receive a refund equal to the price of the Windows XP license which was included in the product price. Not many people know this, but getting a refund on the Windows-tax has been a hot issue in the Open Source community for a few years now. Amazon UK, Amazon US and various European Amazon branches have refunded Windows licenses in the past. In France, courts usually ruled in favour of consumers in similar cases in the past.

Naturally, I also contacted Amazon’s customer service and asked about a refund for my Microsoft Windows license. One day later, I received a rather snippy E-mail saying that they couldn’t find any information regarding my question and told me to contact Samsung directly instead. Dissatisfying to say the least. As an end-user you’re not obliged to sort out the matter with the manufacturer yourself. You can do so, if you want, but according to German law, the retailer has to handle matters of this nature. And, quite frankly, referring you to other places is just a common tactic of customer services to get people to back off. I therefore gave a bad feedback and asked them to call me personally to sort out the matter. Five minutes later, I was on the phone with a very friendly person who had a much better idea of what I was talking about and promised to look into the issue for me. An hour later, I received an E-mail from the same person saying that it would take about two more days, as she had to refer the issue to her superiors. I agreed and waited, but didn’t receive an answer.

The days after that were very busy and it wasn’t until a few weeks later that I remembered the issue and contacted the customer service again. I first sent another E-mail, which was simply completely ignored this time. So I called the hotline directly and was told by a rather bad-tempered employee that they’re still processing my request and it would take a few more days. I was bascially completely ignored again. But I also admit that my motivation wasn’t too strong to pursue the issue any further, for I felt that the money wasn’t worth all the time and effort. Even though people occasionally report receiving very high refunds, around 40 Euros per license, other sources give lower numbers of around 8-10 Euros.

From a rational perspective, it doesn’t make sense for manufacturers to ship low-priced netbooks with Windows. It only makes their products more expensive. In some cases it adds up to 20% to the original price, which is a lot in that market. Also, Windows uses netbook hardware less efficiently than Linux and hence reduces performance and battery time. My guess is that Microsoft, fearing they would get left behind in the netbook market, offers Windows licenses to manufacturers at below-market prices. But that is just a guess. It’s not my job to figure this out

The issue has been dragging on for about two months now, and before finishing this post, I called Amazon again and asked what happened to my request. This time, an employee took more time to look into the issue, and finally told me that Amazon Germany doesn’t honour refund requests of this type. Their rationale is that they only offer netbooks ‘as-is’, and if the manufacturer decides to ship a netbook with Windows then there is nothing Amazon or the consumers can do about it. They offered to refund the netbook, though, but I declined. As a measure of last resort I contacted Samsung Germany and received the same answer — they won’t refund Windows licenses, but offered that I could return the netbook. Remember that all of this is illegal under German and EU law, but it is unlikely that anybody will go to court to argue over a Windows license worth 10 Euros.

Altogether a pretty disappointing experience. Especially considering that Amazon honoured similar requests of their customers in the United Kingdom or the United States. But it seems like they consider their German customers second-class.

• The OpenSourcer: Getting your Microsoft Tax refunded
• Slashdot: Amazon US refunds Windows License fee
• The Inquirer: French court orders Windows refund

谢谢小杨！

I’ve encountered a very annoying bug on my new Lenovo P609 phone today which relates to the number of Java programmes that can be installed. I am not sure about the number of Lenovo’s non-Chinese-speaking customers but I thought I’d share my thoughts on the solution so other people won’t have to go through the same trouble as me. Apparently, some Lenovo models (and a limited number of mobiles from other companies) seem to be suffering from a bug which displays a message “Java installation limit reached” when trying to install new Java programmes after a certain period of time. Chinese websites suggest various measures, e.g. deleting the phone’s internal cookies. But using third-party software to make changes to the phone bears the danger of rendering your phone inoperable. Luckily, a friend of mine gave me a hint: what you need to do is to backup your personal data (phone book, SMS etc.) and revert all settings to factory default afterwards. You will have to reinstall all your Java applications, but the annoying nag screen will be gone.

Kudos to Yang for helping me figure this out

> Shouji.com.cn: more on the issue (Chinese)

My problem arose because I have been working with a German version of Microsoft Office until recently. Although I have been using an English Windows XP version for quite a while, I didn’t feel the need to change my Office language settings as it reverts all settings and personal toolbar setups to factory default. When I started working here in Shanghai half a year ago, I had to take that step, though, as Office’s language settings affect how it formats country-specific things such as dates, numbers etc. One problem I didn’t expect, though, is that it essentially screwed up all my older documents created under a German office environment. The problem occured with files using Word’s “Phonetic Guide” feature. A phonetic guide is text placed on top of an Asian character representing its pronunciation. I have frequently used phonetic guides when studying Chinese or Japanese and therefore found it quite frustrating when my older documents suddenly all appeared corrupted. When I opened my Japanese study materials today, the phonetic guides appeared shifted to the left and were separated from the characters they represent by a semicolon.

When creating a phonetic guide, Word formats the text in its own way, creating a “text field”. To understand how this is working, you need to have a look at the “field codes” (right-click the respective characters and chose “Edit Field …”, followed by “Field Codes”). You will see something like “EQ \* jc2 \* “Font:MS Mincho” \* hps10 \o\ad(\s\up 9(たなか),田中)”, which is the way Word sees your document, the raw data. This field code is exactly where the problem is located. Files created with a German version of Office 2003 use a semicolon at the end of the field code, i.e. “;田中)”, English versions use commas, i.e. “,田中)”. The reason for this is, perhaps, that different countries have their own conventions when to use commas and when to use semicolons, just like numbers are formatted differently across countres (e.g. one million would be “1,000,000″ in the United States, but “1.000.000″ in Germany). But this should not affect the ’source code’ of a document or any computer file at all. Technically, a file’s content must be totally separate from the underlying architecture. Even though semicolons may be used more often in Germany, this is something the application, the frontend, should handle. The way a document is formatted internally should be the same all over the world. Doing it the way Microsoft did it here would be the same as being unable to open a French website just because it was created on a French computer. Honestly one of the most stupid bugs I’ve ever encountered. Very very unnecessary.

People encountering this bug will have to change every single field code to match their local Office version. Simply adjust the code following the example below:

Schon bei Beantragung der Befreiung für letztes Semester erklärten mir die Mitarbeiter überheblich, dass ich eine Studienbescheinigung meiner chinesischen Universtität brauche, die den gesamten Zeitraum des deutschen Semesters abdeckt. Der entsprechende Text auf der Seite des Studentenwerkes lautet:

Die Abwesenheit von Leipzig muss bei Antragstellung durch einen Abwesenheitsnachweis belegt werden, d.h. die Tätigkeit, durch die man an einen anderen Ort als Leipzig gebunden ist, muss mit taggenauen Angaben über 6 Monate belegt werden.

Das heißt, obwohl in China Semester Anfang Juli enden, soll ich eine Bescheinigung vorlegen, die bestätigt, dass ich bis Ende September studiere. Sofern ich eine solche Bescheinigung nicht vorlegen kann, habe ich den ganzen Semesterbeitrag zu zahlen. Zunächst war ich verwirrt. Glauben die Mitarbeiter des Studentenwerkes, dass ich Anfang Juli so schnell wie möglich nach Deutschland fliegen werde, um das Leipziger Mensa-Essen zu genießen?

Diese Forderung ist widersinnig und sogar rechtswidrig — aus den folgenden Gründen:

1. Auch wenn ich in Deutschland wäre, mit welcher Berechtigung fordert das Studentenwerk einen Nachweis, dass ich mich zu dieser Zeit nicht in Leipzig aufhalten werde?
2. Selbst wenn ich in Leipzig wäre, könnte man elektronisch nachprüfen, ob ich die Services des Studentenwerkes nutze. Das Studentenwerk Leipzig behauptete mir gegenüber, dies wäre nicht möglich. Das ist jedoch falsch. Es ist möglich. Ob es das Studentenwerk allerdings macht oder nicht, ist eine andere Frage — aber nicht mein Problem, denn:
3. Die Argumentation des Studentenwerkes ignoriert die Unschuldsvermutung.

Nichtsdestotrotz bot ich dem Studentenwerk an, ihnen eine Kopie des Zwischenmietvertrages für meine Wohnung zuzuschicken. Gesagt, getan. Nach Eingang des Briefes wurde mein Antrag jedoch wieder abgelehnt, mit der Begründung, dass ich eine Bestätigung meines Vermieters beizufügen habe. Wütend setzte ich mich mit dem Studentenwerk in Verbindung und forderte eine Aufklärung. Mittlerweile erschien es mir, als ob mein Antrag willkürlich abgelehnt wurde und es nicht im Interesse des Studentenwerkes liegt, mir finanziell mein Auslandsstudium zu erleichtern. Mein Verdacht war, das mir das Studentenwerk den Antrag auch mit Bestätigung des Vermieters wieder ablehnen würde, denn mein Zwischenmietvertrag endet leider drei Tage vor Semesterende.

Auf den Anruf wurde jedoch pampig reagiert. Auf meine Einwände wurde erwiedert, das 84€ “ja nicht viel Geld ist”. Auf den Vorwurf, dass mein Antrag ohnehin wieder abgelehnt würde, sagte man mir schlicht und einfach “ja”. Resigniert überwies ich das Geld. Einen Monat später sendete ich eine Rückforderung zusammen mit einer Bescheinigung über ein Praktikum in China an das Studentenwerk. Dies ist offiziell möglich:

Die Antragstellung auf Rückzahlung muss vor Vorlesungsbeginn beim Studentenwerk Leipzig vorliegen.

Innerhalb eines Monats ein Praktikum zu organisieren kostet viel Kraft und Zeit. Über E-mail wurde mir mitgeteilt, dass der Antrag am 20.3. und damit zu spät einging. Die Vorlesungen im Sommersemester 2009 beginnen am 6.4., aber ich hatte nichts anderes erwartet.

Ich bin bei weitem nicht der einzige Auslandsstudent, dem ein Auslandsaufenthalt durch das Studentenwerk in dieser Weise erschwert wird. Ich finde es völlig unverständlich, wie man junge Studenten bei ihren Planungen für ein Auslandsjahr so beeinträchtigen kann. Für mich war die Zahlung des Semesterbeitrages immer selbstverständlich. Diese Erfahrung hat mein Bild vom Studentenwerk Leipzig jedoch grundlegend verändert. Ich bin enttäuscht, wie die Mitarbeiter hier gegenüber Studenten auftreten und sich dabei im Recht sehen.

Man trifft sich immer zweimal im Leben. ]]> http://blog.portblue.de/2009/04/studentenwerk-leipzig-erschwert/feed/ 1 http://blog.portblue.de/2009/01/china-unicom-second-sim/ http://blog.portblue.de/2009/01/china-unicom-second-sim/#comments Sun, 04 Jan 2009 09:00:00 +0000 admin http://blog.portblue.de/?p=70 After buying a Chinese Dual SIM phone, I tried using China Unicom since I was interested in the differences between the two main mobile service providers in China and rumors on Wikipedia suggesting that you could get a native Hong Kong number with them. This was a mistake. The network coverage is bad, even in downtown Shanghai. Although your phone shows you a strong signal, you will have a hard time understanding what the other person says. The service is bad. You can only check your account balance by calling a service number, for example, not by SMS, and there is no English. After thoroughly studying their prices, I couldn’t see a difference to China Mobile. I don’t see why you should use them. Eventually, my SIM was deactivated as I hadn’t charged any money to it within 30 days, so I didn’t even get to use up the money left on the card for sending short messages. Great job. Try to stay away from them.

Update (2009/05/21): China Unicom SIM cards with native mainland Chinese and native Hong Kong numbers are indeed available, but only common in Southern China, especially Guangdong province 广东省. However, China Mobile also offers this type of SIM card, so there is no reason why you should resort to China Unicom’s bad customer service and network coverage.