You Can’t Trust Everyone
Feb 16th, 2006 by Don Ray
I have spent the past couple of days helping a friend of mine get his PC running. He recently moved into a new house and when he did, he needed to purchase furniture. He had several people recommend a store in downtown David for purchasing the furniture. While he was ordering the furniture, he happened to mention that he also was interested in purchasing a PC. The salesman told him he had a brother in Panama City that was a computer engineer and built PCs and he would be happy to build one to my friend’s specification.
My friend ordered the furniture and the PC. I don’t know the entire story related to the furniture, but he did tell me that he had ordered two tables and 8 chairs. They were supposed to be the same so that he could put them together and use as a larger dining table. When the tables and chairs arrived, they were two different sets. So he now had two different tables of different heights and 8 chairs of different styles.
When the furniture arrived the PC didn’t come with it. It arrived several days later and was just left sitting in front of the front door in boxes. Now my friend is like most people that know nothing about the actual components in a PC, they just want it to function, as it should
Since it wasn’t running well, he took in to have it checked. The motherboard has an onboard LAN connection, but the person who serviced the PC installed a generic LAN card without asking and he was billed $85. Since I have purchased one of those cards in David, I know that the price is no more than $8. I had talked to my friend and he said he was having problems with his PC so I said I would take a look at it.
When I inspected the PC I learned that he had ordered a DVD/CD writer. He received a generic DVD player. Since he had intended this to be used for his backup device, that function is missing. He had ordered a Pentium 4 processor and had received a Celeron. I don’t know if he had ordered 256 or 512 Mg of memory, but he received 128Mg and 32 gets used to support the onboard video. That left him with 96 Mg for Windows XP and the machine barely ran. He had also ordered the English version of Windows XP and received a Spanish version. The good news here is that it is a legal version and not a pirated one, which is very common. He had two LAN ports when he only needed the onboard port. And none of the onboard devices had the drivers installed so they were non operational. Even worse, since he hadn’t been given the device driver CD for the motherboard, I couldn’t install the drivers for him.
He had paid a premium price for this PC and had been ripped off.
On my PC at home, I downloaded all the drivers for his PC and burned him a replacement driver CD. I obtained 512 Mg of memory from Alex at INFOX. I installed the memory and the drivers yesterday and removed the second LAN card, which he didn’t need. Hopefully he can return the LAN card and get his $85 back. His PC is now running fine with the exception that he still doesn’t have the correct items to match what he purchased. If there is any good news here, it is that it was so poorly delivered that it didn’t function well. If it had functioned a little better, he would never have found out that he had been ripped off.
Now this is more information than probably anyone wants to know, so why do I tell it? The point is that if you are a non-Panamanian then you are perceived as having money that you need to be separated from. This is not true of all folks here, but some of the people you may buy goods and services from in Panama. When it comes to buying a PC, if you don’t know components and have no plan of taking the cover off and seeing what you have, don’t buy from an individual. Buy from Micro Technology, PARS Computers, INFOX or someone that you can trust. Even then if it were I, I would pull off the cover and check the parts with the inventory list.
My friend is currently pursuing legal means to get the order corrected for the furniture and the PC. Dorothy, this ain’t Kansas anymore. Here tomorrow means at best next week and maybe next month. Pay for goods when you have seen what you are getting and re-inspect when they get to your house. If you are purchasing something of real significance, have a contract that you understand (it will be in Spanish), and a lawyer to insure that your rights are protected.
He’s lucky to have a friend like you.
Do places like Dell and Gateway ship to Panama? Just curious.
My last employer used a “computer consultant” for all its computer needs. The consultant was also a reseller for Dell. But, the Dell’s we bought from him lacked things like an internal modem (voice, fax, etc.), among other things, they cost more than buying directly from Dell.
When we got new equipment, I specifically requested XP Pro. When the computer arrived, it had XP Home. When I pointed this out, I was told, “girls don’t need XP Pro.”
Turns out, the consultant not only knew nothing about girls, but knew even less about computer than me. Geez.
You can buy both Dell and Gateway here. We have PriceSmart and they always carry Dell and sometimes Gateway as well. There are Apple stores in panama as well.
You are correct that XP Pro is the better way to go. I would never make the mistake of saying that “girls don’t need XP Pro.”
Hope your day is going well Marie.
I would like to add my experience with Furniture City.
In September I was buying a house in David and I needed some furniture. My primary need of course was a bed. I went to Furniture City and spent $300.00 on a twin bed, an amount I thought excessive but I decided to pay it because Furniture City is a well known store.
The bed was full of bedbugs. I am now on my third can of Raid trying to put an end to the bites I have been getting. If it doen’t work this time there will be a 2 month old, $300.00 twin bed in the garbage for anyone who wants to haul it away.
$300 was frame and mattress? The bedbugs were in the frame or the mattress? Do you know where the frame and mattress were made?
A person has to remember that Panama is a very humid country. Bugs are always a problem. In any house in Panama, it is wise to fumigate prior to moving in. It doesn’t matter it it is a new or old house. With the humidity here, it doesn’t take very long for you to have a problem, if you haven’t prepared ahead of time.
Video tapes, any leather and other items will get mold in a matter of days if not protected. It is much different than living in most areas of the states.