My company has carried out an internal investigation into the allegations made by Eric Bartoli (The Sunday Times, January 20).
Two people purchased a laptop each, one of them being Mr Bartoli.
Both paid cash, and both were granted a cash discount, plus two free Toshiba TV tuners worth €153 each for paying cash. Two payment receipts issued are written proof that they both paid cash.
Mr Bartoli alleges that an alteration was made to a cheque. This is serious and completely unfounded. If it was altered without the account holder's signature, the bank would immediately refer the cheque to drawer. After the initial payment, when Mr Bartoli received money on his Students' Card, he asked to replace the method of payment which we accepted as a goodwill gesture, even though this meant we were charged three per cent Smart Card charges.
Contrary to Mr Bartoli's assertions, both computers never failed. All TFT screens sold worldwide by Toshiba and other major manufacturers meet ISO standard 13406-2.
However Mr Bartoli made a warranty claim on the two screens because he noticed a sub-pixel issue which is not considered a failure by ISO standards. As a sign of goodwill, we contacted Toshiba to allow for a free replacement. The delays he refers to were taken up with communications with Toshiba over free replacement of the screens. The manual authorisation process to replace a good screen takes time.
The computers were only in the workshop for a few days, the hours needed to fit the new part. Besides, one of the screens received was not a Truebrite finish screen, so a screen was re-ordered to ensure the customer received the same screen he purchased.
Contrary to Mr Bartoli's claims, days before his letter was published both screens had been replaced and collected by Mr Bartoli.
He maliciously gives the impression that the computers were faulty and that he was without the computers for two months because of lack of service on our part. The computers were not faulty. While Mr Bartoli was waiting for authorisation to change a good screen, he was using his computers.
Mr Bartoli should be the first to come forward to talk about our top-class after-sales service. Both we and Toshiba take great care of our customers. For the past decade, we have employed a team of Toshiba-certified engineers to ensure that all Toshiba services are carried out promptly in Malta.
When most notebooks sold in Malta are sent abroad for servicing we have always serviced them in Malta by factory qualified engineers.
Toshiba maintains a uniform service level throughout the world. When a part is required and is covered by warranty, it arrives in Malta in an average of three days after the product is received from a customer for repair.
The whole service process is monitored by Toshiba through a centralised system in Japan. An independent audit certification process is carried out daily by an International Monitoring Care Centre, and this is aimed at achieving an after-sales customer satisfaction above 95 per cent.
Tabone Computer Centre has achieved a high standing compared with all European countries in the speed, performance and satisfaction of the service level which was above 95 per cent. The reason why we have one of the highest number of customers who are using their fifth generation of Toshiba notebooks, is simply because we have a top-class product covered by top-class after-sales-support in Malta and in over 150 countries all over the world.
That is truly top-class, world-wide after-sales service.