All's well that ends well... a Tokopedia experience

[nd_eric_77]

Up until a few minutes ago, I was not sure how this story would turn out, but here was my experience...

Background: before moving to Jakarta in 2010, I undertook a multi-year project to archive all of my family's dvd movies & tv series onto digital files so I could simply use XBMC (now Kodi) to store them on our PC. This culminated in a series of hard drive upgrades, eventually getting to a 6TB behemoth which was nearly full. Earlier this year, I noticed that the media hard drive was getting laggy and showing signs of impending failure... I prudently upgraded our backup solution to an external 6TB drive which took about 56 hours to run the full backup. Then, last month, I noticed that the original drive was getting to a critical stage, so I researched a replacement drive.
The order: I ordered an 8TB replacement drive off Tokopedia from a reputable vendor (Enter Komputer ouf of Mangga Dua; have bought plenty of hardware from them in the past.) I placed the order on the morning of Saturday, 16 November. In placing the order, I made the critical mistake of not changing the courier to either Go-Send or Grab. The default courier, with a "free delivery" promo was AntarAja... I discovered my error and realized that rather than installing the new hard drive on the evening of 16 November, it was going to be a couple days.
Fast forward to the afternoon of Monday, 18 November. My wife was alone at the house and heard a "thump thump" (NOT the sound of our doorbell or anybody knocking...) She went downstairs to see what made the sound and found my delicate, new hard drive lying on the driveway just inside our gate... and an AntarAja motorcycle driving away. She tried to call out tot he driver, but he did not turn around.
When I returned from work that evening, I installed the new drive, and our fairly new PC would not even boot (for the techies, it would not even POST). This is very odd behavior, indeed. So, I switched to using the new drive in an external hard drive enclosure. It just beeped ominously when I powered it on. Dead hard drive; it quickly became obvious that the delivery driver had thrown a brand new hard drive over our gate, which surprisingly enough is a pretty good way to turn a precision electronic component into a precision electronic paper-weight.
So, I contacted Enter Komputer and arranged to bring in the hard drive after work on Tuesday, 19 November. I arrived at the Mangga Dua store just before 5pm, filled with hope that they could swap out the drive with a working one and sort out the business with AntarAja on their own. Of course, this was not to be. After a couple of hours, I finally left the store having purchased another identical drive and initiated the Tokopedia Claims process. This process is neither easy nor convenient in any way, but it was the only way to resolve the broken hard drive issue.
After much back and forth - and much uncertainty about ever getting my refund, culminating in my sending (via Go-Send this time) the hard drive to Tokopedia's insurance department, the refund was finally deposited into my Tokopedia "saldo" this afternoon (Wednesday, 4 December). In all, I am out the cost of two Go-Jek rides and one Go-Send shipment, but it is much better than being out almost 4jt that I spent on the original hard drive.
Lessons learned:

• ALWAYS be careful to check with courier you select, particularly when ordering fragile electronic items.
• For me at least, I will not use AntarAja again - regardless of the merchandise being delivered.

 

[dafluff]

This is pretty much my experience with Tokopedia. Their dispute resolution process is quite complicated, and nowhere nearly as buyer friendly as say Amazon or Ebay. Also no matter what, you can't get shipping costs back, which can be quite annoying if they are large. Also the vendor usually requests the item be returned, so that's 2 shipping fees you are out.

 

[harryopal1]

Not a happy experience. So far I have made about five or six orders with Tokopedia and several have been dropped over the locked gate but as they were not fragile items that wasn't a problem. One item got held up for an extra day or two at a depot but otherwise have been impressed at how quickly items have been sent from Jakarta and arrived here in Jimbaran in about 3 days with just the basic delivery service.
ND Eric's experience will certainly lead me to make sure anything fragile is in more caring hands. Is there a recommended service for fragile items?

 

[jstar]

Lessons learned:

• ALWAYS be careful to check with courier you select, particularly when ordering fragile electronic items.
• For me at least, I will not use AntarAja again - regardless of the merchandise being delivered.

• The moment you get a package, immediately take pics or even video when it's still wrapped (in this case how you found it on the terrace).

I had a similar bad experience with Sicepat btw; it was still at their distribution point and I never accepted it (obvious broken neon lamp). Never expect that you can deal with seller or parcel service to get it sorted. It will be Tokopedia insurance and the process sucks.
.

 

[nd_eric_77]

Not a happy experience. So far I have made about five or six orders with Tokopedia and several have been dropped over the locked gate but as they were not fragile items that wasn't a problem. One item got held up for an extra day or two at a depot but otherwise have been impressed at how quickly items have been sent from Jakarta and arrived here in Jimbaran in about 3 days with just the basic delivery service.
ND Eric's experience will certainly lead me to make sure anything fragile is in more caring hands. Is there a recommended service for fragile items?

I do not really have experience with shipping between distant cities, as I usually filter results to only vendors in Jabodetabek. I have had overwhelmingly positive experiences with Go-Send and Grab's services, but they are geographically restricted.