Wednesday, September 07, 2005

How to get a memcard using sodexho vouchers

There’s a new Nokia 6600 out with a 64 MB memcard for the same price that I got mine, and only two months after I did. This is just so unfair. To top it all, I got a filthy 32 Mb memcard, where you can store nuts. Actually, you can’t even store nuts. So I wanted to get myself a 512 MB memcard, which as a friend pointed out, was just 98 Mb short of his old computer. In the twenty first centure and with only 30 odd megs of memory is a VERY bad place to be, so I called up a friend who had a 256 MB one to enquire about the prices. The prices, were very low she said, because of the new flash drives that had come in, so a 512 (the one I wanted) could easily be procured for say a thousand odd bucks.
So I started saving. I got upto a grand total of four, borrowed another six from my parents, and then went to a shop called paragon where I got my mobile in the first place. Apparently, my friend was misinformed. The Flash drive was available for four hundred, but the 512 memcard cost a good hundred short of two grand. I did not want to have just eight times my current memory (technology catches up fast) and I could have procured a 256 then and there. So I walk back all the way to the station, stopping by at every little shop to see if there was a cheap 512 available. The price went as low as a grand and a half, but not lower. So I assumed I should just stick at it and save a little more. But you know how it is, the money just blew away, I have no idea how. So I was back to zero, and I ended up taking sodexho gift vouchers for two grand from my mother. Now sodexho vouchers are these cheque like thingies that are a nice tax free substitute for cash.
I go back to paragon, they don’t take the vouchers. I got to another shop called the nokia gallery, and they don’t take it too. Another shop I went to doubted the authenticity of the vouchers and thought I had come to him with fraudulent vouchers, especially because the vouchers did not contain an address from which he could claim the cash. Stupid of sodexho to do that, I will write to them. In fact, I will mail in this entire article emphasizing on how it is nearly impossible to get a filthy little memcard on only sodexho passes.
After the incident at the shop where they thought I was a fraud, I went online to their site to search for shops that would give me the memcard in exchange for sodexho passes. First of all, you cannot merely search for memcards, you have to tick thnings like, misc, household appliances, clothing, cosmetics, books etc. But later, only three mobile shops showed up. One was in borivili, another was in colaba, and the third was in Bandra. I will start accounting for every rupee I spent on the quest from now on. First I decided to drop by at Cellnet. That is the one in Colaba. I caught a bus from CST, and it cost me 5 bucks. I ended up in the place, and asked if they accept Sodexho passes. They asked me to wait while they confirm with the “malkin”. The Malkin was this busy lady with a cellphone stuck to her ear, who paused on her way out to answer the question. The malkin said she would take the passes, but only on MRP. I agreed, didn’t make much difference to me, and the Malkin left the shop. I asked the other lady actually selling the stuff if I could get a 512 memcard. She said they didn’t have any in stock. I was, at this point, desperate to get the whole thing over especially since I had traveled so far, and asked for a 256. A 256, mind you, will show exactly how desperate I was.
The stupid shop did not have that too, and said they would get a 512 for me and called up the malkin to get one delivered. The malkin said that they wouldn’t take Sodexho passes for a memcard because of the low cost involved. I went back home. Five bucks more to the station.
A few days later, when I felt another great pang of need, I headed over to Bandra. It was this dinghy little place called HK Mobiles next to Tot’s Garage pub. Thirty bucks for the rick from Sion, and thirty two back, the shop was closed on Sundays.
Another day, another forty bucks later, I was at the shop. It was open, but they said they’d charge around seven percent extra for the card. I agreed, but the shock came when they said the MPR for a 512 was two grand AND THREE FOURTHS!
I got the card, paid them two grand and a half, promised to pay them the three hundreds later, and came home.
Thirty bucks back to sion station.
Say eighty more to bandra and back. So that’s a little more than three grand for a thing that I could have got for half that money. I should have saved up instead.
Sodexho sucks, I hate them, and I want to rant more about them, I would if I were not in the euphoria of having just 98 MB less than my friend’s old comp on my phone.

1 comment:

Goan Pao said...

In my days all sodexho coupons were worth was for buying lunches at restaurants..wonder when that changed?