"It was unacceptable," he had boomed in his southern Californian lawyer's voice. "I'd only worn it six times."
   "And they took it back?" I asked disbelievingly.
   "Of course," he said. "It was obviously defective and they have their reputation to consider."

I have a drawer in my apartment stuffed with warranties for domestic aids as diverse as Whipper Snippers and toasters, all tossed asunder as you do when you belong to that hopelessly naive tribe which believes that because something is new, it won't break down. Largely, this faith has been rewarded and unlike my Californian friend with the shirt, I have had little experience in returning items for refund or exchange.

Thus, when my girlfriend's Apple iPod expired six weeks after I had bought it, I was both surprised and annoyed. Still, she'd kept the receipts and documentation so I agreed to take it back for her and either get it repaired or replaced. Welcome to retailing 2005, for when I produced the iPod and the receipt at the store I was greeted with an impressive display of indifference.

   "We don't deal with them," I was told.
   "Pardon," I said, pushing the receipt emblazoned with the store's name and a copy of a credit card docket with it.
   "You have to ring Apple," said the shop assistant.
   "But you sold it to me. You took the money. You profited from the transaction. It's your responsibility," I said.
   "We don't deal with Apple," insisted the shop assistant.
   "But you sell their products," I said. "Of course you deal with them."
   "You have to ring them. I'll get the number," he said and disappeared before I could protest further.

Several minutes later he emerged clutching a card on which he had written a number. "Here," he said beaming as if handing me the Holy Grail.

At this point, my patience began to wear. "So you just cop out, do you?" I said. "You just sell the bloody thing and then wipe your hands of the whole deal. You have nothing further to do with it. This is your idea of customer after-sales service. You hand me a card with a phone number on it and tell me I've got to ring it. Why don't you ring the bloody thing?"

This to me did not seem like an unreasonable request. Why should I have to ring? They'd sold me defective goods. It was up to them to facilitate their replacement. My monologue had the effect of causing the shop assistant to retreat, eyeing me as one would a rabid dog.

"I've made a special trip to the city after phoning you people and being told to come down here. I'm not leaving until this is sorted," I fumed, pulling out my phone and dialling the number. After the usual assurance my call was important which was why no one was answering it, a voice said hello. Actually, it was "ello".

   "Hello," I said and explained the problem.
   "Wasdarerialnuma?" said the voice.
   "I beg your pardon," I said.
   "Darerialnuma," it repeated.
   "What?" I bellowed.
   "Darerialnuma, sir," he said.

After yelling at each other for several more moments, it dawned on me that he was asking for the serial number of the iPod and so we proceeded to indulge in a farcical exchange, hampered more than a little by his inability to speak or understand English.

He was, I presume, sitting in a call centre in New Delhi or Mumbai. I am not being a white supremacist here, it's just that I really don't think that staffing a call centre with non-English speaking personnel is doing the customer or the staff any favours - and this gentleman had a long, long way to go before he would grasp conversational English. Thus, a conversation that should have taken three minutes must have taken 15 while we yelled at each other and sorted out darerialnuma.

This, in any case, proved to be a total waste of time and while this was taking place, the shop assistants kept their distance and watched. No one offered to assist. At the end of this English-Urdu exchange during which I had managed to extract from the Indian gentleman my need to press certain buttons on the iPod, no one attempted to help.

Finally I deduced that as the button pressing had failed to work, I had to go to the Apple website, get a dispatch number, take a note of it and send the iPod to Melbourne for repair.

   "Why can't you send it to Melbourne?" I asked the shop assistant who had come back within yelling range. "Why do I have to go to the post office and send off the defective goods which you sold me and for which you still hold the money?" I asked. They just stared. Customer service? Obviously I came from another planet.

The next day I checked the phone directory and saw a CBD address for Apple.

Ready to again do battle, I walked into the Adelaide Street store and was greeted with a smiling face and helpful nature. A young guy took the iPod, gave me a receipt, said he'd send it off and that a replacement would be at hand within 10 working days.