Fujitsu: my bad customer experience

I bought a Fujitsu external hard drive on the weekend. Good price, good timing just before the end of the financial year and a good decision… or so I thought.
It arrived in the mail on Tuesday, which was a pleasant surprise. However soon after plugging it in, I realised it was faulty – I don’t think hard drives are supposed to make clunky stop/start whirring noises and not respond at all once you plug them in.
Anyway, would you believe I made more than a dozen phone calls today just trying to speak to somebody who could at least listen to my inquiry, let alone suggest how I should go about returning the faulty product?
It seems either nobody at Fujitsu wants to help, or nobody at Fujitsu knows how to help, or nobody at Fujitsu has a clue what’s going on. A customer service representative would refer me to another number. A recorded message would ask me to enter an extension number!? A voice-mail would ask me to leave a message. At one point I found myself speaking to a secretary in the Fujitsu air conditioning arm of the business. She confessed she often deals with disgruntled customers who have ended up being redirected to her with similarly unrelated issues. Sometimes I would insist on a verbal assurance from the voice on the other end that they knew who I needed to speak to. Several times I was assured but ended up disappointed.
Here is a list of unhelpful numbers I was given to ring.
0297764603
0297764776
1800 288 284
1800 288 283
1800 226 347
1300 364 484
Needless to say I finally found somebody who answered my inquiry – and quite quickly at that. The hard drive is in the mail on it’s way to the Fujitsu warehouse where it will be (hopefully) swapped for a replacement product. Let’s hope for Fujitsu’s sake that this story has a happy ending.