My response may seem a tad cruel, but I heard on the radio today that electrical retail giant Comet have gone into administration. GOOD! Let's hope Currys and PC World follow very quickly. These companies deserve to go under.
I have been in the unfortunate situation of purchasing a laptop from all three aforementioned companies and in each case they were faulty and had to be returned (I know, I should have known better than to shop at these places but there were no local alternatives at the time). These companies have their own sets of rules when it comes to refunds, their first rule being "They don't give refunds"! PC World were the least of the three evils as I obtained a refund after the shop told me to take the laptop to their repair centre in Leeds. In the case of Currys I resorted to raising my voice in the shop, advising all the customers around me never to buy anything from them and explaining why. They gave me a refund the moment I started kicking off. Had I not been firm they would have simply walked all over me. Comet presented me with more of a challenge.
Comet have no regard for their customers whatsoever. All the staff I had dealings with had clearly been brainwashed into promoting as the Be All and End All. They were faultless and equipment could not possible be faulty. But my £850 Sony Vaio laptop wouldn't let me get as far as installing my own purchased Windows & Professional. A "hardware Error" message would appear almost from the beginning. The sales staff assured me that Sony Vaios NEVER WENT WRONG. They wanted to know why I had uninstalled the pre-installed software bundle which came with the new laptop as it was necessary for it to work properly. I explained that this extra "bloat" was completely unnecessary and would only serve to slow down the machine while continuing to fire endless software update requests at me. "you shouldn't have done that" said the sales girl, "You have invalidated the guarantee".
It transpired that I could not have a refund nor could I have a replacement. The best bit was when the sales girl told me that the laptop could possibly be faulty as they NEVER GO WRONG!. I insisted it was faulty, unfit for purpose and they replace it or give me a refund. They would not budge. I had broken all the rules and NOTHING could be done. They wouldn't even test it. After a good deal of arguing the sales girl said she would see the manager the following day and find out if it could be sent away to their test centre for analysis, BIT I would have to pay £40 for the privilege. I told them I would see them in court.
After several weeks waiting for a Small Claims Court hearing, I finally arrived at the court building in Mansfield, where Comet had sent an Area Manager and a member of the sales staff from their Mansfield store where I purchased the laptop. It would be unfair for me to say that monkeys would have represented Comet better as that would be deeply insulting to monkeys. The judge concluded the session by ordering that Comet fully test the laptop and report back with their findings. He also casually dropped in the fact that Comet were regular visitors to the Small Claims Court, but cheekily mentioned that they were a large company and so probably should therefore have a higher number of visits because of that fact. ;O) A second hearing date was set, by which time Comet should produce their test results.
The second hearing date arrived but it took such a long time that I had moved out of the area by then, almost 100 miles away to the east coast. Yet I still managed to make the journey to the court back in Mansfield. The representatives from Comet, however, did not. It was a no-show on their part. The judge was disgusted by this, especially as I had taken the effort to travel all the way from my new address while the Comet staff couldn't even be bothered to walk from their store just across the road. There was some news however: Comet had written a letter to the judge, enclosing some test results they maintained were the very ones they carried out on my laptop immediately after I first returned it, one day after the purchase almost a year earlier. One small problem however, Comet had shot themselves in the foot beautifully by forgetting to change the date on this supposed original fault report for it had clearly been written only a couple of days before this second hearing. So the judge accepted that this was a forgery and said he would now write to Comet and order them to give me a full refund, plus cover all my travel expenses.
What a sorry state of affairs we have from some of our high street giants. Sadly, this example from Comet is far from being an isolated incident. It's good to be able to report that the little guy won in the end. I also feel some sympathy for the staff who lose their jobs when companies fold like this. Unfortunately, their employees require that they all tow the company line and that selling is king and the customer is no longer important. Well screw you Comet! I had the last laugh in the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment