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Comments:
I must admit I was happy with my purchase from PC World and we had no problem with it until last month when Wales went digital. We had used the computer to run the TV with great success, but as soon as we went digital - nothing. The computer worked fine, just couldn't get any TV programs. After ring their help desk 3 times I was advised that it was the aerial and that I should get a set top box and then we would know if that was the problem. So we went out and bought a box (I must add here that I am 12 miles from the nearest stockists for this. It worked perfectly. So I tried 3 times to ring their help line again and 3 times I was cut off before I spoke to a person. So I thought try the Tech Guys online and went there and sent an e.mail. It said all e.mails will be answered in strict order of receiving them. Well they must be very busy as 9 days later still no reply.
In frustration I sent an e.mail cancelling my maintenance subscription and telling them exactly why in the order it happened. I received an e.mail a few minutes ago, stating they needed my name and address to do this. Obviously my customer number doesn't work with their computers. All in all very dissatisfied with their maintenance contract. Plus I am now out of pocket by £40 for the set top box. This combined with the fact that I spent nearly £360 for the maintenance contract means they have had about £400. off me for doing nothing. I agree I made 3 telephone calls but that was at my expense and even with all three I was online for less than an hour. If they pay there maintenance men £50 per hour that leaves them with a profit of £350.
I was going to say don't they realise it is the little people who purchase from them who pay their salaries, but obviously they do as they have made over 85% profit out of us.
Bought an Advent (Acer to you) computer from this crew and paid for my old data to be transferred. They made an absolute mess of it. I had it back three times and it didn't improve. I had to jump up and down to Head Office before, reluctantly they sent an engineer out. He put a disk in and sat for half/three quarters of an hour watching it. I asked what it was and he said it was checking the memory. He then said the memory was OK and packed up to leave. The machine was no different but he said that it was now needed someone else to look at that - and left. I am sick of these know it all's who tell us nerds what we can or what we can't expect. The huge majority of computer users don't have a clue as to how they work and rely on the hardware and software manufacturers to sell decent products - but no. They sell a product and then leave you high and dry and refuse to help you unless you pay a fortune in support etc. If we bought a faulty car or electrical kitchen appliance and they treated us like the computer firms do then we'd go mad but computer manufacturers don't give a damn and get away with it every time.
For god sake people. Right ok, to the guy who had issues with an advent pc. Who are advent? You bought an advent product because it was no doubt cheaper than other models. The saying "You get what you pay for" springs to mind. And most repair services provided require the old part back. We have all at some point lost data, if it is THAT important, we should all know by now to back it up.
Don't even get me started on what products come with. If it says it should have a usb cable on the box then it should. it not, it doesn't. Its not rocket science. Do you expect a bowl when you buy cereal?
Guy helping you doesn't know what you need?? People working in PCW, like comet, John Lewis, currys etc are normally doing so part time while studying or between jobs. They cannot possibly know everything about, inkjet printers, laser printers, pc's, laptops, software, pda's, networking, games, gaming consoles, tv's and on. PLUS also know about every product in a large range, with the added difficulty of technology products changing at slowest once every 2 months.
If you ever see people un-willing to serve you it is usually because of one of two things:
1: He is experienced and has enough bad experieces with joe public that he simply gets in first and has lost faith. If every customer was polite, friendly and pleasent to deal with staff would never feel like this. As members of "the general public" we are not nice people to deal with in this country. You may think you are, but either your not or you are in the minority. This is especially bad in regard to shop workers. We tend to look down on them like they are our servants.
2. He may like you, he may be fully capable of helping you but he doesnt want to or doesnt have the skill to sell you stuff you dont need. Management in these companies give employees very harsh targets regarding extras or warrenty's. To the salesman, giving you the best and most honest service will get him a bollocking and may ulitmatly cost him his job.
Yes there will a few exceptions to this but please have this in mind next time u purchase from an electrical retailer.
I have to have a moan about these guys. I bought my laptop a couple of years ago, and pay a tenner a month in service contract for it. Part of that is a yearly healthcheck. I took it in in feb this year, it was a touch on the poorly side, and despite being told it would be finished by the same evening it took them four days to half fix it. I say half fix it because the lady explained they couldnt fix some of the damage done by a virus, it would need to have windows reinstalled. Fair enough, it only stopped me from having a display picture, I just have a blue screen, not all that bothered. I took it home and plugged it in, the moment I plugged in the power lead it blew the transformer (thank god I hadnt conneced it to my laptop at this point!) I called their helpline who said they would send me a lead, would take up to 14 days, I told them no use as I was moving a week later! Besides, the store broke it so they could deal with it,. He refused to give me the stores number so I had to drive back out to the store again only to be told it wasnt anything they had done, it was just a coincidence. If course it was! It was fne when it went in, and blew up the moment I got it home. I called out the managr who took ofence to my insistence it was their staff members who had damaged it, and told me tough luck. I thankfully had my partner with me, who is a computer engineer, who promptly told the manager exactly what the staff member had done to my power lead, and the managers face dropped, and hey presto a new lead appeared (despite their insistence they dont keep them in the store!) I have now cancelled my service contract with them!
paid £265 for maintenance contract, reported fault 4 times by email, one reply, to tell me to phone a high rate number, minimum £20.00.
They have a quick fix! phone the number, they will tell you fault, send you the part, and you fix it yourself and send back faulty part.........
Why pay £265.00. plus it costs £20 to phone them!
It is a joke! Only technical people are allowed to remove the back from any electrical appliance!
My unit is still not repaired!
Your printer was advertised as USB CONNECTION ONLY no mention of a usb lead being included there! So whats your point? If you bother to check you would find that almost all printers dont come with a usb lead. I suggest you save the money spent on phone calls and buy one.
If you ever ask for information over the phone about a purchase you are going to make GET THE NAME OF THE PERSON YOU ARE TALKING TO - HAVE SOMEONE WITNESS THE CONVERSATION - GET HTE INFO YOU ARE ASKING ABOUT IN WRITING IF POSSIBLE If you dont and the subsequent purchase turns out to be wrong you have absolutely no comeback.
I asked if the printer inks on my broken Epson R300 would fit the new R240 AND WAS TOLD YES (wrong) they dont and I am stuck with loads of R300 ink cartridges
Bought a middling-range HP colour laserjet from PC world just before Christmas. It was advertised as USB-connection only. This was just what I wanted as I was basically looking for a 'plug-in' printer for my laptop. I placed my order and paid an additional £10 for date-and-time-specific Saturday delivery. On the morning the printer was supposed to arrive PC World sent me an e-mail stating that there had been a 'problem' at the warehouse and my printer would not now arrive as specified. They could only tell me that it would be 'within the original time-slot of 10:00am - 2:00pm' but not which day or how soon. They did at least promise to refund my delivery charge (give them their due, they did so - last week). Anyway, knowing through bitter experience just how hopelessly poor communication is between the left hand and right hand of most businesses, I gave PC World a quick ring just to confirm that they were still processing my order. The bloke I spoke to could hardly wait to get me off the phone and actually cut the call before I'd finished speaking.
Eventually the printer arrived and I was relieved, as it meant I could get on with the work I had backing up on my to-do list. But no. PC World had neglected to mention on their website that the USB-only printer I had purchased *did not come with a USB cable*. I said some rude words to the cat in a loud voice and, luckily, was able to dig up an old modem cable for the purpose. I contacted PC World Customer Services to advise them of this oversight in their online product description. I was put on hold for seven minutes and then the line went dead.
Oh - and they finally sent me my invoice for the printer. I got it last Wednesday. Just over a month after the purchase.
Just before christmas PC World advertised a Freecom 250Gb External Hard Drive for £89.99 - a good price. That same day I went down to my local branch, and guess what, no 250Gb drives, but lots of 160, 80 and 40 at far less competitive prices, plus some Western Digital 250Gb at considerably more (with the price label being way down the other end of the shelf). Apparently they were out of stock.
So it was time to play them at their own game - onto the internet that evening and order one for the next day "Reserve and Collect". Nest day, 23rd December picked up the drive - still no 250Gb on shelf.
Visiting PC World on 26th December LOADS of the 250Gb drives on the shelf at £139.99.
So does that mean the factory was working flat out to build more drives - I think not.
This is not the first time it has happened - I'm convinced they run ads to get you into the shop, hoping you'll buy something else and wont kick up a fuss.
In future if I see a good offer I will do this every time - you dont pay up front and it doesn't matter if you dont pick the goods up.
I have an Advent T9400 PC purchased from PC WORLD which came with 2 x Western Digital Caviar 200 gig Hard Disk Drives making 400 gb in total
At first I was quite impressed with the overall package
Then after just 8 months The whole thing died a death due to an inherently faulty Western digital Caviar HDD
After a few calls to the PCSERVICECALL "Help" line which costs an absolute fortune per minute I was instructed to go into DOS and type some fancy code blah blah something blah F DISK
What they didn't tell me until way too late is that F DISK is a DOS command to REFORMAT (ie totally erase the data from ) your HARD DRIVE !!!
How can I do my company accounts with 8 months data missing ? The tax man doesn't care, he's billing me an amount he THINKS I owe him anyway !!!!
SO..... it transpired that F DISK was not the correct repair method and had also cost me my data
Further expensive premium rate calls to the "Help" line brought An engineer to my door to replace the dead " 200 GB Western Digital Caviar WD2000BB-22DWA0 " with an identical part !
He was in a hurry before he even got here ! ran upstairs, left all cables connected and quickly pulled off the casing, yanked out the old drive, slapped in a new one......
He did assure me that the *repalcement under warranty* HD drive would come with a 12 months warranty which IF it were half TRUE sounded great ! but.....
Then came the deal breaker.......
I told him I needed to get an expensive data recovery operation done on the old DEAD hard disk drive........
He wouldn't ( COULDN'T ) leave a drive without taking a drive !!!!!
By this time I'm steaming angry !
Engineer, still in hurry puts case back on PC and makes fast exit leaving it UNREPAIRED due to ME !
Long story short, more expensive phone calls lead to another engineer, this time a HUMAN one, very nice guy, not in a rush, sympathetic, agrees to change my HDD with identical new one and leave DEAD one with me for a while to get lost data recovered
How can he do what the other engineer couldn't ? He took the risk of me not giving the dead drive back upon himself, ie if I hadn't returned it to him he would be liable for the £200 cost of a new one !
What a guy, thanks Jim F !
Fast forward another 8 months and guess what?
Yes, the replacement disk drive starts making an horrendous clanging noise !
I Google hard disk clanging noise and find a site that explains the fact that the 200 gb WD Caviar HDD that I have commonly self destructs in this manner !
There's even a little .wav sound clip of the exact same clanging clattering clunking noise the noisy little blighter makes
SO
Time to spend fortunes calling the "Help Line" once again
I can only describe the uninthusiastic, unsympathetic, uninterested, monotone, antagonistic moron on the other end of the line as a DROID !
To keep it short and sweet I explain to the droid that I have researched this recurring problem carefully, am fully aware of its nature and require a NEW 200 gigabyte Harddisk Drive which is NOT a NOW DISCONTINUED 200 GB Western Digital Caviar WD2000BB-22DWA0 which we all now know to be inherrently faulty
After much expensive side tracking, the droid asked me to start up the PC anyway so I could tell him the code on the blue screen after it crashes ( A process that takes several minutes at £X.XXp per minute on a premium rate number....
After much dilly dallying I am asked if I have extended warranty cover on this 16 month old ADVENT T9400
Nope I confidently reply, but that's not an issue as the first engineer to visit me 8 months ago told me that the new HDD would carry a 12 months warranty with it from date of installation
The droid pauses............."Computer says Noooo"
I am curtly informed that a replacement HDD has only a 90 day warranty on it and there's nothing he can do to help
I steam at the ears and explain that I paid £1650 for this piece of unreliable, data losing, SH*T
The droid comes back with a snide...."If you're going to use language like that I'm going to hang up on you"
I retort with, "What ....sh*t ? you've never heared the word sh*t before?" and true to his word ( for once ) the droid hung up !
PC WORLD and ADVENT will never get a penny out of me or any of my businesses ever again !
Hi bought laptop for my daughter last xmas, went wrong in Nov with minor fault so i took it back they told it was out of guarantee even tho when i spent £1200 last yr they told me they would start it from the xmas day with it been a present, didnt take the £540 maintaniace package as they said with getting an expensive one usually batteries go etc and they are not covered under warranty so decided not to bother as very expensive and couldnt really afford anymore. could someone help me with this problem pc world are not interested at all,they told me might as well get new one as will cost £120 each way for courier and £120 an hour to have it looked at well do they tell you this when buying any item like a laptop, this problem with customer care and surely xmas as only just gone that is one yr on and they offer no help at all. so please dont anyone buy anything from people who cant be bothered or put you on to premium rate 0800 numbers that dont help either. could anyone give us some help
Sold me a McAfee comprehensive spyware package which was supposed to include everything.When I started to load it I was asked for credit/debit card details.Why? if it was an all-in package why could they possibly want to charge me more? McAfee won,t reply to my e-mails and PC World (part of Dixons and Currys)as is their wont won,t give me an explanation either,therefore I,ve wasted £60-yet another rip-off,
Went to my local store to purchase a TV card. Selected one from the shelf and went to the checkout to find it was a higher priced item. Returned to the shelf and could not find the one required so asked an assistant. He said he would find someone to help but returned without help and tried to assist himself. When I pointed to the gap on the shelf he immediately said it was out of stock (I was amazed at his good knowledge of stock levels). I asked him for the price on the other cards which were unpriced and he said he would go and find someone to help.
Another assistant arrived and I asked him for the prices which he gave me but was unsure which one was which. I then asked him to recommend a card to fit my needs and he told me he didn't know much about the cards as he had just come back from holiday. He then suggested I queue up at the technical support desk behind the people returning products to get advice. He then walked off and so did I, to Maplins!
I didn't expect him to know everything but I did expect him to find out for me.
I have bought a number of items over the years and have found that PC world will not accept responsibility for faulty goods after 28 days.
Even when an item is under warrenty! they expect the customer to send the goods back to the manufactures incurring postal, packaging cost,not to mention the time and inconvieniece.This also applies to customers puschasing extended insurance.I have written to the company with my complaints. They have not replied after three weeks . I have a product I cannot use!!
pC world blame hp. If you buy a printer you surely expect to receive for your money all the bits you need to make it work. The common connection today is a USB cable. Not until you get inside the box of hp photosmart 2610 are you told you need to purchase one separately. Extremely angry drove back to my branch a pathetic apology blaming hp (perhaps staff should be trained to know their products and sell basic equipment needed!) For my trouble I had to buy a new cable for £14.99 and got 10% discount - great p r ! I had heard their customer service was bad. HP should def be supplying cable.
I am writing to complain about the standard of behaviour of one individual at the PC World store in Fulham, London W6.
I was enquiring about the cost of toners for two colour laser printers (Epson Aculaser C900 and Konica Minolta 2300W).
The individual who served me was surly and reluctant. When he couldn't find the information on the card attached to the machine he was reluctant to do anything else. He then told me to look it up for myself on the internet. I said I had not been able to find the information I wanted on the internet. He then gave me a large catalogue (in a dumb insolent way) and told me to look up the price myself. I looked at the relevant page which gave a lot of part numbers but gave no further information. I then said that without knowing the part number how could I find the price. He then walked off in a temper.
Another individual saw this. He then came to me and was very helpful indeed. I did not in the event get the information I wanted (Minolta phones were occupied) but it did not matter since his attitude was correct.
.
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Visitors to the site are reminded that the details contained within user comments are uncorroborated and as such should not be read as fact but as the opinion of the person who left the comment.
Comments:
In frustration I sent an e.mail cancelling my maintenance subscription and telling them exactly why in the order it happened. I received an e.mail a few minutes ago, stating they needed my name and address to do this. Obviously my customer number doesn't work with their computers. All in all very dissatisfied with their maintenance contract. Plus I am now out of pocket by £40 for the set top box. This combined with the fact that I spent nearly £360 for the maintenance contract means they have had about £400. off me for doing nothing. I agree I made 3 telephone calls but that was at my expense and even with all three I was online for less than an hour. If they pay there maintenance men £50 per hour that leaves them with a profit of £350.
I was going to say don't they realise it is the little people who purchase from them who pay their salaries, but obviously they do as they have made over 85% profit out of us.
Don't even get me started on what products come with. If it says it should have a usb cable on the box then it should. it not, it doesn't. Its not rocket science. Do you expect a bowl when you buy cereal?
Guy helping you doesn't know what you need?? People working in PCW, like comet, John Lewis, currys etc are normally doing so part time while studying or between jobs. They cannot possibly know everything about, inkjet printers, laser printers, pc's, laptops, software, pda's, networking, games, gaming consoles, tv's and on. PLUS also know about every product in a large range, with the added difficulty of technology products changing at slowest once every 2 months.
If you ever see people un-willing to serve you it is usually because of one of two things:
1: He is experienced and has enough bad experieces with joe public that he simply gets in first and has lost faith. If every customer was polite, friendly and pleasent to deal with staff would never feel like this. As members of "the general public" we are not nice people to deal with in this country. You may think you are, but either your not or you are in the minority. This is especially bad in regard to shop workers. We tend to look down on them like they are our servants.
2. He may like you, he may be fully capable of helping you but he doesnt want to or doesnt have the skill to sell you stuff you dont need. Management in these companies give employees very harsh targets regarding extras or warrenty's. To the salesman, giving you the best and most honest service will get him a bollocking and may ulitmatly cost him his job.
Yes there will a few exceptions to this but please have this in mind next time u purchase from an electrical retailer.
They have a quick fix! phone the number, they will tell you fault, send you the part, and you fix it yourself and send back faulty part.........
Why pay £265.00. plus it costs £20 to phone them!
It is a joke! Only technical people are allowed to remove the back from any electrical appliance!
My unit is still not repaired!
I asked if the printer inks on my broken Epson R300 would fit the new R240 AND WAS TOLD YES (wrong) they dont and I am stuck with loads of R300 ink cartridges
Eventually the printer arrived and I was relieved, as it meant I could get on with the work I had backing up on my to-do list. But no. PC World had neglected to mention on their website that the USB-only printer I had purchased *did not come with a USB cable*. I said some rude words to the cat in a loud voice and, luckily, was able to dig up an old modem cable for the purpose. I contacted PC World Customer Services to advise them of this oversight in their online product description. I was put on hold for seven minutes and then the line went dead.
Oh - and they finally sent me my invoice for the printer. I got it last Wednesday. Just over a month after the purchase.
So it was time to play them at their own game - onto the internet that evening and order one for the next day "Reserve and Collect". Nest day, 23rd December picked up the drive - still no 250Gb on shelf.
Visiting PC World on 26th December LOADS of the 250Gb drives on the shelf at £139.99.
So does that mean the factory was working flat out to build more drives - I think not.
This is not the first time it has happened - I'm convinced they run ads to get you into the shop, hoping you'll buy something else and wont kick up a fuss.
In future if I see a good offer I will do this every time - you dont pay up front and it doesn't matter if you dont pick the goods up.
At first I was quite impressed with the overall package
Then after just 8 months The whole thing died a death due to an inherently faulty Western digital Caviar HDD
After a few calls to the PCSERVICECALL "Help" line which costs an absolute fortune per minute I was instructed to go into DOS and type some fancy code blah blah something blah F DISK
What they didn't tell me until way too late is that F DISK is a DOS command to REFORMAT (ie totally erase the data from ) your HARD DRIVE !!!
How can I do my company accounts with 8 months data missing ? The tax man doesn't care, he's billing me an amount he THINKS I owe him anyway !!!!
SO..... it transpired that F DISK was not the correct repair method and had also cost me my data
Further expensive premium rate calls to the "Help" line brought An engineer to my door to replace the dead " 200 GB Western Digital Caviar WD2000BB-22DWA0 " with an identical part !
He was in a hurry before he even got here ! ran upstairs, left all cables connected and quickly pulled off the casing, yanked out the old drive, slapped in a new one......
He did assure me that the *repalcement under warranty* HD drive would come with a 12 months warranty which IF it were half TRUE sounded great ! but.....
Then came the deal breaker.......
I told him I needed to get an expensive data recovery operation done on the old DEAD hard disk drive........
He wouldn't ( COULDN'T ) leave a drive without taking a drive !!!!!
By this time I'm steaming angry !
Engineer, still in hurry puts case back on PC and makes fast exit leaving it UNREPAIRED due to ME !
Long story short, more expensive phone calls lead to another engineer, this time a HUMAN one, very nice guy, not in a rush, sympathetic, agrees to change my HDD with identical new one and leave DEAD one with me for a while to get lost data recovered
How can he do what the other engineer couldn't ? He took the risk of me not giving the dead drive back upon himself, ie if I hadn't returned it to him he would be liable for the £200 cost of a new one !
What a guy, thanks Jim F !
Fast forward another 8 months and guess what?
Yes, the replacement disk drive starts making an horrendous clanging noise !
I Google hard disk clanging noise and find a site that explains the fact that the 200 gb WD Caviar HDD that I have commonly self destructs in this manner !
There's even a little .wav sound clip of the exact same clanging clattering clunking noise the noisy little blighter makes
SO
Time to spend fortunes calling the "Help Line" once again
I can only describe the uninthusiastic, unsympathetic, uninterested, monotone, antagonistic moron on the other end of the line as a DROID !
To keep it short and sweet I explain to the droid that I have researched this recurring problem carefully, am fully aware of its nature and require a NEW 200 gigabyte Harddisk Drive which is NOT a NOW DISCONTINUED 200 GB Western Digital Caviar WD2000BB-22DWA0 which we all now know to be inherrently faulty
After much expensive side tracking, the droid asked me to start up the PC anyway so I could tell him the code on the blue screen after it crashes ( A process that takes several minutes at £X.XXp per minute on a premium rate number....
After much dilly dallying I am asked if I have extended warranty cover on this 16 month old ADVENT T9400
Nope I confidently reply, but that's not an issue as the first engineer to visit me 8 months ago told me that the new HDD would carry a 12 months warranty with it from date of installation
The droid pauses............."Computer says Noooo"
I am curtly informed that a replacement HDD has only a 90 day warranty on it and there's nothing he can do to help
I steam at the ears and explain that I paid £1650 for this piece of unreliable, data losing, SH*T
The droid comes back with a snide...."If you're going to use language like that I'm going to hang up on you"
I retort with, "What ....sh*t ? you've never heared the word sh*t before?" and true to his word ( for once ) the droid hung up !
PC WORLD and ADVENT will never get a penny out of me or any of my businesses ever again !
Another assistant arrived and I asked him for the prices which he gave me but was unsure which one was which. I then asked him to recommend a card to fit my needs and he told me he didn't know much about the cards as he had just come back from holiday. He then suggested I queue up at the technical support desk behind the people returning products to get advice. He then walked off and so did I, to Maplins!
I didn't expect him to know everything but I did expect him to find out for me.
Even when an item is under warrenty! they expect the customer to send the goods back to the manufactures incurring postal, packaging cost,not to mention the time and inconvieniece.This also applies to customers puschasing extended insurance.I have written to the company with my complaints. They have not replied after three weeks . I have a product I cannot use!!
I was enquiring about the cost of toners for two colour laser printers (Epson Aculaser C900 and Konica Minolta 2300W).
The individual who served me was surly and reluctant. When he couldn't find the information on the card attached to the machine he was reluctant to do anything else. He then told me to look it up for myself on the internet. I said I had not been able to find the information I wanted on the internet. He then gave me a large catalogue (in a dumb insolent way) and told me to look up the price myself. I looked at the relevant page which gave a lot of part numbers but gave no further information. I then said that without knowing the part number how could I find the price. He then walked off in a temper.
Another individual saw this. He then came to me and was very helpful indeed. I did not in the event get the information I wanted (Minolta phones were occupied) but it did not matter since his attitude was correct.
.
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