Elaine’s Space

Should have known better than to buy another computer from PC World - but what do you do with over £1000 of PC World vouchers which you’ve been landed with ‘cos the super duper all singing and dancing HP Touch went belly up - and the sad part is I bought another HP - doh!!

But it was the quietest on display and that is so important to me - and I purchased the PC Performance Plan for a mere £9.99/month which would ensure that if I had problems with this computer then PC World would send an engineer out the very next day (as long as I rang before 10 am) to fix it and if they didn’t fix it I’d get a replacement - so that had to be worth it — didn’t it!!!!

Everything went hunky dory for 10 months and then one day it just stopped - no warning, no whirrings, no nothing - just - mmmm - nothing.

• Friday 27th February - called the engineers - after 10 am
• Tuesday 3rd March - engineer came a few hours later, changed the motherboard and the graphics card (I think), said it was fixed and started the recovery process. The recovery process failed - no working computer
• Tuesday 3rd March called the engineers
• Thursday 5th March same engineer called.  Spent a few hours fiddling with the computer, said it was fixed, started the recovery programmeand left.
  The recovery process failed - no working computer.
• Thursday 5th March called customer support to ask for replacement computer but was refused as PC World have 6 weeks to repair computer before issuing a replacement - c’est la vie  so visit arranged for Monday 9th -  HAD TO BUY NEW COMPUTER FROM COMET AS IMPERITIVE TO BUSINESS!!!!
• Monday 9th waited all day - no show.  Rang the engineers who had omitted to inform me that they needed to send for new recovery disks from HP and would rearrange the visit when they had received them
• Thursday 12th March - Thursday 19th March on holiday in Egypt
• Friday 20th March called engineers
• Monday 23rd received recovery disks through post, engineer visited with 2 more sets of recovery disks - ALL WRONG!!!! - engineer fixed computer, but said - and this is the important bit - THAT ANY PROBLEMS GOING FORWARD WOULD PROBABLY BE DUE TO PC WORLD SENDING THE WRONG DISCS and these being used in the ‘tattooing’ process!!!
• Wednesday 25th March computer working but wouldn’t connect to the wireless router - no internet, called support centre who gave help and support over the phone.  Tried all the various methods - no joy
• DURING THE NEXT 8 DAYS WE WERE EXTREMELY BUSY, HAD A BUSINESS MEETING IN LONDON, WE WERE ARRANGING FOR WORKMEN TO VISIT OUR NEW WAREHOUSING PREMISES, WE WERE INVOLVED WITH GETTING 2 NEW WEBSITES UP AND RUNNING etc etc.  We are very busy people running 2 very successful internet businesses.
• Thursday 2nd April called customer support who suggested downloading new drivers - downloaded new drivers - no joy - still no connection
• Monday 6th called support centre, before 10 am, to request engineer.  No engineer available for Tuesday and we had appointments Wednesday and Thursday. Friday was Good Friday and the start of the Easter Holiday Weekend, so the earliest PC WORLD could arrange a visit was Tuesday 14 th April - not good enough.
• Friday 10th April called customer support - who were working - to invoke the ‘cannot be fixed in 6 weeks’ part of the agreement and asked for a replacement product
•  THIS IS WHERE PC WORLD GET CLEVER.

‘Oh no’ they say, ‘because you haven’t been in touch within 7 days, this will be treated as a new problem under a new job number, which means that the 6 weeks period starts all over again  - WTF!!!!.

‘But’, I say, ‘it’s not a new problem, it’s because you sent the wrong discs and it could possible go wrong every other week, which means that I’m always going to have new job numbers and I’m never going to get this computer fixed properly - so just fix it under the old job number, then if it doesn’t work I can claim my replacement.

‘Sorry Mrs Forth,’ they say, ‘that’s absolutely impossible, we have to issue new job numbers because you left it more than 7 days, before contacting us’

‘But’, I say, ‘it doesn’t mention this 7 day gap in the contract, and none of the PC WORLD engineers have mentioned this to me either, so how was I supposed to know?’

They say ‘the 7 day gap is our policy and we don’t have to put it in the contract, so tough tittie (OK I made that bit up, PC WORLD didn’t say tough tittie)

So here we are - PC Word are adamant they will not replace my computer as it’s impossible for them to vary the 7 day rule, are adamant that they don’t need to put this in their PC Performance contract, and will only deal with me under a new job number.

I’m adamant that I’m not going to accept a new job number as it’s not a new problem, and that they cannot willy nilly state new terms and conditions without putting them in writing in the contract.

Obviously my next step is to send a written complaint to PC World and also contact Trading Standards, Watchdog, Small Claims Court etc.

This will take quite a time so in the meanwhile I’ll be placing a little ad on Google, which will appear every time anyone searches for the terms PC World and any related searches, which will link through to this blog - and below I’ve listed other disgruntled PC World users, who’ve posted on the internet - enjoy

Revues from Kelkoo - the customer service rating is interesting

Review Centre - customer service 2 out of 10

Dooyoo.co.uk - interesting reading

Shoddy custome service from PC World’s Tech Guys

PC Advisor -1

PC Advisor - 2

I will list more in time but I’m losing the will to live - which is where the conniving part of PC World comes in - how many digruntled customers simply give up, write it off to a bad experience and simply buy a computer from somewhere else?

ps - anyone wanting to know how to make those little adwords ads???

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 at 12:12 pm and is filed under My Sites. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.