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And every time they lie to a customer who has done his homework (i'm sure they are trained to lie) they LOSE a customer for ever,
BTW back in January i showed the phones4U staff my P8 one afternoon, one of the clammy handed little tykes tried to touch it, but i said it was too expensive & didn't let him, hows that for a taste of their own medicine. he reminded me of a crying little schoolboy watching another boy enjoy a big jam filled hot doughnut.
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Posted: 2003-05-31 16:47:26
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Keep it coming I love this, they really do have to be the most small minded child like idiots I have ever come across. I am just glad that I am not the only one to have had such a bad experience with them. Maybe it is time to have a list of the worst and best phone shops and internet sites. Anyone used Cyren communications to purchase a handset. I think these lot use ex phones4u staff to work for them. Had a very bad experience when I bought my wife a Motorola T720 from them, thank god Orange have some excellent staff who managed to sort it all out and arrange me getting it from Mobileshop.com.
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Posted: 2003-05-31 17:06:18
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Thinking about it, I haven't had a whole lot of fun buying phones from any high street shop.
Phones4u (as already stated) were crap, so now its time for my t68 story!
I was sold the t68 by Carphone Warehouse in the Trafford Centre - it was pretty soon after the phone came out and I was
desperate for one. Perhaps the salesman could tell that when I went in - he didn't seem overly interested in me but was sure to sell me his insurance and replacement policy.
Later on (less than a year later) I decided to get my phone software upgraded to t68i software. I went into the shop who said they would need to send away to do it (I didn't realise there was an SP near Manchester then) and they would give me a replacement phone.
What phone did they offer? A TRIUM MARS!
Now for those of you who don't know what one of those are, check out the Mitsubishi Trium site. Basically, they are ugly ancient phones with no functions at all. I asked the guy if he actually knew what a Trium Mars was and with a smirk he told me he did.
Well, I wasn't happy with that. I stood in the shop and refused to leave until he gave me a better phone. The poor guy had a very bad day - he was phoning lots of different departments, none of which wanted to give me a t68i for the replacement.
Meanwhile, I saw a salesman tell someone to buy a new phone (£100 ish) to fix a problem that a new sim (£10) would fix just as well. As I was feeling malicious, I went over and explained this to them - they walked out without a phone.
Eventually CPW told me they weren't going to get one that day but would phone me as soon as they did.
In the end, they did phone me - however by that time I had already dropped my phone in a field and lost it!
So I tend to buy direct from networks now
Jalu
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Posted: 2003-05-31 17:50:15
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I don't regularly upgrade my phones as often as some of the other Esato users, but on the occassions that I do pop into Phones 4 U or CPW, I have found them generally to be (select any of the following that are applicable):
incompetent
useless
not knowing their products/services
uninformative/unknowledgable
unresponsive
unhelpful
rude
arrogant
insensitive - not understanding the priciples of good customer service
incapable
in need of remedial training
out of their depth
indifferent
This is more so of Phones 4 U staff, but granted there must be some staff there that do not have their heads up their own arses (asses for the Americans out there) and are trying to provide a decent service - though I have yet to see one.
I know a few people that have actually worked for them in the past, they all quit within two weeks of starting because they said that it was terrible - maybe they just couldn't hack it? You would have expected commission based employees would try to learn to about the products they sell, but the staff are all there trying to out do one another for a customers signature.
But, CPW should not feel all smug. I went there to buy a T68i offline and a PAYT tariff separately, asked all the usual questions and queries you ask about when you buy etc, signed up for their insurance, happy with the price, happy with the service.... or so I thought! The insurance I was told was by "Direct Debit", when the form said "Standing Order Mandate"... obviously I questioned this, they told me that they use the same forms to complete a direct debit transaction as they do with standing orders. Having never made a standing order, I thought there was nothing wrong with this (my bad).
Within 14 days, found my handset to be faulty, the battery was not charging properly and would only last a day or so at most. So I returned it for a new one... they said they didn't have any separate batteries so I would have to take a completely new package and need to change the details on my insurance to cover the new handset. One would have thought this would be an easy procedure. It couldn't have been further from the truth... somehow the salewoman started a second insurance package, whilst keeping the first one going, so I was paying for 2 insurance premiums on the
same handset
I didn't realise till the statements came through, to which I rang CPW and went to their store to sort this out. More grief ensued for the next 8 months in getting my refund
They wouldn't accept their fault blaming the bank for the error!?! I got my money back in the end when I said I was going to bring in the legal eagles - they couldn't have been more helpful then
On a side note, I asked the bitch who served me during the exchange about
, can't remember the question exactly but she couldn't answer it so went to another salesperson. She came back with an answer which I know was wrong and when I said so, she replied "No, my colleague should know, he is the "Data Technician!" - like thats gonna make me think... omg! you're so right how could I have been so wrong! Another case of arrogance perhaps??
SuicideBob
PS. forgot to say, this is my first post, sorry for it being so long.
[ This Message was edited by: suicidebob on 2003-06-01 03:35 ]
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Posted: 2003-06-01 04:31:54
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Well it seems that if you really want to struggle with getting a refund you should try l8shop.com... Go on I dare ya...
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Posted: 2003-06-01 04:34:44
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Surely they couldn't take a refund procedure more than 8 months
Their website looks all decent and professional, damn, maybe thats what they want you to think. I guess I am lucky not to have dealth with them.
SuicideBob
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Posted: 2003-06-01 04:41:16
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@suicidebob
Welcome to Esato. It's good to see from your first post that you're not into sweeping generalisations. I don't think, for all their sins, CPW deserve to be bracketed with Phones4U for customer service. Whilst the idiot salesman obviously didn't understand the standing order/direct debit procedure properly, he wasn't signing it with his bank details on it! Whose responsibility do you imagine it might be to check and understand what YOU sign?! It would also seem pretty obvious to me, a lowly CPW employee (No, I make no pretence!) that if you sign two standing order mandates, you will be charged twice - the point being that a standing order, unlike a direct debit, is an agreement between you and the bank, so the beneficiary cannot cancel it or alter the amount.
Interestingly, I do not feel I possess any of your beautifully bullet-pointed characteristics and, it would seem, even know some things you don't.
So cheers.... to all those who work in retail and aren't retarded!
Dave
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Posted: 2003-06-10 03:25:07
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ive not had probs with emm :-) there fairly cheap betta than cpw maybe
This message was posted from a WAP device
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Posted: 2003-06-10 03:39:56
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@dave_uk
You are correct that CPW staff should not be tarnished with the same brush as those of Phones4U and I apologise if you think I was doing such as this was not my intention.
The issue about the standing order mandate however was that I was partly to blame as I said in my earlier post because I was unfamiliar with these banking procedures. When I purchased the insurance, I asked for it to be via direct debit, and when the standing order form came, I did clarify this with the salesperson before signing. I asked them for the direct debit form instead, and they said that the same form was used for direct debit. I asked them to ask another senior member of staff if this was correct and they said yes, and that was the only reason why I signed.
As for the second standing order mandate, this was started because the IMEI number on the original insurance was different to the one of the new handset. She said the procedure was that I needed to sign this new form to set the insurance in place, in which case I asked her specifically whether the original one had was being transferred to this rather than starting a new one. She said that this was correct, and upon checking my receipt this looked correct, old insurance transfered to new one and no additional charges were made.
When I got my statements, I was being charged twice, so I called went to the store and explained the situation, I called CPW Lifeline from the store, and explained the situation to the person over the phone.
My frustration was the fact that they initially said that they had made the mistake and I would receive a refund in 7-14 days, which came and passed - no refund. I went to the store again, explained the situation to the store, they put me through to Lifeline and they apologised for the fact that I was not refunded. They said 7 days... again it didn't arrive.
Third time lucky down at the store and calling lifeline... This time they said it was a banking error and that the bank gave the money and I should go to the bank to organise an indemnity claim which would work. Bank filed a claim, but because there was 2 mandates in force, it wouldn't go through. All this while time passed and I was still being billed every quarter for two insurances policies (remember I was told the first was transferred to the second which would have meant only one policy running). I tried to cancel one of the policies but they were having none of it.
After several more attempts I thought I'd try one last go at another store, and this time I spent about an hour on the phone explaining the whole situation blow by blow but very calmly. The Lifeline rep said he understood my situation but it was the banks fault and that the bank should call their admin department to sort this out. That was when I said I was going to bring in the solicitors to sort this out, he went to the admin department, they then said that they would refund me and I would receive it in 3 days.
Well the refund came, although the 3 days were optimistic, was more like 28 days but then I didn't care much as it was finally sorted out. Had it all been sorted out much sooner without them dragging it on, I wouldn't have been so annoyed but to take 8 months overall was too long for most people to not get angry.
I have found the staff to be apologetic at CPW for mistakes made by other staff members at the other store. If only all staff were like this, it would be good, unfortunately this would never happen as much as we all wish for it. Would I shop in CPW again? Yes, I probably would, but this time I will ask at least 2 members of staff for clarification and a call to head office.
Would I go to Phones4U??? You must be having a laugh... I may have been stupid, but I'm not insane.
SuicideBob
(Sorry for this long post about my situation, and I hope its not taken as hijacking someone elses thread I felt I needed to clarify the situation)
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Posted: 2003-06-10 04:26:40
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I went to phones4u on Saturday.. fair enough they guy I was dealing with was a traditional salesman using all the usual ploys etc., but he did only try and sell me what I wanted and in the end after saying a couple of times I'm gonna have to go and think about it, I did get a steal of a bargain - t610 for free on cheap vodafone tariff! We'll see what he's like when I go back and tell him it hisses
I'm gonna ring Sony first and see what they say, just in case he denies all knowledge. Cos from what you're saying and lets face it we've all been there before with other companies (PC World are the worst so far in my books), their aftersales care isnt too hot.
Peter
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Posted: 2003-06-10 07:57:20
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