Very BIG rant about PC World.

[Karlos 10]

My friend used to work has a manager for PC world for 5 years.

 

Apparently their head office have a dedicated legal team of hot shot solicitors whose sole job is to defend PC world from people trying to take them to court for not swapping faulty goods etc.

 

From what my friend has told me, when the solicitors get involved 90% of people drop their case, so it is financially benfiticial to hire this legal team all year round rather than give customers the serivce they want.

 

Very sad.

[Kry10 10]

I bet everyone anything it's a Packard Bell machine, I used to work for their help line at nunnery square, and I had to take people through the remastering and tattoo procedures practically on a daily basis, which sounds very much like what she has been going through with the guys on the end of the phone, the guys at PC World won't do a great deal when there are numpties on the end of the phone who can deal with things and just eventually tell them that if it is a software problem they need to phone the software line at 50p per minute or some rubbish like that, and if it's hardware, they will try and diagnose the problem and if an engineer is required, they will get one booked.

 

PC World are a load of, well, I can't say due to censorship, lol, but, you get the point.

[hels1977 10]

Well this is going to come across harsh and pro-PC world but anyhow.

 

From what I can gather, it's not been definitely established if it's a hardware of software fault, or both? PC world should at least be able to tell you that much.

 

If it's a s/w fault then I am not suprised PC word won't exchange it - it's not their problem as a rule. They will say user-error, you broke it, you fix it. Technically the s/w may have broken it, but it's still not their problem as I understand it. All they did was supply the hardware with a basic set of programs on which was fit for purpose when sold.

 

If it's a hardware fault then they will be able to establish what is faulty, be it power supply, screen or something else. If this is the case then I would at least expect them to say that it's hardware and you should be entitled to something under the terms that your mum bought the PC.

 

From your description it does sound like BS of death which would be s/w related. As others have said - get some antivirus protection on there and start scanning. If it's a virus, then no, they won't exchange it - it's not their problem that your mum got a virus, annoying but true.

 

If it's a s/w problem relating to the original unmodified s/w that was on the PC at purchase time then you may have a leg to stand on. If however like most people, the s/w has been added to and modified, I imagine they will be within their rights to charge a fee to establish the problem.

 

Good luck getting it sorted, hope you succeed.

[Kry10 10]

Madornay, the problem if it IS a packard bell machine is that you need to know how to do a remaster or a tattoo and know how to replace the HDTS, I think that is the name of it, basically it's the hidden sector on the hard drive that contains all the information on the hardware so it can do the remaster procedure, and for that info you need to speak to their help line numpties.

 

Don't get me wrong, I am not doubting your engineering skills, but, packard bells are a breed of their own.

[alchemist 35]

I have for various reasons bought many computers and parts from PC World and have only had one problem with a cd drive which they fixed straight away without any problems. OK, I "may" be the lucky one like the OP "may" be the unlucky one. Personally, I cant see that this forum truely represents the real situation at PC World as after all we all know that it is people with problems that shout louder than those who dont and so end up misrepresenting something. It would be interesting to see if the number of people with problems at PC World do outnumber those without problems as seems from various posts around this forum.

[Lindseyw 10]

Idiot.

 

It's Xbox!

 

 

LOL !!! I was waiting for that !!! Funny !!!!!

 

You need to relax Rich, you really, really do x

[Ghostrider 11]

i know and i can, i worked for the pc service call centre that is in question, there is nothing to it, its a matter of 2 dos commands.

Hs and dmi, there is also a copy of the tattoo information on the floppy and all 3 pieces need to match else it dont install.

So you find the complete information(normally dmi as the bios is rarely changed) and copy it to the other 2 places, if it is the original boot floppy, then u tend to find that providing the contact centre has'nt told the customer to overwrite the original info that was on the disk you can generally rely on it, and copy it across to the hidden sector on the hard drive, and the dmi, which is a hidden sector in the bios.

But in this case, what is needed is to determine whether the fault is caused by hardware or software, The contact centre will not question a qualified engineer that calls with a fault, specially if he is packard bell trained.

And if it is software the engineer can normally solve it without many difficulties.

I did the same job........as he said above

 

 

And if they dont fix it after 6 weeks from the 1st call, you can DEMAND a full replacement.......bet they didnt tell you that when you rang them

[Elphi 24 10]

Can I join the rant? I bought a laptop from them 3 months, had some intermittent faults and then 2 weeks ago the motherboard (and possibly the HD) went completely. After a long painful conversation with someone on the helpdesk telling me to run Bios for 2 hours when I only had 30 mins of battery life left went down to the store. After waiting 45 mins to be seen told me they couldnt do anything and Id have to arrange a courier to pick it up for repair. When I phoned (11pm Friday night, 6 am sat morning and then several times after that my call wasnt answered within 15 mins due to high call volume). When I did get through they wanted me to run through more tests!!!!

Anyway they took it away saying it would be back in a week and that I would be updated with progress through text. Two weeks later Ive not heard anything and no laptop. I just phoned and they have lost it. I was told a manager would phone before 5 - surprise suprise im still waiting...

to be continued ...

[chumpy 10]

PC World consistently refuse to honour their obligations under the sale of goods act.

Trading standards know all about it but refuse to clamp down on them.

If the machine is only 3 months old they must by law attend to the problem, your contract is with them.

They can suggest that you'll get a faster resolution to the problem by contacting the manufacturer direct, but that's up to you.

Tell them you're going to Trading Standards and pursue it vigorously. You don't have to sue them, it's not a civil matter , they are breaking the law and it's up to Trading Standards to sort them out.

Be aware that if you do get them to deal with it and it turns out to be something that you've done ( software installation , bios tweaking etc ) they will bill you.

regards Mick

[BlackVelvet 10]

sweet baby jesus!!!! never been a PC world fan, but reading this lot, glad i bought my puter from asda. shop em to trading standards (again!)

[Alex C. 10]

I'm going to be a bit of a rebel and defend PC world slightly here - yes, they are useless for desktops, but I got a laptop from them and it was probably better that I did than from anywhere else.

 

Within the first week, one of the keys had fallen off. Took it in, came out with a replacement immediately. Then around 9 months later the power cable broke. Let them know and they sent out a new one by courier straight away (Service Call) - also noticed that by the end of the 12 months, the battery only lasted for 10 minutes or so (is almost always on AC power), so gave them a ring. They organised a courier to pick it up and returned it three days later with a full service report, and having replaced the fan, the battery, the main board and the battery PCB.

 

There were quite a few errors along the way (courier given the wrong address, initially refusing to send a new battery without seeing the laptop and then doing it anyway when they picked it up), but I'm pretty sure the service will have been better than with most other companies.

 

If it was a desktop, I could have fixed it myself, but with a laptop I wouldn't want to run the risk.

 

With that in mind, if I wasn't building a desktop myself, I'd go to a small computer shop

[baron10 10]

return to manufacturer you'll get a new one