Returning things to the Store

[Phantasm66]

I wanted to share a little story with you, because I was truly impressed today with my experience taking a faulty product back to a store.

The store was Richer Sounds, http://www.richersounds.com.

When I switched on my amplifer that I use on the PC on Saturday, sparks came of the insides, and smoke appeared. Needless to say, it didn't work after that.

I hunted high and low for the receipt, which I finally found (interestingly enough, it just appeared on my table..... Work that one out.) But I did think for a while that the receipt was lost, and when I did find it I found out that my 1 year warrantee had expired 8 days ago. I thought, I will chance it anyway and take it back.

These were my experiences with the Richer Sounds store in Glasgow, which I was impressed and very please with.

*It would not have been a problem if I had not found the receipt, they would just have looked it up in a computer record.

*It did not matter if the warrantee had expired 8 days ago, they would not bother about this too much. Its only a few days so they would still be pleased to replace the unit.

*They apologised for the unit breaking down, and explained that they do not get many returns and that when they do they take it seriously.

*They offered me, as a compensation, a more expensive unit made by Yamaha instead of the Sherwood one I had had. I took this, of course.

*They were at ALL times polite, civilised and helpful. They gave me the feeling that it was MY feelings that were important.

*This whole matter was sorted out in less than 10 minutes.

*There was not a single problem or issue.


Got the new amp wired up now (not 100% correctly I think, DVDs in dolby digital sound a little weird, but I will get to the bottom of that.....)

All in all, a pleasant and happy experience, where I was impressed with this stores professionalism and eficiency.

So a big thumbs up for Richer Sounds, especially the Glasgow branch.




What experiences do YOU have with returning good to a store??? Where these positive or negative??

 

[Phantasm66]

In constrast, years ago I paid a computing store in Glasgow to fit a new motherboard, processor, chip memory and graphics card.

*They gave me a slip of paper and told me that if I lost it they would keep my machine and probably sell it.

*They took 8 days to do this, told me to come at 2pm and when I got there they were still doing it, and told me to wait. I hung around for 2 extra hours.

*For some reason, my hard drive took a head crash. They categorically refused to take any responsibility for this (even although it was working just fine when I gave it to them) and when I asked what they could do about this they said "Nothing."

*The Motherboard was partially held onto the case with blue tak, and they didn't use enough screws.

*A guy in the queue with me was returning blank CDs that didn't seem to work. Probably bad batch. They told him that since the CDs were unbranded there was no warrantee. They refused to give him his money back. They refused to give him another lot of CDs. They refused to give him any compensation whatsoever. He said it was not fair trading and they laughed at him. He asked to speak to the Manager and they said "He's busy...."

So, I did not buy anything from them again, I can tell you.

 

[svtcobra]

Too bad you dont have a Best Buy out there to see the exact opposite. After 30 days on any audio/video electronics you are going to the manufacturer for any warranty repair unless you bought their ultra expensive extended warranty. Then, they dont even replace it. They only repair it for you..

Not a good experience..

 

[poertner_1274]

That is preety cool Phantasm66. I can't say that I have had a pleasurable return. I know that my friend had a monitor that blew out 2 days after the warranty was over and I think it was from Gateway, but not sure. And they said tough go buy a new one. And my cousin had a car amp blow out 6 days after warranty and they told him the same thing. So personally I haven't had any experiences, but I know people that have had bad ones.

 

[Vehementi]

The world needs more stores like that...
The only really bad experience I've had in the realm of returning things is when my Athlon XP burned out, because of the faulty heatsink. I emailed Accubyte twice, and they haven't responded yet, and their tech support phone number closes at 5 pm, and I usually get home from track at like 5:30-6. So I still have a perfectly good ASUS A7V266 at my house, and a stick of DDR sitting unused in a box. The CPU burnout was purely the fault of the heatsink...I hadn't taken it off ever in the time I had it.

The only other bad experience I've had is with a Philips MP3 CD player I bought. Out of the blue (I mean I didn't drop it, spill water on it or anything...) it just stopped working, it wouldn't read any CD I put in it. Of course, I bought it at Mal-Wart, and I didn't have a warranty I could think of, no slip in the case for one, or anything. I emailed the company about it and they said if I didn't register it than it was my fault. Nothing in the case signified anything to do with product registration, and I didn't even find anything on the website afterwards for it. So I have a 100$ CD player that I bought about 7 months ago lying in my room somewhere, dead. I'll never buy a Philips product again.

 

[Ai Hate]

they are true professionals indeed, phantasm. it's stores like that that could stay around for a long time without having to pack their bags. i say it's a positive way of marketing, while others use the other way, cheap..
as for me, i haven't had to return any parts for my new rig yet. and as for my old one here, when it had a problem some time long ago, i didn't know anything about computers at all, so i just sent it back to the store and waited for them to repair it.
anyway, i doubt i'll get much service from the stores i bought my parts for my new rig for. as they seem so cheap and ignorant from the first day

 

[T-Shirt]

Originally posted by Phantasm66
I wanted to share a little story with you, because I was truly impressed today with my experience taking a faulty product back to a store.

That is impressive! And unfortunatly rare! I'm very careful to know the return/repair policy BEFORE I buy anything.
But to have someone handle it in a polite, helpful manner, would encourage me to shop/buy there even if the prices were slightly higher.

 

[Arris]

Originally posted by svtcobra
Too bad you dont have a Best Buy out there to see the exact opposite. After 30 days on any audio/video electronics you are going to the manufacturer for any warranty repair unless you bought their ultra expensive extended warranty. Then, they dont even replace it. They only repair it for you..

Not a good experience..

We have stores in the UK, Dixons/Currys.
They have the same sort of deal as best buy. You could buy a single blank CDR from them and they would try to force you into buying an extended warranty for it. 90% of the time its a rip off. "If it stops working we will replace it".... If its under its manufacturers warranty you'll do this anyway :evil: Grrr....
Sometimes it can be worth it as they do specify that they will replace it with the equivalent model, so if technology has advanced and you still have a warranty you can end up with the latest technology if anything goes wrong. Still when they have tried to sell me an extended warranty on a mouse I have been quite amused.

 

[Spliffmeister]

Richer Sounds eh?

I have dealt with Richer Sounds on many occasions (Both the one in Glasgow and the one in Stockport Nr. Manchester) and have found them to be one of the best customer service centres anywhere. Although I have never returned anything that was faulty to them, they have always been willing to take a HiFi component back and replace it because 'it didnt sound right with the rest of my system'. They are professional retailers, they know if they treat us (the consumer) well, we'll come back for more..... and I do as often as my credit card allows. Its a shame they haven't branched out and used their brand, which is in my opinion is synonymous with good customer service, to expand into other areas (PC hardware for example).......

Long live Richer Sounds!!

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

The good thing about living in a small town is that you know people & they know you. I've got new blank CDs from stores when I returned some coasters to there. I haven't returned much hardware because usually I deliberately void the warranty by "tweaking" a bit..

 

[Phantasm66]

Re: Re: Returning things to the Store

Originally posted by T-Shirt

But to have someone handle it in a polite, helpful manner, would encourage me to shop/buy there even if the prices were slightly higher.

Well, you see, thats it exactly. The next time I am looking for even so much as another little subwoofer I will be going there, because I know I will be treated properly.

Retailers would do well to realise that trying to save a buck by being hard on the consumer is a false economy and that being generous, kind and polite is the best insentive to more costumers and more profit.

Interestingly, Richer Sounds is in the Guiness Book of World Records as essentially being the busiest chain of stores in the world.

 

[Spliffmeister]

Richer Sounds is in the Guiness Book of World Records as essentially being the busiest chain of stores in the world.

per square foot of retail space i think.....

They are major exponents of stack 'em high, sell 'em low philosophy. Lots of tiny stores rammed from floor to ceiling full of HiFi Equipment.

 

[ss1]

Jungle.com are very good at return things. I've had a great experince with buy things from them and would not buy from any other UK E-shop, unless Jungle doesn't offer the product I require.


ss1.

 

[Didou]

I've had a bad experience with a store over here which is now closed ( I wonder why... ).

I had bought a 32mb PC100 ram module ( SDRam had just come out ) & when I got home I never got it to work. The PC wouldn't boot at all.

I took it back & they asked me how I installed it. I said, I took it out of the wrapper, I put it in the DIMM slot, etc... & I booted.

They were like "You prolly killed it be touching it with your bare hands. Shoud've used gloves or something. Sorry nothing we can do."

If I wasn't on probation I would've prolly kicked his hiney

 

[Phantasm66]

That sounds, basically, like they know that they are selling RAM in batches that has some defective modules here and there, and they don't care to replace them....

You should have contacted some kind of Consumer Rights Organisation....

 

[SNGX1275]

Originally posted by Vehementi
The only other bad experience I've had is with a Philips MP3 CD player I bought. Out of the blue (I mean I didn't drop it, spill water on it or anything...) it just stopped working, it wouldn't read any CD I put in it. Of course, I bought it at Mal-Wart, and I didn't have a warranty I could think of, no slip in the case for one, or anything. I emailed the company about it and they said if I didn't register it than it was my fault. Nothing in the case signified anything to do with product registration, and I didn't even find anything on the website afterwards for it. So I have a 100$ CD player that I bought about 7 months ago lying in my room somewhere, dead. I'll never buy a Philips product again.

Did you try to return it to wal mart? They are usually pretty good about that if you exchange it.

 

[T-Shirt]

Originally posted by SNGX1275

Did you try to return it to wal mart? They are usually pretty good about that if you exchange it.

And now they're bankrupt! So, we see they didn't have to be rough with customers, when times get tough, take it out of your employees pensions!

 

[T-Shirt]

And I sould add pay outragous bonus's to upper management to stay through reorginization (aren't these the same overpayed clowns who ran the company out of money in the first place?)