Black Friday: do you have any sales shopping regrets?

I would suggest you contact HP and ask them to confirm whether the warranty is invalidated if you don’t have a back-up on a memory stick. They will tell you (I expect) that you do not have to. Then contact the group Chief Executive sebastian.james@dixonscarphonegroup.com to tell him you were forced to buy a product by misrepresentation and that you will take legal action under the Consumer Rights Act unless you are compensated. You were quoted £280 and that is what you should pay. Good luck!.

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I agree with malcolm r.

I suspect Currys PC World have been making a killing over the Black Friday Weekend.

On Sunday, I visited my local Office World. There were hardly any customers there and, next door, Maplin was very quiet too. I then strayed into Currys PC World, where it was teaming with punters, literally queuing up to buy stuff.

I note that Stan said: “The sales lady was very threatening saying I would not be able to backup the computer myself as no instructions were in the box.” Even if that were true [see 1 later]… the Internet, what’s that???

…If only HP had a customer support website, they could use it to set out their recommendations for customers needing to backup and/or recover their PCs…

…If only there were free PC backup and recovery software, perhaps called Macrium Reflect, that home users could download and use for free…

…If only there were some kind of internet TV service, perhaps called YouTube, where we could watch videos that show how to freely download Windows10 from Microsoft and then install it for free…

Footnote [1] – last time I bought a new HP PC, it came with a user guide pre-installed on its hard disc and a pre-installed system care app that links up to HP’s website.

Hence I’d argue that Stan was skilfully lied to, by inferring that, because there would not be detailed _paper_ manuals in the box, no documentation would be supplied as part of the package.

I noticed that Curry’s PC World had a lot of bad mentions in a recent Which? Conversation on Black Friday deals – see:
https://www.which.co.uk/news/2017/11/60-of-black-friday-prices-arent-the-lowest-of-the-year-which-reveals/

It is possible that the company looks forward to BF as National Take-the-Customer-to-the-Cleaners Day and has a sales programme for its staff to make sure they take full advantage of every innocent computer user.

Curry’s certainly lives in a non-PC world.

I’ll support the Shonky award scheme, that Patrick T promotes, for this kind of behaviour. Are Which? brave enough to launch the UK version, alongside Best Buy?

I’m not sure it’s a matter of bravery. Which? already have Don’t buys and I suspect they’re quite strong enough. There’s something about the use of a term (whose etymological roots may be Yiddish) like Shonky that sounds slightly gimmicky.

I agree, Ian. Shonky is not a word in my dictionary and when I typed it here, the computer wanted to change it to ‘chunky’. ‘Don’t Buy’ is a clear message. If you try to shame companies, Which? could soon be seen in a negative way.

This is about a company though, not an individual product. Which? have hardly condemned Amazon for their treatment of customers supplied with illegal 2 pin plugs for example, nor Currys for their contempt for customers, As for the term, a UK version would use a UK descriptor. In most cases I regard a “don’t buy” as lacking in performance compared to other products, quite a mild accolade.

Which? have shamed companies – Hotpoint recently. energy companies, VW. I see nothing negative in publicising major deficiencies when they are supported by proper evidence (not always the case).

I suggested a UK version of “shonky”, which was meant to infer a suitable name.

I think it would be better to pursue these issues with Trading Standards. We still have no evidence that Which? is pushing the government to restore TS as an organisation that will be sufficiently resourced to function adequately.

As we have discussed elsewhere, many are unable to deal with Trading Standards directly and have to go through the rigmarole of dealing with a third party that does not seem to follow up complaints.

In Stan’s case his first port of call should, I believe, be with the supplier – Curry’s. I’d expect TS would suggest this if they could be reached.

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I have already suggested that in the UK the term Shoddy Awards would be perfectly well understood by the British public.

In this case regarding Curry’s it is not a product per se but the way the company treats customers and bamboozles them. I have worked in several organisations where pay and bonuses were derived directly from sales and lead to poor behaviours. It is unpleasant for staff and customers – excluding some sociopaths who delight in ripping people off.

Shoddy Awards would be a big plus in getting Which? more obviously identified as a pro-consumer body. The Which? Awards may be a nice carrot but Which? also needs a stick that the public see being wielded.

You should have tried Google this is the top return:

Dictionary
shonky
ˈʃɒŋki/
Australian/NZinformal
adjective
adjective: shonky; comparative adjective: shonkier; superlative adjective: shonkiest

1.
dishonest, unreliable, or illegal, especially in a devious way.
“shonky political goings-on”

noun
noun: shonky; plural noun: shonkies; noun: shonk; plural noun: shonks

1.
a person engaged in suspect business activities.
“we need to rid the building industry of these shonkies quickly”

I’m not sure I agree. As I’ve said we already have Don’t buys, which is specific and forthright. I suspect once W? went down the road of using what I see as a ‘Gimmicky’ approach, it could stand to lose some credibility.

Anyway, Al;ex has asked us to stop discussing that in this topic.

But you are discussing it. 😀 I suggest if the discussion is to continue it should be moved to The Lobby.

The warning about Black Friday sales is that many may not be what they seem. But we all like to think we’ve bagged a bargain, even if it is something we didn’t need.

Yes, Malcolm; well spotted. I was responding to Patrick’s posting the detail of a link and taking the opportunity to remind him that we’ve been asked not to. And I wouldn’t have had to do this, had you not commented…

I think what is going on is way beyond bad service, which is just carelessness or delinquency, and amounts to management-directed customer exploitation. It has been pointed out to the company many times but they have ignored it. It has been reported here many times and there was some engagement and promises on one occasion but no substantive action has been taken. There is no morality and no shame within the company. Its behaviour is despicable because it is unfair, persistent, and dishonest. They have taught staff to be untruthful, given them wrong ideas of professional retail conduct, and destroyed the true concept of customer service. They have managed to combine the culture of the barrow-boy and the bunco booth in a business model that is essentially corrupt.

But enough of their good points…

Well done Stan.

It would be nice to categorise these experiences so people could refer to Which? and see the stunts pulled by the named companies and by encouraged by the successful outcomes.

I hope you left no personal information on the computer, and that you had not paid for the software. It seems a curious and illogical solution by Currys. I bet they do repackage the computer for sale – it has been known. Far more sensible for them to have found a way to give a £40 refund, plus something for your inconvenience.

I’d still email the CEO to complain about the incident – nothing to be lost.

Aye, well done Stan 🙂

So – to recap the final twist – in spite of CPCW having prepared (and sold) a system recovery backup USB stick with that PC, they claimed that, either with or without that, they would have had no way of rolling the machine back to its “factory settings”.

In other words, in their final attempt at “hurt & rescue”, to make you feel guilty about returning that PC, they were prepared to state that they had made you pay £40 for an entirely useless device.

For the record, I expect that most, if not all, new PCs come with a “recover to factory settings” option pre-installed on the machine. Separate recovery media are normally only needed for recovery after hard drive failures.

And, all that having been said, users may need some means by which they can back up any precious data that they may have. These days, one has the choice of doing that via the cloud or via local hardware, or both or neither. (As regards local media, £40 is about the right price for a 500GB “spinning rust” USB hard drive or a 128GB solid state USB stick.)

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Especially around sales times, retailers often do limited special offers, in which a limited number of units are sold at loss leading prices.

In the past, both Tandys and Maplin used to do this and I often suspect that some of the Aldi and Lidl weekly bargains may fit this pattern too.

I think Currys PC World (“CPCW”) have used these techniques for a long time too.

In some ways, their pricing policies mirror those used in the insurance and energy markets, where very low prices are used to attract new customers, after which various means are then used to ratchet up the price.

Anyone who wants to buy a new PC without playing these silly games would be well advised to avoid buying at CPCW.

If you are unsure about your choice of PC you might even take advantage of CPCW, by first visiting their store to “showrooom” the products, before buying your chosen item elsewhere. Arguably though, the costs of folk doing that will be driving up the prices paid by those who are content to purchase on CPCW’s standard tariffs.