Computer Problems - Page 3
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Introduction |
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| 3rd E-mail
8 June Thank you for the cheque which I received yesterday, 6 weeks after you said that you would send it out within a few days. Not Impressed. I have already donated the amount to charity cos I didn't want it... I just didn't want you to have it either. With regard to the free repair... please read the correspondence before, I wasn't asking for a free repair, I was pointing out that the "free repair" you (yes, you, the xxxxx Group) had carried out was a total botch-up and had downgraded my computer from the model I had paid for. As you suggest, I AM contacting the repairer... but I cannot get any sense out of you at all can I? No!! Get the point? I waited two weeks for a reply, and you haven't even read the letter properly...GET THE FINGER OUT!!! - there can you read that? I'll try once more and keep this simple. You said I could fit a CD Writer I can't Your advice was wrong I was misled. This is an offence under the Sale of Goods Act Please reply to that bit. Then the computer broke - an intermittent video fault. Your man came and fixed it when he left it, it wouldn't boot at all I had to fix it myself then I discovered that he had installed the new motherboard wrong my 333MHz computer was running at 200 MHz I could have bought a 200 MHz computer for 1/2 the price You say I was entitled to a free repair. But it wasn't repaired You owe me compensation for the botch-up you made. Got that? Is that clear enough? Read it again if it's too hard... but please reply to the letter i send rather than what you wish i had said. Please also reply a bit quicker this time... I am going to start visiting shops soon... loudly.... Yours exasperatedly (I know it's not in the dictionary, but it's how I feel)
You can probably tell that I was getting a bit miffed by this time, but I thought that would illicit a reasoned response. I did, however, make sure that I knew that they were reading the stuff, by requesting a "read receipt" for the mail. It was read the next day. How wrong I was. I heard nothing at all. So I sent them this, 3 weeks later: |
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| The 4th E-mail
25 June When do you propose to reply to this mail below, if ever? I do not understand how you lot have the audacity to call yourselves "customer services" when you have no interest whatsoever in your customers (It comes after consumer in the dictionary, but before xxxxxx (Insert company name here!)... a priority which you have cunningly reversed in your corporate mission statement) Perhaps the staff in your shops will listen, especially if i make enough noise in front of other customers, eh? Apologies for the big print but you never seem to read the small stuff... Neither do most of your customers I'll bet, much to their subsequent chagrin when you wriggle out of your obligations by the simple mechanism of not bothering to reply at all. Pathetic... for a company such as yours to be so completely morally bankrupt is indeed very sad... Two days later, I got the most patronising reply yet! Another attempted fob-off... Again, I can't summarise it sensibly so here it is in fool (deliberate spelling error!) "Thank you for your correspondence. I sincerely apologise for the unfortunate string of events which lead you to write this e-mail. I hope that my reply will go some way towards re-addressing the situation. I will try to answer your queries in the sequence you addressed them. If you could kindly provide me with details of your computer I will do my best to investigate why you were told that a CD-Writer could be installed when it cannot. I can only apologise on behalf of xxxxxxxxxx for the mess made in repairing your computer. I at least hope that the fault with the video has now been resolved. In closing I thank you for taking the trouble to write to us. We welcome the chance to take positive steps to ensure that an incident such as this does not happen again." They seriously thought I would be happy with that? Oh dear dear no... They got this: |
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| The 5th E-mail
1 July I refer to the correspondence below. 1. The computer is a Compaq (blah blah blah)sold to me by your store in xxxxxxxx in February 1999. It says on the front "Open Bay for adding a drive" (your sales sticker is still stuck on) - I specifically asked "can I use that for a CD Writer?" "Oh yes, no problem... slots straight in". It doesn't - I found out later (to my cost) that the power pack is in the way. Your man was wrong. I was misled. Perhaps inadvertently, but I was misled. It is no defence under the Sale of Goods Act to say that you didn't know you were wrong - if you don't know you should say "I don't know" - any other answer implies that you do know and the customer is entitled to act on that knowledge. I am far from happy about this because I have had to buy an external CD Writer and they are (a) more expensive and (b) not as fast / reliable / convenient. 2. Thank you for your apology, but that's simply not good enough is it? I trusted your company to fix my computer, and you made a hash of it. When I phoned at the time to ask about other aspects of the repair I was told "It'll be OK he's one of our best engineers" - all I can say is I never want to encounter the worst - toolbox full of different sized hammers i expect. No, apology appreciated but not enough... your man ineptly downgraded my computer from the spec I paid for and I am not at all happy about that either. 3 Exactly what positive steps are you taking to ensure that this doesn't happen again? None, I'll bet - you simply hope that most customers will give up when faced by the wall of apathy you demonstrate so admirably. Not this time boys... So your apology is appreciated, but isn't enough - I want some form of compensation for the anguish your company has put me through, for the misleading advice at the time of sale, and for the incompetent repair carried out subsequently. Finally, I wrote to you on 29 April setting out the problem with the repair, and particularly thanking the manager and staff of my local xxxxxx branch for their help, which far exceeded anything I have received from you lot. I asked you to pass on my thanks to them. You didn't even bother to to that - I asked them a week or so ago. Not only is your company absolutely inept at dealing with customers, you can't even pass on praise to your staff where it is due - you deserve to fail, you have grown too big to care - about customers, or about your own staff. Words rarely fail me but I can think of none expressive enough to demonstrate the complete frustration, disgust and contempt I feel for the xxxxx Group as a whole, and for the so-called "Customer Services" department in particular. You have completely messed up my purchase and subsequent repair, through bad advice and incompetence. Your customer services have given me the run-around for months, either by not responding at all or by responding to the wrong questions - questions I hadn't even asked. You owe me compensation for all this and you completely fail to see why. That is the most disturbing fact of all. But I am not giving up. I was misled, your salesman advised me wrongly and I am going to pursue compensation for that. The "repair" devalued my computer and I am going to pursue that too. Your tactic of ignoring correspondence does not make the complaint go away - not this time... Remember I said I thought the last reply was bad? The reply to this took a week and said "Sorry we've not been in touch but our e-mail system is broken. I understand that you have had your situation resolved by other means but if you still want to carry on then please phone Customer Services on 0870......." By this time I am starting to wonder if my e-mails are being transmitted through a server in Belgium and being inadvertently translated into Walloon (It's a language!) before this lot see them... Can't they read? 
 to continue to read the next bit of the story.... to go back to the "Favourite Letters" page |
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So far... this lot have managed to give me duff advice when I bought this computer, and then break it when they tried to fix it.