Your best and worst customer service experiences [rant & praise]

dudara

Seeing as how there isn't a current CI with Harvey Norman, I've merged the thread with the best/worst customer service thread.

OP - I have of stories like this before. When taking out the extended warranty, it's important to understand what it covers. Sometimes, things like monitors aren't covered!

friendface

aveartist wrote: »

I sympathize with anyone who has to deal with Chorus ntl support team they broke my laptop ( very bad tech support) and my heart. I changed to Sky and O2 Broadband, because of problems with chorus t.v and broadband. Was most displeased with broadband but canceled the whole lot because of their bad attitude I unsubscribed via two emails and numerous phone calls they were paid up to date but still it goes on!!!Last month received a bill demanding 100 euro 'in contract' fee as you have to pay for 30 days service that you don't get. Told them on phone that they breached contract first by not supplying a good service and who was going to pay to have my computer fixed not to mention phone charges to tech support @ 2.50 per min!Last week got a lovely threatening letter demanding said money except changed to 105 euro. Phoned them up and spoke to nice lady explained it all AGAIN explained would have my solicitor get involved if letters didn't stop. Today woke up to dept collectors letter phoned them and another nice lady said she will talk to them and try to resolve this whole thing. What a dose !They cant just walk over people like this what about my consumer rights they did not provide a proper service and did not fix problem when asked it,s just not on. I love Sky no probs

I actually had the same problem with NTL last year - poor broadband service and intermittent TV problems. I sent a number of e-mails to Tech support and the issue was never resolved. I was in rented accommodation and left before the NTL contract was up and did not pay the cancellation fee. I was sent a number of letters demanding I paid the 100 euro and was even sent a letter from LMCS, a debt collection agency. I spoke to a customer service rep who acknowledged my continued loyalty up to that point and actually agreed to scratching the 100 euro and issuing me with a refund. I was sent a cheque for about 15euro I would not have received this had I not kept a record of my calls and emails to tech support.

cherryghost

Expedia.ie


1. I needed to change the return date on my flight ticket, and emailed to enquire about the charges. I got a reply and told to phone an Irish phone number. Got relocated to the English support centre.

Asked for the charge to change the date. Was on hold for 10 minutes until the woman realised I ordered my ticket on Expedia.ie, not co.uk. Put me on hold for another 10 minutes. Finally got back to me, until she said she would ring Iberia about my date change and charge.

On hold for a further 20 minutes. She got back to me again, and said she couldnt get an answer, because I bought it off Expedia's .ie site. Was told she would ring back. Still waiting on that call 2 days later. :mad:


2. My mum was enquiring about the extra charge for a deluxe room for a hotel in Italy, they didnt have a clue, said they'd ring up the hotel and ask, and get back to us. They never rang back.

norrie rugger

friendface wrote: »

I purchased a Toshiba Satellite laptop from Harvey Norman (HN) in August 2009. I also purchased a 3yr extended warranty from HN on the same date.

Recently my laptop charger stopped working so I called HN to inquire about getting it replaced under warranty. According to the representative on the phone (and his manager at the Limerick store) my laptop charger would not be covered under Toshiba manufacturer warranty nor would it be covered under HN extended warranty. Instead, he offered to sell me a generic adapter for €80 discounted to €60 since I purchased the laptop from HN in the first place.

Needless to say, I was disappointed with this response so I decided to phone Toshiba directly. I was informed that my charger was indeed covered and, after answering a few basic questions about the nature of the problem, I was told a new charger would be sent out in the post within 3 working days.

I tried calling back HN to explain the situation and to ask why they might be misinforming customers about what their warranty covers. I was left on hold until the line went dead.

While I was less than impressed with Harvey Normans response, I have to say I'm very impressed with the speed and professionalism with which Toshiba dealt with the problem.

I have found Toshiba to be a great company, to deal with

ShayMurphy459

I just switched over to Airticity and the experience was really very very annoying. They advertise a reasonable discount but then you're stuck doing a bunch things that you might not want to do (pay by direct debit, agree to a payment plan, agree to email bills, and it seem to even read your own meter). Just so annoying to not have a choice.

clairebowe

I went here to get a spray tan done and took my wedding ring off (as you do). i left the salon but rang back within minutes as i had forgot to put my ring back on and had left it in the salon. when i rang back the girl said she had it for me. When i went back to the salon to get it later that day , the ring was gone. the girls working there are nice but i couldn't understand if they had it for me earlier that day how could they lose it in the space of a few hours???? the girl said she had left it on the counter for me at reception...didn't even use her common sense to put it in an envelope and she thought it may have fallen on the floor. i was going on holidays the following day and told her to ring or text if she found it....she didn't bother ringing or texting..when i got back from holidays i rang the salon over and over again. most of the time the manager wasnt there to answer my call and never returned it either. When I eventually spoke to her she said 'im sorry it's an awful shame ..about your ring', AS IF I HAD LOST IT. she repeatedly told me she would ring me back but never did. i never got an apology despite ringing so many times and never got my wedding ring back. its not the girls fault that lost it, but the manager who runs the whole place has no common courtesy and no decency. i would advise anyone to give this place a miss. there are a few lovely girls who work here, but the fact that the manager was so rude and disrespectful would turn me off going back here.

TC cork

Just onto Chorus
got info I was looking for ; changed package I am on for better package and arranged a refund. Unbeleievable.

davoxx

<rant>

Bought some reduced ocz ram from dundalk pc world a month ago. Just tested it on Fri and found that they were appearing as 1gb modules marked (with the offical ocz stickers) as 2gb.
Went up to PC world liffey valley on saturday. Was told that I'd need to go to dundalk to get it sorted. I explained that then no one would buy from anywhere else other than thier local shop.
After much dialogue, I was offered a refund. I explained a similar product was ore expensive, i'd like to have it repaired or a similar product replacement. The manager said that they do not repair memory modules, so all they will do is offer a refund.

On a similar note, a friend of mine bought something from a currys that was closing down at 50% off, it developed a fault, he asked liffey valley if they'd replace it, was told no, if they'd repair it, was told no, but that the would refund it.

Is it just me or has the customer service in Liffey Valley pc world and currys turned to cr*p?

on a note of a warning: if you do buy anything from pc world reduced: check it out then and there.


</rant>

dudara

Moved to Best/Worst Customer Service.

dudara

amiable

I don't know about anyone else but i'm fed up with the bad service and unfriendly rude staff in O'Toole's Supervalu in Tuam.
I've had countless bad experiences in there.
I've regularly found the baby food stocked there out of date and they don't seem to do much about it.
Lack of competition in the town doesn't help

Sizzler

For anybody who uses vitmains, specifically solgar I'd highly recommend the above website.

They were recommended to me last year and have been buying various bottles of solgar in the local health shop but came across this site last week and bought 4 bottles and saved around 15% on the local shop. Got an email back confirming the order and a further email within 2 hours saying the order was packaged and posted and I would have them tomorrow (I was like yeah right!). Lo & behold courier delivered them first thing the next morning! Super service, great pricing and they even threw an extra bottle of multivitamins since it was my first order and they also enclosed leaflets on what I had just bought and their benefits.

Highly impressed and thought it worthy of a mention on here

cmcdon

Airtricity customer service are crap.
having loads of problems with them
Can never speak to a manager or complains dept
been waiting since Monday for them to call me back
called them again to day and was left on hold for 10 mins had to hang up and go back to work

Anyone else had problem with Airtricity customer services

gerrycollins

ya loads, got to the stage where I accused them of bully boy tatcits and they got all defensive. im a business customer

my issue is neither of ours fault(its ESB) however in trying to find a happy medium where I can and want to pay them they wont take it weekly(better for me) instead will hit my account with large numbers on day i might have other DD etc hitting and there is only so much going in per day

dudara

Thread merged

dudara

ScouseMouse

I bought a laptop last year in the UK. Never registered the warranty but from the serial number, they knew when it left the factory.

The charger packed up. Ringing the irish helpline got the UK. Explained I had tested it with a spare and confirmed it was knackered. They didnt want it back for testing, they just sent a new one from Germany via UPS.

Nice one Toshiba.

amiable

TC cork wrote: »

Just onto Chorus
got info I was looking for ; changed package I am on for better package and arranged a refund. Unbeleievable.

I've actually had some good experiences with Chorus/NTL lately myself
I wonder have they finally got their act together?

Dinkie

Beds.ie.

Great service. Very efficient. Arrived when they said they would and assembled the bed. They also rang the day before to confirm arrival time, etc. Was very impressed.

echoindi

Dont ever buy garmin sat nav's, when i bought an updated map for mine a lot new roads that should have been on it were not, when I e mailed them about it they said I had been given the correct update, so I gave them a specific road that was'nt on my sat nav they gave me such o load of nonsence, so I bought a years update but in effect it was only six months, its very misleading the way they advertise them, and as for dealing with them through e mail, they are a nightmare.

Lollipops23

Relish restaurant in Bettystown-amazing food, friendly and efficient staff and very reasonably priced.also there's a great play area out the back for the kids, kept them all busy:D

definately reccommend it!

Fiend-Foe

A friend of mine was having some computer trouble, not knowing much about computers she left it into Computer's Unlimited in Phibsboro. They totally took advantage of the fact that she didn't know what she was talking about and charged her €295 for a replacement harddrive, which she didn't need at all.

On my advice she had the system restored to it's original state, with it's original harddrive and managed to get a refund of €205. I was able to get the system up and running with no problems in 45 mins by doing a repair install of Windows XP. The only issues that she had was that she was receiving a low disk space popup, caused by importing her music collection into itunes, this converted all of the music to .m4a and created duplicates, these just had to be deleted. It was a little bit slow and cluttered bit of spyware or something, nothing major, no bother to cleanup.

€295 for a 160GB harddrive is a joke, she didn't ask for an upgrade and didn't need it. She could have bought a brand new netbook with a 160GB HD for €295. Don't trust these guys, they'll take advantage if you don't know what you are doing. I have attached their "report" below...

*********************************************

Ref: Dell Inspiron 1300 Job # XXXXX

Dear XXXXXXX,

We received the above referenced laptop into our repair centre with the following issues

1. The machine may have viruses
2. It’s going very slow
3. It gives an Error about low disk space
4. The battery isn’t great

We carried out a full evaluation in our workshop and found that the laptop needs the following;

1. Replacement Hard Disk Drive for the faulty one in the machine (This was an upgrade from 60GB to a brand new 160GB)
2. We recovered all of your data from the faulty Hard Disk Drive
3. Reload of the operating system and all service packs
4. Installation of all of the drivers, Open Office, Acrobat Reader, Nero, PowerDVD
5. We installed a full 12 month subscription of Norton Anti Virus 2010
6. We set up a new gmail address
7. Full clean up of machine physically including fans and keyboard and drives


The total cost for everything above was €295.00including VAT.

If you need any further clarification or information on this matter please contact the undersigned

Yours Sincerely,

_____________
XXXXX XXXXX
Computers Unlimited

*********************************************

jimmace

From my experience, Letshost.ie is an absolute disgrace. I don't think they could care less about their customers. Complaints and requests are ignored, and if you threaten to move business elsewhere- well the feeling I get is yeah, whatever, so what.Well seeya Letshost I'm off to someone who actually provides customer service:mad:

seanwindle22

Dinkie wrote: »

Beds.ie.

Great service. Very efficient. Arrived when they said they would and assembled the bed. They also rang the day before to confirm arrival time, etc. Was very impressed.

yes have to agree Beds.ie are very good. i bought 2 beds off them 3 years ago and excellent service and a good deal aswell

seanwindle22

Flexirent are terrible to deal with. I bought a laptop last year in HN and 3 months before the end of the term(12 month contract) they agreed on a settlement for me to own the laptop. posted off the money last march , then recieved a call 2 days from a very ignorant rep from flexirent saying i was in arrears by 120.00 . when i questioned it he said he made a mistake but i still have not recieved a reciept for my paymant i made 2 months ago even tho i requested 3 times for one. would put me off buying anything in HN

havetoquit

Anybody else dealing with this telecom and broadband provider having the same issues I wonder? At least four times in succession I called all 4 of this company's help lines for assistance with a broadband issue and what happens? First I hear a 1minute patter about their success, then more patter about joining a competition, then a stupid jingle advertising Wimax and would you believe that this pattern continued without my once speaking to a human individual, being asked to'Please wait as technicians were busy right now' ' Which service do you require' etc. Nothing. This ocurred four times and eventually I had to go though to the parent company Imagine to get help. I dread to think how much money I spent on nothing. On other occasions I have been put though to individuals in other countries whom with respect, I could not understand and who were brusk to the point of rudeness and rushed me. I honestly think it is a disgrace to treat paying customers in this way. What a shoddy, incompetant service. I hasten to add that on the occasions I did gain assistance from an Irish technician, they could not have been more helpful, patient and above all curteous and friendly. I now desperately need experienced advice on which if any provider can offer me a reasonable broadband/landline service with proper customer care and technical support. I had thought of going fully wireless and getting rid of landline, but there are issues which have not yet been eliminated in many areas of this service, so would hesitate until these have been addressed. REGCOM of course do list all the providers and their prices, but that I now know from experience is not near enough to guide a potential customer towards an efficient provider. They say they have to remain impartial and cannot really recommend any individual provider. So who can? Do we not have the equivalent of Which here in Ireland, whereby a service or item is tested on behalf of the buying public and then they are put in order of the best, not the cheapest. If anyone can lead me to expert advice I would be so grateful before I make another huge mistake. I am a disabled person who can ill afford the prices as it is, but without my laptop, my life would be even more difficult. Thank you in anticipation of a response from anyone who can advise or put me in touch with the right person who will put the customer's interests as a priority. I do not wish to be ripped off and left an indefinate time without a connection again.

syklops

Dells International next business day warranty is great. The GPU on my laptop died. Its a well known issue, though one I didnt know when i bought it. I emailed them, they asked me to do some Diagnostics which I did, sent the the results, and they said ok, give us a day to think about it. 2 days later I get a call from a technician asking where will I be at a certain time, I say Ill be in work and give him the address.

I bring my laptop with me and put it in its bag for him to take with him. Only he doesnt take it with him. Instead he comes into the office, uses a spare desk, takes the laptop completely apart, replaces the motherboard and gives it back. It was up and running again in 20 mins.

Great service which was a surprise.

Gerrymanus

NTL have to be up there with the worst. Eircom not great either.

norrie rugger

Smyth's are currently completely ignoring me, in relation to a Playstation 3 issue.

norrie rugger

superscouse wrote: »

I bought a laptop last year in the UK. Never registered the warranty but from the serial number, they knew when it left the factory.

The charger packed up. Ringing the irish helpline got the UK. Explained I had tested it with a spare and confirmed it was knackered. They didnt want it back for testing, they just sent a new one from Germany via UPS.

Nice one Toshiba.

Nothing but good things to say about Toshiba international

havetoquit

In response to my first post on this subject, does anyone out there actually know where we can go to gain experienced advice on which telecomunnications company offers the best all round service? Surely there must be something other than the list provided by COMREG, which as I said does not deal with all round service, but more pricing, speeds and so on. How many companies provide a cheaper landline than Eircom? My landline +VAT is more than the cost of calls. Any advice appreciated. When I lived in Germany there was a company who provided clear concise and expert advice about such matters and it was a huge help. I know it is a competitive market, but there must a way other than trial and error to get decent system with efficient customer care and tech support.

inforfun

6 months ago i ordered a tv box set and only yesterday i found out one of the discs is faulty.
Send them an email this morning asking what can be done as a tv box set (6 seasons) is not something you are able to watch in a day or 2.

Within a couple of hours, no questions asked, a new box set is on its way, free of charge as long as i send back the faulty one within 30 days and then i ll be reimbursed for the shipping costs as well.

I think that is good service.