Smyths are tossers

CiDeRmAn

Not people called Smyth in general, but the shop!

A colleague of mine had bought an XboxSlim from Smyths in mid December for the Xmas and by mid January it had stopped working, no warnings, nothing, just, well, just nothing, no response of any kind.
So, she brought it into Smyths and they tested it, said it was banjaxed but refused to return it to MS as there was no receipt.

I got a phonecall then, to see if I could do anything about it, as I have a reputation of being a bit of a gamer in St Itas, where I work.

So, I called Gamestop, chatted to the manager who was very friendly.
I told him the problem and also the fact that all Xbox Slims are still in warranty by their very nature of not being on the market more than 12 months.
I asked him, not to take the console in as that would be too cheeky, but for the support number for MS themselves.
He gave that to me and I dialled MS up.

There was about 1 minute of menus before I was talking to a nice guy there, I explained the issue and within another minute he told me they will take the serial number of the machine then arrange for a courier service to collect the Xbox, at MS' expense, repair it within 14 days and return it to the same address.
They will also reimburse the user with a free month or so of Xbox Live Gold due to the trouble of being without Halo for a fortnight!

So, all good in the end, but given that it was going to cost Smyths nothing in the end, why could they have done the work?
Why could they have shipped it off to MS in the spirit of goodwill?
This would have been done in my days working in Gamesworld!

Anyway, to recap some Smyths staff are tossers, while not all MS policies exist to squeeze you dry of every penny you have!

Danger_dave1

Why because theres no proof of purchase, and they'd have to give you a new one or send it for repair when it cant be proved it was bought in smythsd ?

pdbhp

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

So, I called Gamestop, chatted to the manager who was very friendly.
I told him the problem and also the fact that all Xbox Slims are still in warranty by their very nature of not being on the market more than 12 months.

I'm feeling a lot of love for GameStop:D
Smyths are usually fine to deal with in my experience but if you get some snot nosed little teenager who doesn't understand the returns policy fully thats when you run into problems.

evad_lhorg

thats the most ridiculous argument ever. you had no proof of purchase. why should they take it back? they arent to know if the console has been tampered with or if some muppet has spilled his beer in it which wouldnt be covered under the waranty and if they took it and gave you another and sent it back to microsoft theyd be charged back for it.

Smyths arent tossers here, youre a foolish consumer who doesnt know what theyre on about and over reacting because they couldnt get their way.

pdbhp

evad_lhorg wrote: »

thats the most ridiculous argument ever. you had no proof of purchase. why should they take it back? they arent to know if the console has been tampered with or if some muppet has spilled his beer in it which wouldnt be covered under the waranty and if they took it and gave you another and sent it back to microsoft theyd be charged back for it.

Smyths arent tossers here, youre a foolish consumer who doesnt know what theyre on about and over reacting because they couldnt get their way.

Ouch!!:pac:

calex71

pdbhp wrote: »

Ouch!!:pac:

Lol thats tame compared to the roasting the OP would get over in the Consumer Issues forum

niallon

Exactly what evad said. The only place I would fault Smyths here is if they didn't give you a contact number for Microsoft, as would be standard procedure. No receipt, no dice. doesn't matter that the console is only out a year, if the shop doesn't receive proof that they sold the product then they have no obligation to take the fall for the fault in the product.

chin_grin

Yeah OP you kinda went off on a rant at the wrong people there.

By the by, was this the number you called? I found it within two minutes googling.

http://support.xbox.com/en-ie/pages/call-us.aspx

Phone assistance is available.
Monday-Friday: 09:00-22:00
Saturday: 09:00-20:00
Sunday: 09:00-17:00

Phone numbers

+353 12420758 or 1 800 509 186

thorbarry

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

A colleague of mine had bought an XboxSlim from Smyths in mid December for the Xmas and by mid January it had stopped working, no warnings, nothing, just, well, just nothing, no response of any kind.
So, she brought it into Smyths and they tested it, said it was banjaxed but refused to return it to MS as there was no receipt.

garv123

hightower1

evad_lhorg wrote: »

thats the most ridiculous argument ever. you had no proof of purchase. why should they take it back? they arent to know if the console has been tampered with or if some muppet has spilled his beer in it which wouldnt be covered under the waranty and if they took it and gave you another and sent it back to microsoft theyd be charged back for it.

Smyths arent tossers here, youre a foolish consumer who doesnt know what theyre on about and over reacting because they couldnt get their way.

Pretty much anyone who owns an xbox and even those who dont know of MSs policy on these things... if it breaks under a year, call them , they pick it up, fix it and return it???? Its not up to smyths, what were they going to do call MS for you? MS would need things like gamertag associated with the xbox etc and smyths would have no idea about that.


I am no advocate of smyths by any means but it wasnt their responsibility. Perhaps sign up for a years gold membership to common sense before ranting in future?

axxxo

Im not sure how inventory works in a store or if the person in question still had the box but would they not be able to tell if the xbox had been purchased from the store through the barcode alone?
Is this not scanned into inventory with a barcode scanner?
It may remain in a database for some time!

niallon

axxxo wrote: »

Im not sure how inventory works in a store or if the person in question still had the box but would they not be able to tell if the xbox had been purchased from the store through the barcode alone?
Is this not scanned into inventory with a barcode scanner?
It may remain in a database for some time!

They all have the same barcode, as do the stock carried by HMv, Game etc. Smyths enter the serial number on the receipt, that's the system

the_syco

[sarcasm]
Symths are teh tossars! I bougt xbox360 in Gamego, and Smyths won't fix it, as I don't have receipt. But cos I bougt it in Gamego, I don't have one. Wat can I do?
[/sarcasm]

So, because the users has no proof that they even bought it in Smyths, Smyths are tossers?

Gulliver

Did they pay cash? I rarely use cash had a similar problem in an Electrical shop. They looked up transaction date and were able to see that I had bought the item there.

Otherwise, not much the shop could do, but could they not arrange for MS to collect it at their expense from the store. They would not have to give a replacement - just say we'll call you when the repaired unit comes back. OP's friend would then come away saying how accommodating Smyths were when she had no receipt.

FutureGuy

No receipt = no win. Lesson learned.

I find Smyths to be a good place to go for games. They are completely entitled to refuse a return if you have no receipt. You can post your argument on the Consumer Issues thread, but you are going to get the same answers over there.

Locked.