Power City Repair Issue

baz909

(apologies in advance for this long rant)

Hi All,

just back from Power City.

Saturday morning left my 32" Beko into Power City Tallaght for repair.
1st problem, apparently they only accept cash as a deposit when booking them in, news to me as its not written on any signs about the store it was only said to me after the customer service rep booked in into their system.

So I had to go to the nearest ATM and come back to the shop to pay the deposit (which was €40).

This evening I got a txt in work from Power City stating that my "repair" was ready for collection. So I called in after work to pay the balance and collect my tv.

Again, went to the customer service rep, gave him my receipt, he looked it up on their computer system and told me to go to the tills to pay for it.
The guy on the tills (who actually took the booking on Saturday) looked up my repair, rang up the balance to be paid (€55) and then when I produced my debit card he said "they can only accept cash payments for repairs"

I asked him where does it tell me this on the receipt/deposit I gave on Saturday, because it doesnt, nor did anyone tell me that I had to pay cash when collecting a repair.

I asked to speak with a manager, who came over to me straight away, I advised him, I wanted to pay for the repair with a debit card, he said they can only take cash as they "fix up the repair guy at the end of the day"

I said that whoever Power City hire for their repairs is their own business, I just want to pay for my repaired tv and go home, I asked him why no one told me that I had to pay with cash, he didnt have an answer, I asked why do they only accept cash for repairs, he said that its "store policy"

I have bought a number of electronic goods from Power City over the years and its all linked together on their system, which I could see when they took the booking.

What is going on here?
They took my tv, repaired it, I return to pay for it and they wont accept my payment and it must only be cash.

I am going to make a formal compalint to their head office.

Is there anything else I should do, I not out to get anything for them.

cheers

Baz

Zab

I don't think they have to accept credit/debit cards for anything I'm afraid. They are not legal tender so it's up to them whether to accept them or not for a debt already incurred. They could certainly have told you earlier that they weren't going to accept card payment though, it was poor form not to.

I also have no idea why you would go to Power City for a repair that they aren't doing for free.

alexmcred

A quick threat to call to revenue or Dept. of Trade and Enterprise and to tell them about "fixing" up the repair guy at the end of the day would see them become very helpful I'd say.

The reason they want cash is so they don't have a record of it going through their books.

foggy_lad

What was the issue with the tv? Was it customer damage or something that may have been covered by your statutory rights?

And +1 to contacting the revenue commissioners about their cash only arrangement with the repair guy.

baz909

tv was out of warranty....

rang beko who said id have to bring the tv to them for repair

so power city seem like the logical choice

agree with the previous poster ill get onto revenue tomorrow.

as i said to the manager "whatever your arrangement with the repair guy is your own business" i just wanted to pay for the repair with my visa debit card and they refused poibt blankly to me.

he akso said i should have know to bring cash as id given a deposit in cash, but i said your assuming i know your store policy, which i dont, sure they dont have any sigbs up or have printed on any of the receipts they gave me that all repairs must be paid for in cash!

if thry use their computerised tills to book the repair and accrpt my cash paynent then i dont see why they couldnt accept my debit card for payment.

BnB

IMO you're making a mountain out of a mole hill. Fair enough it is a bit inconvienient for you to have to get cash for it, but was it really that much out of your way....?

So much so that you feel the need to contact revenue to try and get them and/or their repair guy in trouble....?

Strange policy...? Yes
Poor policy....? Yes
Worth losing sleep over....? Certainly not.

Just my opinion

jahalpin

alexmcred wrote: »

A quick threat to call to revenue or Dept. of Trade and Enterprise and to tell them about "fixing" up the repair guy at the end of the day would see them become very helpful I'd say.

The reason they want cash is so they don't have a record of it going through their books.

The transaction went through the till, so obviously they keep a record of the transaction

As other posters have said, a debit card is not legal tender and they are under no obligation to accept it for payment.

BnB

I told the OP last night (a few posts above) that he should just forget about it and move on.

Then I went to bed.... and I just could not stop thinking about it myself.

I still do think that calling the Revenue is pointless....

But what is really bugging me is, why do Power City have this policy. It doesn't make any sense.

Firstly, I don't think it is anything to do with pulling a fast one on Revenue. As jahalpin said above, if they rang it into the till and issued you a receipt, then it is almost definately going through their system. For them to remove it from their system, they would have to be going through the tills afterwards, removing transactions, this would leaves gaps in their receipt numbers, it would be a complete and utter mess for very very little gain to Power City. It is the kind of thing that a small sole trader might do (and it would still be serious messing and highly unreccomended at that), but I would be stunned if a company like Power City were doing it.

Why did the manager make that comment to you.... I don't know. Maybe it is just what he has been told to say.

It is believeable that they have a repair guy in 1 or 2 days a week that they just pay him a bit of cash in hand and they write it off as misc expenses. But they can just use any cash for that. It doesn't mean that repairs have to be paid for in cash. They could just as easily use the €200 that the fella before you paid for a hoover.

So why the hell do Power City have that policy...? When they have the setup there to take the cards for other transactions. They must have a very definate reason for it. They must know that it is going to annoy some customers. If I was going to a big shop like power city to pay for repairs, it wouldn't even enter my mind for a second that they mightn't take Credit / Debit cards.

The only thing that I can think of (and I am really grasping at straws here) is that Electricial Repairs can be very messy. In that, you get something repaired, it breaks again 2 weeks later and you are not happy. It may or may not be related to the first issue, but either way, you're going to go storming back to Power City with your TV. If you don't get satisfaction from them, are you going to go to your Credit Card company and try and get the money back that way ? And Power City are left stuck, even though they feel they were in the right.

I really am grasping at straws

Zab

% on the credit cards? It's possible that they don't even really want to do any repairs anyway and are trying to somewhat poison their own business without completely pulling it. As I said in my first post, it wouldn't have occurred to me to get something fixed in Power City so this is probably just extra work for the guys they have on warranty repair duty. Certainly they don't seem to push the service.

The Revenue obviously won't help OP's immediate situation and to be honest there's no proof of any wrongdoing here as cash doesn't necessarily equate to tax dodging.

foggy_lad

the warrenty is nothing to do with your statutory rights which could afford you up to six years protection from faults with any item you purchase, was the tv reasonably durable and fit for purpose given the fault that was found?

you should have a read of this thread http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056087943

baz909

Morning .. thanks for the repsonse to this thread.

the tv had a faulty power unit, basically the display would take a couple of minutes to "turn on", you would have sound but no picture and have to turn off and turn on again.

I collected my repaired tv last night ... with my 55euro cash as instructed on Tuesday.

I asked 3 power city sales reps yesterday "why do you only accept cash for repairs" and they all had the same answer "dunno"
they said there was no option on the tills to put through any credit card payment.

I'm a bit on the fence about reporting them to Revenue ... but i'm putting together a formal letter of complaint to Power City Head Office, so will let everyone know the out come of that...

@foggy lad ... thanks for the links ...
funnily enough I had a problem with currys a few years ago, bought an ex-display managers special, got the tv home only to notice the screen was faulty, after about an hour's usage the screen would turn 'blue' and would not display any image correctly... brought it back to the shop and had to show the manager the fault before he was willing to give me a full cash refund.

coylemj

baz909 wrote: »

funnily enough I had a problem with currys a few years ago, bought an ex-display managers special, got the tv home only to notice the screen was faulty, after about an hour's usage the screen would turn 'blue' and would not display any image correctly... brought it back to the shop and had to show the manager the fault before he was willing to give me a full cash refund.

Don't see what point you're making, if I ran a store and someone came back with a high value item claiming it was faulty I'd need to get that fact verified before I gave a full refund. Otherwise a person goes into a shop, buys a TV, goes home only to discover that the wife has bought an equally high-value item, they can't afford both on the credit card. Solution: go back to the TV shop (UK chain so who cares?), make a spurious claim about a fault and get a full refund, I'm sure people try it on all the time, hence the store's policy.

foggy_lad

baz909 wrote: »

Morning .. thanks for the repsonse to this thread.

the tv had a faulty power unit, basically the display would take a couple of minutes to "turn on", you would have sound but no picture and have to turn off and turn on again.

I collected my repaired tv last night ... with my 55euro cash as instructed on Tuesday.

I asked 3 power city sales reps yesterday "why do you only accept cash for repairs" and they all had the same answer "dunno"
they said there was no option on the tills to put through any credit card payment.

I'm a bit on the fence about reporting them to Revenue ... but i'm putting together a formal letter of complaint to Power City Head Office, so will let everyone know the out come of that...

@foggy lad ... thanks for the links ...
funnily enough I had a problem with currys a few years ago, bought an ex-display managers special, got the tv home only to notice the screen was faulty, after about an hour's usage the screen would turn 'blue' and would not display any image correctly... brought it back to the shop and had to show the manager the fault before he was willing to give me a full cash refund.

you probably should not have had to pay anything for the repair depending on the age of the tv and if it was damaged by yourselves. and the story about not being able to process credit card payments seems very suspect, are they saying they dont accept any credit or debit card payments?

Kensington

foggy_lad wrote: »

the story about not being able to process credit card payments seems very suspect, are they saying they dont accept any credit or debit card payments?

There are fees associated with card transactions. Presumably Powercity don't want to take a hit on a transaction for which they will receive no monetary gain and therefore only accept cash (which they will already have arrangements in place to cover).

Claondalkin 10

Nothing I have bought in Powercity has been worth it... the are rude to deal with if u have any issue and in the one in Fonthill when I returned a cracked hob (after their assessor had come out and said it was faulty) the "manager" or so he called himself call me "little girl" and refused to give me a replacement .. only after refusing to leave the shop, the treath of calling the Gardai being called and demanding the number of Beko ireland and speaking to a manager there did they finally replace it ...

frank Mccarney

Anyone having problems getting repair man to call? promises but no action/