The little lies that the man in the shop tells you!

[growingthings]

I don't know why but I wanted to share this with someone so who better than you guys!

Yesterday I bit the bullet and blew some hard earned savings on a new macbook (this is about how I felt when handing over the cash lol!), I've been struggling with a PC for a while since my original Bondi blue imac breathed its last breath a while ago, and as I am soon about to go back to work, I need a machine that is appropriate (I'm an artist who supports learning disabled artists).

While in the shop I ask the chap if they do hard drive recovery as I want to get some baby pics etc off my old computer. Another chap pipes in is it a bondi blue? yes I reply, Oh! I've been after one of those for ages for a computer I'm building...unfortunately to get the hard drive out you have to crack the shell and ruin the computer to get it out ...

Last night I did a bit of research and guess what?...a load of tosh that is, I have found step by step photographic instructions on how to remove the hard drive without even damaging the computer.!

It's besides the point that the screen is knackered so matey boy couldn't have built his computer with it anyway as you can't replace them. but its the fact that he was telling me an out and out lie, just so as he could get his hands on my old design classic.

I don't know whether to be angry with him, or admire the mans cheek! I think the fact that I am a bird put him off the scent that I am actually quite handy and want to do things for myself before I pay someone £29.99 to do it for me.

So anyone else discovered that somebody was trying to pull a fast one on them? I don't go 'shopping' very often and this is the first new thing that I have bought in about 5 years lol! So is it more commonplace than I realise?

Lorna x

[Annpan]

Where was that?

I thought it was pretty standard to be able to take out and replace hard-drives.... plus he could still have had the shell if he gave you your hard drive...but as you say the screen is the bit that is the most difficult/ pricey/ impossible bit to replace anyway.

<--- knows very little about puters...



Gach... stupid people in crap shops will always tell stupid lies... however if it was a decent shop (ie. an apple store) I would complain to the manager.

[growingthings]

It was a crap shop PC world I'm afraid, but they offered the best interest free option, as even though I could have paid outright, we have other things to spend money on like building the new extension, so there you go really.

I wouldn't even have minded giving him the damn thing if he had asked for it, but why tell a porky I think that as my husband is always at pains to point out, I am always surprised at people when they do something like this, something about being one of lifes little innocents lol! Or maybe I'm just married to an old cynic!!

Lorna x

ps. loving the new avatar AnnPan

[Odsox]

PCW is a weird place to shop.
OH's computer died last week and coincidentally there was a flyer in the newspaper for a complete system, tower and 19" widescreen monitor at PC World.
We went to the shop last Saturday and there was the computer on display, but no mention of the monitor being part of the package, in fact the sales assistant insisted that the monitor was an extra €100. Luckily we took the flyer with us and they had to climb down and honour the advertised price and package.
They only have 6 shops in Ireland, you would think that it would be easy to synchronise there prices, or am I being cynical too.

[Green Aura]

We had terrible problems with PCW a few years ago. OH required some more memory (on his PC I'm sure ).

It was a bank holiday but of course he couldn't wait so off we trotted.

He bought a 60Gb hard drive, we got home and he installed it - only to find it was a 1.6Gb hard drive, made by a different company. You could actually see the label had been stuck over another one.

We took it back with all wrapping and got accused, in front of a shop full of people of trying to defraud them. I got very upset but OH was fantastic. We took it home and he started his quest.

Anyway after much research we found it was quite a common problem, one example was a bloke who bought a new laptop. On getting it home he discovered someone else's bank details stored on the hard drive. The general consensus was that Di(cks)ons Group have a policy of not replacing or refunding and we stood no chance. They basically deny everything.

He hit them from several fronts - Trading Standards, threat of Small Claims Court, OHs business cancelled their sizeable and regular order. Nothing seemed to be working until OH had a brainwave. He contacted the manufacturer and asked for the tracking number and route for the item and the next day we got a call from the branch manager to take it in for a replacement.

[Annpan]

Please don't think I am getting at you for going with the cheapest offer

My point, sort of, is that with these big cheapo shops, the staff are so poorly qualified and trained (most of the time) that you expect them to be talking a load of crap. Where as, in somewhere like the apple store (of which there are only a few) you certainly expect them to be better trained and qualified (that is why you pay a premium to buy from these stores)

Another point to make is don't expect weekend staff to be well trained, often their shift patterns won't allow for extensive training or time to get used to the product range (that is the same with all 'high street' stores) IME it is always better to shop on a Tuesday morning or something like that.


ETA: Post Clash

[herbalholly]

Argh that's so annoying. Did you go back and have a shout? I'd be tempted to. What if you hadn't known or hadn't gone elsewhere to check it out? I find that sort of thing really annoying. A similar thing happened to me about my bike.

I had been doing a community herb walk and had left my bike locked up, when I got back to it abut 2 hours later someone had tried to have the wheels, but had failed. They had however bent the back wheel in trying to get it off. (only a little bit - I rode it to the bike shop and it is seemed sort of ok)

I took it to the local bike shop to see if they could fix it/true it and they said they could but they couldn't do it for 2 weeks. They told me that if I needed it sooner what they'd do is replace it like for like and get rid of the old one for me. The new wheel was to cost £40 because the bent one was only a cheapy and he said he'd be kind enough to dispose of the old one for me for nothing.

I said ok and left it with him and went down the road. At that point my bike-knowing friend called me by chance and I told him what had happened. He yelled down the phone at me explaining that my wheel is worth about £150 and that I should get back to it before the sneaky git in the bike shop sold it.

I was hopping mad with the bike shop guy. So cross I could barely speak. He looked really ashamed of himself.

Grrrr! So yeah...(sorry about the rant) sneaky little shop men!

[growingthings]

I was there on a Thursday does the weekend start early at pcw maybe?! lol

[mrsflibble]

my friend Phil and I used to enjoy "salesman baiting" in PCW. you go in, and ask stupid questions about technological items and try to trip them up; simple things like (at the time; this is going back a bit) asking if I eeded a new computer 'cos I wanted to write HTML and I only had a windows 98 laptop, and asking if they had any 56kilobyte modems............ seeing if they'd pick up on it, correct me (or phil) and say "well actually, it's kiloBIT".


none of them ever did and the first one wanted to flog me a new laptop when all i needed was a book and to use Notepad.


I disliked it when we bought a "refurbished" washing machine for quite a bit of money, and 12 months later found out it can't have been refurbished 'cos during the refurb surely they'd have had the filters out? there was stuff in there neither of us recognised....

[wulf]

To be fair to PC World, it puts a lot of computing kit at generally reasonable prices into a network of stores that many of us can easily visit. I've bought a bit of stuff in there over the years - one of the reasons is that they have been okay about taking back a couple of bits that didn't work with my existing set up. However, it does help that I've been working in IT for a long time now (although my time as a hardware technician are long behind me and I'm not particularly up to date on modern gear).

That means I can use the service they offer without being taken for a ride. I think some of their staff are decent but I have sometimes seen them answering questions by reading off the card displayed next to a machine and I don't doubt that there are some cowboys like the ones described above. Despite being a national business, it still comes down to whether the people staffing your local shop are helpful, knowledgeable and trustworthy.

Wulf

[Russian Doll]

omg hun if you still have this computer and you wouldnt mind after you have got your hard drive out..is there any chance i could have the c d drive...we bought one from a car boot for the kids but the cd drive is shot and we cant find one anywhere...i can apy postage and throw seeds etc in the mix

[ADG]

well going back to the title in the beginning, heres a common lie I told in my younger days normally just after they said yes

"Yeah yeah of course I luv ya."