Carphone Warehouse Complaints
In the latest in a series of complaints that pre-date this blog, today I’d like to reminisce about Carphone Warehouse, and my efforts to return a phone to them.
Back in 2004 I bought two Sony Erikkson T610 phones from Carphone Warehouse, one for me and for the wife. We both had contracts already so I just bought the handsets, over £100 each.
A couple of days later I noticed that actually my wife was able to get a free upgrade with her contract, D’oh! So she returned the phone to Carphone Warehouse in Newport, South Wales.
This is where things started to go wrong. Carphone Warehouse told her that she couldn’t have a refund. This was somewhat confusing, as they had posters everywhere advertising their 14 day money back guarantee.
When she phoned me in work I was understandably outraged. I phoned the store immediately and was told by the rather rude and confrontational person on the other end that Carphone Warehouse did offer a money back guarantee, but it did not apply to phones…
Excuse me?
They have a money back guarantee at CARPHONE warehouse, and it does NOT apply to PHONES!!!
What the fuck does it apply to then????
Naturally I escalated the issue and contacted their head office, where I was told that actually YES, the money back guarantee does apply to phones. The manager of the store was instructed to call me and offer a full refund.
It meant my wife had to drag my two kids back down to the shop again to get the refund though.
Anyone else dealt with Carphone Warehouse?
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The CPW have employed a bunch of liars in their sales dept. who use strong pressure tactics to prevent you from leaving. Having been a customer of CPW for the last 6 years, i was finally going to get rid of them when my contract ended in March 2008 having been lied to on change of contract terms a few months earlier. But they phoned up at the last minute offering 600 x net mins for £20 which i accepted,but when the bill came they had given me only 200 mins charging me £38.00. when i phoned them up , they denied all knowledge and told me they had set their escalation policy in progress which would take 72 hours for a reply! Folks i have no other choice than stick with this company for 18 months due to the contract, but if u have a chance go to other companies like 3( got my wife one for £15.00 & no worries). these guys are so big that yoy cant even legally challenge them as they lose the telephone records of conversations convieniently.
Last saturday I dropped my phone into a puddle and without insurance or a spare the only option I could see was to buy a PAYG phone that my sim card could go into and use that while I got mine sorted. I looked on CPW website and found that I could get a Motorola L6 for £30 including a £10 PAYG sim on O2, this was ideal as I was going to sell it once mine was sorted. I phone the local branch to check they had the phone, they did so I went in to buy it. The manager got a Samsung phone out and said ‘I thought I would offer you this as it is the last one and I can do it for £20 all in and I will throw in a free car charger its on Orange but the handset is sim free’ I bought it and took it back to work to put my sim in. My saim did not work in the phone neither did my bosses so I went back to the store and asked them to refund it and just sell me the phone that I came in for, the assistantrefunded the phone and got the Motorola out then tried to charge me £20 extra instead of £10, when I asked him why it had gone up £10 he said ‘you cant get that deal with Orange. I said ‘I dont want Orange, just refund the sim and give me the o2 deal on the L6′ the manager who had just finished with a customer said ‘we cant do that as i will lose too much money’ I said ’so I have wasted two hours and I still dont have a phone?’ he just walked off and went into the back office and that was the last i heard from him. So I repeated myself to the assistant who said ‘I dont know why your complianing to me, I didnt sell you the phone’ I said your boss has walked off who else can I complain to? I really dont like your attitude’ his reply was ‘your attitude stinks aswell!’ I was gobsmacked, I dont think I have ever been treated with such a lack of respect. I have complained to CPW and it is being investigated but this will take a week and a half! i will keep you posted
An addition to this tale is that when they refunded the phone I found that the charger was not free or thrown in but charged at £5, the manager did not give me a receipt so he could hide the fact that he had lied! I work in sales and know that this is at best dishonest but probably illegal.