And had an upsell pushed pretty hard. Initially I thought they were basically saying the machine didn’t have an operating system installed and you needed to pay them to do it…it’s been a long time since I bought a laptop so they almost had me…. On questioning it appeared to just be a backup on a usb stick, for another £30.

a few threads on the net about it. Heads up if you, or any of your family are heading there for a laptop

Odd. I was just reading about this yesterday on Reddit.

Scam Alert: Don’t Buy Your Next Laptop From PCWorld/Curry’s from unitedkingdom

bought a laptop from Currys on saturday and did not have any issues like that .

The person who used to work at Pc world in the reddit comments is pretty revealing.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXDK3x5lAYI[/video]

pcworld’s great. my mum wanted a laptop so we went to pcworld and had a look. no bargains but their laptops are connected to the internet so you can check the price in argos, order one and pop down and pick it up

I’m sure they’ve been doing similar stunts fire a while. I went to buy a laptop for my mum a few years back and the sales man didn’t want to sell me the unit without the Antivirus and support add-on, because what’s going to happen you mum turns out on for first time and gets a virus????

He kept badgering us right up to the till and I almost walked out without it.

I had a terrible time in Currys/PC World just before Christmas.

I was looking at iPod docking stations with my parents for them (ie they were doing the question asking/buying). At one store we asked a shop assistant about the wattage of the speakers on one dock. She was unsure of what was meant by the speaker wattage, which is fair enough, can’t expect people who work in the store to understand every aspect of the products they sell when it is such a range of products. They asked two other members of staff, non of whom understood the question. By the time this had gone on I had wondered outside (no WiFi instore) checked the info about the speakers on my phone and came back in to tell my parents. We asked why the buttons to test the speakers were not working and we were told that ‘they must be switched off’ when asked if they could be turned on, or if I could borrow a lead to plug in my phone we were just told ‘no’.

We then asked about stock levels, a different assistant went to find out, he came quite a while later apologising that he had been dealing with another customer and hadn’t got the information we asked for. We just had to leave as we could not hear the speakers to test them, or even know if they had any in stock.

We then went to another store, hoping for more stock and to be able to hear the speakers. My Dad asked about the power of another docking station, the assistant asked another member of staff who looked under the docking station and quoted the electrical power input of the dock! Again I looked online to get the answer, in the process of doing this I found the same model cheaper in another shop (still went with one of the ones in Currys as I hate showrooming!).

Whilst in the second store trying to hear the speakers to test them, there was a Sonos set up playing music fairly loud. I turned the Sonos off, only for it to start up again, I explained to the Sonos salesman that we were trying to hear some speakers and he turned the Sonos down, we were in full view of him, and whilst still listening to the docking stations he turned the Sonos up again, we had to ask him to turn it down again, this happened two more times.

Usually I do my research online, and if needs be (ie with speakers) have a look in store. Before making an informed purchase. This was the first time I had needed to ask in store for assistance and I was appalled.

If I was someone who was less technically minded I would not have been able to make an informed purchase. In one of the stores I would have been unable to make a purchase at all!

They were also doing that 5 or 6 years ago, except it was £15 for them to do backup/restore discs. Basically, it seemed, you just pay them to go thru the software install, which you can easily do yourself.

This thread not filling me with joy – Off to PC World in Inverness in the morning to pick up cheap laptop and printer for my mother. I would normally order online but it would arrive after I have left and I want to set it up and give her a few lessons so it’ll have to be a store visit.

Will ponder if I’m going to go for the polite&firm, the death stare or the roll around in stinky crap beforehand and act a bit mental approach to speed the inevitable hassle along.

Just walk up to the biggest assistant in there, and punch him in the throat. Let them know you’re the top dog.

Works in prison, so see no reason for not working in PC World.

Can you do some sort of gif to explain it better?

Yes Jamie, but by the sound of it you have a more respectful and reasonable population in prison.

last thing I bought from there was a printer.
the 15yr old saturday job kid was really desperate to sell me the 3 year extended warranty. the price was so extortionate that I could have put that amount of cash in jar, and bought a new printer in 3 years time.
was even almost at the point of giving the kid the amount of his commission in cash just to shut him up.

friend got evicted from one PC world by security, and banned by the manager. for butting in to correct a saleskid that was saying that Linux is a program that runs in windows and you have to have windows.

excellent service from argos for my last laptop. preorder online via wifi as the ferry docked in Newcastle. Collect an hour later. Very easy way to get a UK keyboard when you live outside UK.

I bought a laptop from currys today. I basically said, don’t give me any shite*, I want that one, take me to the counter!

*in an nice way, but it was understood that’s essentially what i ment! 😆

They are so so bad; why would anyone consider getting anything from them? I naively bought a VCR from Currys many years ago and the quality of playback was rubbish. I took it back and they refused to refund/exchange despite the VCR being billed as an HQ player. Eventually after calling their customer complaints dept and being told I was wrong (the customer is always right surely?!) I gave up.

That was in 1999. Never set foot in a Currys store since. Not that there’s a need to really! Same goes for PC world.

On the buying side, they don’t know their products and that is inexcusable.

We bought our first PC from them waaaaaay back in 1998. They were a bit of a joke even then but we saw a good deal in there on a Sony Vaio desktop so decided to go with them. I remember them telling us we needed to buy all these extra bits like a £40 printer cable and £50 mouse because “the one that comes with it isn’t compatible with Windows 98” which was utter BS.

To cut a long a long story short when we got the damn thing home it was faulty and needed returning. Took us about 2 weeks to get a replacement because at first they said that they would only accept returns if we had bought the 3 year extended warranty and that we had to go through Sony if not (despite Sony telling us that warranties had to be enacted through the retailer). Eventually got it sorted but only after a fight.

I remember their instore ‘tech desk’ would charge insane prices to do the most mundane of tasks like install virus software (£50 to you sir). Just like learning how to work on a bike, knowing the ins and outs of a PC will save you big money in the long run.

I got sold a faulty macbook once that when I contacted apple had been previously owned and registered! Straight back to PC world. It was sold as ex display, but not pre owned return with a fault. After much wrangling they agreed on a refund or replacement. I opted for replacement as they nicely offered a brand new one at no extra cost. Get home and open the brown box to find a MacBook Pro!

Guess you didn’t complain about that error 8)

In 1999, the company I worked for issued us with laptops. For some reason I didn’t get a bag with mine and was told to just go to PCWorld and get one, put it on the company account. I went, but they made it so difficult that I got a bit annoyed. Eventually, everything sorted and I was looking at bags trying to find the one I’d seen earlier when i was asked by one of the sales muppets if I needed a hand.
“Yes I do,” picking up the bag I wanted, “this is for work and we need to ensure all our IT equipment is Y2K ready so I’m looking for but don’t see the Y2K compliant badge” (remember the yellow triangle with the “millenium bug” on it). “So can you check to see of this here laptop bag is in fact year 2000 ready”
She took the bag and off she went to ask if, well I don’t don’t know what she went to ask, whether the zip would last beyond 00:01 on 1/1/00 or it would explode or what, because I had to leave

I avoid PC world like the plague after buying a PC from them many moons ago. Their sales people must have special training in how to piss customers off.

I wrestled with my conscience for a while…

Always had great service from them, bought a laptop, and wasn’t gullible enough to be sold something I didn’t need.

Of course bike shops never try and sell you something you don’t need…

A colleague’s parents (pensioners, not the most tech savvy) went there to get a tablet and nearly got pressured/scammed into buying a 24 month mobile data plan because “you need it for the tablet to work wirelessly”.

It sounded like deliberately conflating mobile data and wifi (using the word ‘wireless’ for both) in an attempt to trick two 70-somethings into buying £500 worth of mobile data for an ipad that would only ever be used on their home wifi.

Sadly, you shouldn’t buy computer equipment from these stores unless you know a little about computers, or bring along someone who does.

My mum tried to buy a laptop from a high street store years ago and they tried to sell her loads of other stuff she didn’t need, mostly by talking fast, using terminology she didn’t understand, and using the phrase ‘computer virus’ a lot.

She called me while she was in the shop and I ended up speaking to him…he did the same with me, and argued when I said she didn’t need all the ‘essential’ extra stuff. I ended up buying her a laptop myself online and got it delivered to her house.

It’s a legitimised scam basically.

Bought a hp laptop from them about 6 months ago. On the display between the laptops was a sign saying “free Microsoft office with this computer” but with nothing obvious saying which one. Asked sales assistant and was told that it was indeed the laptop I was looking at. Brilliant I thought, saves a bit of cash. Anyway, got home to find no office on the computer or installation CD, website code etc so pop back in to ask for the software. Was told by the same assistant that the computer I bought didn’t have the free software, it was the one on the other side of the sign…raging. I then asked why I was told otherwise…..in a cocky voice he says “the person you asked must not have known what he was talking about”.
I then said ” funny that, it was you that told me”. I was then accused of lying because he would never have said such a thing. I was a bawhair from punching the little scrote.
luckily I discovered Libre Office which is free and does all the basics I require.
I’ll now buy online rather than use them, at least I can research with real life reviews and not have some assistant lie out their teeth to me.
for the sake of saying sorry and offering a decent discount on the software or God forbid free software they lost a future customer. Probably don’t care!!

I bought my macbook from there. It’s used mostly as a portable device for design & displaying work. I told the salesman I had a licence for adobe CC and he pushed so hard for me to buy one off him. I explained several times work pay for it, it’s sorted. The only reason we went there is I won a £200 voucher to the cost & work footed the rest, however paying on works credit card didn’t deter them from pushing their own Higher Purchase. Once I finally got the product to the till another sales person tried to sell me a bag for it and some screen wipes. The whole process made a simple sale very time consuming.

I don’t think that pushy / dishonest salesmen is a phenomenon unique to PC World. Rather, it’s inherent whenever you have a commission-based sales force who are encouraged, sorry “incentivized” to compete with their colleagues.

Nothing bugs me more than being pounced on by a CanIhelpyousir when I’ve barely taken two steps into a shop. Even when you know what you’re looking for and where it is, it can feel like you’re in a stealth computer game or a logic puzzle involving foxes and chickens as you plot your route to the stand you need whilst avoiding the sales droids on intercept courses.

Upselling has been their business model forever, though. Sell PCs with very little markup to get footfall, then go to town with warranties (which is basically free money), software and suchlike. It’s pretty commonplace, I worked in tech support for Time in the 90s and you could readily tell the customers Sales had seen coming. Mouse mats, boxes of floppy disks to backup all the pre-installed software (imagine that, feeding it like 50 floppies in a sitting), dust covers, “gold” warranties, you name it.

I do like to have fun with extended warranties, though. The sales pitch is essentially “you’ll need a warranty because this thing you’re buying, it’s likely to break.” Oh, well, I don’t think I want to buy it if it’s so unreliable… Almost minutes of fun to be had.

One of those retailers who’s bankruptcy I’d celebrate.
Some of the utter pish I’ve heard in there is legendary.

Nothing bugs me more than being pounced on by a CanIhelpyousir when I’ve barely taken two steps into a shop.

You need to steer clear of Maplin then. Not only more “helpful” than Currys/PCW but, incredibly, even more useless.

mikertroid – Member

On the buying side, they don’t know their products and that is inexcusable.we have this thing called google these days(and indeed singletrackgoogle), it is possible for you to learn for yourself! 😆

only complaint I have about currys is that it took about 20 minutes to get someone to take my money off me, which was ridiculous.

we have this thing called google these days(and indeed singletrackgoogle), it is possible for you to learn for yourself!

So because one can google a product, that absolves a store from being aware of the product they sell?

After speaking to a workmate, who used to work there, it seems the staff are on a weird commission scheme that rewards shifting quantities of warranties/cables/bags etc not the actual value of them! They will give the warranty free just so they can claim an add-on sale.

Jamie – Freeloader!
we have this thing called google these days(and indeed singletrackgoogle), it is possible for you to learn for yourself!
So because one can google a product, that absolves a store from being aware of the product they sell?

No, not particularly, but if someone is trying to sell you something they going to try to upsell you something else, even if they know every aspect of the product, maybe even more so if they are able to bamboozle someone. The consumer should be a bit more(a lot more) savvy is my point. You’ll always be at the mercy of sales people if you are ignorant of what you are buying.

They are a bit variable. I bought my iMac from PCWorld as I wanted to give it a prod first. They were the lowest price, very helpful (set us up a company account so we received a slightly better discount) and didn’t try and upset too much. I’d already decided to pay for the applecare anyway.

Bought a few sets of headphones and stuff in there. Most of the staff have been fine, some are very geeky (which I quite like in an electronics shop) although some clearly are just filling time between village idiot competitions.

We even bought a TV from there and that was a bit of a crap experience with all sorts of extra stuff being offered. But again they were the lowest price we could find and we spent a lot of time looking at different products which is not so easy buying on line.

I’m sure they take advantage of those who come looking for advice but leave with whatever has the highest commission value. Like every similar shop that does the same!

I must scare people, as I’ve bought quite a few items from PCWorld/Currys(after scouring the web for the best deal) and never once have I been offered anything extra other than what I’m buying!

Perhaps I should offer a service to older people to purchase tech kit, I will need to pitch it 20% under the up selling of the store 😉

40 quid HDMI leads are the latest hard sell, or if you buy it at the same time as a device, they can be had for the bargain price of 29.99

There’s nothing scares the salesmen more than a fifty-something year old woman who actually knows quite a bit about computers – me 😀
They may make one attempt at trying to sell me something, but soon shut when I tell them exactly why I don’t need it.

After speaking to a workmate, who used to work there, it seems the staff are on a weird commission scheme that rewards shifting quantities of warranties/cables/bags etc not the actual value of them! They will give the warranty free just so they can claim an add-on sale.

Sounds about right. I got them to knock a bit off a washing machine – £30 or £40 I think – by making extensive use of my unimpressed face and agreeing to take out some sort of cover, at £5 a month, that the manager quite readily pointed out to me had a 14 day cooling off period.

tang – Member

I got sold a faulty macbook once that when I contacted apple had been previously owned and registered! Straight back to PC world. It was sold as ex display, but not pre owned return with a fault. After much wrangling they agreed on a refund or replacement. I opted for replacement as they nicely offered a brand new one at no extra cost. Get home and open the brown box to find a MacBook Pro!

Reminds me of the time I was given a portable Minidisc player for my birthday (remember them!) and opened the box to find a very second hand, battered looking item in the box. I asked for the receipt and took it back to Comet who denied that a repair could have made it into stock, demanded to know why it had taken a few days to return the MD player (weekend away, etc)and accused me of trying to rip the shop off by swapping it with an old MD player I had lying around the house. It took me hours and lots of arguing to get a replacement.