Sportsdirect - Terrible Service - No cash refund 1 day after purchase

Mankysteve

Pay for what you get.

Crazy_Jamie

First of all, I don't like SportsDirect stores. They are classic examples of stores that give no regard whatsoever to the shopping experience of the buyer. Whether or not that results in staggering profit (I am sure it does), it is also sufficient to put me off buying there except in certain circumstances. That said, there have been positives to my two previous visits (I think I might post another thread about that, actually), so it's not all bad. I just generally do try to avoid the store.

However, I do struggle to find sympathy with the OP, for two reasons. The first is that every shopper has a choice about where to go. There are sports stores that offer better shopping experiences. If you don't like SportsDirect, there are alternatives. The second, and perhaps more poignant, is that the OP explicitly states that the shoes felt tight in the store. Perhaps it's just me, but that suggests right from the off that they are too small. There is nothing compelling a store to take back goods that have been bought in error and provide a refund, so everything about that scenario pointed towards not buying. Live and learn.

disneymadgirl

As a sportsdirect till person, i see people every day wanting their money back and complaining, this is the mild side of things. We are not so called monkeys, we are everyday people who just ask for a bit of respect when serving customers that are in that non refundable situation, we have to agree with the rules and the store policies, That does not mean to say we like them either but a job is a job at the end of the day, and if we did not get so much stock 'taken' without receipts then it would not come to this' so until people can keep their sticky fingers to themselves this is the way it has too be. We also get a lot of verbal abuse from nasty rude customers, and even the odd threatening behaviour towards us that is uncalled for because the next time we are out shopping we will be customers too.

DCFC79

ianianian wrote: »

I went into a branch on Saturday, waited almost 30 minutes for to try on a pair of trainers during which time i had to advice other customers about trainers as the store was seriously understaffed and the staff there were quite frankly useless

why did you help other customers,

chomsky_2

disneymadgirl wrote: »

As a sportsdirect till person, i see people every day wanting their money back and complaining, this is the mild side of things. We are not so called monkeys, we are everyday people who just ask for a bit of respect when serving customers that are in that non refundable situation, we have to agree with the rules and the store policies, That does not mean to say we like them either but a job is a job at the end of the day, and if we did not get so much stock 'taken' without receipts then it would not come to this' so until people can keep their sticky fingers to themselves this is the way it has too be. We also get a lot of verbal abuse from nasty rude customers, and even the odd threatening behaviour towards us that is uncalled for because the next time we are out shopping we will be customers too.

Hiya, i'm sorry about the amount of abuse you get, that must suck . I shop in Sports Direct for cheap sports wear for the gym and have found the staff in the store near me very polite and helpful. Out of interest, to prevent theft why doesn't Sports Direct put security tags on their stock, surely this may discourage thieves?

nomoneytoday

This is what happens when you buy solely on cheap price.
IMHO competing on low prices leaves little margin for full refunds, staff training and development, and other such nice stuff...

lee_cpfc

chomsky wrote: »

Hiya, i'm sorry about the amount of abuse you get, that must suck . I shop in Sports Direct for cheap sports wear for the gym and have found the staff in the store near me very polite and helpful. Out of interest, to prevent theft why doesn't Sports Direct put security tags on their stock, surely this may discourage thieves?

The security tag will only stop your casual shoplifter and sometimes now we are even finding kids ripping tags off of clothing! An "experienced" shoplifter will either carry a foil lined bag (prevents the tags from activating alarms) or have another means of detagging the items they want, (equipment is easily avaliable to buy online), we find knives, wirecutters and even the detaggers stores use on the thieves we do manage to catch, some people even melt the tags off using cigarette lighters.

Shoplifting is getting worse and for the thieves to then be able to return the items to stores and actualy get cash back is a joke.

I predict more and more companies will start goign down the no refund route.

heretolearn_2

'play them at their own game....unpick some of the stitching...claim refund under statutory rights...if they want to behave like [EMAIL="tw@t$....you"]!!!!!!$....you[/EMAIL] might as well do it....'

I find that really appalling. You buy shoes that don't fit you and then deliberately damage then to defraud the shop into giving you a refund? Some people have no morals.

cannylad_2

My wife bought me one of the white England shirts from SD because they were selling at £20.00. When I tried it on I noticed a small brown sport right at the front centre but even though it was small it was easly seen. My wife took it back to the shop at Silverlink North Shields, two sales assistants seemed to gang up on her and my wife said they were handling it with their grubby little hands and then they said it had been washed so they wouldnt exchange it. My wife said that they seemed to have this attitude from the start and that most customers would back down to all the shouting with other customers looking. Anyway we arn't ones for backing down easly so we got the email address of the customer services manager, I will give an update when we hear from him/her.
What annoys me is that I shop in SD quite a lot, of course I won't be again if this isnt sorted out. In my opinion it seems like it is run by a pack of school leavers!

Rainey_LB

You did well to even manage to buy a pair of shoes in there, I had a nightmare in there last week trying to get my DD trainers.

Firstly, to get into the store you had to battle past 'Sale' items which were spilling over onto the floor, we very quickly selected some trainers and then went in search of an assistant, after approaching several who told me they were busy or it was not their job I found somebody who could help although this took some time.

The assistant took the shoe and said he would get the pair to try on and disappeared, we waited by the seating area to try the shoes on as on previous occasions, and we waited, and we waited, finally I went to find the assistant who said 'oh sorry, you need to go down to the seat at the other end of the store by the stock room and try on the shoes we leave them there now', so we walked to the other end of the store, this is a large store and we finally found the trainers waiting at this seating area which was extremely busy.

This is a large store with lots of people wanting to try on shoes, yet they had chosen to use a seating area with only 2 stalls, which were piled with shoes to be tried on and be returned, it was also in a very busy area right by the 'pile high, sell them cheap' area of the store which is always busy - we walked past several empty larger seating areas on the way to the back of the store. My 6 year old daughter had to sit on the dusty floor to try on the trainers, with people pushing past, including staff the whole time.

Unfortunately, the shoes were not a good fit, I asked the member of staff handling the trainers at this location (who seemed to be the supervisor as he was passing orders to other members of staff) if I could try a different size, his response was 'Well you'll just have to wait till the girl comes out of the store room' and he walked off. So I waited, again, I was still waiting when he returned, just as the girl was coming out of the store room, he passed the trainers to the girl who came back quite quickly and said they didn't have the size, which is fair enough. On the display shelf these very common Reebok classic trainers came in various colours and several different but very similar styles, I asked if I could just try any other similar pairs in that size then?

I was told no, I would have to walk all the back down to the front of the store and select the exact style I wanted and bring it back and then join the queue and wait again for the girl to emerge from the store room......in the meantime there were several other members of staff who could not help go and get the display trainer rather than me drag my children up and down the store as they were busy ordering display boxes in size order and they couldn't leave their area, and this was more important than helping a customer.

I then said to my daughter we'll have to get a couple styles that she liked and they could check them, as I did not want to have to walk up and down the very busy shop all afternoon, at this point the assistant said 'no, you must only get one at a time'.

At this point I gave up, I had been in the store for almost 40 minutes and managed to try on one pair of shoes, and had spent the rest of the time trying to find a staff member willing to help me make a purchase.

Will never go there again.......ever!!!