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

trumpton

My friend took a pair of her 5 year olds trainers back to SD this week because the sole had started to detach. The assistant said, "What has he been doing in them?". She said, "Football, riding his bike etc". He said he shouldn't have been doing those activities because those trainers "weren't made for that". She had to ask for the manager to get an exchange.

Lokolo_2

Rainey_LB wrote: »

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!!!

That's an absolute joke, I can't believe that as a customer you were treated like that! I'm a Sales assistant for Wilkinson and the company is very much customer focussed, whether it be a Manager/Supervisor/Sales asst, whoever you ask they will stop their work and give you their full attention! :j

"Its not my job"! - What absolute tosh, if you work in the service industry you are there for the customer, who at the end of the day pays your wages so giving great service is essential to the business!

I personally haven't been into one of Sportsdirect stores, but instead I order online from them, no complaints there at all as I haven't had to put up with the instore "experience" :rotfl:

lynzpower

gemstars wrote: »

I think I'm one of the few people on here who like Sports Direct *don't shoot me*

I know they don't offer refunds on goods which are mispurchased, only on faulty goods which is fair enough.

Their service isn't great but their prices are cheap, it's not exactly the kind of place where I would expect staff to have expert knowledge so I'd rather pay low prices for standard goods rather than high prices to cover the cost of staff training courses etc.

OP- if you like the trainers and they don't have your size could you go to another outlet and look for a bigger size there? I can think of about 15 of these shops within a 5 mile radius of me so if you're near a big city there's probably another Sports Dirct near you.

Gotta agree here.

I paid 10 quid for a pair of Karrimor Hiking boots similar in Blacks/ F&T etc 70 notes upward
I paid 15 for my pair of Adidas Stan Smith trainers, 50 quid upward in JJB
Golfing jacket -8.00 whereas it would have been 50 everywhere else, minimum

Some people just like to moan!

OP bought trainers knowing they didnt fit.
Hes now crying that he hasnt been given a refund when the law doesnt entitle him to one.

I hardly think its appropriate to rage about it, just scratch it to experience and flog them on ebay if you havent worn them.

Personally I think the staff work like trojans, Oxford St branches are usually rammed and the staff are run off their feet, but Ive always been served really quickly, considering.

Reggie_Rebel

If you go into SportsDirect with your eyes open then you should have no problems.

I've never had a problem with anything I've bought from there. I coach a kids football team and I've even had the manager of my local store throw in a couple of items free when I've bought in bulk

fly_dragon_fly

i work for sd and i have to say that we are not monkeys or brainless creatures working there, we are also not chavs like most people think ( i'm only saying that because a few customers have made comments about it) half of us aren't even into sports.

we dont make the rules up and i am sorry that the stores you have gone into dont try and help you more,

i could take it personally but i shall because i know that i am a good sales assistant and if i see someone looking at shoes i will straight away ask if they need help and if they dont to find me if they do at a later time.

it really annoys me though when people walk in thinking they are better than us when all we are doing is a job that we dont really enjoy and although i dont enjoy the company the children and polite adults make the job.

and i'm sorry your til person never said we dont do refunds they always should and myself always remind the customer of this before they buy the shoes so that they know.

Morgan_Ree

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?

I bought a jacket off Sports Direct website. When it arrived it had not 1 but 4 security tags still attached!

Me thinks somebody got a little trigger happy with the securty tagging machine thing (yes it's obvious I have no idea what they are called)

janies_2

Hi, I´d like to share a trouble with sportsdirect.com. They didn´t have a few items and didn´t send the money back at all. I´ve been writing there since April. I´m very very dissapointed because I buy a lot from internet and nothing like this happened to me ever at all!!! :mad::mad::mad:

lynzpower

janies wrote: »

Hi, I´d like to share a trouble with sportsdirect.com. They didn´t have a few items and didn´t send the money back at all. I´ve been writing there since April. I´m very very dissapointed because I buy a lot from internet and nothing like this happened to me ever at all!!! :mad::mad::mad:

Have you reported this to your local trading standards dept?

cannylad_2

cannylad wrote: »

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!

My wife emailed the Customer Services Manager, Mr B Holland at stores.customerservices@sportsdirect.com
We got a nice reply which he said to take the shirt back and the store will exchange it. I took the email with me and they changed it straight away!
Why didnt they do that in the first place?
I'm happy now that I have my England away shirt without any marks on it.

I like the store actually, its full of kids and ignorant staff but some of them are helpful and I suppose thay have to do what they are told. Trouble is even the senior staff are not that old so they treat people unprofessionally. But there are loads of bargains to be had, I just check them over and over again for faults now.
I would love some of them to come into my workplace so I could treat them the same way...unfortunately my company wouldnt allow me to do that as we have high standards.

squidworth

underlay_guru wrote: »

Ahem....Mike Ashley owns SportsDirect! He also owns the Donnay, Kangol, Lonsdale, Slazenger, Dunlop and Karrimor brands, explaining why SportsDiect shops are filled with products from these brands.

If a consumer has bought a product instore, and they have had the opportunity to inspect the goods (instore), the shop has no legal obligation to offer a refund or credit note of any kind, (Although most retailers do it as a goodwill gesture).

Shops which take payment before you receive the goods - such as Argos,are an exeption to this. Because the consumer must pay for the goods before they can physically inspect them, they are entitled to a refund if they are not suitable.


In not offering some sort of refund policy, SportsDirect do not seem to be interested in customer retention and brand loyalty. More fool them. I personally find SportsDirect shops are like walking through Hampton Court Maze - except with Chavvy clothes instead of hedges.

Actually Argos dont have to do it as you can ask to inspect the goods before purchasing, granted most people dont bother and so its easier to offer a refund (although typically its what you would expect anyway)