Am I the only person who's items break?

notakid

I love Argos but am constantly returning items as faulty!
In the last six months I have returned a lawnmower which burst into flames!
and a signal box for telly in another room (twice!) First one didn't work second gave up the ghost after 4 months. And I never can find the reciepts! Which is really really embrassing esp when the sales assisent eyes you and says "this item is really old, look at the packaging". When I have returned it the next day after buying. Theres other items too, but reading this thread it seems alot of stuff is returned so its not just me being hamfisted! But the next time I buy something I will staple the reciept to my arm.

Johntea

notakid wrote:

I love Argos but am constantly returning items as faulty!
In the last six months I have returned a lawnmower which burst into flames!
and a signal box for telly in another room (twice!) First one didn't work second gave up the ghost after 4 months. And I never can find the reciepts! Which is really really embrassing esp when the sales assisent eyes you and says "this item is really old, look at the packaging". When I have returned it the next day after buying. Theres other items too, but reading this thread it seems alot of stuff is returned so its not just me being hamfisted! But the next time I buy something I will staple the reciept to my arm.

Why don't you put the receipts inside the packaging?

Tell the sales assistant to look at the state of some of the goods in the stockroom and dare them to say that to you again

Lorian

I too have found quality to be less than desirable on a number of occasions.

The last straw that made Argos a no-go zone for me was the purchase of a thermos flask. Took it home, opened it and found that the packaging looked "previously opened", and the flask base had an impact mark and large crack.

I took it back the next day and got 20 questions as if they thought I'd been out to the shed and taken a hammer to it the previous night. Eventually they begrudging refunded, after trying the "we'll give you a giftcard" line.

Stockie

notakid wrote:

I love Argos but am constantly returning items as faulty!
In the last six months I have returned a lawnmower which burst into flames!
and a signal box for telly in another room (twice!) First one didn't work second gave up the ghost after 4 months. .

I hope they filled out a Hazardous product form! What brand lawnmower was it out of interest as I know there were some problems with Landxcape last year and the whole lot went back.

As for the signal boxes (i guess you mean freeview) bear in mind there's only about 73% uk coverage and that's including weak signal areas. IMO freeview is a bit of a half-assed attempt at digital tv. All it is really in the old ONdigtial/ITV digital service with a bunch of plasters holding it together. There’s virtually no bandwidth to use until they switch off analogue, the picture even in my strong signal area will be effected by the weather and passing traffic, the equipment is all poorly designed with buggy interfaces and all this talk of HD TV... if your on freeview wait until 2008 minimum. Personally if you want digital go for Freesat from SKY it's more expensive to set up but leaves lot's of options open...but that's just my two cents.

Your not the only one who's products break but we live in a culture of "lowest price" and "bargin fever" not "best quality product" (not just in Argos) and there's more to come as the supermarkets move into more ranges.

Stockie

notakid

Hi Stockie,
It was a JCB lawnmover bright yellow I think i have seen them advertised in Homebase this year for 40 quid.
The box was one of those you can watch sky on another TV remote type thingys. Sorry I wasn't clear first time! But its interesting what you say about the freeview boxes, I'm with SKY.

executiverocker

all the JCB ones got recalled if i remember, wasnt it some "revolutionary" new design....and it was pants

pavlovs_dog

the rows we had last summer with people who were trying to bring back petrol lawn mowers when they hadnt bothered to even consider cleaning the tank was unbelievable :mad:

executiverocker

i hate that, one guy even just took it outside and dumped petrol in the street....

mhendo

executiverocker wrote:

i hate that, one guy even just took it outside and dumped petrol in the street....

You think thats bad, I had working in a shopping centre branch and someone had deceided to dump petrol down the centres toliet!!! unbelievable

executiverocker

hahahaha class!

aj2001

Like there is saying there is no smoke without a fire so it goes both ways, All I say is Be firm and polite and NEVER shout or DEMAND from customer service people they can only do upto a limit, to get a idea watch the airport programmes on Itv etc.