Kiss your money goodbye with Maplin!

slobaphysio

What I wanted to say that Maplin has very poor customer care, and that is particularly related to their return and refund policy.
They would not refund the product that I just opened by mistake.They considered it as 'used' even knowing that it was brand new.They would not give me either a voucher to spend in their shops.
Every normal shop in UK would accept the product back if it is new and in original packaging,but not maplin and that what annoyed me and many customers that posted similar views on many web pages.
I will not bankrupt with my £25 loss,and I sent the product back simply to express my protest.Hope Maplin will get message and hopefully(one day soon)change 'no friendly 'attitude within their return and refund policy

Mankysteve

fozmcfc wrote: »

Only ordered once from Maplin, I ordered a power supply unit for my PC and they sent me a pair of headphones.

I rung them up and while explaining on the phone the mistake, I could tell they were laughing at me, not just by their voice but I could tell as they kept on muting the phone so they could hear me, but I couldn't hear them.

Anyway, I had no trouble in sending it back and I must admit even after I came off the phone, I could see the funny side of having someone ringing up saying I ordered a power supply and got sent a pair of headphones.

OP, I'm sure you could get a credit note and put it towards the AV equipment you really want.

I must admit I would have laughed as well.

I've used them for years there not the cheapest but the only place on the high street I can buy electrical components. Some of eh staff know naff all about what there selling, but most places
are like that, but never had any reason to grumble.

One something been opened item become either unsellable or they have to discount to get rid. Would you pay full price for soemthing that's been opened.

There plenty of places that wont accept stuff back once it been opened B&Q for instance won't accept paint back that been opened(faulty aside)

Cd DVD and games are never accepted back once there opened.

lizimuffin

Have to say, although I don't use Maplins a lot, when I have had something and it's not been suitable I've never had a problem returning and getting a refund.

DCFC79

slobaphysio wrote: »

What I wanted to say that Maplin has very poor customer care, and that is particularly related to their return and refund policy.
They would not refund the product that I just opened by mistake.They considered it as 'used' even knowing that it was brand new.They would not give me either a voucher to spend in their shops.
Every normal shop in UK would accept the product back if it is new and in original packaging,but not maplin and that what annoyed me and many customers that posted similar views on many web pages.
I will not bankrupt with my £25 loss,and I sent the product back simply to express my protest.Hope Maplin will get message and hopefully(one day soon)change 'no friendly 'attitude within their return and refund policy

well i dont think maplin will change the policy based on 1 person beung unhappy

not every shop will acept something back if you have changed your mind, eg pc world wont accpet stuff back if its not faulty and if its been opened

narins

slobaphysio wrote: »

I am one of many thousands customers that is disgusted with Maplins return and refund policy.I simply do not know why Trading Standards Authority still let this company to operate in UK with such poor customer care.
I bought an A/V sender, brought it home,opened it and closed it as I realised that it was not the right one.
Every normal store would return your product if it as new and in original packaging and not used.
Well that is not the case with this company.YOU CAN DEFINATELLY KISS YOUR MONEY GOODBYE!
Luckily I lost only £25.This was goo lesson to me as I was to purchase a satellite system from the same store.They will never see me again there in my life.

I had to return a usb scanner today it would not scan documents properly i went there told them the fault and they issued me with a refund.

But if i changed my mind about a product or it was the wrong one i had chosen i believe they would not issue refunds.

i find maplin pretty good apart from some of their products tend to break down. branded stuff if find from maplins however cheaper imported stuff like the things they get from japan just seems to play up something rotten.

wealdroam

DCFC79 wrote: »

well i dont think maplin will change the policy based on 1 person being unhappy.

One person being unhappy?

OP tells us he is just one of many thousands...

slobaphysio wrote: »

I am one of many thousands customers that is disgusted with Maplins return and refund policy.

DCFC79

wealdroam wrote: »

One person being unhappy?

OP tells us he is just one of many thousands...

it was mentioned i think on page 1 and another poster said they had searched for unhappy maplin customers and this thread popped up

d123

slobaphysio wrote: »

Every normal shop in UK would accept the product back if it is new and in original packaging

This is totally wrong, I would say that a large proportion of shops will now not take items back that you have bought and opened and then decided even though there is nothing wrong with the item they have a little "buyers remorse" and try and take it back.

Do you really think retailers should be footing the bill just because you didn't research the item properly or changed your mind? Every return of this nature just pushes the prices up for everyone else.

Wintermute

Maplins are over priced, but they're a high street store and most high street stores are over priced

Once upon a time I was in charge of returns for a small family run company that started life selling electronic components, but ended up selling pretty much the same product line as maplins, we mainly dealt with trade, but we got a reasonable amount of sales from the public.

People returning things they bought, but then decided they didn't need was a major headache, people automatically think they're entitled to do it just because M&S would let them, this is not the case. We'd have people buying things just in case they needed them then returning them later when they decided they didn't need them (this is especially true for PC components if somebody was trying to repair a PC), they needed the money, found them cheaper elsewhere or didn't work as they hoped them to. People would constantly return things that we couldn't resell for full price or weren't even suitable for resale and expected us to accept them back no questions asked, it cost us a lot of time and a lot of money.

After years of almost always accepting things back no questions asked the directors were made aware of how much money it was wasting so we tried to deal with each case on an individual basis, this almost always lead to a customer kicking up a fuss and asking to speak to a manager when they didn't get their own way so that idea was scrapped. When I left the policy was to accept items back with intact packaging minus a 25% handling charge, it may not seem fair, but it's the closest we could get to a compromise.

I dread to think how bad the situation would be at maplins if they didn't have this policy, due to the nature of their product range there'll always be people buying the wrong thing then wanting to return it, but why should they be left out of pocket and be forced into reselling stock at a loss just because a customer hasn't done their research and purchases the wrong thing.

el_gringo_3

DCFC79 wrote: »

OP can you explain why maplins should refund you just because you didnt want the item, was it the wrong colour/size

what other stores returns policy is has nothing to do with maplins, if you think maplins are in the wrong then contact TS by all means but dont get your hopes up for a reply you WANT to get

Does he not mean it wasn't actually the model in store that was in the box. or even the correct model in the box?

Posiible that I'm reading this in that way as I had a similar experience - I bought an A.V Amp from Maplins once and recieved a totally different amp (better than the one I'd been sold) in the box, took it back to the store and they told me they'd obviously mixed two up and had sold out of the one I was supposed to get. Not only did I get to keep the better one but they gave me a load of off cuts of speaker wire and loose banana plugs:T