Are Argos Goods Sub-Standard

andrew502

I don't agreed at all with what that person said, but if you try working for a while in a shop and see the kind of abuse you receive purely because you work there you understand a bit better why staff are often less than helpful.

People go into shops with the attitude that they can have a go at the staff if they don't get what they want, and that the staff should just take it. If you see things from both sides it is a lot easier to understand!

moggins

I can see this from both sides as I have worked the customer service desk in Argos and also been a customer plenty of times since.

The reasons for people bringing things back beyond the 16 day no quibble exchange point were sometimes ridiculous, I had one woman bring back a deep fat fryer because it had no handle, if she had opened the box the right way up she would have found the handle in the polystyrene packaging right on top.

Another guy brought back a food processor because his wife said it wouldn't work, I had to unplug the kiddies ride to check that one, turned out they hadn't read the instructions telling them to click the lid into position before it would start (safety precaution).

However I was very disgruntled when I recently bought a pasta maker and found it full of flour! I got a replacement machine and £4 cash to cover my parking and petrol because I had to make a special trip to return it.

Stumpy

Moggins - I had to chuckle at your post!! You do wonder sometimes why some people are let out by themselves!!

I've come across a few of them before, and the only redeeming feature they have is how smug they make you feel when you can show them where they went wrong (the amount of times I plugged in a PC for someone who had spent 30 minutes trying to get it to boot up is not funny! - well it wasn't at the time ).

PS. I like your sig as well

andrew502

moggins wrote:

However I was very disgruntled when I recently bought a pasta maker and found it full of flour! I got a replacement machine and £4 cash to cover my parking and petrol because I had to make a special trip to return it.

Yeah, things like that really aren't on, its such a waste of your time.

I think the best item that I ever had returned was handheld fans
Homebase used to sell, we had to explain to dozens of people you needed to remove the cellophane from round the batteries before they would work!

gravitytolls

when we bought our first ever proper, new, modern tv with remote - many years ago - we took it out of the box, put it on stand, plugged it in and confidently pointed the remote at it.

NOTHING HAPPENED

i tried, still nothing.

Hubby faffed with it whilst I read the instructions.

Guess what the first instruction was?

Turn TV on...... you see they do need to be written for idiots.

student100

Stumpy wrote:

Have to say that some staff do get rather stroppy, although I haven't had any problems recently - but I refused to go into one, or shop at one, for over a year a while back, because of the way I was dealt with at one of them.
...
Just a thought - what would have happened if she'd taken the item back and the price in the shop had gone up? Would they have refunded her the extra as well? Hmmm. Doubt it.

Hmm. In their defence, Argos do have over 500 stores throughout the country, and lots of staff, and most of them are good, hardworking, honest people. It's the odd one or two bad apples that gives everyone else a bad name.

Argos policy is that every single customer return should be removed from the packaging and thoroughly checked through whenever it is returned, for whatever reason - only if it is in original unused condition should it be put back into stock. (Some stores don't seem to be too good at doing this though).

There have been dozens of times when I was working there that customers will look at you funny/tell you off or even shout at you and be quite vicious if you check through the items they return, because they think you don't trust them. Then if they bought an item that had even had the box opened they would complain you were selling "second hand" goods. At Christmas I had a lady demand that I opened the box on at least six different stereo systems so she could look at which one she wanted (all this was whilst she was holding up a queue of increasingly !!!!!! off people behind her) and then when she finally did decide which one to buy she had the cheek to ask for an unopened box! Grrrr :mad:

So the staff aren't all bad. Most of them try their best, they put up with stroppy customers and people who are often trying to get away with returning items that they have already used/broke themselves or whatever, and it is very difficult not to lose your temper occasionally. If the customers were more polite the staff would be too...


As for the refund without receipt thing: Argos are perfectly entitled to ask for a receipt or some other proof of purchase (credit card statement etc.). Otherwise anyone could take anything back and say they'd bought it there. Occasionally we'd refund (usually for gift vouchers/an exchange) if there was no proof of purchase, usually we'd ask when the customer bought the item and refund it at the price on that date according to the computer system. But if you have nothing to prove that you did pay £X for an item then you really can't expect Argos just to take your word for it and hand over £X to anyone who asked. The simple solution is KEEP YOUR RECEIPT, or stop complaining.

Stumpy

I agree that most staff are perfectly nice - have been in several Argos stores fairly recently since the RO thing kicked off, and every member of staff I have spoken to has been very polite and friendly, although I have been extra careful to watch what I say in case its taken the wrong way (others on this board, especially at the start, were reporting some very stroppy staff when people started buying up RO stock).

However, the experience that put me off for some time was not just one member of staff, it was the entire shop. I'd obviously gone in on a day not long after they'd had a recruitment drive, and they were handing out payslips - so the staff, especially the trainees, were more interested in what they got paid. I had purchased two items online for delivery - one item which turned up wrong, one damaged and duplicated (the duplicate being damaged as well), so I ended up going to the shop to try and sort it face to face, but apparently their computer systems weren't up the the challenge, so I ended up stood in a shop where the staff gave no appearance of caring that I had been there trying to return/replace items wrongly received for 45 minutes, with two increasing hungry and annoyed young children. In the end, I gave up with one of the items, got the other replaced, but then they mucked up the payment of it, and it didn't come out of my bank account for 6 months.

I even wrote a letter of complaint (to the head office address a member of staff gave me) and followed up with several e-mails attaching the letter, etc. Never received a reply.

student100

Hmm. It seems your local Argos store is perhaps not up to scratch. Especially at Christmas most stores more than double their staff with temporary workers so getting everyone trained is quite a challenge. (I know when I went back last Christmas there were a few less-well motivated staff in the store...).

I'm surprised you didn't get a reply from your letter to head office, from what I have heard they take every letter quite seriously and reply promptly...strange.

I can only suggest maybe you write again?

Head office address is:
Argos Ltd, 489-499 Avebury Boulevard, Central Milton Keynes, MK9 2NW

Stumpy

That was the address I wrote to. In fact, wrote two letters and about 3 e-mails, attaching the letter. I've given up on that now.

As I said, I didn't go back for about a year, and was only persuaded to go back when all this RO stuff kicked off. The shops I have been in since then have been fine - in fact they have just completely refurbished the store I had all the problems with and made it into an "Extra". I did have cause to complain fairly recently, about a different store, and my complaint got dealt with very promptly and I was well pleased with the outcome. Mainly because I had suspected they'd mucked up when I discovered by chance that the item I had reserved (the last in the store) was suddenly back up for "click and collect" on their website after they had apparently re-reserved it for me. So I'd reserved it again just to be safe. :rolleyes:

veronarona

When I "needed" to buy a new VHS I studiously went thru hifi reviews to make sure I wouldn't buy a dog. One JVC machine was reported as "good quality, but inexcusable lack of certain features", so I made a note of the ref number so I could avoid it. The "de luxe" JVC machine I ended up buying from Argos turned out to be that one, with a different number that was not listed on JVC's website. I wonder if Argos take dogs from manufacturers at advantageous prices?

veronarona