are 99% of sales assistants liars or just plain dumb

tombruton87

It seems everytime I go into a store to buy a tech item I hear lies (incorrect information) people who dont know better can be swayed by this false information.

Not looked into the law but surly this must be illegal

some of my favorites.

HDMI cables transmit data so fast it becomes an analog signal that's why you need to get this £80 one

If you don't buy antivirus at time of purchase it invalidates your warranty on the laptop

The average windows laptop lasts 2 years and the average mac lasts 12

If you install Linux your warranty isn't valid

Deru

Sounds like they want to earn some commissions.

That second to last one might be fairly accurate :P

(I do use both Windows and Mac but on Windows machines more so not just Pro Apple.)

thorsoak

tombruton87 wrote: »

It seems everytime I go into a store to buy a tech item I hear lies (incorrect information) people who dont know better can be swayed by this false information.

Not looked into the law but surly this must be illegal

some of my favorites.

HDMI cables transmit data so fast it becomes an analog signal that's why you need to get this £80 one

If you don't buy antivirus at time of purchase it invalidates your warranty on the laptop

The average windows laptop lasts 2 years and the average mac lasts 12

If you install Linux your warranty isn't valid

If you know better, why do you not correct the sales staff?

Your statement is rather a sweeping one!

prowla

Hehe.

Of them, the last one could be partially true, for instance there may be a device that doesn't have a driver under Linux, and so there would be no point in complaining that it didn't work if you do install another OS.

Also, if a machine is supplied with a restore partition and you reformat the disk then you may find you have an issue getting support.

grizzly1911

Not just tech sales either.

Most sales people will tell you what gets them the best sale.

Yes a lot of sales people aren't that bright but most are incredibly atstute and know how to blag a deal.

You will always get intelligent ones with a conscious but they probably aren't the most rewarded and hard to find.

If you know the sales pitch is bad why listen? Just walk away.

Fosterdog

The statements do seem to a bit OTT, where have you heard them?

1: Of course that's rubbish, if I overheard this in a shop I would have to say something to the customer being duped.

2: Depending on what conditions are attached to the warranty this could be true, of course this doesn't affect a consumers rights under SoGA which can't add such stupid conditions.

3: The average windows would probably be more like 4-5 years, less for a budget range and more for a higher range and yes a mac more like 8-10 years (although they don't seem to last as well since the prices have dropped). Again I'd have to speak up about this if I heard a customer being told that a £700 i5, 8gb, 2gb dedicated graphics laptop would only last 2 years when used for web browsing.

4: As has already been said depending on the fault it could well be because Linux has been installed and is having problems. The item has been altered from it's original state and used for something it was not intended to be used for. Of course making recovery disks before putting on Linux so you can prove the fault in windows if needed should be the first thing done.

Guardsman

Staff member in Currys told me yesterday that Windows 7 is no longer supported now that Windows 8 is available.

Ectophile

Actually, 1 isn't entirely untrue.

When you try to send high speed digital signals down a cable, you don't get nice clean 1's and 0's out the other end. The signal doesn't instantly switch between "high" and "low", but ramps up and down, overshoots, and "rings" where the signal oscillates up and down before stabilising.

A particular problem that affects HDMI is "skew" where a signal on one cable pair arrives before the signal on another. If the skew gets too great, the receiver may become confused and refuse to display a picture.

If that happens, a good quality cable may work when a cheap one doesn't. It's usually only an issue if you try to use long cables.

Of course, expensive doesn't always equate to good quality.

debitcardmayhem

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

4: As has already been said depending on the fault it could well be because Linux has been installed and is having problems. The item has been altered from it's original state and used for something it was not intended to be used for. Of course making recovery disks before putting on Linux so you can prove the fault in windows if needed should be the first thing done.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
:beer:

johnnyboyrebel

My experience isn't the same as the sales assistant was not lying to get a sale but in Comet many years ago just after I got Sky, I asked the assistant what type of cable I needed in order to connect a TV in another room to the Sky box so I could get Sky in the other room. I was 99% sure it was a coaxial but couldn't be arsed googling it and was in there anyway. Their reply was quite abruptly, 'that isn't possible'. I said !!!!!!, of course it is possible, I just wanted to confirm which cable I needed. He even went away and apparently "asked a colleague" and came back and said it is impossible without the Sky multiroom so I risked a coaxial anyway, bought it there and then and took it home to to hook my box to another TV. In my case, it's not lying it's either having no idea what they are talking about or being muffled by Sky....

david29dpo

I went into PCworld the other day to buy an Apple TV
The poor man spent half an hour trying to find it after walking up and down the tvs.