PC World 16 year court case in today's DM

Sabbathdei

She *was* middle-aged actually.
Then there was the young girl who kept coming back like a boomerang when I worked in a famous high street jewellers. She claimed her automatic watch was faulty, it kept stopping. It was sent off a dozen times, always came back the same way, nothing wrong with it; she was probably not moving it enough for it to wind up. I may get into trouble for this, but she was not that easy on the eye, a bit cuddly, ginger with huge thick glasses. Her name ?
Liz Hurley.
And this was at the height of the other Liz's fame.
God can be a right bar steward sometimes. :rotfl:

VictimOfImpersonation

I think other types struggle to exert their power over customers at work and so visit forums like this in their spare time to punch the hell out of the underdogs and get their hits that way.

PCWorld and HFC Bank behaved abominably and that is the crux of the matter. The customer took the unfit for purpose laptop back at 9 am the next morning. PCWorld processed the credit agreement after he had taken the laptop back ! What crookedness is that which does not seem to have been discussed ?

HFC Bank were then so up themselves that they tried to bully the customer into adhering to a credit agreement that was only in place because PCWorld processed it despite cancelling the sale to which it applied.

Sickening to read about.

I say good luck, Mr Durkin.

Sabbathdei

Did they really have laptops in 1998 ?

VictimOfImpersonation

I did, and earlier than 1998. It was a Compaq with Windows For Workgroups 3.11 installed via a set of six 1.44MB floppy disks. It did not have an internal modem either so I bought an external one 9600bps. I still have it.

cynicalgit_2

VictimOfImpersonation wrote: »

I think other types struggle to exert their power over customers at work and so visit forums like this in their spare time to punch the hell out of the underdogs and get their hits that way.

PCWorld and HFC Bank behaved abominably and that is the crux of the matter. The customer took the unfit for purpose laptop back at 9 am the next morning. PCWorld processed the credit agreement after he had taken the laptop back ! What crookedness is that which does not seem to have been discussed ?

HFC Bank were then so up themselves that they tried to bully the customer into adhering to a credit agreement that was only in place because PCWorld processed it despite cancelling the sale to which it applied.


Sickening to read about.

I say good luck, Mr Durkin.

Thank God some sense posted here.
I cannot believe all the sanctimonious,pompous,pious, misinformed bawlocks that's been posted on this topic.
!!!!!! why DON'T people READ the subject before commenting.

Slowhand

Sabbathdei wrote: »

Did they really have laptops in 1998 ?

I'm typing this on a Toshiba of that very vintage. Operating system is Windows 98. Don't remember when I last used it but when I saw your post I fired it up and it worked! One USB 1.0 slot and other modem/pcmia card slots too...things have moved on!

tinkerbell28

VictimOfImpersonation wrote: »

I think other types struggle to exert their power over customers at work and so visit forums like this in their spare time to punch the hell out of the underdogs and get their hits that way.

PCWorld and HFC Bank behaved abominably and that is the crux of the matter. The customer took the unfit for purpose laptop back at 9 am the next morning. PCWorld processed the credit agreement after he had taken the laptop back ! What crookedness is that which does not seem to have been discussed ?

HFC Bank were then so up themselves that they tried to bully the customer into adhering to a credit agreement that was only in place because PCWorld processed it despite cancelling the sale to which it applied.

Sickening to read about.

I say good luck, Mr Durkin.

What a load of rubbish. Back then and it's the same now. The DSG group would NEVER let goods go without the credit being approved first.

Too much risk of a decline. Goods were never let go until the agreements had been done. You had to put the agreement through. Then it would print off a copy to sign. So there would be no paperwork to sign, unless the credit agreement had been processed though the repos terminals.

So his claim there, certainly doesn't make sense. So I'm still not surprised it got overturned.

I worked for them in this period when I was a student. I wouldn't choose to defend them. As I dislike the company immensely.

I'm however looking at it from a balanced perspective. I've seen some of your posts and they're so full of anger.

FWIW, what I think happened. Is the day after is when the manager signed it off and posted it to the bank. Back then you could not complete a sale, or have an agreement to sign, until it had been approved and then the agreement would print and the sale complete.

So the agreement would've been done and processed for him to have anything to sign. What then happens is the manager, usually the next day signs off and posts off the banks copies to them.

This doesn't mean they'd only just "processed" the agreement. That's done before you sign anything and then the agreement prints.

Once you've signed, you've formed the finance contract. Whether the branch posts it that day or not.

That's from my experience and considering he was daft enough to just stop paying and get himself into this mess, I wouldn't be surprised if "facts" are lost in translation.

londonTiger

I concurr with tinkerbell28 - the judge just took plaitiffs word that the sales clerk did in fact state the laptop had a modem. Was that actual sales clerk in court to testify or provide a written statement? Who knows - if he was absent the judge would by default take plaintiffs word for it.

Even today you wouldn't be able to return a laptop by saying "salesman told me this is plays HD video on youtube, but it doesn't". It's up to the consumer to research these things and do their due diligence. Technical specs are always listed on the box to. Whether it has a modem or not will be listed. It takes 2 seconds to read the box it takes 30 minutes to draw up and sign a credit agreement - something doesn't add up here. Unless of course the laptop was sold without actually seeing it in real life and was entirely mail order and the guy just ordered one and let the sales clerk pick a model for him.

The fact that he came back next day 9am suggests that he had some paperwork at hand to read the specs.

Maybe laptops were treated differently back then.

VictimOfImpersonation

tinkerbell28 wrote: »

I'm however looking at it from a balanced perspective. I've seen some of your posts and they're so full of anger.

If I was angry it would not follow that I was unbalanced. The cliche you've heard is 'Don't get angry, get even', and if you do the other thing then you must therefore have failed, right? Wrong!

Yes that works for some, but no major public interest progress is generally made by one person that quietly gets even just for himself/herself. And if some consumers don't express their anger to other consumers about wrongs they've experienced then how does a campaign ever gain a head of steam?

If you have seen some of my posts you will know that I believe there is a huge problem with our financial services driven society.

I've worked in several parts of it and I have to tell you that it is now a cesspit in almost every direction you look. Whereas when I started my career there were many things to feel good about the work we did, now there is absolutely nothing which can be recommended. As Martin Lewis has often said, the best you can do is point out the least worst of it.

Of course there are many good people clinging to jobs in UK financial services who could do little else for a "living", but their livings are nevertheless all made at the costly expense of consumers. They no longer value the customer. They worship their vast data collections and transaction flows.

You too have not read the case and do not seem to be able to understand a customer like this beyond having no doubt experienced the myriad of things customers do when they are dissatisfied.

If you have not understood the case properly, your "still not surprised that it got overturned" comment is worthless and is only explained by your likely predisposal to some idea like 'corporates must be right because they have procedures for processing and customers are wrong' perhaps? I think the way you write, that would explain your narrow-minded post perfectly.

Tell us why you don't like Dixons Stores Group having worked for them - for balance ...

londonTiger wrote: »

Even today you wouldn't be able to return a laptop by saying "salesman told me this is plays HD video on youtube, but it doesn't".

It is not a very good alternative example you have chosen there, but if the salesman said the item is fit for some purpose and it actually isn't then of course it could be returned. You seem terribly confused, just like most "sellers" encountered in UK retail outlets in 2014.

londonTiger

VictimOfImpersonation wrote: »

It is not a very good alternative example you have chosen there, but if the salesman said the item is fit for some purpose and it actually isn't then of course it could be returned. You seem terribly confused, just like most "sellers" encountered in UK retail outlets in 2014.

Salesman said being the key point here. AFAIK verbal contracts are useless unless you can get a third party witness to confirm. generally we never rely on someones word in b2b and always get it written down in email or paper these days. Surprised judge decided in plaintiff's favour here because he said she said always gets more and more elaborate over passage of time.

If the Plantiffs decision making style is anything to go by, probably just made a gun ho decision when purchasing "this will do" and then read through the paperwork later and realised what he signed.