GREAT 'WHAT SHOPS DON'T WANT US TO KNOW" HUNT

Sarahsaver

Still on cinemas...if you complain at an Odeon cinema, for example if someone let their phone go off, or if someone in the audience was a bit too chatty (both have happened to me) They will give you a free ticket for a future film screening.

deanos

FiscalFox wrote:

Vue Cinema
Cinema food is greatly over-priced, as this is where theatres make their profits--not with the films (whose money actually goes to their distributors).

This line of cinemas instruct their staff to 'upsell' all their products to customers. For instance, advising their customer to buy a 'large popcorn' instead of a 'small'. Indeed their is hardly any difference in volume beween the two products, apart form the crafty dimensions of the packaging!

Save cash and take your own food in.

I would agree that the big chains are a rip off however a little Kinema near me is excellent, its privately run a bottle of water is 65p, large Coke £1.50 (smaller available) , Popcorn £1 ,large bags of sweets (M+M's and the like) £1, and entry is only £5

They even have a organ come up from the floorboards sometimes

http://www.thekinemainthewoods.co.uk/

chudies

much like other people........not sure to post here........but...

i received a price for renewal of my business insurance
well over £1100
normally, for ease i just renew
on this occasion, i denied and check with other companies
guess what.....yes, one quote requested, it was in the £800 region!

i have been with my insurance broker for donkeys years, so i was not best pleased with them

called them to complain and see why they were so expensive
after a chat with a nice lady, she let it slip that they dont always "shop" around for business insurance as they "know" which companies are competitive and dont waste their time......hmmm....and they are meant to be MY insurance broker, she called around and guess what.....matched the price/well got one just a fiver more

yes, i know you should ask around, but one assumes a broker will shop around for you.......DONT!!!!!!

make sure you get them to provide you with a few quotes even if they are all the same

(dont work for the insurance game, but just a tip)

kazd

knowledgeispower wrote:

Well I work for a major electrical retailer and I would like to share some information with you all as well as highlighting some common misconceptions.

Well the company I work for as just launched a brand new extended warranty service. This is mainly due to trading standards regulation changes not as they would have you believe customer feedback.

Sales people do now earn a small amount of commission on the sales of these products but it is nothing to write home about. Legally we are not allowed to be seen to be putting any pressure on customers when explaining the features of our warranties, yet we are under immense pressure from our managers to sell a set target, roughly 20% of all the products a sales person sells should have insurance attached.

With this new system we are under no circumstances allowed to discount these warranties in any way so don't expect big savings as you did in the past.

The actual service offered if you take out these warranties is actually very good but it just depends if you are willing to pay the huge prices e.g. 5 years for £170 on a £259 washing machine.

As someone mentioned earlier about goods breaking just over the 12 months and getting free repairs. As far as I know this is the law but we can do nothing at a store level you would be much better contacting the manufacturer or customer services.

The best value warranties are the cheap 'instant replacements' normally £10 or £20 on small products. Come in and buy a cheap £70 (512mb) mp3 player pay the extra tenner and then come back in a year and imagine what that £70 will buy you then, this can be repeated as many times as you want for 3 years, no sales person can be bothered to test them so they are just going to swap them over so you could get a new one every 6months for 3 years for an extra £10. This also follows for kettles and irons very useful if you have hard water.

hope this helped out some people if you have any questions post them here and I will try and help.

I was sold an extended warranty on my iron based on the fact that if the iron breaks you just get a replacement. However, this was not the case, there is a top limit of approx £80 and my iron had cost £230. They were not going to honour it no matter how much I stamped my foot. However, they let me have a brand new one whilst mine was away for repair. Which I have never picked up and they haven't called me.

I feel quite justified in keeping this iron because I was sold the warranty under false pretences.
:xmastree:

robii1

justjenny wrote:

I worked for one of the leading 4 banks and if a customer said the cheque was lost in the post it was free. Also if you need replacement bank statements the same applies rather than the duplicate charge of £5 a sheet.

I bank with HSBC. My accountant told me I was missing various statements needed for my yearly return. I phoned up phone banking and was told I would be charged £5 or something like that. A few days later my accountant told me that some other statements were missing. This time I went in to the branch and they printed them off for me there and then at no cost. They didn't look as fancy as the statements they send in the post (no huge letterhead, nice font etc), but they did the same job

robii1

odowdchr wrote:

A friend of mine (very cost conscious bloke and ex-McDonalds employee when at school) does this regularly in our local franchised branch. The service is always slow, food is rarely cooked until you order it...so he will order, wait about 7 minutes, then call for the manager and quote some terms to him....voila....free food. It often ends in a bit of a row with denials, but it's fun to watch and the food is always free....not sure if it works everywhere though

That's a great way to get free food, plus a few added extras like spit, dirt and hair!

emeralddreams

I've actually asked a few of these big companies asking them whether I have the option of cancelling the warranty at any point etc. And they all say NO - could that really be the case or was it only for my benefit as I bothered to ask. Are they legally allowed to say that - doesn't the consumer have the right to cancel any agreement within a set time period?

Secondly, a point on my own case regarding a insurance claim I recently made for a stolen camera which no longer exists in the market. I was being told to accept a claim amount for a camera that was, in my opinion, more inferior to my old camera. After a few heated discussions with the insurance company I went back to their recommended retailers (Jessops) and confirmed with them the best match, noted the name of the rep and went back to the insurance company who then accepted my point and offered me almost 3 times the original amount.

Third, I have in the past been over charged by Tesco's (on a number of occasions), however, if you check your bill whilst you're still in the store and notice the discrepancy you can take your bill to customer services and get the amount refunded and the product given to you for free as well and an apology. That's what I call customer services. I had a similar issue to deal with in Asda, I did get the amount refunded but with no apology.

emeralddreams

Sarahsaver wrote:

Still on cinemas...if you complain at an Odeon cinema, for example if someone let their phone go off, or if someone in the audience was a bit too chatty (both have happened to me) They will give you a free ticket for a future film screening.

Afraid this isn't always the case. Went to the cineworld in Feltham and half way through the movie they had a technical glitch for about 2 mins. But when I complained on the way out, at the end of the movie, I didn't even get an apology let alone a refund or free tickets. Instead I got the response if you had left the movie at that point we would have refunded you the tickets etc.

Similar issue in Vue (Acton) I received an apology and free tickets for the entire group.

[Deleted User]

duninit wrote:

lots of stuff in this one.

Next time you buy a new bit of AV equipment for you home or car, make sure you get some nice expensive (or so they make you belive) leads for FREE or at least 50% off the asking price

The mark up on accessories is normally 66% and can be as hi as 140%

Places like Sextons "car hifi" will give you huge discounts on cable and autoleads accessories.

SevernOaks for home AV equipment will do the same, just ask!!!

Mobile phones

This is more than likely been said already, but you are far more lilky to get a big saving buy using indepentent mobile phone shops than the chains.

The reason is that they will have a contract with the likes of 2020 logistics or Rocom as an example.

They not only make money from the sale, but have % increase on the commission for each target of phones sold.
So if they are getting £45 commission for each phone upto 500 phones sold then it may go upto £55 between 500 and a 1000 and so on.

So best time to buy a Mobile phone is at the end of the month, when they are desperate to hit the target.

Mobile phone accessories all so have a good % mark up so make sure you get at a minimum - leather case head set and car charger. If you can get an incar holder and a few covers trwon in then you aint done bad.

Parrot Blue tooth car kits, cost around £65 trade so do not pay over the odds for one (have seen on sale at £299)- most fitters charge the shop around £20 to fit, so again £99 is well over the odds



PS on the jessops, If you try to get them to prce match with a really stupid price, and you are asking the manager they will match it at the lowest the computer will let them do it at.

ie brand new out new Sony camera on sale £1600 best internet deal I could find £1200 I said I could get it for £999 he said it could not be done and came up to £1123. and gave some fee tapes too.
Yes they did need proof of the offer, but I will leave that to your imaginagination :money:

Hi I used to work for Colin Sexton and I find it very strange that he would give out anything discounted as his pricing policy was to get as much as he could from the customers ,especially but the fitting service. Maybe he has mellowed with age ??

highguyuk

Just a couple from me:

One of the first posts was about GAME and preowned. The staff do not get a share of the profits, would be good if we did. However, the markup is unbelieveable. LAST CHRISTMAS, they would pay you £27 cash for a playstation2, and would sell it on the shop floor for £79. If you traded it against something else in the store you would get £45 but thats still a huge profit. Again Last Christmas, the staff received £1 straight into there paypackets for every GAMEware controller that they sold, individually or with a pack or bundle etc. Towards Christmas, this changed to £1 for Xbox GAMEware controllers and a £1 for a Playstation2 memory card. The profit they make on the own brand stuff is huge, I dont know figures but its v.good. I must stress that this was Last Christmas, I dont work there anymore and it could have changed.

For Choices UK where I worked previously, when you join dont forget the key rule. "Membership is free". We will try our hardest to sign you up for membership plus (I was the top seller in my store :-) Sorry people) which is £2.50 for a year. NOW you moneysavers, this can be worthwhile. Its insurance if anything buggers up, and you get discounts on fixadisk (CD/DVD repair) and previously viewed DVDs (5% of new titles). But if you dont want it, JUST SAY NO!

Oh, also used to work for Sketchleys Dry Cleaners (R.I.P.). Gold/Standard dry clean - its the same. Same machine, same stuff. The difference is in the pressing of the garments. Gold will clean stains no better. However, the extras such as skotchguard and keep-a-krease are very good - especially keep-a-krease. Once had a complaint that when it rained though there trousers were soaked and soggy but the crease was still in and it looked stupid. lol.

Erm - thats me done. If you've found this useful, a press of the button would be appreciated. PM me or post on here if you need any further help with anything, I will try my best!