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

ascouse

I used to work on a contract for Shop Direct. It's a mail order company which takes orders for catalogues such as
Additions
Empire
Choice
Kays
Abound

When you telephone an order through, tell the operator that you'd recieved a mail out giving you 10/15 or 20% off (whichever you feel like pushing) but have misplaced it and don't have the code.
There are default codes on the system which will give these discounts.

Plus, if there is an offer which says you've to spend 'so' much and your order is just under that amount, there is an 'allow anyway' button which everyone has the authority use. They'd rather have your order than loose the sale.

doublegandt

This is a good thread. But maybe what I am writing should be in another thread. Two bits of the info below that seems to fit here.

My XYL and I have fallen into a Wednesday ritual - no don't get excited - it involves going to the UCI Trafford Centre cinema.

Every Wednesday, for the past few months, we have been doing this......

1) Use the Orange Wednesday to get a BOGOF at the cimena

2) Before getting the cinema tickets - we go to Costco for baked potatos (fab value at £1.25 each - as many or few toppings as you like). We have a Costco card - but it actually ran out 6 months ago (when I NEED to buy something at Costco I will renew). But you never have to swipe your Costco card to buy fast food.

3) Leave Costco to go to cinema. But go into W H Smith first - my XYL always buys at least one mag. Now W H Smith have a strange offer - buy the Daily Telgraph at 40p and get £1 off any mag priced over £1. So we buy several mags and ONE Telegraph. At the till we say to the salesperson - we want to pay for X Telegraphs but we don't want them! (Where X equals the number of mags you buy priced at over £1 each). So they just scan the Telegraph that number of times and you get multiple discount. So tonight we bought 4 mags over £1 - paid 4 x 40p (£1.60) for the Telegraphs and got £4 off the total!!!!

Ok not an earth shattering amount - but somehow I seem to enjoy the night out more knowing that I have saved something!

W H Smith always seems to have an offer like this but use different newspaper titles - always look for the banner near the newspapers.

superhoop

knowledgeispower wrote:

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.

Your 'contract of purchase' is always with the retailer, not the manufacturer. Lack of knowledge of this is often used to fob people off.

Even if the store themselves say they can do nothing, that does not absolve the duties of the retailer under the Sale of Goods Act.

gk172

superhoop wrote:

Your 'contract of purchase' is always with the retailer, not the manufacturer. Lack of knowledge of this is often used to fob people off.

Even if the store themselves say they can do nothing, that does not absolve the duties of the retailer under the Sale of Goods Act.

PC World tried fobbing me off with the 28 days then passes to manufacturer guarentee, which when i took it to trading standards confirmed my guarentee/contract to buy was indeed with pc world. Yes instore the said they couldnt do anything but push as there head office certainly can.

Chris25

Originally Posted by knowledgeispower
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.

superhoop wrote:

Your 'contract of purchase' is always with the retailer, not the manufacturer. Lack of knowledge of this is often used to fob people off.

That's right but if your item breaks out of guarantee ( and a lot of warranties only last 12 months), it's always worth contacting the manufacturers.

I've got a SEBO vacuum which came with a 5yr guarantee. When the motor stopped working 4 months after the guarantee ran out, I rang the company and they told me that as it wasn't long after the expiry date, they would go halves with me on the price of repair.

I certainly didn't expect that but as you can imagine, I didn't turn-down the offer;)

lynseyf

MaccyB wrote:

Anyone knows that a consumers idea of common sense and a retailers are in two different worlds. So when we talk about "Reasonable" time scales against the price you paid - are their any guidelines? I ask purely because 2.5 years ago I bought a £450 tumble dryer, I have just written to the manufacturer because it has ceased to dry and I refuse to pay their rediculous call out charges. I personally think that for £450 I have not had the dryer a "reasonable" amount of time to justify it breaking down, but If I try to take it back to comet where I bought it from...(apart from the fact that I have moved since i bought it) I would get laughed at wouldn't I?

I had a washer dryer which I had for approx. 3 years with an extended warranty. It kept on breaking and I got fed up with waiting 2 weeks to get it fixed and not being able to do any washing then having to take a half day from work to get it fixed only for it too break after another month. I complained to the warranty people and was told very rudely that there was nothing they could do. I wrote 1 letter to Hoover and they phoned up and asked when I wanted the new one delivered! They agreed with me that it was not reasonable for a washer dryer to keep breaking so often even after 3 years.

fuglyjowls

Further to other comments about suppliers having to repair goods if faulty after 30 days - if you are not happy with the repair they do have a duty to replace them. We are currently waiting for a replacement pair of leather sofas from Furnitureland as after 5 months the foam had compressed so much that they were extremely uncomfortable - they sent out an upholsterer (after a lot of telephone calls/hassle) to repair them but ordered the replacement foam from the original manufacturer. The upholsterer admitted when repairing them that the foam was just as bad quality as the original so we then wrote to their head office (on advice from Trading Standards) requesting replacements (and asking for a reply within a certain timescale). They agreed we could have credit to the value of the original sofas and choose whatever we wanted from the store. Couldn't do anything about their 13 weeks lead time though!

!!!!!!

duninit

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:

HappyHelen_2

This is probably an old one for all you seasoned money savers but I used to work in Tescos, and found out that you can hand over magazine/newspaper coupons for money off products without actually buying the product and the coupons will still be deducted off your bill total. Don't try it with Tesco own/clubcard vouchers though since the tills will pick those up.

superhoop

Hi Helen - welcome!

Absolutely right - Tesco will do this except on any coupons they have issued themselves. These will typically have the Tesco logo.

Not all retailers are so generous though. Save your time and don't try it in Morrisons!

Steve