Pixmania problems - a warning

daveg72

I, and quite a few other people, (search Google for "Pixmania problems") have had a very nasty experience with this company recently that is still ongoing and i thought that people should be made aware of the circumstances etc.

On the 31st of December i ordered a £500 tv from their pixmania.co.uk website (i purposely mention that it is a .co.uk website), the item was showing as being in stock and delivery would be 3 days. Great, a good price plus reasonably fast delivery. In with the deal, i had the opportunity to purchase an HDMI cable for 1p. I ordered this too. 3 days later when the goods had not arrived, i logged into my Pixmania account and checked the delivery status. The HDMI cable was showing as In Stock, the TV out of stock. I phoned their customer service helpline (an 0870 number) and asked what was happening, the person who i spoke to said that the item was out of stock and not due t come back into stock for the forseeable future. Great, i cancelled the order there and then, or so i thought. I was told that a refund would be issued shortly. When i paid for these items i used Paypal, so when a refund had not been issued 2 days later, i instantly opened a claim against Pixmania. Yesterday i received a response to my Paypal claim. Pixmania had provided a tracking number. I went onto their site and checked the delivery status, HDMI cable dispatched, TV out of stock and not dispatched, so how can they be providing a tracking number for a 1p HDMI cable when my Paypal claim is for nearly £500.

Anyway, the point is that i have done a bit of research over Pixmania and have found an awful lot of people in a simillar situation. The compay itself comes across as being a UK based compay with a .co.uk website and an UK telephone number but they are not and correct me if i am wrong but they are not even governed by UK consumer laws. The company is French, has no head offices based in the UK, and, of course is governed by French not UK law.

I have requested a refund for this item twice by email and 4 times by phone over a period of 8 days. No satisfactory response.


I would advise you not to order goods from this company because if things go wrong, they are impossible to deal with. If you do order from them, be very careful, pay by Credit Card ONLY though Paypal because if you pay by any other method, you are not protected from receiving a refund in the form of a Piixmania Gift Voucher should the need arise.

Companies like this need to be culled to allow the thousands of genuine companies who trade responsibly to flourish.

Tirian

daveg72 wrote: »

Anyway, the point is that i have done a bit of research over Pixmania and have found an awful lot of people in a simillar situation. The compay itself comes across as being a UK based compay with a .co.uk website and an UK telephone number but they are not and correct me if i am wrong but they are not even governed by UK consumer laws. The company is French, has no head offices based in the UK, and, of course is governed by French not UK law.

You are indeed wrong on this point. They advertise and sell in the UK and therefore have to comply with UK consumer protection regulations. My mother had a similar problem when she bought a digital camera from them over a year ago. Same sorry saga, ordered a camera and a memory card - nothing came. Eventually had to contact Trading Standards, and was given a refund several months later. Funnily enough, about a month after that they sent the memory card anyway.

They're definitely scheisters, but if you go through trading standards then you may find that they suddenly remember to give you your refund.

My tip would be not to buy from them ever, never mind through Paypal. I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole.

daveg72

Thanks for the advise, i never plan on buying from them again and hopefully the Paypal claim will mean that i won't have to go to trading standards.

deanos

Tirian wrote: »

They advertise and sell in the UK and therefore have to comply with UK consumer protection regulations.

I dont think they do to be honest, places like Play.com advertise in the UK but they are governed by Jersey consumer law as thats where are based.

daveg72

But Play offer an excellent, reliable service for purchases and returns....

Pollycat

This may be a bit 'off-topic' but be careful when buying items such as cameras from Pixmania.

On price comparision sites, they often come in cheapest, but a lot of their goods are imports, which means you'll not get an instruction manual in English.

I bought a small digital camera a while back and checked with Pixmania about this, she said the manual would be in French but I could print off the English version from a website.

Yeah, right, so I have this tiny camera but an A4 wodge of instructions.
I don't think so.

Polly

vikingaero

Plenty of threads about our old friend Pixmania. If you want another avenue of complaint then Pixmania/Fotovista are owned by Dixons Stores Group (DSG).

I've been in photo mode for the past quarter and the only suppliers of some stuff has been Pixmania on Amazon. To be honest given the complaints you've got to have a screw loose to buy from such an operation.

Nagasaki

Hi
I basically find myself in a very similar situation with our old friends pixmania. I recently purchased a LCD TV for £580 from them on 06/01/08 thinking I was getting a bargain. 10 minutes after purchasing I checked my Email and found my TV was now suddenly out of stock!

I've contacted their awful customer service line severely times. and so far this is whats happened:

-We have no idea when your tv will be in stock!
-Will you accept a substitute? Which was a far inferior and cheaper model to the one I'd paid for!
-and promised to call back and email and have failed to do so

mockinly, one of the automated email responces had the phase 'Pixmania, always in stock ' writen on the bottom.

Having read the post here today, I think its time for a refund.
This is my first dealing with pixmania. I would never deal with these people again.

richabray

I had similar troubles and eventually had to email one of the people mentioned on this link (A. Walker). Wish this site had existed back when I had my problems, but hey ho. Once I emailed this address, things soon moved on, though it took a couple of goes before they got the refund correct.

http://www.thewwwsite.com/pixmania.htm

Hope this helps.

Jinto

!!!!!!!
I wish I had done some digging before I ordered a TV from them, I was trying to get an LCD model and it was out of stock everywhere, then I saw it at Pixmania in stock so I ordered it.
It has arrived on time but doesn't work, I have now looked up their returns procedure and I think I can expect weeks of grief and you have to pay for the honour of sending their faulty goods back.

As i've got the TV I'm tempted to aproach the manufacturer for a warranty repair, It grieves me to have to get a brand new item repaired rather than exchanged but it might be the less painful option.

Any opinions? apart from idiot for buying from pixmania!

superscaper

Jinto wrote: »

!!!!!!!
I wish I had done some digging before I ordered a TV from them, I was trying to get an LCD model and it was out of stock everywhere, then I saw it at Pixmania in stock so I ordered it.
It has arrived on time but doesn't work, I have now looked up their returns procedure and I think I can expect weeks of grief and you have to pay for the honour of sending their faulty goods back.

As i've got the TV I'm tempted to aproach the manufacturer for a warranty repair, It grieves me to have to get a brand new item repaired rather than exchanged but it might be the less painful option.

Any opinions? apart from idiot for buying from pixmania!

You could try asking the manufacturer. They tend to be easier to deal with. Just depends, they may refer you back to using the retailer first. You're in a pickle really in terms of your consumer rights as well as the sale of goods act and distance selling regulations don't apply as far as I know.