OT: PC World are useless - was Re: [Gllug] OT: microdirect.co.uk reliable?

[Robert Newson]

Ian Norton wrote:

...
> Never buy anything from pc world, no matter how urgently needed, or any shop
> hight street PC shop for that matter.. 
> 
> The only thing pc world (all the stored I have been in anyway) are good for is 
> selling you over priced crap that they will try to tell you isnt broken or that
> you used it wrong when you return it.

Just a couple of facts:

   1 Dixons bought out Vision Technology[*] to get their hands on PC World.
   2 Dixons have been known to sell second hand goods - eg people with New
       computers finding all sorts of interesting files on their HDs - didn't
       they get fined over this?


[* VT was the parent company of quite a few mail order [computer] retail 
companies (trading names) & set up PC World in ~1992**.  When Dixons bought 
VT in Feb '93 there were 3 branches: Croydon, Lakeside & Brent Cross (though 
I vaguely remember a 4th.  Sales staff got made redundant in Jul '93 & I was 
kept on (with a skeleton warehouse & accounts staff) until Jan '94 when I 
got the push (I was the Computer Dept for VT from Jan '91)]

[** My experiences of working with VT have made me suspicious of mail order 
companies - VT had about 10 different trading names, with different prices, 
but all using the same stock!  (Anyone who had bought from diferent trading 
names, could quite easily spot the link.)  The main difference was 
supposedly in the sales service you got - with the higher priced trading 
names, you got better "knowledgeable" sales staff.  Best move: phone up the 
higher priced company for the tech info, then call the cheapest for the 
actual goods!]

[Returns were dealt with on the technical department's file server, not the 
main computer system (incidently I bought that PC as my first one when I 
left) so I didn't handle returns data and so can't comment on what happened 
to returned goods]

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