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Has something gone wrong at Maplins?

 

We've had excellent service for over 25 years and recently bought a video to pc converter from them without previously checking product reviews because we trusted them to sell good quality stuff and deal with any after sales issues. 4 days later we took the item back because it was faulty and instead of helping us Maplins called the police to have us removed from their store.

 

We have now checked reviews of the product (ION VCR2PC) and found that it has a bad reputation and is not supported by the manufacturer. We have read many customer reviews about Maplin, and from what we can see bad reports of customer service began appearing in summer 2007. I have not found a single good review, from anyone who is trying to get redress from Maplin's for faulty goods, errors on the company's part, or even exchange of goods that were found to be unsuitable. We have also read reports which suggest that it is routine for Maplin's store managers to call the police to deal with dissatisfied customers.

 

In my world, reputable companies work hard to build good relationships with their customers, to keep them coming back and promoting by word of mouth. So I am extremely puzzled by what appears to be happening here. Can anyone else comment on their experience of after sales service at Maplins?

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maplins seems to have stopped employing helpful,knowledgeable people and instead opted for idiots who dont know what there talking about-well in the leeds"super"store anyways

 

cant say ive had issues getting a refund but the staff standards have gone way down

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Never had a big issue myself, only time I had a row with them was when you could still pay by cheque and the manager not only wanted the details from my guarantee card at the back of the cheque but also my home address and tel no, which I absolutely refused to do on grounds of Data Protection, and made a stinking complaint to HO, who apologised, confirmed that I was right (which I knew) and advised they'd be retraining said manager on data protection issues. :razz:

 

I live near Croydon, and shop either at Maplins Croydon or Bromley and never have any other issues otherwise than the aforementioned at either shop, I have to say.

 

If you haven't yet done so, I would strongly recommend a letter to HO about the treatment you got at that branch.

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  • 1 month later...

Whilst their staff never seem particularly knowledgable they have always been helpful to me (Sutton branch).

I've used their policy of no quibble 28day refund on a few occasions and never had a single argument from them.

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  • 4 weeks later...

It's in the T&C's on their website, displayed at the till, and also appears on the receipt i received on the last item i purchased there. The one difference there may be, on checking the site t&c's it would appear that this reads only 14days, though my receipt clearly shows 28, worth checking.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I use their shop in Manchester and have never had any problems.

August 06- S.A.R. handed into a Halifax Branch

Sept 06 statements received and first letter sent requesting repayment of charges totalling £3,90

beginning Oct 06 received phone call offering £1,397, said would accept as interim payment andLBA letter sent same day

mid Oct 06 MCOL submitted online

end Oct 06 paid in full including interest and court fee - £4,980!

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Regarding the no quibble guarantee - Maplins do reserve the right to send any returned goods back to head office, before a refund is authorised. There are many instances reported on Ciao that authorisation of refunds is very slow or non existant.

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  • 6 months later...

oh my goodness, I have a faulty item that I exchanged from a previous faulty item of the same product that also involved the police being called out.

 

The police were lovely and couldn't understand why maplins felt the need to call them out as they said both my partner and I were not threatening in anyway.

 

Basically the manager wanted us out as we refused to leave the shop due to their cock up over a receipt (even though the branch we bought it from confirmed it was an error!). He threatened to call the police thinking it would scare us out.

 

Now the replacement item has failed (known problem according to other reports from googling it) but we are now worrying about returning it but we are entitled to a working item!

Direct Auto Finance & DLC dispute ongoing.

Offer with confidentually agreement from DLC / DAF DECLINED :D

Please PM me if you have any cheap rate or 0800 number for DCA's to add to my list and also to my website

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We bought a car stereo for £150, item faulty no other stock. They offered a refund or credit note. We stupidly said credit note as buy loads there.

Had credit note. Used it to buy various things including a audio converter.

Item was faulty exchanged. They marked the receipt with a big R but did not give a new receipt for the replacement. The original shop said R meant replacement. The shop we took it back to said R was refund but when we said how was that possible as we had the item and they refused to contact the other shop until the police got involved.

Direct Auto Finance & DLC dispute ongoing.

Offer with confidentually agreement from DLC / DAF DECLINED :D

Please PM me if you have any cheap rate or 0800 number for DCA's to add to my list and also to my website

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Looks like a lot of procedure has not been followed here.

 

It appears that the shop was concerned that you was trying to refund an item that you already had received a refund for.

 

As you say "How could this be?!" but it does happen in some cases.

 

The original shop should have issued you a new receipt showing that the item was replaced (exchanged in effect) and not refunded.

 

It may be easier to get straight in touch with head office. Make sure that you follow up any phone call with a stiff letter of complaint concerning both stores.

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  • 4 weeks later...
oh my goodness, I have a faulty item that I exchanged from a previous faulty item of the same product that also involved the police being called out.

 

The police were lovely and couldn't understand why maplins felt the need to call them out as they said both my partner and I were not threatening in anyway.

 

Basically the manager wanted us out as we refused to leave the shop due to their cock up over a receipt (even though the branch we bought it from confirmed it was an error!). He threatened to call the police thinking it would scare us out.

 

Now the replacement item has failed (known problem according to other reports from googling it) but we are now worrying about returning it but we are entitled to a working item!

 

 

Sorry to hear of your problems.

I hope it will help if I let you know that the credit card company are jointly liable with the supplier, under the consumer credit act. This is how our situation was resolved. We were getting no response whatsoever from Maplins so we kept in touch with the credit card company and kept asking them for a refund. 5 months and a lot of correspondence later We were asked by Maplins to return the faulty item and they then sent a working replacement.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Yes, good point the returns policy is ok, and other companies have similar policies. The interesting thing is how the policy is applied. Where it is done well, the staff go out of their way to build the trust of the customer that the policy will be fairly applied. In our experience of Maplin's, the staff destroyed any possibility of our trusting them by making unsubstantiated allegations against us. They also attempted to retain the receipt for the transaction without which we would have had no recourse. Eventually, after months of effort from us and our credit card company, Maplin's did exchange the faulty goods at no cost to ourselves.

Edited by scarysuzy
clarity
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  • 1 month later...

I used to find Maplin very helpfull, indeed their front-line staff at their Radford branch in Nottingham did try to help me when I returned a CCTV DVrecorder that failed.

Firstly I checked out the returns policy on their website and filled out the complaints form with the following

I purchased an N10GN CCTV DVR KIT last year which i had to take back owing to the HDD not working. After which all seemed fine apart from the infra red was not as good as i was assured, but as I work away had little chance to return it and upgrade to something that would achieve what was promised. I recently returned back from 5 days away to find some damage to the property and instantly checked the CCTV. It would seem that it had not been over-writing for months and was no use what so ever. I have tried to follow all the instructions supplied and also tried the instructions on the newer PDF. All I get is a HDD that started to recover then stalled, after leaving it for 24 hours, then a few reboots which took 3 days, it now leaves me with an occasional live view only and no recording or HDD activity, no menu funcion, mostly a message that states "MASTER RECOVER HDD 100721 - 228341 and basically very little use for kit that is supposed to monitor my property while I am away but doesn't. Any help or advise would be great as the Q & A / trouble shooting for this product leaves alot to be desired to say the least. Thanks in advance.

After a speedy responce which was nice I got the following reply

Dear Customer

Thank you for your email.

I do apologise for the issues you have had with your product.

The item does appear to be faulty. If you purchased the item within a 12 month period then you will still be under warranty with us, but if the item is over the 12 months period then your warranty would be with the manufacturer. If you still have your receipt etc we can have the item back but there would be a £15.00 diagnostic fee which would apply for the engineers to try and diagnose what the problem actually is due to the hard drive stalling etc.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Kind Regards

I took the recorder in and the store manager said he would try and waver the £15 charge, to which I thought, brilliant, nice chap.

Alas a few days later I got a phone call saying I had to pay before they would see what was wrong.

So, off I trotted back to the shop and said thanks to the manager for trying and payed.

3 weeks later I phoned them to find out what was happening and they told me they had tried to FedX it to me and that I could have it resent or come into the shop.

I chose the shop as I work away alot.

Two days ago I got a call at 6.45pm from the shop saying it was in the store and ready for collection.

I thought, brilliant, and told them I would come in the next day as I was in the pub and no longer willing to drive after a pint.

All seemed good, I would soon have the property monitored again.

One last thing, I asked. What was the problem?

He informed me that the engineers report said it was unfixable.

So, I asked, have they replaced it?

No, he replied, it's not under warrenty.

What about the manufacture's warrenty? I asked

We are the manufacture, he explaind and we dont offer more than 12 months.

I said I would come in to the store the next day and talk to the manager as I felt misled by what I had been told to do.

No problem he said, see you tomorrow.

I went in only to find the manager was on leave and after two hours of talking to staff who were still supportive and to head office who didn't seem to care that I had now taken 2 half days and 1 full day off work to resolve this.

The only compensation on offer was that they would look into giving me my £15 back.

I left with a recorder that didn't work, as I may have a use for the hard drive in one of my PCs

On a note about the police.

When I told head office that I would have no problem in standing outside the store telling every potential customer that I thought their after sales service was shocking, she said that the store manager would call the police.

For what? I asked, standing in a public place, expressing my own opinion?

she didn't have an answer to that.

So thats my experience of maplins.

Any feedback + or - from your good selves welcome.

 

Oh, and nice site by the way

Edited by rippedoffinnotts
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Oh dear, Sorry to read about your bad experience with Maplin's and also very sorry that your property got damaged. Are you able to establish whether the HDD stopped over-writing before the 12 month warranty expired? Even if so, it may still take a good deal of effort to get a satisfactory outcome over the faulty equipment. If you know anyone in the legal profession it may be worth asking their opinion.

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  • 3 months later...

hi all i just bought an item from maplins in glasgow gwr branch . its a poloriod pogo bluetooth printer which clearly says bluetooth

so home i go wraps it up for xmas and next day the wife says ah nice item how do i work it and i say bluetooth ..but guess what of

all the useless phones in the land me and the wife own them (IPHONE) . i went back to maplin only to be told i should have asked or

checked compatibility and because id opened it nothing they can do .. no refund no credit note. i contacted head office only to be told

the same thing . so my advice to people who want to use maplin (DON,T)

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