Inept staff at PC World

I went to PC World to return a product I had bought earlier - no one assisted me in my purchase at the time, and I ended up buying the wrong thing. I went to the shop assistant, who told me that I needed to go to the PC repairs section, as they would have to test the product to check it was still working. There were already three people there, and not one staff member at the desk. After 25 minutes of waiting, only one person had been served. Eventually I went back to the sales assistant and demanded that she take the product back herself and give me a refund, which she finally did. Won't be going back!

Hmmmm ... when I read this kind of thread I get to feel a little guilty. Y'see, I used to poach PC World techies - and I wasn't alone.

The problem is that that PC world pay their staff utter peanuts ... and treat then like morons to boot. Naturally, being a highly visible organisation, they get all sorts of newbies looking for jobs, most of them several buttons short of a full tunic. On the principle that, if you throw enough manure at a wall, some of it will stick, a few bright ones walk in as well. They were my target.

I got one kid by accident while I was working as an IT manager for one of the big oil companies in Aberdeen. I'd just popped in for one of those stupid little things that you don't have in stock, your stores will take an age to get to you and the boss is screaming for his PC - and there was this spotty kid offering to help.

It turned out that not only did he know exactly where the part was (a 3Com 3C509 NIC if you're really interested) but also knew enough to ask me if I had a flexi drop cable as well. I got talking to him and found out that he was being paid £8k - this was back in '96. I needed a hardware techie so offered him £13k to come and work for me there and then. He took my arm off.

He started a week later and never looked back. He's now a network manager in his own right so don't blame the kids in the store. It's the mindless money-grubbing company culture they work for, that hires chimps and then fails to train 'em .. and prats like me who then cherry pick the good ones. ;-)

I bought a laptop from PC World in April. I needed it to run a specific software programme for my work and the ones on the shelf didn't seem to meet the necessary spec. Someone suggested I ask in the business centre. Helpful advisor found an appropriate laptop, and didn't explain to me that if you buy through the business centre you give up all your consumer rights under the Sale of Goods Act! Eight weeks later, the hard disc died. Manufacturer's helpline diagnosed this, but said if I wanted to try to get some of my data off before they swapped it, to try in-store. Helpful tech guy agreed to try to get data back and stated categorically that PCWorld would then send it to the manufacturer for repair. I'm now six weeks further on. No laptop, and it appears that it has been sent to PCWorld's tech repair centre, not the manufacturer, despite being repeatedly told that I cant have a refund or a replacement computer because my guarantee is only with the manufacturer, because of the 'business sales' thing. Manager of the local business centre in Portsmouth was completely unhelpful, basically told me it served my right for not taking out extra warranty. I think they should refund or replace my laptop immediately as a goodwill gesture if nothing else, but I dont know how to get any further. I recommend you dont buy anything through PCWorld Business without thinking very hard first. I know I will never buy anything else from them again. Meanwhile, if anyone has any good ideas how I can get up and running again, I'd be grateful

Matthew Ward (response)

New Laptops don't come with 56k modems. This a manufacturer decision and nothinf to do with PC World. You DO NOT need a wireless router to go on the internet just an external modem. Laptops are never particularly good for gaming because of the constrictions of fitting all of the hardware into such a small case. To get a laptop capable of running high graphics games you would expect to spend thousands. As for the iTunes issue that will be sorted out by apple when they update there software.

My experiences of buying a computer from PC World have been so bad I want to help prevent anybody else from having to go through the same nightmare.

PC World sold me a computer knowing that it would not work for the purposes I bought it. Just two days later, they now refuse to give me a refund and threatened to throw me out of the store when I dared ask for my money back!

I paid £800 for a laptop, accessories and software which I later found were incompatible when used together. At no time during purchase did the PC World advisor tell me of the incompatibility issues - he was simply focused on making a sale and selling expensive help line services.

It seems that there are several things PC World doesn’t want you to know about the computers it sells:

- They don’t play 9 out of 10 games
- They don’t let you play music on iTunes
- They won’t let you go on the Web without a wireless router

All these problems are down to PC World selling computers running Windows Vista (the new standard operating system) without warning customers that their new PCs will be virtually useless when they get them home!

Thousands of other people are almost certain to be experiencing the same PC World nightmare!

PC World is fine if you're confident enough about computers to NEVER have to consult them again. I bought my computer from them and got an absolute bargain. About £500 cheaper than anywhere else. I know what I'm doing so if I were unlucky enough to have problems there's no way I'd take it back to the store unless it was a manufacturer fault.

Basically if you want a computer and you have little knowledge of them you're better sticking to an independent dealer who can give you professional advice.

To "I used to work at PC World".

If you think Firefox is a machine and you used to work at PC World, I shall be quickly moving whatever business I may have had in the past with them, well away from that monopolistic institution. Clearly, if that is the advice you gave customers it's little wonder that they end up dissatisfied.

PC are building their business so that the owner (DSG International) can sell it. That is why they have started selling TVs so that when they come to sell it, PC World has a broader base of customers which is more attractive to a company who may buy the PC World division.

Hey. Why is PC World selling televisions? Don't you think that's odd? PC World is for computers. They've got Dixons and Currys for selling TVs.

Firefox is clearly the better machine for browsing. Clearly.

I totally agree with Hebo; Scooty is a noob lolz. He can barely operate a computer and just types 1337 to impress girls (failing). I also hear he uses Internet Explorer, thus proving his noobness.

I used to work at PC World, and when you sign into a shift they use a HP Pavilion 2x.5 processing unit. I mean come on! The 2x.8 is clearly a more complete machine.