Where in the world (is my bloody monitor?) (PC World)

Member Name: MrTripleshots

Product:	PC World
Date:	05/02/03 (124 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It was in stock!, It was in my budget!

Disadvantages: Where in the world (is my monitor?), Where's the good customer service?

Online shopping. I couldn't live without it - unless it's PCWorld that is...

A couple of weeks ago my much loved and much used Fujitsu-Siemens computer eventually after 3 years of putting up with my hammering at my keys and the belief that the more times you click the mouse the faster things will happen. Being a student on a computing course I figured that a decent machine would be needed. Unfortunately as much as I would have loved another Fujitsu-Siemens machine I found a slightly better deal from someone else, the only catch was that it didn't include a monitor. Figuring out that the amount of desk space I have is virtually non-existent I decided to give myself an early birthday/christmas/new year present and go for a TFT monitor.

It must be said that I am not the biggest fan of PC World or for that matter the Dixons Group in general, but since they had a TFT montor in stock and within my 200 quid price bracket I figured that I might as well go for it. I checked up on the website and found out that delivery would be within 3-5 working days and so off I went, parental credit card (with their permission) and ordered it. So here's the deal so far

SUNDAY
Ordered the monitor

MONDAY
Not a lot

TUESDAY
Email from PC World to say that the order has been processed and that the card has been charged

WEDNESDAY (Today)
Realising that they have charged the card but hadn't said anything about delivering it yet, so I decided to give them a call. After many presses of the * and # keys I did manage to get through to a human being - although they didn't really sound that interested. I have now been told that deliveries take between 7-10 working days, this now means that I'm going to have to miss some time off Uni to wait for the delivery of the monitor because it seems that PC World can't really work out what's going on in their organisation. I even asked if they had any idea
at all when it might turn up, but the dear lady on the end of the phone seemed in no hurry to find that out and ended the call as fast as she could.

Just out of interest, I ordered 4 items from 4 companies at the same time, so far...

1 arrived tuesday
1 is arriving tomorrow
and the main computer is coming friday, but I don't mind since EuroPC had the decency to ring me and tell me it would be late.

How come the small guys can get it right, and PCWorld really don't seem to care all that much? I'm going to keep this updated *(maybe) and let you know how this farce continues.

***AND HERE IS THE UPDATE!!!***
Eventually I got so bored of waiting on various phone lines I asked them to cancel the order over the phone on Wednesday, got out of the house and went and actually bought a nicer monitor for less...

So anyways, a couple of days pass and out I go to do some shopping, when I come back there's a note from the courier saying I have missed a delivery. I had to wait until monday before doing the 30 mile round trip to pick up the package, which as it turned out was the (cancelled) TFT monitor. But wait! PC World state on their website that delivery will be between 4pm and 9pm, but the note from the courier said that the delivery turned up at 1pm - so even if I had known the monitor was coming and stayed in between 4 and 9 I'd have still missed delivery.

I've been back to the PCW website and looked at the return policy, they now want to charge me for the carriage of returning the monitor to them, which I think is a little unfair considering I cancelled the order a good 24 hours before it left the warehouse. So looks like saturday I'll be taking it back to my local 'friendly' PC World store, but that's a whole other story.

PCWorld is great for first time computer users, and I guess I really should have known better than to trust them again. Sorry boys, but if
I gave the kind of customer service in my job that you give to your customers - I'd be fired.

Summary: