My experience of the carphone warehouse (CPW)? Absolutely woeful! Below are bullet points from one of the letters I sent them, immediately after cancelling my contract. Order from them at your own risk...
o 23rd January, iphone ordered from your website. Paid £96.87 for the handset, based on the £35/month tariff. Check bank and can see money has been debited o 24th January, receive e-mail saying "payment card declined". Too late to call you to resolve matter that day o 25th January, called and explained bank statement shows successful transaction. Sales advisor asks for card details once again, for a 1p test transaction, and gives assurance that another £96.87 will not be debited. Assured phone will be delivered to store on the 26th, for collection on the 27th o 25th January, check bank and find a second charge of £96.87 taken from account o 26th January, call to complain at double charge and ask for an explanation. Advisor seemed very unsure of what was going on, but advised I would see the money back in bank account "within the next three days". Not satisfied that this was true, called a further two or three times and was given various responses. Nobody actually bothered to get to the bottom of it or issue the refund o 26th January, call store to ask if they have received iphone. Store confirm they have not received it, contact pickers. Pickers claim store already has the phone. I am told "we're not quite sure what has happened to it" o 27th January, store receives phone and calls me to collect. I collect the phone, without having to produce any form of ID or sign any documents. Store fails to finish off the order, meaning when I get home and activate the phone it cannot be used o 28th January, phone still not active. I call to complain and am told I should have signed documents in the store, and I would have to return there to have the order completed - until I do that the phone is usefull. Once again I ask about the refund of my double payment o 28th January, I return to store. Complete order. Commence using the phone. Dissatisfied about having been charged twice and the promised refund not having appeared, I write my first letter to you requesting that I be refunded £96.87 in full and within thee days or I will terminate contract. Also request a definitive explanation as to what has happened. Received by you on 29th January. As of yet, no response received. I also request appropriate compensation for the unauthorised loan you took from me and the problems experienced with your call centre and store. o 3rd February, angry that no reply has been provided and no sign of any refund. Make a further call to your call centre. It transpires this has happened to "thousands of people". After about fourteen minutes on hold I am told the payment has just been sent. Original request for refund was on 26th January and it has taken until 3rd February just for the button to be pressed! Presumably it would still not be sent had I not called. o 3rd February, I ask call centre for compensation for the way I have been treated. Was offered a £10 credit voucher for CPW. This is completely insulting and I declined the offer. I ask how to cancel agreement and am told to take it back to my local store. o 3rd February, I take phone to store and request to cancel. Explain the situation to what appeared to the be the store manager. He explained I was one day out-with my 7 day cancellation period. I pointed out I'd been told I had a 14 day cooling off period when I took out the contract (over phone) and had written last week notifying intent to cancel. The manager was helpful - a first - and said he would have to make a couple of calls and asked me to return in an hour. This I did - after a trip to Trading Standards - and, thankfully, he agreed to issue a refund although it had to be via head office cheque.
...you have been warned.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
3 brings together video calling, video clips, location based services and amazing content to browse and download. 3 has great offers and a huge range of the 3G handsets. Visit the 3 Shop to find more info. on offers
Advantages: Easy to use website, Good online guide and info Disadvantages: For purchases, you have to trust the photos of the mobile, and not get to feel it.
Advantages: Usually cheap prices for pay monthly but not pay as you go Disadvantages: Poor customer services, only really interested in selling you contract phones
Jan 25th, 2009
(Feb 3rd, 2009)
very helpful by (25%):
helpful by (75%):
