Well after a long deserved break, I have returned to Ciao to write a new opinion and that being one of a negative nature! Not one to normally moan about things (yeah right) I thought I should bring to your attention the service that the electrical chain Comet provides.

In general, they sell somewhat shoddy items, which only tend to last as long as you keep the guarantee. I don't know what it is with me a lasers but they never seem to like me!

It all started about 2 years ago, I had bought a new Aiwa midi system 2 years previous and was pleased with my system, that was until it started playing up that is.

The Aiwa system was one of my best buys until it decided it only wanted to play some of my CDs, the CD’s it tended not to play at first were the kind with less ink on the top of the CD or none at all if you know what I mean. As time went on things got worse. In the end the player only played about 10 out of 120 of my CDs until it stop playing them altogether!

I was starting to get really agitated and took it to the store I bought it from (Comet) to get a more in-depth conclusion as to why it would not work. It turned out that the laser had broken down and when I asked about getting it fixed the member of staff told me that it was no use as my guarantee had run out it would cost £90 alone to replace the laser with a new one let alone the delivery costs etc.!

Being the naive and gullible kid I was (I was bout 14 at the time) the store worker suggested I get a new system altogether which I did from the same store!!!
Well I naturally chose the same manufacturer which was Aiwa but the system was of much better quality, it was capable of playing CDRW discs as well as CDR's so there shouldn’t be any problems with CDs playing as long as the laser held out this time.

Anyway, it's been about 2 years since I bought the new system and there have been no problems yet.

You think I would be wrapping up this story by now but no. Once again, at the beginning of this year, I decided to get a new dvd player so I set out on the hunt for the cheapest cinema sound system I could find.

Guess where I found it, you’ve guessed it, Comet. I decided to buy the Goodmans DVD3500PK home cinema kit. At the time I purchased the system, the store was preparing to relocate to a bigger store a few streets away so things were kind of in a ruckus.

I got home and couldn’t wait to set up the system, which I did. The first film I watched was Dungeons and Dragons and from the first film I watched, there was the same reoccurring problem. When the film would get halfway into a film, or there about, the film would pause for a few seconds and then continue playing again. I decided that this may be due to the disk playing up but after viewing various dvd’s I came to the conclusion that there was something wrong with the player. The time I decided to take the system back was the same time the store had closed ready to relocate to the bigger one. When the new store eventually opened, I took the system back only to find out it was a day over the months guarantee, I explained that it wasn’t my fault because of the closure of the store but they said all they could do is send it off to be looked at. A week past without my dvd player and my dvd collection mounting up when I heard from the repairers. They said that the system with be ready to be collected the Sunday of that week. I asked if they could tell me what was wrong and they said it would say in the notes when collected.

I had one problem on the Sunday, the family car was in the garage being fixed when I had to collect the system straight after work. I was finishing at 4.30pm and the store was closing at 5.00pm so I had to rush and as the busses weren’t running I had to call for a taxi. The taxi came and I had 10 minutes to get there. I got there and walked through the door just as the security guard said they were closing I explained and he let me in. I collected the player and got home spending £10 on the taxi only to find that the player had not been fixed. I was fuming. The notes said that they found nothing wrong with it but when I watched 2 more films, the same thing occurred. I took notes on when the film froze and went to the store to complain and tell them to do something. They arranged for someone to call to the house to have a closer look, which was on a Saturday when I was in work. I got my mother to deal with the person who only came in to pick up the system and take 2 of my dvds away with him!

After a week I received a phone call to say that there was a problem with the laser (like I didn’t know already) and that they had sent off for the part to replace the item. Another week and a half past and I had a letter letting me know that the item would be delivered to me on the next Saturday. I was pleased that it was finally arriving and was looking forward to watching some of my films.

The day after receiving the letter, I had yet another phone call to say that they were unable to repair the system and that if I would take this claim code to the store to get an exchange or another system to the same price or higher by paying extra. I forgot to ask about the dvds that they took with them and phoned them back and was assured that they would be posted on. I was not a happy chappy and went down to the store to resolve matters as well as complain. I went to the desk explained and they said to go and have a look at anything that took my fancy. I decided that there was no way I was getting the same system again and looked at the other systems, none of which were in my price range. I went to the desk again and was determined not to be fobbed off again and explained that I didn’t want another system and instead wanted a refund after all it was the least they could do after all the hassle.

Eventually after a talk to the manager, The manager authorised the refund and I was finally free from the grasp of Comet. I was pleased that I had finally received a refund but at the same time I was back at square one without a dvd player!

After a week or two of looking at cinema systems, a nice one popped up at my work (Makro) it was an Aiwa HT-DV90 priced at £249.99 and with my staff discount, it would have only been about £265.00 with VAT added. The system was all that I wanted and it even had a built in DTS decoder as well as the Dolby 5.1 decoder. I went off home to check on the net for info on the system, which was released at the beginning of the year priced at £500! I also found the same model in Dixons for £399.99 and realised that I was making a huge saving. I decided to purchase the system and to this date, I have had no problems with it, in fact it IS the best thing I have bought and consequently my dvd collection has rocked to over 120 dvds since November last year!

After 3 weeks of phoning three separate times, I finally had my dvd’s back from the repairers, which proves that customer service is not their main priority.

As you can tell from this opinion, I do no hold Comet in high regard and although the second Midi system is currently faultless, the customer service communication received the actual products are far from perfect.