Currys (Shop)

Currys are part of the Dixon retail Group which also includes PC World and as such sell pretty much every electrical item you could wish for on a general basis. By this I mean items which you would normally use about the house not specialist items although they do stock some such items. Washing machines to fridges, iPods to Creative Zens, PC's to laptops etc etc the list is endless and although they do tend to be a little more expensive than some retailers they are quite competitive with regard to similar outfits such as Comet. I'm rather partial to a gadget or electrical nik nak so I tend to frequent Currys quite a lot along with other prominent electrical retailers. I have heard many criticise the customer service and indeed the lack of products, but in the two stores which are within my area I have never had even a hint of such happenings. I would say one negative however and that is that typical of large stores the staff do have a tendency to pounce and offer help, I do get the impression that they are prompted to do so by supervisors who are simply trying to increase sales, but it is a practice that is quite common and also quite irritating. With PC's the choice is extensive and there are always a lot of special offers which on the surface at least do appear to actually be quite special indeed.

Today though I'd like to talk about a part of Currys which is seldom heard of and to which in general I do not partake of. Aftercare Service, Warranty extensions, supercover or in this case Whateverhappens. All what I consider to be big cons, extended insurances on products which in general are designed to way outlast the intended warranty options. So why do many people get conned into purchasing such expensive and probably unnecessary insurances. Well in the most part they are talked into them by unscrupulous salesmen who are probably on some king of bonus which depends entirely on the quantity of extended warranties sold.

Three years ago I purchased my computer and against my better judgement ended up with such a policy which at the time I firmly believed I'd never need, since my belief was that the products were well enough made to outlive the warranty, and in most cases this is true. As you will no doubt be aware though there are always exceptions to the rule and you've guessed it, one year ago my PC totally packed up on me and within 4 days I had a new motherboard and hard-drive fitted and a virtually new PC., how glad was I that I'd been conned.

On Sunday my wife was using the computer when the monitor starting making some really strange noises, then it flickered a bit, then multi-coloured lines started running across the screen, and finally with a bang and some rather scary wafts of brown smoke died completely. I thought that I was going to have to purchase a new monitor until I remember my policy. Today with 2 days left on the policy Currys have agreed to take my old monitor away and should it prove un-repairable a new one will be delivered in it's place. So I am left with a dilemma should I be making a large electrical purchase in the future which I inevitably will at some point................by warranty or not.

I have to say that for my initial outlay of £129 for the warranty extension I have been given a virtually new system, and been treated by Currys staff during communications with both respect and courtesy. At NO time was there any question that repairs or exchanges would be a problem and I have been left feeling that for once there is a customer service division that really does care about their customers, now that's gotta be a first. In conjunction with this exemplary service they run another service called The Tech Guys. When my hard-drive was replaced along with my motherboard these guys spent over an hour on the phone with me to get everything just right for the installation of all the software. After a couple of hitches and as I said one hour of typing and listening, my system was back up and as sweet as a nut. In a very polite and caring the manner the guy on the other end of the phone gave me his internal number to phone should i have any hiccups.

So should you be buying a largish electrical item from Currys remember what I have just written and let it guide you towards your decision.