ITS crap!
The It's is a large electronic retailer with about 100 shops all across the Netherlands.
Their slogan is "It's all about you!".
Which is a clever slogan as it has the name of the company in it and it says what you want hear as a consumer from a shop. We are here to help you. Our service is great. Please step on us.
What is should say is "It was all about you till we got your money." "It's all about us! There is the door please leave". "We have worms!"
Almost a year ago I moved to Almere with 2 very good friends of mine and I wanted to buy a audio / dvd set for in the living room. The IT's was just down the road and they had a very nice set for sale. A JBL Csp320P/230. Now I know that JBL is a good brand and when I googled for it I couldn't find any complaints with this set. Good brand, good price and it has the specs I want!
2 weeks after purchase: I notices a static noise on the background which disappeared after a few seconds.
4 weeks after purchase: Problem got worse. It was glitching but it still recovered after a few seconds. This happened every now and then.
6 weeks after purchase: The sound problem got worse
The sound was good if I played a cd or DVD. It only happened if I hooked up the xbox360 or the playstation 3 with a fiber optical cable.
JBL system with a problem? Naaaah. Probably a setting or a cable problem is what I thought. Until the set went "Poof!" and there was the little gray cloud of smoke saying "Meh! I don't like you." It still would turn on and had the same problem but now the dvd / cd player didn't work either.
I grabbed the unit, went back to the store and explained what happened. They took my player and gave me a piece of paper saying now we have your money and your audio set Buwhahaha! that they will repair it within 6 weeks.
6 weeks later: Nothing
7 weeks later: Nothing
8 weeks later: Nothing and an excuse that they will call me. Yeah right. Don't call us we'll call you.
10 weeks later: Nothing
12 weeks later: A very angry Johnny goes to the shop and walks up to the manager. "You have my audio set for 12 weeks in repair while you promised to fix it in 6 weeks. How are you going to solve this?
He had to get in contact with headquarters to get an update on the repair and he promised to contact me on a Monday. Understandable as it was a Saturday.
Monday: He calls! He said that they didn't know when they could resolve the problem. So they promised me to swap the set with a identical one. Yaaaay! Problem solved!
4 weeks later: Same problem with the sound but worse!!! I called a JBL service center to get some help. Sadly they couldn't help me as this was a "Low budget" set and they only support the high end. But the guy walked me through all of the settings to see if there was anything wrong. This took about a hour. Kudos for JBL service center guy.
The next weekend I return the set and get another identical replacement. Driemaal scheepsrecht? ***
Sadly not. This set had the same problem as the previous one.
Back in the store they wanted to offer me to replace the audio / dvd player with one of my choice of any brand. They had this nice Harman Kardon set with awesome speakers. I wanted that one till I heard I was only allowed to get the player and not the speakers. I had to keep the speakers of the JBL set. Which is weird because I bought it as a set and he had to sell this as a set. OH! And I had to pay difference between these 2 sets. So I had to pay the whole price of the Harman Kardon set and then I would get only the player and I had to keep the cheaper JBL speakers. Now I got pissed and realized that this is going nowhere. I asked the manager to leave me otherwise I would break his face so I could browse a bit and to think about it.
Another IT's employee came to me while I was thinking how I could resolve this whole ordeal. He heard the problem and wanted to know if I tried a different optical cable. Which was not the case. He said that it has happened before that a cheap optical cable could cause this. He showed me a 40 euros optical cable and promised me that I would get my money back if this wouldn't solve the problem. I bought the cable because I couldn't find any other set I liked and I was curious if this would solve the problem. (And I didn't like the audio / dvd player only deal)
The cable didn't solve the problem and I returned to the shop once again. The kid who sold me the cable gave me money back and said; "Heh, I should have said that you should return it on another day. This way it won't be deducted from my bonus." ....
Translation: If I sell you shit I get a bonus. If you return it I won't. If you return it on another day it goes shops bonus and the managers.
So now we know why the manager didn't want to give my money back. The shop and he will get some sort of bonus if they sell more.
Back home I contacted my fathers lawyer and explained the situation. He told me that I need to get my 1st set back, repaired.
The law says that if you return an electronic device and they are unable to repair the problem you may break the contract and get your money back. Here's the catch. They replaced the unit.
So I called the IT's repair service. Explained what happened and then heard that the unit is still at their repair service. I demanded it's status and at what exact date I would get it back. "Oh, I don't know. But I could give you the phone number of our repair service?" ... sure. I called them and the first thing they asked was who gave me this number because this number is only for clients and not for customers. (harhar) Anyway; 2 more weeks. Called the It's again and demanded that I would get the repaired unit back and I will compare the serial number.
5 weeks later I get a phone call from the IT's service center telling me that I could collect the unit in the shop. Yay! Maybe the problem is solved? If not then I can take legal steps. But when I drove to the shop and when I asked for it I got a couple of lousy excuses. We didn't receive anything. It got replaced by another set like we usually do. We sold it.
I walked out without saying anything. Afraid that I would start shouting or hurting people.
Back home at home I wrote a complaint letter to the head office explaining everything and demanding my money back. This is something you have to do before you can sue them. 2 weeks later I got a letter back saying; Dear Johnny, sorry to hear this, bla bla bla, sadly we can't give your money back because we think that our offer to replace it is sufficient.
Johnny wasn't really surprised to hear this and already prepared all the paperwork which he had to send to De geschillencommissie. Which is sort of a middle person between customers and companies for when things go wrong. Now it's 28th may 2009.
This whole story basically comes down to this: DO NOT BUY FROM ITS! or www.itsonline.nl or anything from thuiswinkel.nl
( *** driemaal scheepsrecht. Translation: third time is shippers right. It's an old dutch saying and these days it's to justify your attempt to do something something that went wrong two times before. If your car wouldn't start the first two times then surely it would a third. )
Their slogan is "It's all about you!".
Which is a clever slogan as it has the name of the company in it and it says what you want hear as a consumer from a shop. We are here to help you. Our service is great. Please step on us.
What is should say is "It was all about you till we got your money." "It's all about us! There is the door please leave". "We have worms!"
Almost a year ago I moved to Almere with 2 very good friends of mine and I wanted to buy a audio / dvd set for in the living room. The IT's was just down the road and they had a very nice set for sale. A JBL Csp320P/230. Now I know that JBL is a good brand and when I googled for it I couldn't find any complaints with this set. Good brand, good price and it has the specs I want!
2 weeks after purchase: I notices a static noise on the background which disappeared after a few seconds.
4 weeks after purchase: Problem got worse. It was glitching but it still recovered after a few seconds. This happened every now and then.
6 weeks after purchase: The sound problem got worse
The sound was good if I played a cd or DVD. It only happened if I hooked up the xbox360 or the playstation 3 with a fiber optical cable.
JBL system with a problem? Naaaah. Probably a setting or a cable problem is what I thought. Until the set went "Poof!" and there was the little gray cloud of smoke saying "Meh! I don't like you." It still would turn on and had the same problem but now the dvd / cd player didn't work either.
I grabbed the unit, went back to the store and explained what happened. They took my player and gave me a piece of paper saying now we have your money and your audio set Buwhahaha! that they will repair it within 6 weeks.
6 weeks later: Nothing
7 weeks later: Nothing
8 weeks later: Nothing and an excuse that they will call me. Yeah right. Don't call us we'll call you.
10 weeks later: Nothing
12 weeks later: A very angry Johnny goes to the shop and walks up to the manager. "You have my audio set for 12 weeks in repair while you promised to fix it in 6 weeks. How are you going to solve this?
He had to get in contact with headquarters to get an update on the repair and he promised to contact me on a Monday. Understandable as it was a Saturday.
Monday: He calls! He said that they didn't know when they could resolve the problem. So they promised me to swap the set with a identical one. Yaaaay! Problem solved!
4 weeks later: Same problem with the sound but worse!!! I called a JBL service center to get some help. Sadly they couldn't help me as this was a "Low budget" set and they only support the high end. But the guy walked me through all of the settings to see if there was anything wrong. This took about a hour. Kudos for JBL service center guy.
The next weekend I return the set and get another identical replacement. Driemaal scheepsrecht? ***
Sadly not. This set had the same problem as the previous one.
Back in the store they wanted to offer me to replace the audio / dvd player with one of my choice of any brand. They had this nice Harman Kardon set with awesome speakers. I wanted that one till I heard I was only allowed to get the player and not the speakers. I had to keep the speakers of the JBL set. Which is weird because I bought it as a set and he had to sell this as a set. OH! And I had to pay difference between these 2 sets. So I had to pay the whole price of the Harman Kardon set and then I would get only the player and I had to keep the cheaper JBL speakers. Now I got pissed and realized that this is going nowhere. I asked the manager to leave me otherwise I would break his face so I could browse a bit and to think about it.
Another IT's employee came to me while I was thinking how I could resolve this whole ordeal. He heard the problem and wanted to know if I tried a different optical cable. Which was not the case. He said that it has happened before that a cheap optical cable could cause this. He showed me a 40 euros optical cable and promised me that I would get my money back if this wouldn't solve the problem. I bought the cable because I couldn't find any other set I liked and I was curious if this would solve the problem. (And I didn't like the audio / dvd player only deal)
The cable didn't solve the problem and I returned to the shop once again. The kid who sold me the cable gave me money back and said; "Heh, I should have said that you should return it on another day. This way it won't be deducted from my bonus." ....
Translation: If I sell you shit I get a bonus. If you return it I won't. If you return it on another day it goes shops bonus and the managers.
So now we know why the manager didn't want to give my money back. The shop and he will get some sort of bonus if they sell more.
Back home I contacted my fathers lawyer and explained the situation. He told me that I need to get my 1st set back, repaired.
The law says that if you return an electronic device and they are unable to repair the problem you may break the contract and get your money back. Here's the catch. They replaced the unit.
So I called the IT's repair service. Explained what happened and then heard that the unit is still at their repair service. I demanded it's status and at what exact date I would get it back. "Oh, I don't know. But I could give you the phone number of our repair service?" ... sure. I called them and the first thing they asked was who gave me this number because this number is only for clients and not for customers. (harhar) Anyway; 2 more weeks. Called the It's again and demanded that I would get the repaired unit back and I will compare the serial number.
5 weeks later I get a phone call from the IT's service center telling me that I could collect the unit in the shop. Yay! Maybe the problem is solved? If not then I can take legal steps. But when I drove to the shop and when I asked for it I got a couple of lousy excuses. We didn't receive anything. It got replaced by another set like we usually do. We sold it.
I walked out without saying anything. Afraid that I would start shouting or hurting people.
Back home at home I wrote a complaint letter to the head office explaining everything and demanding my money back. This is something you have to do before you can sue them. 2 weeks later I got a letter back saying; Dear Johnny, sorry to hear this, bla bla bla, sadly we can't give your money back because we think that our offer to replace it is sufficient.
Johnny wasn't really surprised to hear this and already prepared all the paperwork which he had to send to De geschillencommissie. Which is sort of a middle person between customers and companies for when things go wrong. Now it's 28th may 2009.
This whole story basically comes down to this: DO NOT BUY FROM ITS! or www.itsonline.nl or anything from thuiswinkel.nl
( *** driemaal scheepsrecht. Translation: third time is shippers right. It's an old dutch saying and these days it's to justify your attempt to do something something that went wrong two times before. If your car wouldn't start the first two times then surely it would a third. )