Quite a while ago now I purchased 100 OEM CDR Disks from Savastore
(AKA Watford Electronics) for approx. £25.00 icl. Delivery.
Upon ordering I recieved an e-mail stating that they did not have
any in stock at thier warehouse but they would be sent directly
to me from another source. After only one day extra delay I received
the disks. Then came the problems.
Immediately upon trying to burn on these disks with my brand
new CD-Writer I had nothing but failiures. At the time I wasnt
sure if my Writer may have been the problem so I did not act on
this straight away but I soon found out that these disks were
ALL useless when I tried them on 2 other CD-writers on 2 different
systems. Not one single successful burn on any attempt. As these
writers worked perfectly well with any other disks that have been
used on them it was clear that these disks were defective.
I then tried to obtain a returns number via Savastores web-site
but when I tried to click on the relevant link code for the item
I got this message instead: "All invoiced quantities for
item 10214016 have been returned". I took this to be conclusive
proof that the disks were bad, why else would they have all been
returned?. (I was going to post the link for that page here but
upon checking today they have rather conveniently changed this
page since my last complaint in which I pointed this out as evidence
that they already know the disks are defective).
After several e-mails to Savastore over a 2 week period requesting
an RMA number and explaining the problem (ALL of which were completely
ignored) I decided to phone them. At first the customer service
rep seemed confused by the simple fact that these disks were sent
to me from another source as their on-line warehouse was out of
stock when I ordered them, he said that they had 'already recieved
all of the ordered disks back'. After checking my order history
and putting me on hold for a while he accepted that I had indeed
ordered and paid for these goods and finally gave me an RMA number.
He told me that I would receive a Freepost label in the post that
I should use to return the disks. At my request, upon receiving
the disks back they would then send me a replacement of 100 working
disks (at the time I thought that would be a better option than
requesting a refund).
Another week passed and still no label. I phoned them again and
another rep told me she would re-send the label and 2 days later
I finally got it and on the same day I returned the disks (19/09/02).
A week later I tried to track the progress of the return but in
my customer details it stated that my returns basket was empty!!.
I e-mailed them again about this and nearly a week later on 02/10/02
(way over the 48 hours quoted for a response) I finally got a
reply stating that they had NOT received the disks back from me
(after nearly 2 weeks since posting) and that I should provide
proof of delivery to close the RA.
Since they provided the freepost postage label how was I to get
this? All I could get from the Post office on sending the disks
was a certificate of posting.
So after an inexcusable delay of over 3 weeks to even get an
RMA number from them, another 2 weeks have passed since posting
and they now claim they have not received the disks back. To top
this off their website has been changed so that the evidence that
they already know these disks are defective is gone as well. Presumably
and with any due cynacism aside this change is because they now
have working stock for the disks, but for several weeks they did
not and this page was proof of it.
As it stands now after nearly 6 weeks since initially trying
to return these useless disks they still have my money and the
disks that I returned using the label THEY supplied have allegedly
failed to arrive (I personally find this VERY dubious as I post
parcels on a regular basis and have never had one go missing yet)
and I am still no closer to getting the 100 working CDR disks
that I paid for long ago.
After all of this, it is my opinion that any buyer should be
very wary of using this company. Apart from taking ages to reply
to e-mails, if they reply at all, thier returns process seems
highly dubious and If you do need to return an item then I would
advise that you definitely avoid using the Freepost label that
they supply as it seems there is no protection for you if they
then claim they have not received the returned item, leaving you
without goods or money.
My own case is made more infuriating by the fact that they already
know that these disks are useless and that they knew this before
I even requested a return & replacement from them!! (standard
procedure for mail-order companies is to issue a recall for defective
items, not just hope the buyer doesnt notice).
Prior to this experience I had rather naively trusted these on-line
suppliers but this has definitely put me off using any of them
again.
