Bought a Goodmans tv/dvd combi for our bedroom 17 months ago. Hardly gets used, just for the odd DVD on a sunday for DD to watch. Don't use tv element at all.
Anyway, about a month ago, it started to cut out, DH spoke to customer care who talked him through some things, nothing worked then at the weekend while talking to them again, it went 'pop' and stopped working completely.
The customer care rep said that he needed to take it into sainsburys and they would exchange it for like for like, or if not one available, for voucher equivalent. Explained we could not locate the receipt (in loft) and it was out of warranty but customer care said that it would be replaced as hardly used, under Sales of Goods Act they would honour it.
So, DH, DD and I went to sainsbury's. I am much better than DH at explaining things and I cannot chase DD being heavily pregnant so DH looked after DD, i sorted it out.
CS guy straight away said they would refund/replace as not their own tv make, and no receipt. I asked to talk to a manager, who did not introduce himself, wore no name badge and turned out to be a duty manager from the fresh food dept - he said the same (after the CS guy said 'i would not do it, but its your call' to the duty manager) without even hearing what I had to say. I asked him to call customer care and see what they said, he went off, came back and said he had spoken to the store manager who said no they won't replace. He said to me 'for all i know, you could have bought this from any store' at which point I asked if he was calling me a liar, asked what incentive I would have to bring a broken tv all the way in to just replace with another one, why would I not take it back to the store i bought it from if I did not get it there...i said I did not like the implication that I was a liar, that I had spent a lot of money there and surely my custom was worth more. He said I would have to go away and call customer care myself and get them to send me some vouchers and them go into store to spend them. He would not get the store manager and I told him I had a receipt somewhere at home, but in the loft which meant halling myself through a small gap while heavily pg to sort through paperwork. I asked if he was happy for me to leave the store under these circumstances, with the knowlesge that if I did, I would refuse to shop there again. He said it was policy and he could not budge. I told him that was untrue.
I then asked for his name and title, and also the name and title of the other guy i spoke to who was trying to influence his decision. His name badge said 'Tom' on it and it turns out his name was completely different (his girlfriend was his own name badge apparantly).
I called to talk to the store manager - he was not working that day!!! So i spoke to someone else 'in charge' and he asked for ref no from customer care.
Anyway, I went home, got receipt, went back without DH as he had to feed DD who was highly cranky. Shoved it on the table, asked to talk to the guy in charge. He took one look at the receipt and said come with me to exchange, which i did, hobbling terribly. As we walked, he apologised profusely and offered a goodwill gesture.
Then, he looked at the receipt again, and said the make on receipt was wrong, different to the one I had brought back (akura or something) i told him i did not know what he was implying, as it seemed he was suggesting I was again attempting to be deceiptful, he went off, came back, said there was some cateloguing error and, probably as a result of the fury in my face said, lets not go into it, lets just get it replaced.
THEN, he asked the electrical goods manager to replace with the tv i selected, and give me a goodwill gift voucher of £40. She said fine, then after he left, looked at the receipt, went to question the fact it was out of date, and when i told her to not ask me any questions but give mr whatisname a tannoy, she sorted it!!!
It took, all in all, 4 hours. And they should have done it straight away. But I got there in the end. I told him, that 99% or so of customers are honest and have no intention to deceive, I said i felt appalled that two of his staff presumed that a heavily pregnant woman would fall into the category of 1% dishonest, I said they should err on the side of the customer unless they had reason to think otherwise. He agreed and was very apologetic. But it took me almost blowing my top to get there.
Just thought I would let people know, that firstly, Sainsburys customer services are jerks, (not the first time i have had problems) and secondly, if you stand your ground and do not give up, you can get them to do the right thing.