Service At Maplin, Limerick

D. Murphy · 31-10-2006 7:20pm #1

Hello everyone,

I want to share my experience with the staff in Maplin, Childers road, Limerick.

Tonight not 30 minutes ago my Belkin blue tooth dongle died on me after a year of service and i needed a new one so i decided to take a trip to maplin. I grabbed there catalog which i had bought less then a week ago (Yes they charge for there catalog €7 i think it was) so i skimmed through it before i got in the car to check out which dongle. On page 26 or 24 of the book i cant remember now there was a dongle that would work pretty well for me and for only €18 too! Huzza! So here i am happy as Larry crawling to maplin in the busy traffic! I got there and it was in a bit of a state one man was hanging out of the ceiling trying to fix lighting and one of the shelves as you walk in the door was bare and looked like it was about to fall off. After walking around maplin looking for the dongle i had selected in the catalog and couldn't find it i asked the clerk at the desk where it was he took the catalog and old me to go to the back desk and ask for it. I did this and got the dongle from the man at the back desk who told me to go to the front desk to pay. He bagged it up and asked for payment which was €32 people. When i corrected him and said it was €18 in the catalog he said hold on and got the manager of the store to come over the clerk was very friendly but the manager really needs to learn some etiquette he came over the clerk said the price was quoted wrong in the machine and these where the exact words of the manager to my face "So what! we have the right to change the price whenever we want!" he then walked away. In my humble opinion shouldn't a manager try to fix it maybe give an explanation without being an ass? He also said the catalog was over 2 months old and the prices cant be valid before he stormed off. Why would maplin sell a catalog(€7!!!) that same week if the prices where going to be wrong? Then the clerk told me there would be a new catalog available tomorrow in a very friendly manner and he helped me out by giving me a sneak peak at it. After taking one of my friends advice i went to the argos website and reserved a dongle there and i will pick it up tomorrow. See how easy that was with argos?

Anyway i think i began to trail off. In short maplin have a bad taste in managers or a good taste in clerks.

One thing is for sure they lost one customer here. Anyone else every have troubles like this from them? Also maplin = False Advertising?

http://www.odca.ie/cfmdocs/documents/docs2.cfm?article_no=4248

Thank You.
D. Murphy

CiaranC · 31-10-2006 7:28pm

****ing moron. Hes pissed off because hes a failure in life. Manager in a retail store and he doesnt even understand a basic tenet of retailing - that you have to honour an advertised price.

Guys in Maplin in Blanch are the same, idiots. I had to remind one that he was a checkout boy, not the CEO of Microsoft last time I was in there.

Kintarō Hattori · 31-10-2006 7:31pm

CiaranC wrote:

I had to remind one that he was a checkout boy, not the CEO of Microsoft last time I was in there.

Maybe his attitude was a reflection of your own?

CiaranC · 31-10-2006 7:38pm

Or maybe he showed disdain when I got an obscure acronym slightly wrong.

D. Murphy · 31-10-2006 7:41pm

CiaranC wrote:

****ing moron. Hes pissed off because hes a failure in life.

hahaha i love it.

Honestly i have had no problems up until now but i never had to talk to there "Manager" up until now either. I think ill be ordering my components off the net or purchasing elsewhere from now on.

Thank You.
D. Murphy

Red Alert · 31-10-2006 8:32pm

In Dublin, peat's are much better. always got really good service there, in particular from a guy called Stephen in the HiFi's and Ronan in the Computers - both of them really know their stuff and will take their time to explain stuff to you.

I decided I was fed up of mediocre micro systems from argos, and decided to splash out my summer wages on a serious sound system. I spent the best part of an afternoon in there trying out different speakers, amplifiers and CD players and ended up with a system I really liked. Then as a result of buying DJ'ing decks and some renovations at home I decided to upgrade the speakers so I could have two zones. I went in and explained the setup I had already and just like the last time was given both the time and assistance to try out different speakers using the same CD player and Amp I had already. To really cap it all, with my peat's voucher for xmas I decided to round off the system with a good tuner and MD deck. Unfortunately I was on crutches at the time, and my mum had to accompany me into the shop. Although she's not into hifi at all, they really made her welcome and were able to keep her amused whilst I tricked around with different models. The system is playing right now, and I doubt i'll have a different system in ten years time. Great service, well worth it.

Beano · 31-10-2006 9:17pm

CiaranC wrote:

****ing moron. Hes pissed off because hes a failure in life. Manager in a retail store and he doesnt even understand a basic tenet of retailing - that you have to honour an advertised price.

...

No they dont. We've discussed this several times before. Do a google for "invitation to treat"

swingking · 31-10-2006 10:39pm

Beano wrote:

No they dont. We've discussed this several times before. Do a google for "invitation to treat"

If you quote a price to a customer "verbally" then there is no need to honour that price

It is only when the price is written down that legal issues prevail.

If the price is advertised as 18 euro in a catalogue, by law, the shop must honour the price advertised. If the clerk stated the price was 18euro and it turned out to be 36 euro, the shop can sell the item for the cost of choice.

The physical writing down of prices is known as the "point of sale"

Sam Vimes · 31-10-2006 11:09pm

CiaranC wrote:

****ing moron. Hes pissed off because hes a failure in life. Manager in a retail store and he doesnt even understand a basic tenet of retailing - that you have to honour an advertised price.

Guys in Maplin in Blanch are the same, idiots. I had to remind one that he was a checkout boy, not the CEO of Microsoft last time I was in there.

i used to work there. the manager is insane. among many many other things, he doesn't promote any kind of good customer service. i used to get an earful all the time for "spending too long with customers".

Liam Byrne · 31-10-2006 11:51pm

I'm confused....how come the thread has a "thumbs up" icon ?

D. Murphy · 01-11-2006 12:17am

Well it's good to know that so many people agree with me!

And liam i have no idea i set it as thumbs down when i made the thread....

Thank You.
D. Murphy

Kintarō Hattori · 01-11-2006 1:08am

Beano wrote:

No they dont. We've discussed this several times before. Do a google for "invitation to treat"

Yup, just because it's on display at a certain price does not mean it has to be sold at that price. It is as stated an invitation to purchase that item, it's not legally binding.

D. Murphy · 01-11-2006 1:35am

People it's not the price that that annoyed me it was the fact the manager was no help at all! i would have been happy to have bought a more expensive item but he was such an ass i just left!

Thank You.
D. Murphy

CiaranC · 01-11-2006 9:37am

eo980 wrote:

Yup, just because it's on display at a certain price does not mean it has to be sold at that price. It is as stated an invitation to purchase that item, it's not legally binding.

Then why were tesco fined for displaying incorrect prices a few years back?

SUPERMARKET giants Tesco Ireland Ltd, were yesterday fined £3,800 for overcharging and failing to display the price of goods.

The company pleaded guilty to five counts of overcharging and two of not having any price displayed at three of its Dublin stores.

Dublin District Court heard Director of Consumer Affairs inspectors visited the stores and found grocery items charged at between 5p and £1.13 more than their marked price.

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=547474&issue_id=5578

Beano · 01-11-2006 11:24am

CiaranC wrote:

Then why were tesco fined for displaying incorrect prices a few years back?

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=547474&issue_id=5578

Totally different issue. They were fined for displaying incorrect prices. That does not mean that they were obliged to sell the goods at those prices.

As you couldnt be bothered to google the term "invitation to treat" as i told you to I did it for you. The first result is Invitation to Treat This sums up the legal position quite well. And before you say this is a british case and doesnt apply here take a look here and here Read the section entitled "Consumer query of the month – a car rental problem"

CiaranC · 01-11-2006 12:09pm

So Irish retailers are obliged to display prices, but not obliged to display correct prices?

http://www.entemp.ie/tcmr/639of2002.htm

Are you saying that an Irish retailer could have completely fictional prices advertised outside and all over their shop without censure?

The first link is from the UK.
Your second contains this paragraph:

Advertising:It is a criminal offence to make false or misleading claim about goods or services, whether in an advertisement, a label or a notice in a shop window. This applies to the price, weight, and size, origin of the goods, the performance and what the goods are made of.

The third is a .doc file. Feel free to quote it here.

Beano · 01-11-2006 1:37pm

Of course they are obliged to correct prices and can be fined if they consistently do so. But that is irrelevant to the point at hand. It was your initial assertion that "that you have to honour an advertised price". I pointed out that this was incorrect. As it was you that made this assertion in the first place it is up to prove you are correct. So far you have not done. Strawman arguments about companies being fined for displaying incorrect prices do not prove your initial assertion.

At the risk of repeating myself do a google search for "Invitation to treat" and this time actually read what this term means.

CiaranC · 01-11-2006 2:01pm

Looks like you were correct. Your links werent very informative. Making someone google their own links to prove themselves wrong is a novel concept.

http://www.odca.ie/cfmdocs/c_query/ad_mislead.cfm

I see it now, there is a requirement to display correct pricing, but it is separate from this 'invitation to treat' lark. I foolishly presumed the two overlapped in legislation.

sceptre · 02-11-2006 2:33am

CiaranC wrote:

Looks like you were correct. Your links werent very informative. Making someone google their own links to prove themselves wrong is a novel concept.

Not the fastest way of learning I'll grant you but often the most effective. The question's come up a few times with people who are incorrect insisting that they're definitely correct so I can understand people taking the self-learning approach to information as the information has been provided several times by different users every few months or less on boards.ie for about the past five years. The difference between the two issues can be subtle enough that I can equally understand people just not appreciating it.

Mitch Connor · 02-11-2006 8:19am

CiaranC wrote:

****ing moron. Hes pissed off because hes a failure in life. Manager in a retail that you have to honour an advertised price.

Is that true?

As far as i was aware, as long as the people working in the shop notice and inform you of the mistake before you make your purchase they are within their rights to charge a different price to the one advertised. My understanding comes from being told that if the price of a pack of sweets or magazine in a shop is displayed incorrectly, the shop do not have to sell it to you for that price.

Sam Vimes · 02-11-2006 9:14am

Tauren wrote:

Is that true?

As far as i was aware, as long as the people working in the shop notice and inform you of the mistake before you make your purchase they are within their rights to charge a different price to the one advertised. My understanding comes from being told that if the price of a pack of sweets or magazine in a shop is displayed incorrectly, the shop do not have to sell it to you for that price.

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