pc world: whatever happens

[sp3n]

does anyone use this cover?

i signed up for it when i bought my laptop at the end of last year - mainly because i let the salesman lead me into believing that whatever happens to my new laptop, they will either fix it or replace the whole thing with a new one - as it was quite an expensive laptop with a 3d monitor, i fell for the spiel.

unfortunately my webcam stopped working yesterday - so i reached for the whatever happens leaflet to look for the number to call, only to realise that the terms of service include sending my laptop to their tech center for a 28 day assessment to either repair or replace it... a slight disappointment as i need my laptop every day for work. so a bit of a tricky one!

another reason as to why i fell for the sales pitch was because i was told of worldwide cover - this appealed to me as i am moving abroad in a couple of months, again upon reading the leaflet i discovered that it basically means i should pay a repair-person whilst abroad and then claim the repair costs once i am back in england... not so good for me as i dont plan on coming back apart from visiting family every now and then!

anyway - its basically my fault for signing up to this without reading all of the small print and find out what i was actually signing up to.. just curious to know if anyone else uses this cover and if it has worked out for them when something has gone wrong?

also if anyone can recommend any similar companies that have the same services when it comes to repair or replace without the 28 day wait, with world wide cover?

thanks in advance :]

[antsals]

They are a joke at PC World if you look everything there is over priced compared to all the other IT suppliers!

Just my general thought.

Ant

[Lucio]

PC World's insurance was always good to me on my ex-wife's system; she bought a Packard Bell "gaming" system, which at the time was pretty advanced. The downside was it had abysmal cooling and as such we had a lot of issues.

Basically in the lifetime on the machine we had, for free, 5 HDD, 2 motherboards, 1 CPU, 3 nVidia 7600 and 1 fan. They also *then* gave us the money to purchase a new PC when we'd finally had enough, at the same price point in the range and when *that* failed, we got again, the same price point in vouchers.

All told, we spent about £300 over 5 years on the policy, and it meant we got two replacement systems. Sure, I had to, on occasion, teach their technicians how to diagnose the problems but once they realised they were talking to someone who understood machines, they were always more than happy to send the part we asked for and pick up the old one, or if I wasn't happy doing it myself, they sent a technician.

[IronWarrior]

Jesus, you really signed up at PC World? Their prices are a total rip-off.

[Lucio]

Jesus, you really signed up at PC World? Their prices are a total rip-off.

No, my ex-wife did without consulting me! Also, be careful about opinions like that, they could be construed as libellous.

[Flibb]

Actually for some stuff pc world is fine. Some of their laptop and desktop deals are ok, they sell some good brands (some crap), and often have good offers. Priced up a rig the other day for Bro in Law, looking at me doing the build. To be honest he ended up getting a compaq from PCWorld. I went and had a look at it, was suprised how quiet it was and not filled with too much crap. He already has a monitor, and it was literally a get it out the box, plug in his monitor, ethernet cable, then plug in the provided mouse and keyboard (logitech basic but still reasonable) and it all booted nicely.

[sp3n]

PC World's insurance was always good to me on my ex-wife's system; she bought a Packard Bell "gaming" system, which at the time was pretty advanced. The downside was it had abysmal cooling and as such we had a lot of issues.

Basically in the lifetime on the machine we had, for free, 5 HDD, 2 motherboards, 1 CPU, 3 nVidia 7600 and 1 fan. They also *then* gave us the money to purchase a new PC when we'd finally had enough, at the same price point in the range and when *that* failed, we got again, the same price point in vouchers.

All told, we spent about £300 over 5 years on the policy, and it meant we got two replacement systems. Sure, I had to, on occasion, teach their technicians how to diagnose the problems but once they realised they were talking to someone who understood machines, they were always more than happy to send the part we asked for and pick up the old one, or if I wasn't happy doing it myself, they sent a technician.

for the repairs and replacements - were you left without a computer? did they take it away and offer you a replacement or did they repair and replace on the day?

really considering cancelling this service as its no good to me if i am left without a computer for upto a month

[Lucio]

for the repairs and replacements - were you left without a computer? did they take it away and offer you a replacement or did they repair and replace on the day?

really considering cancelling this service as its no good to me if i am left without a computer for upto a month

Never more than 2 weeks without a working system, a good chunk of time it was 3-4 days for the parts to be mailed over from Packard Bell's warehouse in France.

[GoNz0]

28 days is the time limit before they have to replace, it used to be 6 weeks.

[Behemoth]

That service is still a load of old monkey testicles. Where stuff like laptops are concerned work out out much over a year. For example say you pay £7.99 a month for the basic level of cover, over a year thats £95, over 3 years (the average life span of laptop give or take usage) £287.64

Cost of external clip on Webcam ? £15 or less. While I know it's not as easy as having the one thats built into the laptop working, but solves the issue of sending it away for a repair and it coming back like its been used to play football with by DPD.

[sp3n]

That service is still a load of old monkey testicles. Where stuff like laptops are concerned work out out much over a year. For example say you pay £7.99 a month for the basic level of cover, over a year thats £95, over 3 years (the average life span of laptop give or take usage) £287.64

Cost of external clip on Webcam ? £15 or less. While I know it's not as easy as having the one thats built into the laptop working, but solves the issue of sending it away for a repair and it coming back like its been used to play football with by DPD.

sterling advice there... will be cancelling today

[MadduckUK]

No, my ex-wife did without consulting me! Also, be careful about opinions like that, they could be construed as libellous.

which bit? suggesting you had signed up to PC World?

[Behemoth]

sterling advice there... will be cancelling today

The money you've been paying out to DSGI all this time would be best served to you into a savings account, sceondly you'd be earning interest and thirdly if something does go a bit Pete Tong you've got the cash to buy the parts.

Usually with Laptops it's game over when things like mobos fail and in some cases screens, but the rest of the parts HDD's etc are so cheap now anyway, that replacing a HDD or RAM isn't going to break the bank.

[pp05]

I like the idea of accidental cover when it comes to laptops. It was my first so didn't have time to look around. So I took it out too.

I phone them today to look at my system. Basically my comp wouldn't load up at all. Just goes blank. When I took out HD and hooked it to pc it showed it as unformatted.

They picking it up and it will take 2 weeks and I know my data is gone if they re-install OS. Worst thing is I may have to pay for it. Should have taken back-ups more seriously. Nothing is reliable these days.

[DennisMenace]

"Should have taken back-ups more seriously. Nothing is reliable these days."

Now that external 1Tb HDDs are <£50 (2Tb <£80), there's really no excuse for not making regular backups.

I make daily backups to a 16Gb pendrive (~£20) and archive these along with full system backups to 2 external HDDs weekly (so even if 1 fails, I have a backup that's less than 14 days old). I then make monthly backups to DVD-Rs (15p). And that's just for personal stuff, if I had anything work-related or valuable I'd take it far more seriously.


Re PCWorld : The fact that they make more profit from insurance/aftercare packages than the actual hardware says it all to me. They could be worthwhile for TVs/monitors, but PCs are out of date within 18 months, so a 3-5 year warranty seems pointless IMHO.

[Cozwin]

Got to say, since selling these (worked at pc world/currys) I believe they are the biggest scam going.

Always repair never replace (we had one guys laptop repaired every month for a year and manager refused to replace it, so for a year the guy had only had his laptop 3 months of it.

When you do replace, be as mean as possible, they paid £1300 for a 32 inch tv 3 years ago, okay like for like, well you can have this generic brand 32inch tv here (worth £250) as your replacement, rinse and repeat this always happened.

Then the actual price of the cover, which quite simply is silly... you can pay 50% of the items price in some cases, to have it 'repaired' 'unlimited' times by 'professionals'... a rip off.