Currys PC World criticised for laptop setup fees "rip off"

[HEXUS]

Following a Which? report on staff pushing pre-setup machines, the retailer has apologised.

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[3dcandy]

Surprised some of the staff knew the difference, some appear incapable of telling what day of the week it is...

[Percy1983]

I bought my last laptop there as it was a great price, they offered to set it up to which I replied 'I am sure I can find the power button on my own' in defence of the guy serving me he laughed and gave up the idea instantly.

[ksdp37]

These are the same guys trying to sell you a £100 HDMI cable because it's "supposed" to give a better quality picture than your £10 cable. It's amazing how little their staff know about the products they sell.

[dannyboy75]

These are the same guys trying to sell you a £100 HDMI cable because it's "supposed" to give a better quality picture than your £10 cable. It's amazing how little their staff know about the products they sell.

Quite. My shiny new 4K Bravia looks epic, and I'm still using the same cheapo generic HDMI 1.4 cables I bought from ebay years ago. All that nonsense about oxygen-free cables and gold-plated connectors is a load of guff.

Anyone who hasn't sussed out Currys PC World after all these years gets what they deserve!

[Irien]

Whilst I agree that any "after sales" products from PC World are a bad idea by definition, and the lies told by staff are unbelievable (I'm literally typing this whilst waiting for a customer's data to transfer onto a laptop with a "700 GB SSD" (according to PC world). In reality, it's barely half that.

However, when you stop and think, 40ukp is not entirely ridiculous given how few people create recovery discs/images etc. Most laptops need a 32GB USB stick which is certainly worth about 10ukp, and probably takes 10-15mins to create. They also probably spend 10-15 mins going through the Windows setup wizard. So, at PC world wages, there's maybe about 7-10 pounds of labour. Plus VAT is about 25ukp. So 15ukp inc VAT profit. I've definitely seen them do worse!

However, not giving customers the option of avoiding this... that's awful, and they deserve to be called out on it. Also, I'm assuming they're creating the *correct* recovery image for the laptop - the advert merely states a "recovery tool" on USB, which may actually just be a small bootable stick with no recovery image whatsoever (and no associated time cost).

[LeetyMcLeet]

That's terrible.

What are these "Key Settings", exactly. Windows updates are enabled out of the box and the backup option can be done at any time, although most OEM's pre-load their own bloat (I mean, soft)ware to do that for them anyway. So that £40 is joke.

Before I had to close my shop, I used to charge £20.00 to update Windows, install any software they purchased from us and of course transfer data from their old machine. What a cancerous company.

[Xlucine]

I'd be impressed if they could turn off windows updates for £40

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

TBH,with more and more bricks and mortar shops having to get close to internet pricing,its no wonder they are trying to this to make some extra money on the side.

[peterb]

Before I had to close my shop, I used to charge £20.00 to update Windows, install any software they purchased from us and of course transfer data from their old machine. What a cancerous company.

And why did you close your shop?


Don’t forget that 20% of that £40 is VAT so the actual charge by the shop is just over £33.

[ByteMyAscii]

These are the same guys trying to sell you a £100 HDMI cable because it's "supposed" to give a better quality picture than your £10 cable. It's amazing how little their staff know about the products they sell.

Or in some cases they know that a £100 HDMI cable sale gets them 10x the commision.
It isn't always ignorance.
But I do agree I am really reluctant to ask retail staff for anything beyond directions to a product, or the toilets.

[outwar6010]

These are the same guys trying to sell you a £100 HDMI cable because it's "supposed" to give a better quality picture than your £10 cable. It's amazing how little their staff know about the products they sell.

Quite. My shiny new 4K Bravia looks epic, and I'm still using the same cheapo generic HDMI 1.4 cables I bought from ebay years ago. All that nonsense about oxygen-free cables and gold-plated connectors is a load of guff.

Anyone who hasn't sussed out Currys PC World after all these years gets what they deserve!

Aren't hdmi 2.0 cables different to hdmi 1.x ones though? I'm sure I've seen several sources confirm this. I recommend amazon basic ones.

[dannyboy75]

Aren't hdmi 2.0 cables different to hdmi 1.x ones though? I'm sure I've seen several sources confirm this. I recommend amazon basic ones.

That's my understanding too. But the Sky Q box let me enable UHD with 10-bit colour, once I'd configured the TV's HDMI port correctly - despite the crappy HDMI 1.x cables.

[wazzickle]

My understanding was that there are specification differences between HDMI cables but my experience has been that there is a large variation in quality.

[DanceswithUnix]

That's my understanding too. But the Sky Q box let me enable UHD with 10-bit colour, once I'd configured the TV's HDMI port correctly - despite the crappy HDMI 1.x cables.

Luck can work, helped by short cable length. But still, I don't see why an HDMI2 cable should be all that expensive, certainly not £100 expensive.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The different HDMI specs cover bandwidth AFAIK.