Are Aria.co.uk always this bad?

[ChristopherW]

When I bought my MP3 player from them (a fair while ago, now) I ordered a 40Gb one... They sent a 20Gb... Rang them up, said "er.." nice bloke immediately arranged an exchange, Parcelforce picked up the 20 and swapped it for the 40 right there and then on my doorstep (nice!) and then a little while later... They refunded me the entire amount!

I emailed back a month or so later to ask whether they realised they'd actually exchanged, not refunded, because if they realise they made a mistake they're fully within their rights as a company to take the money out of my account, but I never got a response... So, free MP3 player.

[polandro]

Umm I think you're being a bit harsh. They clearly know the significance of:

1. The distance selling act
2. goods arriving damaged

I sent for a 939 matx board and it arrived with some box damage (packaged in not-jiffy bag).

So I said, damaged and no longer wanted...

...fine they said and refund followed really quickly. Will try them again probably.

[Clunk]

Umm I think you're being a bit harsh. They clearly know the significance of:

1. The distance selling act
2. goods arriving damaged

I have been relatively polite about them.

They may know the significance, but they dont act upon it.

Your experience appears to have been ok, but mine havent been, and that's what I was talking about.

[KowShak]

When their customer support ignores 4 messages / e-mails, then lies to me on the phone and makes promises that they don't keep (the lies on the phone were separate to the promises that weren't kept) I don't want to have to deal with that company again.

Frankly, I'm being polite about them too. I heard bad things about Aria and its customer support 7 years ago but didn't experience any problems back then, the business has grown since then and the problems remain.

[Splash]

http://forums.hexus.net/showpost.php...87&postcount=4

Seriously, use .trust

[cougarslam]

Umm I think you're being a bit harsh. They clearly know the significance of:

1. The distance selling act
2. goods arriving damaged

I sent for a 939 matx board and it arrived with some box damage (packaged in not-jiffy bag).

So I said, damaged and no longer wanted...

...fine they said and refund followed really quickly. Will try them again probably.

did they refund postage?

[Richh]

Placed an order with this mob on Monday just gone, and have since found the experience unremittingly negative.

Phoned earlier today to find out when I'd be getting my stuff, and was told that the details were "stuck" between two different parts of their system, and as a result they had no idea when it would be released for picking.

Then told the CS rep I wanted the order cancelled. She couldn't do that either at that moment as the accounts part of their system was also down.

I asked her to send me an email noting the confirmation of cancellation. She couldn't even do that either because the email system was down!

Sounds like their backoffice system is right up sh*t creek at the moment, but, tellingly, they are still taking orders, and in the process making promises regarding delivery times that they know, and the advisory on their contact page, admits they can't keep. I also note that posts made on their own online forums about the problems are being deleted - I've had at least one of mine taken down.

It's not the way to do business and suffice to say I won't be ordering from them again anytime soon.

[Clunk]

did they refund postage?

Never for me, they insisted on the proof of postage being sent in seperately by recorded delivery, and then lost it - 3 times.

[mr-tom]

Firstly, I would use .trust if it would accept my registration, but it keeps trying to tell me that my email address is invalid.

Secondly - looks like the situation at aria is getting worse, not better - their phones don't work at all now.

Does anybody know another company that offers a dead pixel check?

Tom.

[koocha]

Firstly, I would use .trust if it would accept my registration, but it keeps trying to tell me that my email address is invalid.

Secondly - looks like the situation at aria is getting worse, not better - their phones don't work at all now.

Does anybody know another company that offers a dead pixel check?

Tom.

Dead pixel checks are more trouble than they're worth.

Imagine testing a TFT for a dead pixel. If one is found it is put on a "dead pixel" pile. Then if someone orders a TFT without the dead pixel check they get the first one off the dead pixel pile.

"I got my TFT and it has dead pixels!"

"Tough luck. You didn't pay £xx extra for a pixel check"

[mr-tom]

Agreed, but spending a fortune on a TFT and chancing whether it has dead pixels is a bit too much of a gamble for me.

So I'd rather pay for the check.

It's much like fitting a burglar alarm.

[lucy@aria]

Hi guys,

My name is Lucy Adams and I wanted to respond to your posts and comments regarding the current situation here at Aria. Please take a moment to view an Important Update which we posted on the website yesterday…



“Important Update - 8th February 2007

As a business we are committed to a programme of ongoing improvements to our infrastructure and website, and following software upgrades made over the weekend of the 3rd and 4th February we have been experiencing delays in some orders being despatched. This in turn is creating increased telephone and email response times to our customer service team.

We are working to resolve this situation as quickly as possible and would request your patience during this time. Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience that this may be causing you.

The Aria Customer Services Team”



We are working to fully resolve the situation and anticipate normal service will resume very soon. In the meantime, please accept our sincere apologies.

Thank you for your patience,

Lucy Adams
On Behalf of Aria Technology

[Clunk]

It's much like fitting a burglar alarm.

To a cow.

[polandro]

View Post
Umm I think you're being a bit harsh. They clearly know the significance of:

1. The distance selling act
2. goods arriving damaged

I have been relatively polite about them.

They may know the significance, but they dont act upon it.

Your experience appears to have been ok, but mine havent been, and that's what I was talking about.

Um my tongue was a certain way into my cheek, there was a certain amount of effort involved. Do bear in mind that there were 2 strikes:

1. Box damage.
2. Distance Selling Act.

did they refund postage?

As it happens they did offer to, which is more than I can say for a major e-tailer that routinely blocks this site's url. However, I always use the courier service that our company has a cheap box-rate with, just as a matter of routine...
...and I had to make so many calls to set it up I didn't want to leave it to chance

[mr-tom]

For those of you who don't know, Aria now have a user forum, which Lucy is the moderator of.

She is absolutely great, getting our wanted items on special, running competitions and resolving our problems.

The only reason I'm discussing the Aria issues here is that Aria's forum rules don't permit any negative remarks or raising of customer service problems, which at the moment is a bit like ignoring the elephant that's sat in the middle of your dining room.

The one thing I do think is unfortunate about this is that it has forced discussion of current service issues into a public forum (i.e. one where discussion of genuine issues can't be deleted by aria). I would personally have preferred to keep these within Aria's user community.

That said, I did get a message from Lucy this evening asking for my order information, so I hope to be able to report that she has worked wonders on my behalf.

[Richh]

Indeed Mr-T, the customer-facing staff are no doubt very nice people trying to do the best damage-limitation exercise they can in trying circumstances, and I got a PM from Lucy earlier as well so she is obviously doing everything she can to straighten things out. The problem I have is with the company policy during the last few days, and that is the responsibility of the middle and senior management.

Leaving aside the chain of events that has got them into this position, they have continued to take orders via their website, and continued to make promises regarding delivery times that, in the circumstances, the company must have known were unlikely to be fulfilled.

I checked the site today and while the "next day" delivery option has been temporarily and justifiably withdrawn, "normal" delivery was still claimed to be in 1 or 2 working days. It appeared from the Aria forums, before the threads were deleted, that some folk had orders in well over a week. Mine had been in since Monday with the CS girl I spoke to earlier claiming it was "stuck" in the system and could not give me any confirmed date for dispatch.

If they were getting so snowed under with system failures and backed up orders that they simply couldn't cope, the logical response is to tell people in big bold letters on the front page of the site, and to adjust the delivery time claims made. At least then people who choose to order from them will do so in full knowledge of what to expect. In a worst case scenario they could even have closed the site to new orders until the backlog was taken care of.

On the other hand, continuing to take orders with unrealistically optimistic delivery times, and then making despairing comments about the way customers have subsequently swamped the CS lines, is simply not an acceptable response.

Your comments about "negative" discussion not being permitted in the Aria forums are also very prescient, indeed I had a couple of my posts cancelled in there yesterday precisely (one presumes) because they refer to the current issues the company are experiencing. Ironically I linked to this very thread in one of them.

The unfortunate thing is that, taken with the company's failure to communicate properly with its customers by phone, email or whatever, the wholesale deletion of threads in the Aria forum starts to look more like attempts to bury bad news than anything else, and, as you say, only succeeds in pushing discussion into areas Aria staff are unable to control.