Maryland
Well-Known Forumite
Not strictly a Stafford exclusive, but there is one here so people may have an opinion.
Don't know whether it's just me, but in my life I've only bought a handful of things from Maplins, and for good reason: most don't work properly, and their customer service is awful.
Several years ago I bought two bits of software gubbins, so long ago I can't remember what, and neither of them worked. I couldn't get my money back from them and gave up. Then maybe ten years ago I bought by mail order what was then (still would be, come to think of it) an expensive Internet radio from a reputable manufacturer. It didn't work properly, I told them immediately about the fault and they told me to post it back to them at my own expense, I argued that it was their reponsibiliy to pay the postage, which was a lot, and it took me about a week of refusing to be fobbed off by an argumentative customer service operative before I won that particular battle, and even then I had to accept one of their own vouchers for ten quid. Which I didn't use and has now expired.
Since then I've bought a replacement aerial for a radio, which did work, and a replacement internal fuse for a microwave, which also worked although they couldn't answer a specific question about whether it should be a time-delay or some other type of fuse.
Last year I bought replacement HP printer ink cartridges, which my new HP printer refused to recognise. Thinking the machine was at fault, I took it back to John Lewis, who told me one of the cartridges was defective and swapped both for me free of charge despite my having bought them from Maplins.
Having become careless, I went in a few weeks ago and bought a cheap CCTV camera for home security purposes. Despite having been sold as a colour camera, it only produces B&W images, which I imagined might be because I don't really understand how to connect it to my telly, and I wasn't that bothered anyway. However, after having sat outside my house in a sheltered position for four weeks, almost half the LEDs with which the camera's supposed to illuminate the surroundings at night have failed. After previous experiences, I'm not really surprised.
Has anyone else had experience of shoddy products bought from Maplins? After the recent camera incident I've decided not to be suckered into ever buying anything from this company again.
Don't know whether it's just me, but in my life I've only bought a handful of things from Maplins, and for good reason: most don't work properly, and their customer service is awful.
Several years ago I bought two bits of software gubbins, so long ago I can't remember what, and neither of them worked. I couldn't get my money back from them and gave up. Then maybe ten years ago I bought by mail order what was then (still would be, come to think of it) an expensive Internet radio from a reputable manufacturer. It didn't work properly, I told them immediately about the fault and they told me to post it back to them at my own expense, I argued that it was their reponsibiliy to pay the postage, which was a lot, and it took me about a week of refusing to be fobbed off by an argumentative customer service operative before I won that particular battle, and even then I had to accept one of their own vouchers for ten quid. Which I didn't use and has now expired.
Since then I've bought a replacement aerial for a radio, which did work, and a replacement internal fuse for a microwave, which also worked although they couldn't answer a specific question about whether it should be a time-delay or some other type of fuse.
Last year I bought replacement HP printer ink cartridges, which my new HP printer refused to recognise. Thinking the machine was at fault, I took it back to John Lewis, who told me one of the cartridges was defective and swapped both for me free of charge despite my having bought them from Maplins.
Having become careless, I went in a few weeks ago and bought a cheap CCTV camera for home security purposes. Despite having been sold as a colour camera, it only produces B&W images, which I imagined might be because I don't really understand how to connect it to my telly, and I wasn't that bothered anyway. However, after having sat outside my house in a sheltered position for four weeks, almost half the LEDs with which the camera's supposed to illuminate the surroundings at night have failed. After previous experiences, I'm not really surprised.
Has anyone else had experience of shoddy products bought from Maplins? After the recent camera incident I've decided not to be suckered into ever buying anything from this company again.
