Hi,

Apologies firstly for the cross posting but in this instance I feel it is
warranted and as many people should be aware as possible.

On the 13th of July I placed an order with Techtronics.com for a Panasonic
36 inch widescreen TV, the item was shown on the site as "In Stock" as well
as the same TV's being shown "In Stock" as ex demo models. Using the online
order form I selected payment by 9 months interest free credit and selected
"Panasonic Finance" as the credit company. My credit status was accepted and
the necessary forms were sent out for me to sign, the first thing that I
noticed was the forms were NOT from Panasonic Finance as the website led me
to believe, but by a company called "Black Horse" I telephoned Black Horse
and asked them if they were the selected finance company for Panasonic, they
informed me not. However, I still signed the agreement and sent it back to
Techtronics, upon checking my order status using Techtronics online tracking
facility, my order was shown as "Confirmed". It remained as "Confirmed"
until I e-mailed Techtronics on 21 st of July asking what the status of my
order was. At this point, a look on the website still showed my selected TV
as "In Stock". On the 22nd I received what I feel was a very abrupt e-mail
which is cut & pasted below :-

------------------------------------------------------
Dear Sir

The manufacturer have discontinued this product so we are unable to
source the product.

Therefore, I have arranged for your order to be cancelled.

If you would like to reorder please do not hesitate to contact the sales
team who will be happy to help.

Regards
Elisabeth
Customer Services
-----------------------------------------------------

At this point I looked on the Techtronics website and the TV was shown as
"Low Stock" which as far as I'm concerned and most other people I'm sure,
means they still have them in stock!

At this point I e-mailed a complaint with regards the various problems I had
to Techtronics, again cut & pasted below :-

-------------------------------------------------------
FAO head of sales + head of customer services.

Sirs,

I placed an order with your company for a Panasonic TX-36PB50C TV, including
stand, order ref no 83756 on 13th July. I requested the sale by finance and
ordered the "Panasonic Finance" option from your website. Order tracking on
your website showed the status as "Confirmed". My credit was approved and I
was sent forms from "Black Horse" finance, not Panasonic as requested, a
matter which I wasn't happy about and queried the situation with "Black
Horse". After giving the matter some thought, I went ahead and filled in the
forms and returned them. A matter of days later my order was still showing
as "confirmed" on your website. On 21st July I sent an e-mail to your
tracking department asking what was happening with regards my order. On the
22nd I received the following :-

--------------------------------------------
E-mail pasted above from "Elisabeth"
-------------------------------------------------

Could you please explain why the finance option selected was not followed,
also why you can "confirm" an order for a product you cannot supply, at the
same time please explain why it took as long as it did to establish the
situation and why it still took a query from myself before the situation was
even realised! I would also be interested to know why the same television is
STILL offered for sale on your site, not only that but an option to buy
"Ex-demo" models. At my time of ordering the item was shown as "In Stock",
it is now shown as "Low Stock". Therefore you are giving deceptive
information regards availability. As you can gather I am extremely annoyed
about this situation, I am still considering taking the matter further with
regards to trading standards and other consumer organisations and expect not
only a proper explanation from yourselves but also what you intend to do
towards rectifying the situation!

Dion L Heap
--------------------------------------------------------------

The answer I received pasted below :-

--------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

thank you for your email highlighting the problem you have had with
this order. The model you have ordered is a discontinued product by
Panasonic, and as such the few products we had left were on
clearance, and once sold we would not be able to get any more in. At
the time of ordering we did have 2 tvs in stock, however, because you
opted for the finance package one of these tvs would not have been
allocated, as we do not allocate stock until the finance has been
accepted. By the time yours was accepted on 17/07/03 the 2 tvs had
already been sold to people who ordered them and paid for them on a
card. The tv is now out of stock and discontinued. This has been
removed from sale now, although we do still have 2 ex-demo models
in stock. If you wanted to go for one of these I could arrange this for
you.
Please let me know how you would like to proceed.

Thanks,
Jess
------------------------------------------------------------------

Various e-mails again passed between myself and Techtronics, the outcome
being, no compromise was offered by them as an act of good faith, no offer
of a similar spec more expensive TV at a similar price for my original
request, despite the fact that I found a similar spec TV on their site, sent
a URL of a company offering it a lot cheaper than them. Lame explanations as
to the deceptive nature of their site, and the only offer after all this was
an ex demo version of my original order and then no further discount offered
as an act of good faith!

I look forward to any response by Techtronics within these forums as from a
search on Google Techtronics.com are no stranger to consumer complaints in
newsgroups!

regards,

Dion L Heap

a


I got a DVD player from them this week and I guess the only problem I had
was the online order tracking being updated only at 9pm Monday - Friday.

You need to remember that satisfied customers generally would not post to
newsgroups to say how happy they are - it's only going to be dissatisfied
customers that post - like yourself.

I'd use them again.

He's not the only one though, do a search on google and yes people who are
happy with service do post to groups when they get good service.

Indeed. If you can wait for 6 months for the item you've ordered then
techtronics is for you.


EBuyerdotcon "Made the wrong choice, didn't you?"
www.ebuyerdotcon.co.uk

That's all quite strange as a first time buyer I found that my goods got
delivered within 5 days.

Since you didnt lose any money, and the explanation they have given sounds
reasonable, i cant really see what your complaining about. Besides maybe you
should have done a google search before you placed your order.

as

was

offered

a

Anyone with the sense to check out a retailer on Google first will
already be well aware of the issues you've been struggling with. I'm
sorry if that sounds harsh, but you're learning a lesson that could
have been avoided if you'd checked first. Every retailer has their
occasional problems, but Techtronics is legendary for its piss poor
customer service and general rudeness to customers.

Lee.
--
Editor, DVD Debate
http://www.dvddebate.com
lee at dvddebate dot com

Is the owner of Hotpoint a Fridge Magnate?

So what did you buy from them?

They're about to go bust aren't they?

Are they?
I didn't know that.
Do you know of any web page reference that might indicate that?