Are you a Techguys-ophobe?

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Currys. Dixons. PC World. Buy anything from them and you're likely to meet the TechGuys. The team responsible for their installation and after sales service. They're supposed to be experts. But are they as good as they make out?

For the non-techies amongst us, they're a potential Godsend. In practice, the TechGuys' work isn't always up to scratch. In fact, some of you think you'd have been better off doing it yourselves.

Currys customer Neil McAlley wished he'd done exactly that. He ordered a dishwasher and then paid another £80 to have it fitted. Neil told us:

"Unfortunately, he couldn't fit straight. It was at an angle, he didn't fit the furniture door on the front, he smashed a plate, he left water on the floor and basically the unit wasn't fitted properly. He actually said he wasn't qualified, he was a gas fitter, he wasn't a qualified electrician, he wasn't a qualified plumber, which obviously coming form Currys I was quite annoyed about."

The fitter left, saying he'd done his best, and Neil had to call Currys to send out some new TechGuys. When they inspected the job they admitted it wasn't up to scratch, said the machine had been damaged, and took it away for repair. Neil said:

"Once the second fitters had left, we had a hole in the wall, there was no dishwasher. They'd left the hole in the plumbing. Unfortunately, we ran the bowl of water down the sink and flooded the kitchen units."

Although Currys have confirmed to Watchdog that the Tech Guys were gas fitters, they were also trained to install appliances. Try telling that to Neil. For him, enough was enough. He bought a dishwasher from another store who fitted it without a problem. But it still took a further two months for Currys to finally refund him.

It's not just simple installation jobs that the Tech Guys do. They also promise to turn up and fix your gadgets when they go wrong. Take out an extended cover plan and you can have them on hand for five years. Unless you're freelance hair and make-up artist Emily Kent, who bought a one thousand pound laptop from Dixons. and paid another £400 pounds for her cover plan.

Earlier this year, her laptop began overheating and switching itself off.

"I took it in store they said I couldn't have it collected in store, I arranged for a courier through the company, they attempted to pick it up from the wrong address three times which resulted in me missing three days of work. I ended up taking it to the store anyway and it got picked up from there."

Two weeks later, her laptop was ready to be collected.

"When it came back, it was just exactly the same. Running really slowly, shutting down. They'd replaced a couple of things, but it wasn't functioning any better than it was."

Emily took the laptop into store three more times, but on each occasion the fault was still there. And her complaints proved useless.

"They're just such a faceless organisation. It's been in four times, every time I've rang they've been, we can't find this, we can't find that, we haven't got a record of this, they're just a very badly run company to be honest. I've still not got a fully working laptop."

We also heard from Janet in Wales who sent her laptop for a health check ....only for the Tech Guys to lose it. They've since replaced the laptop, but all her personal data and photos of her newborn granddaughter remain lost. But surely that's a one off? Unfortunately not...

Michael Bartley sent the laptop he bought from PC World to the Tech Guys in August, but after two weeks and a failed delivery to the wrong address, Michael still didn't have his laptop back and there was a good reason for that. Michael told us:

"They said it's in our warehouse - we definitely have it but we don't know where it is. So I said to them, 'it sounds like you lost my laptop, is my laptop lost?' and they said, 'yes, your laptop is lost.' I then realised that all of the work I'd been doing previously that was on that laptop, I was never going to get back and I was absolutely devastated, couldn't believe it. I didn't realise these sorts of things could happen, especially to somebody who's taken out the extended premier warranty that I was paying £11.49 a month for their service and they've gone and done that. It was really, really frustrating..."

Seven weeks after Michael first sent his laptop in for repair, the retailer, PC World finally offered to give him a new laptop in store.

Failed deliveries, poor workmanship and lost property - that's some of our viewers' experience of the Tech Guys...

Dixons Retail Group said:

"While we successfully deliver to millions of households and promptly repair hundreds of thousands of TVs and laptops every year, any individual case is of great concern to us.
96% of deliveries and 93% of repairs are carried out successfully 'right first time', but we know there are areas we can improve further.

"We apologise sincerely to anyone whose experience has not met our increasingly high standards. As a team we are totally focussed on getting every delivery and every repair right. If any viewers have an unresolved issue please contact everyissuematters@thetechguys.com"

Neil McAlley

This is a case of our TechGuys trying to go the extra mile but wrongly so. As we make clear in pre-sale documentation, TechGuys can install an integrated kitchen appliance when the new appliance and the old have identical space fittings. Our TechGuys, whilst highly qualified and multiskilled, are not trained in joinery. In Mr. McAlley's case, his new dishwasher could not fit into the existing space. Once TechGuys were aware of this problem, they should not have tried to complete the installation despite believing their attempts were in the best interests of the customer. We can only apologise for the trouble caused. We are in contact with Mr McAlley regarding costs incurred.

Emily Kent

We are sorry that there was confusion over the collection address for Ms Kent's laptop. TechGuys initially repaired a fault with Ms Kent's laptop in 2009 and again in May this year after a liquid spill caused problems. Ms Kent has since returned to us on a number of occasions, and her laptop went through thorough diagnostic checks by our senior engineers. To conclude the matter amicably, we have contacted her to organise a replacement laptop.

Michael Bartley

We are extremely sorry for the inconvenience Mr Bartley suffered after the loss of his laptop. The loss occured after numerous attempted deliveries to his old address. We had agreed to provide Mr Bartley with a replacement laptop, but we understand from Watchdog that Mr Bartley would now prefer a refund. We are happy to organise this and will be in contact with Mr Bartley.

Watchdog viewers' response:

I bought a laptop from Dixons and paid £6.99 per month in case anything went wrong with the laptop. The screen started to flicker so I phoned up Techguys and they picked up my laptop. I had to send it back 4 times before they actually fixed it.

Jamie Fowler

I bought a Lap top from PC world on-line.
Less then a month after I bought it I was unable to switch it on. After calling the Tech Guys they collected it for repair returning it a week later. I switched it on OK but after attempting to switch it on a second time it would not switch on. I called the Tech Guys who collected it again and supposedly repaired it and after returning it, I was still unable to switch it on.

I called PC world in order to ask for my money back and to return the lap top, they informed me that I was unable to return it until I'd had it repaired 3 times. Surprise surprise after calling the Tech guys a third time it was repaired.

A few months later the power cable and plug broke, they sent me a new power cable for free as this was under guarantee however I had to buy my own plug as they did not replace this as this was not under guarantee.

Christie Hanrahan, Plymouth

We bought a washing machine from Currys and had the "Tech Guys" install it for us. They installed it and left saying that it was leaking slightly as we had dodgy plumbing and should get a plumber in asap. We put the machine on after and it would not drain. After 2 hours of messing about my husband 'un-plumbed' the machine and found the "tech guy" had left a gromit in the connecting pipe which was causing the leak and the drainage problem!

Sam and Matt Churcher from Puckeridge

Hi,

I too am experiencing problems with the Tech Guys. My PC developed a faut in August and I was told that it had to go to their workshop. It was returned after just over 2 weeks, worked for about a week after that, then the fault returned, it keeps switching itself off and I get varous error messages on the screen. It went back for a second time, was returned again after a couple of weeks, and again worked for just over another week before the original fault returned. They keep replacing various parts in the vain hope that it will resolve the problem but they seem unable to get to the root cause of the fault. It is currently back at the workshop for the third time, and I have only been able to use it for 2 weeks out of the last 8. When I ring them it takes ages for me to get through to someone, the last call was over 45 minutes and this is costing me a fortune, about 15 pounds so far. When I complained to the call centre they gave me a customer service number to ring but when I rang them I was told they could not help me as it was nothing to them because they only dealt with the actual policies.
This is a recurrence of the same problem that they were supposed to have fixed this time last year.

Regards

Alan Trivette

Hello

Regarding your story on TechGuys, exactly the same happened to me 3 years ago. I had a faulty laptop which the collected and I never saw again. I was sent back the wrong laptop firstly which they quickly collected but I never saw mine again. 6 weeks and 14 half an hour phonecalls and still they kept telling me it was in a "workshop" in Manchester and it would be back by the end of the week. In the end I went into the store and luckily an area manager was there and able to step in although he was on the phone himself to TechGuys for an hour sorting it out. I had another laptop eventually but I cant believe 3 years on the same thing is happening. It's appauling

Regards,
Hannah, South Wales

Watchdog viewers' responses were received between 18/10/10 and 27/10/10.