Bend it. Fold it. Force it through a metal sieve. Place it in a blender. Throw it out a fourth floor window. Drive the Citroen Picasso back and forth over it. Dip it in liquid nitrogen then smash it into a jillion pieces. Let the dogs chew on it for a few hours. Feed it to an elephant and pick out the remnants from their car-sized excreta. Rain bricks of fury down upon it, like Charlie Heston destroying the Ten Commandments.

Your options are many and varied, but know that you will have to take action if you’re going to fit your new laptop from Dixons into the recommended messenger bag:

Thanks to Bitterwallet reader Graham

If there’s one lesson life has taught us, it’s that you should always side with the posh kid in a fight. It was the first thing we thought of when we saw the new print ads for dixons.co.uk. In them, they ape the style of upmarket retailers Harrods, Selfridges and John Lewis, while suggesting that shoppers should visit those stores to try out products before getting them cheaper online at Dixons.

The ads’ slogan is ‘dixons.co.uk – the last place you want to go’ and Niall O’Keeffe, UK marketing director at Dixons’ owner, DSGi, said: “This campaign says, feel free to do your research, but make Dixons.co.uk your last port of call, as here you will find all your technology needs, at low prices.”

Our work experience fool Maths Mike is a regular in Harrods and he had a funny feeling that the claims in the ads wouldn’t stack up if a little scrutiny were applied. We contacted Harrods and suggested that something strange was afoot.

A spokesperson for the Knightsbridge uberstore described the spoof Harrods ad as: “Not only… a lowdown swipe by Dixons, but it is potentially misleading to customers who may think we offer a similar range of product, whereas in fact there is relatively little overlap.

“Our lawyers have sent Dixons a letter demanding that it substantiates the claims, but in the meantime customers might like to know that one of the few brands we have in common is Samsung – and we offer the 46″ LED Backlight TV £100 cheaper!”

With the legal attack dogs let loose and the moral high ground well and truly taken, Harrods then added: “Despite the attempt at a sneer, they are unwittingly right about one thing, which is our service. Our customers experience the best assistance, in a pin-stripe or not, which is much more satisfying and enjoyable than dealing with a faceless person in a call centre.” Oof! Get in there!

The lesson? Always side with the posh kid in a fight.

An interesting email from a DSGI employee arrived yesterday. Since there are plenty of PC World and Currys staff and customers reading Bitterwallet, we’d like to hear about your experience of this; are DSGI really expecting the guy who installs you cooker to repair your laptop?

“Job roles have again been changed to DSGI’s advantage as nobody will get any more money even though they are taking away the car’s because of how the job roles are structured, Engineers will now have to drive anything up to a 7.5 tonne truck and be able to lift and install cookers, fridges, washers, freezers and any other white goods sold by Currys or PCWorld. Plus they will have to repair computers, Flat screen TVs and install computers onto the internet with Wi-Fi connections or even a business network system.

“It just goes to show what they think of field engineers when they think we can teach the van drivers all we know in a few weeks, Oh yes, the van drivers will be coming to a house near you to repair a computer or a TV. That’ll be interesting on high street with minimal parking and when visiting customers on deep country farms.

“At the moment all TechGuy field engineers are on a 90 day consultation period. I’m one of the so called TechGuys but I prefer to be the bloke from PCServicecall. Seems to me and a lot of others that since we have been renamed the service has gone down the pan.”

What do you think? Self-indulgent grumbling or are DSGI demanding engineers be able to adequately repair any product line sold?

We’ll be honest with you – we can just about get away with anything on Bitterwallet, so long as it’s vaguely consumer-related.

The new Tron Legacy trailer is in no way consumer-related, but that hasn’t stopped Vince creaming his pants over it since it was unveiled at Comic Con earlier in the week.

We’d love to sneak it in here, but there’s simply no editorial justification whatsoever, meaning we have little choice but to bring you more outstanding deals from HotUKDeals instead.

Cacking hell, just look at this! An Apple Macbook Pro 13″ 2.26GHz, 2GB, 160GB for just £827.99 at Dixons! We haven’t a clue what any of those numbers mean except for the important one – the price! That’s over £70 cheaper than Apple!

Over here! If the kids have already watched the Monster Inc DVD you bought yesterday and are threatening to rip your face clean off your head, then settle them down with the High School Musical 2 Disc Remix Edition DVD for a microscopic £3 at Morrisons! Zack! The girlfriend! The other two! The lesbian songwriter! The afro dude! The end.

And fans of petrol-powered foliage-trimming paraphernalia – your luck’s in. It’s only a bloody Silverline 26cc Petrol Line Trimmer for just £29.99 at Toolstation! And it’s has free next-day delivery! HotUKDeals member Cleudo reports he’s “been round the garden with it – works great!” Good times, Cleudo. What’s more, Amazon will sting you for £95.47. Boom!

That’s a good deal of good deals. To celebrate, here’s that trailer for Tron Legacy we have no good business showing you:

(Today’s deals found by HUKD members Dreamer08, Charlie23 and Cleudo)

Since our post yesterday on problems consumers have faced with Dixons ‘Mastercare Coverplan’, now renamed as Currys/Dixons ‘Whateverhappens’, we decided to check to see if, as some commenters pointed out, that the problems with such extended service plans were now a thing of the past. Here is what we found out.

With ‘Whateverhappens’, an engineer will indeed come to your home and either repair the item there or collect it for repair at the repair centre. While some customers have had problems setting up the collection time, the collection or in-home repair is part of the ‘Whateverhappens’ plan. Also, rather than granting replacement after 6 weeks have elapsed with no repair, the policy is now 21 days, or 3 weeks.

That said, there have still been numerous reported problems with such extended service plans. Since late 2008, there have been complaints (see reader SystemDemon, also on MSE here and here) about elapsed times of well beyond 21 days with ‘Whateverhappens’. But perhaps this is more of an administration problem than a mis-sale issue. After all, as consumers, we have to decide whether taking out such extended policies are really worth our money. Most policies are in fact similar to ‘Whateverhappens’/'Coverplan’, and when you sign the dotted line on your Service Agreement contract, you agree to paying monthly by direct debit or credit card mandate, giving you product support for however long you need it. This agreement is usually automatically renewed each month, and unless you cancel, the £7.99 monthly price adds up over 5 years to around a further £480.

Note that some things are not covered by the ‘whateverhappens’ policy:

(more…)

We apologise for any outdated information in this article regarding Dixon’s previously branded ‘Coverplan’. This was due to a tip linking to a Ciao review article dated 29/12/2008 (and obviously being a muppet on my part). Some edits have been made below in [] to reflect the rebranding to ‘Whateverhappens’. We also discuss further policy changes and on service plan policies in our updated article here.

There have been complaints about extended warranties on electronics, such as those purchased from the DSGi group under the name  “Coverplan” [now rebranded as 'Whateverhappens']. While you may conclude that extended warranty coverage is necessary, in most cases it does not represent a good investment.

Here are five reasons why:

1. Legwork: If you buy a cover plan, you still must do all the legwork for getting your device repaired. In other words, if your widget breaks and you call them up, you still have to go through the adminstration hassle of scheduling in an appointment, potentially provide necessary evidence. [the old 'coverplan' policy required taking this to a service centre for repair also, but the new 'Whateverhappens' policy has repair personnel who can attend to this at your home]. The service centre has a contract for reimbursement. [Coverplan previously only got involved directly in two cases: (1) the repair takes longer than six weeks or (2) the item will have to be replaced. Currently the new policy has 21 days.]

In the event of replacement, you will be provided with a “comparable” item, which may be a refurbished model and not what you would buy if you were to replace the item yourself.

2. ‘Loopholes’: There are enough holes in the coverage (but no more than any normal policy) that you could use it to strain tonight’s spaghetti bolognese. For example, the terms under which the service plan will replace your stolen mobile phone are narrow enough, and the exceptions brad enough, partly to protect these companies that provide such policies with eventuality, particularly when it comes to mobile phone theft.

For example, theft coverage is suspended if:

-You have not done all you reasonably can to prevent your product from being stolen;

-You have given your product to someone else to look after;

-Your product is stolen while it is out of your view or control unless:

• it is stolen from a motor vehicle where you or someone with your authority was with the vehicle; or
• you had hidden it from view in your vehicle (for example, in a locked glove  compartment or boot), locked your vehicle, with all windows, sunroofs or roofs  closed and used all available security systems; or
• you had locked your product in your home, office or room with all windows closed and used all available security systems

The coverplan does not cover the following with regards to mobile phone extended warranties:

- Batteries, bulbs, cables and other consumable items (items which are regularly replaced).

- SIM/MMS cards.

- Damage or breakdown that is due to wind or other severe weather conditions.

- The cost of repairing or replacing a product which fails because anyone neglects, abuses or misuses the product.

(There are many more, but these are most broad exceptions to general policies.)

More importantly, the parts in bold are designed to be interpreted broadly legally. Imagine if your 2-year-old niece grabs your phone and proceeds to drool all over it to the point where it stops working. Is that neglect, abuse, or misuse? There’s a good chance that the sales representative at the POS (point-of-sale) will say “No, they’ll cover it,” while the additional coverage representative will say “Yes, it’s misuse.”

3. Profit Margins: The profit margin on extended warranties for consumer electronics is in the neighbourhood of 40 to 80%. That’s why they try to upsell it so hard to you in stores. This is also why people are likely to pay much more for these, than they are likely to recover.

4. Warranty overlaps: The term of coverage may overlap with the manufacturer’s warranty. If you buy a two-year extended warranty and the first year runs concurrently with the manufacturer’s warranty, you’re essentially throwing away half the cost of the extended warranty, because in that first year you’ll use the manufacturer’s warranty for repair or replacement.

5. Service plan vs warranty: Extended warranties are not insurance, and are not really even warranties. Extended warranties are “service plans”. A service plan is a promise to perform or pay for certain repairs or services. Besides, if you bought it with your credit card, the card may tack on an extra year to the manufacturer’s warranty. Check with your card issuer. The card’s protection may have holes, too, but at least they don’t cost you anything extra.

Have you got any personal experience with coverplan[or whateverhappens], accidental insurance, and repair coverage – good or bad? Please share them in the comments below!

They’re not having a great time over at DSG International, are they? The company is predicting significant losses from Christmas trading, reeling from significant redundancies and still mopping up customer service problems.  And now the parent company of Currys and PC World has lost nearly a full day’s online trading – both pcworld.co.uk and dixons.co.uk have been offline since yesterday:

According to The Register, DSGI is claiming routine maintenance that began last night caused issues requiring “a few more hours work” to fix. If only there was a bountiful supply of IT specialists and technical engineers within the company to hel-

Oh.

As we watch the demise of both Woolies and MFi, doubts about the future of two further high street chains have been brought up today.

PC World and Currys, both subsidiaries of DSG International, remain in ‘tough and volatile’ trading, after the owners plunged £30 million into the red, posting underlying losses of £29.8M in the 6 months following up to last month, a rather stark contrast to the £52.4M profit last year. 

DSGi have announced that they are going to axe their dividend in view of the weak trading in the UK, Central Europe, Ireland, Spain, and Italy.  The decision was made to ‘preserve liquidity’, hoping that the 2% reduction in interest rates would help improve their sales.  Sales of computing products fell by 11% in the UK, with electrical goods down by 7%.

[Register]

Is DSGi on its last legs or on the cusp of a strategic re-organisation that could pull the business back together? The last year has not been kind to the group which includes top UK brands Currys, PC World and Dixons as its stock price has plummeted down from a 52-week high of 122.50p to a meager 18p during trading on Thursday.

Online, DSGi deserves credit for rolling out early and focusing resources on building their internet sales but their pricing has failed to keep up with hungry competitors like Play.com and Amazon. The imminent arrival of two big foreign players, CDiscounts (part of Casino group from France) and Best Buy (the giant American retailer) does not bode well for any remaining market share DSGi is clinging on to.

The Sunday Times reported last week that DSGi had hired Polish corp finance firm, Saski Partners, to sell off it’s long-suffering Electoworld division. The Register subsequently reported that DSGi denied this. The Electroworld brand operates in Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Poland and Turkey. DSGi is also under pressure to sell its Italian UniEuro branches which have been consistently under-performing.

We’re not big business analysts here at Bitterwallet but we know a sick pup when we see it. The problem in the UK is that DSGi has been too reliant on its high street presence and dominant branding to keep market share coasting over the past decade. The DSGi brand reputation among members on HUKD is definitely one of an old, slow, poorly serviced company with weak pricing. That’s not where you want to be positioned when your stock is sliding, your international brands are underperforming and hungry competitors are about to storm the gates.

On May 15, 2008 DSGi announced a Transformation and Renewal Programme which is supposed to address their weaknesses and re-organise the group. We think that Bitterwallet readers can probably give better advice though.

So here’s the question for anyone who has dealt with DSGi and wants to pitch in suggestions to the comments. How would you fix DSGi?

If you’re a little irritated by Apple’s seemingly unfair approach to pricing on its new MacBook range, rest assured you’re not the only one. Quite how a tarted up old-style white MacBook can jump £20 in RRP in the UK while slipping under the $1,000 bar in the US, is something of a mystery.

Good news though, from Dixons of all places. They’re offering a discount voucher, redeemable against the new range of laptops. Woop! How much will you save? No idea. It could be £10, it could be £50. Still, in these penny-pinching times, if you fancy yourself a bit of shiny Jobs goodness, you best register for your voucher here.

[electricpig]