Page 1 of Problems with Tescos and Wharfedale

Sorry about this being a long post, but please take the time to read and hopefully I can enlighten a few people about service standards in this country!

I`ve had some major hassle from Tescos and Wharfedale in trying to get the firmware updated on my Wharfedale 750 (original one with original firmware)

I contacted Tescos about 18 months ago because of a problem with the DVD box set of Buffy Season One. Using the menus wouldn`t allow me to play the episodes - it bombed back to the main menu when I selected to play an episode. They said they did do a firmware upgrade because of the problems which had been reported with this title and other titles, including Jaws. I had to ring back in a few weeks once they had more information. I then found a workaround for the problem by using the chapter selection, so never rang back as everything else played OK. I got the info from this site about Tescos doing the firmware upgrade for users experiencing problems with some of their titles.

Couple weeks back I eventually got round to buying season two of Buffy and had same problem with this title. However, there is no workaround with this as you have to select an episode before you can select a chapter to watch, so no Buffy night.

I contacted Tescos and explained all of this and the first person I spoke to said there was a slim to no chance of them doing an upgrade because they weren`t getting anymore chips in...and that they`d never heard of the problem with the season two set (or season one).

I went back to Wharfedale and wrote them an email to their service desk from their UK homepage explaining the problem in the hope that they could do something.

Never got anything back from that so I rang Tescos again hoping to get someone who would at least understand the issue and might even be willing to do something about it. The person I spoke to said yes they would do an upgrade and did I have my till receipt...no mention of the lack of upgrade chips this time so thought I was actually getting somewhere. Then when he asked which title I was having trouble with and I told him Buffy he said that they`d had no reports of problems with that title so no I couldn`t have the upgrade after all. I was starting to get a bit annoyed about the whole thing as you can imagine.

He told me to go back to the producers of the DVD and get a re-pressing!! Like Fox are going to re-press a disc just because of my say so!! I asked if I could have the upgrade to see if this would fix the problem anyway and he just kept saying that because no one else had the problem they wouldn`t do it. I then offered to PAY for the upgrade and he said I couldn`t! They couldn`t charge for the service! Like WTF kind of response is that? I asked to speak to this man`s supervisor to see if I could get even the slightest possibility of service from Tescos and he said that he was a supervisor and that the only other people around were at the same level as him. I then asked to speak his supervisor when they got in - needless to say, several days later, I am still awaiting that phone call.

I hunted around on the Wharfedale website for a telephone number and got one for the service desk. I rang them and explained the issue and was directed to someone else, a Graham Eton. I rang this number to be told there was no such person as Graham Eton! A lady called Anne Oliver had answered the phone and I explained the issue to her and she said she would do what she could and speak to Tescos on my behalf.

Anne wrote me an email which stated that Tescos say the problem is because the the DVD disc is passing too much information to the DVD player for it to cope and that this was creating the effects such as picture freezing and problems with menus. Needless to say I wrote back with a lengthy explanation that this was complete nonsense - once again I was being fobbed off by Tescos. I also pointed out that as a representative of Wharfedale she should have taken the effort to validate this information before passing it on. I also pointed out that Tescos are the supplier, not the manufacturer so how did they (Tescos) get off giving this kind of response? I pointed Anne in the direction of this website and links to a thread in the forums which was posted in Jan of last year about Tescos doing the upgrade because of known issues with the firmware at the time.

This last email to her prompted a telephone call (odd, that). She said that she wasn`t very technical and that Tescos are contractually obliged to provide all technical services regarding the product and that she didn`t know how she could help further... she then said that because they knew they had issues with the Jaws DVD that I should tell them that I had that disc instead and see what happened!!!!

I rang Tescos back and said I had problems with my DVD player, said that it was Jaws. And.....they took my details and said that as soon as the upgrade chips come in they will contact me and get and engineer to come and replace it.....when they get the chips in though is another matter. So either Wharfedale and Tescos have put their heads together in a concerted effort to shut me up or am I really going to be able to look forward to watching Buffy??

What the hell does it say for consumer service when you have to lie to people to get a response? Why are Wharfedale telling me to lie to THEIR distributor in order to get service?

OK, after all this, I am asking if anyone knows anyway I can get this firmware upgraded without having to use Tescos? I know there are places which will program an EPROM chip with the firmware - anyone heard of this for the Wharfedale 750? Anyone got a binary image of the latest firmware so I can try this service out?

Thanks for reading, sorry for it being so long.

may be your next purchase of a DVD player would be of a better make.
Panasonic or Sony may be?
And May be not from the Supermarket?

Shock makes a fair point there.

Wharfedale merely badge the player - the purchase, distribution and repair of the deck is down to Tesco.

The problem with these Far Eastern players is that when things go wrong, it can be very hard to pinpoint exactly who you need to speak to. Ask any owners of "no brand" cheapy-cheap DVD players (eg owners of Encore DV450s - great players, but no warranty support as the company went bust last year) and they`ll tell you the same.

Your point about having to be economical with the truth just to get them to look at the thing smacks of Tesco trying to blame Wharfey and vice versa. This is the similar argument when certain discs don`t play - the DVD player retailer says "go to the software manufacturer" who reply ... "er, go the player manufacurer" and so on and so forth.

The best support you get is from fellow owners, and if enough of you get together you can fathom out what`s wrong with a player, a bit like the visitors to Area 450 (a site for Sampo players like the Encore DV450 or Wharfey M5 - sadly not the 750 though, I`m afraid) - between Australia, the US and the UK we`ve just all got our heads together and worked out why some players were giving such cruddy playback - no heatsink !

Anyway, it sounds like you got a result, but having to lie to get it is par for the course with cheapy players, sadly :-(

I`ve since found a place on the net that will send me an upgraded chip for £20, so I`m happy now. I`ll be getting it done shortly.

Why the hell Tescos can`t offer this service for people is beyond me. If they`re out to make money (and I offered to pay!) they should try offering some kind of customer support! Yes, they may be a supermarket but that doesn`t excuse poor customer support. The same level of customer support should be available whatever brand they`re selling.

You should think back a couple years....Wharfedale was one of the leading players at the time and getting excellent reviews - both online and in magazines....it was a Sony beater. Why the hell would I pay Sony £400 for a DVD player when I could get a Wharfedale branded one that was getting better reviews for £179?

I had a friend who bought a Sony DVD player shortly after, paid £400 quid for it and then asked the Sony shop if they did the modification to make it multi-region...at which point they just gave her a blank look and she had to pay an extra £100 to someone who had started doing these.

Even if I buy a brand new Wharfedale with the upgraded firmware in it I`d still be better off.

Go figure.

Well, I figure that the Sony guarantee went out the window when the modification was fitted, and to buy a £400 player before checking whether it was multi-region or not brings one to the conclusion that the purchaser was either stupid or that multi-region was not that important to them!

Just a thought, but getting someone other than a Tesco`s technician to fit a new chip/whatever, would this invalidate the warranty (if any)?
Also if somehting went wrong, like the technician broke the motherboard (I recall someone on these forums reporting that) would they still be able to get it replaced?
Just a thought.
Lloydie

there is a thing called quality, in case people had forgoten it!

Two years ago A decent Panasonic DVD player costed about 250 pounds.
OK the Wharfedale was 70 pounds cheaper, but.
The panasonic didn`t come with the same warrenty terms as a can of baked beans. Or did it ever refuse to play a movie, long layer change time, or any other problems.

I am not saying don`t buy cheap products, but all I am saying is, that you get what you pay for, the wharfedale was cheaper, coz, it has less beta testing done on it, less research went before final production, less support provided, and less staff to help customers. (and hence the "less" price) And a "lack" of support should be expected, as if it has to be supportrd, someone has to pay for it.

Most of these (Un Branded) products are made in the far east, and they are normally sold in bulk in those countries where warrenty is something most people have never heard of!

I agree with `Shock` on this. How much time do you want to spend getting the problem sorted. I have never has any disc problems with my Sony player, ok it was more expensive than the wharfdale, but I`m spending time watching films not sorting out problems with my player. ?. All dvd players should play discs regardless of price... It shouldnt happen.. i know.. but it does .. it will never change. Would you buy cheap vcd`s rather than dvd? didnt think so

Trouble with this is I got a Sony player nearly 3 years old no problems, my Brother bought a Wharfdale 750`s from Tesco a year ago for £99.95 and it is simply a brilliant machine, it aint put a foot wrong has played every disc put in to it DVD`S, VCD`s,SVCD`s CD`S CD-R CD-RW MP3`s
and the picture quality is top notch, it is a cheap problem free machine and it makes me sick to admit it.