Page 1 of Lidl...WHAT A JOKE

Because a new store was opening they did some extra special offers. I dashed over & bought one of the computers for £299.00. First my card & my wife`s debit card don`t work in the checkout so we have to go to a machine about half a mile up the road to get the money out that way. Finally I get home & unpack computer. I am suspicious that it may not be the one advertised so after checking over the weekend I realise it`s a lower model. It should have a 200 gig hard drive but has only a 160 gig. It should have a wi fi lan card, It doesn`t. I phone up Targa on Monday morning at 8.30 am. They confirm it`s not the right computer so 9.00am I phone Lidl & I am promised someone will look into it. No one phone`s back on the Monday & I wait until Tuesday at 12.00. I phone again saying it is most urgent as my normal home computer does not work properly anymore & I need to swap files over but can`t until I get the new computer. I say if I havn`t heard by the end of the day I will no longer be polite & will get very >:( angry. No one phones back, so I phone again today about 10.30 am, again I`m fobbed off so I ask for a supervisor. I get the supervisor & to cut the story short she say`s she will contact head office & say it is urgent but keeps on & on about Lidl`s policy being 8 to 10 working days to respond. 8 to 10 WORKING DAYS. Surley if they make a mistake they should get it swapped over ASAP & at least keep in touch with the customer. I`ve bought 3 computers from ALDI & they are just fantastic when it comes to customer service. I`m loath to get the money back as it is such a good buy but I don`t want to wait what seems an unreasonable time. I bought it last Thursday, now it`s Wednesday evening & havn`t heard a thing.

Lidl are good for buying cheap food from if you`re a student, but not much good for anything else.

This item was edited on Thursday, 7th April 2005, 14:40

Today Thursday at 5.45 pm they finally called & said the publicity people had made a mistake & the computer I have is the wrong one & they don`t have any of the other models (advertised) as it was an old model. They have offered me my money back or to keep the computer & have £25.00 of food vouchers. I`d apreciate any feedback.

It depends if you think the PC you got is still worth the £299 you paid I guess. A 160gb hard drive it still big (did you specifically need it to be 200gb?). Same with the wireless LAN card, will you use it, or was it just a nice sweetener. If you think it`s still worth it without those bits, then I`d keep it.

As another tale, I`ll never shop at Lidl again after my experience of them last year. I bought an 8 man tent in a specials day. On putting it up we found some bad stitching which you could see daylight through. I was debating whether to just keep it as it was a good dela at £70 and just buy some patching material, or to take it back first and see if they could swap it.

I spoke to the manager (a woman) who told me they had none left, I was going to just keep it, but asked about a refund (I`d paid cash). She told me they can`t do a refund, if I wanted my money back, they`d have to get in touch with head office, who would send me a cheque within 14 days.

This got my back up even though I had been thinking of keeping it. I said how can you do that, normal practice with faulty goods is a refund by the same method you paid IE: you pay cash they refund cash, you pay by credit card, they refund to the credit card. She was having none of it, and said there were signs around the store stating their policy. I couldn`t see any anywhere, and said if that was the case they should be in a prominent place near the entrance, and point of sale (the till).

I got nowhere with her, so kept the tent and vowed never to shop there again.

Their service is not a patch on Aldi....Lidl = avoid !! :)

I`d keep the computer as it seems a pretty good deal, but what I would do is properly price up what the difference in spec is worth. 25 quid doesn`t seem enough to pay for a wireless card or the extra hard disk space. Once you`ve worked out what the extra spec is worth, then push for the difference in cash. Try telling them you have to buy the parts to bring the computer up to the advertised spec.

I`d thought the same as Random Username after I posted my last reply, see if you can get them to knock more off, and ask for it in cash to go towards buying the parts, not Lidl vouchers.

Thank you for your help & opinions. Today, one week & one day after buying the PC I have had another reply from another guy. He said the one who promised to get back to me today is busy & he is taking a message. He also said that the original £25-00 offer was about all I would get so he was really wasting my time in spending the morning pricing the missing (that I Know Of) items up. The first guy will get back to me on Monday. Going by the cheapest of everything but equal make`s, as on the Lidl PC the prices were, £10-00 Difference in the Hard drives & £20.00 for the wi fi card making a difference of £30-00. However I would still like my original 200 gig so to bring it to that I would have to buy a 40 gig hard drive & that would come to £28-00 thus with the wi fi card a total of £48.00. I have noticed there is no Nero with this PC but it seems from the internet (not the add in the paper) that the one I would have bought would have this software with it. I put the serial number of the PC into the Targa site & it came up the machine is from October 2003. The Microsoft Autoroute is 2003 & The Norton anti virus is 2003 so well out of date, although I`m not sure I expect Norton would expect me to pay to bring it up to date, but this is one of the free pieces of software given. There is more but I think this is enough for now. If anyone could tell me how to check how old the processor & mother board is, I would apreciate it. Although the machine looked cheap at first, prices of the lower end PCs are dropping fast & if the processor/motherboard are old (perhaps already 2 years old) & maybe not too upgradable then I may be better paying a little more & buying a newer PC.