It saddens me to write it but I have decided I will no longer be buying any products from Philips following my recent experience with their Customer Service and Service Care line.
I have a Philips DVDR 70 recorder bought in Feb 2004 that has recently started to malfunction (it had initially refused to play Philips-branded DVD+R discs that I had recorded on it, just ejected them with no 'Error Message' or anything). I had to send several e-mails to Philips before they finally sent me a Firmware Upgrade CD which has unfortunately done more harm than good! Now the machine randomly erases screen grabs of the programmes recorded (even on a DVD+R!), totally refuses to play some discs, sticks and jumps regularly during playback, flashes through index screens, randomly selecting items before selecting one before it, after it, etc., making them unplayable!! I'd never experienced anything like this prior to the upgrade.
I lost confidence in sending e-mails so telephoned Philips Customer Care on Friday (calls charged at 15p per minute) and was promptly redirected to their Service Care line (an 08709 number which I have since discovered is a National Rate number and they regularly keep you waiting for some 5 minutes or more!) who told me that they were in negotiations with Philips about what to do as they no had no parts to conduct a repair. I was told to call back on Monday, which I did (and another 5-minute wait before getting through) only to be told that there was still no news, that they were in a meeting about it, and to call back that afternoon. Meantime, I phoned Philips to check if what I was being told was correct (about there were negotiations taking place, concerned at how long it might take to get anything done) and was told no, negotiations were over, it was just that the information had not filtered down to all the agents at the Service Care line yet. I couldn't call them on Monday afternoon, but called them at 10am this morning for a lady to reply "Good afternoon" (not a good sign!) and without any further details other than it was a DVDR 70 that had gone faulty, she blurted out "That'll be £130 for a repair". I hadn't even had a chance to explain to her the problem! After I'd protested (I think we've all been aware of how often the DVDR 70 has had problems reading these pages), claiming that this was clearly a company fault and not through 'wear and tear' she more or less told me that if I wasn't happy I should get onto Philips about it.
So I did. Spoke to a guy on Customer Service who said that he didn't know where the cost of £130 had come from as they were replacing the machine because of the parts issue, but that he would get back in touch once he had investigated. Pretty quickly he did get back only to tell me that the the problem is due to the mechanism, that this was only one part that they were missing (I'd been told it was several parts all along), and that I should return the item to the Service Care centre where they will endeavour to locate the fault BUT if it is found to be something other than this 'mechanism fault' then I would have my current model repaired and be charged £60 for their labour! I said that due to the number of machines that this had suddenly affected that this was not a fault of mine and not through general use, but they wouldn't budge and just left me with that.
I'm not very happy because I've had to send several e-mails to get an initial response, I've had to make several telephone calls to quite costly phone lines (how much are 08709 numbers charged at during the day - I did ask the advisor but she didn't know!?) where I have - until this morning - received no real advice, just been given the complete runaround, and have been quoted prices for the repair that seem to change with every advisor with no offer of compensation for my inconvenience being made. I even told them that since I bought my recorder, the cost of these have now come down so greatly that I wouldn't have to put that much to my £60 repair charge to buy a brand new one that would have a full 12-month warranty! And the DVDR 70 is now pretty much out of date, with only 6-hours recording time (many now have 8-hours) and no HDD!!
I've spoken very highly of Philips products on these pages before but would now urge everybody thinking of buying from them to think twice about it. They have clearly not taken any responsibility for the failure of this particular product (and one advisor did inform me they'd had some 30 complaints about it - I was now told this was merely a 'backlog' that had built up rather than an influx), I'm sure it is a manufacturing fault and they - not me - should be liable for the repair, and when I said I was going to write to the Managing Director of the UK base and wanted his name, the advisor didn't know.
I think I'll be buying Sony from now on. 
Apologies if this is a bit scattered, I haven't really paid much attention to the flow due to the fact I'm just so totally disgusted with the misinformation I've been fed and their general lack of Customer Service and even professionalism which has come to a head this morning and made me see red!
I have a Philips DVDR 70 recorder bought in Feb 2004 that has recently started to malfunction (it had initially refused to play Philips-branded DVD+R discs that I had recorded on it, just ejected them with no 'Error Message' or anything). I had to send several e-mails to Philips before they finally sent me a Firmware Upgrade CD which has unfortunately done more harm than good! Now the machine randomly erases screen grabs of the programmes recorded (even on a DVD+R!), totally refuses to play some discs, sticks and jumps regularly during playback, flashes through index screens, randomly selecting items before selecting one before it, after it, etc., making them unplayable!! I'd never experienced anything like this prior to the upgrade.
I lost confidence in sending e-mails so telephoned Philips Customer Care on Friday (calls charged at 15p per minute) and was promptly redirected to their Service Care line (an 08709 number which I have since discovered is a National Rate number and they regularly keep you waiting for some 5 minutes or more!) who told me that they were in negotiations with Philips about what to do as they no had no parts to conduct a repair. I was told to call back on Monday, which I did (and another 5-minute wait before getting through) only to be told that there was still no news, that they were in a meeting about it, and to call back that afternoon. Meantime, I phoned Philips to check if what I was being told was correct (about there were negotiations taking place, concerned at how long it might take to get anything done) and was told no, negotiations were over, it was just that the information had not filtered down to all the agents at the Service Care line yet. I couldn't call them on Monday afternoon, but called them at 10am this morning for a lady to reply "Good afternoon" (not a good sign!) and without any further details other than it was a DVDR 70 that had gone faulty, she blurted out "That'll be £130 for a repair". I hadn't even had a chance to explain to her the problem! After I'd protested (I think we've all been aware of how often the DVDR 70 has had problems reading these pages), claiming that this was clearly a company fault and not through 'wear and tear' she more or less told me that if I wasn't happy I should get onto Philips about it.
So I did. Spoke to a guy on Customer Service who said that he didn't know where the cost of £130 had come from as they were replacing the machine because of the parts issue, but that he would get back in touch once he had investigated. Pretty quickly he did get back only to tell me that the the problem is due to the mechanism, that this was only one part that they were missing (I'd been told it was several parts all along), and that I should return the item to the Service Care centre where they will endeavour to locate the fault BUT if it is found to be something other than this 'mechanism fault' then I would have my current model repaired and be charged £60 for their labour! I said that due to the number of machines that this had suddenly affected that this was not a fault of mine and not through general use, but they wouldn't budge and just left me with that.
I'm not very happy because I've had to send several e-mails to get an initial response, I've had to make several telephone calls to quite costly phone lines (how much are 08709 numbers charged at during the day - I did ask the advisor but she didn't know!?) where I have - until this morning - received no real advice, just been given the complete runaround, and have been quoted prices for the repair that seem to change with every advisor with no offer of compensation for my inconvenience being made. I even told them that since I bought my recorder, the cost of these have now come down so greatly that I wouldn't have to put that much to my £60 repair charge to buy a brand new one that would have a full 12-month warranty! And the DVDR 70 is now pretty much out of date, with only 6-hours recording time (many now have 8-hours) and no HDD!!
I've spoken very highly of Philips products on these pages before but would now urge everybody thinking of buying from them to think twice about it. They have clearly not taken any responsibility for the failure of this particular product (and one advisor did inform me they'd had some 30 complaints about it - I was now told this was merely a 'backlog' that had built up rather than an influx), I'm sure it is a manufacturing fault and they - not me - should be liable for the repair, and when I said I was going to write to the Managing Director of the UK base and wanted his name, the advisor didn't know.
I think I'll be buying Sony from now on. 
Apologies if this is a bit scattered, I haven't really paid much attention to the flow due to the fact I'm just so totally disgusted with the misinformation I've been fed and their general lack of Customer Service and even professionalism which has come to a head this morning and made me see red!




