Anyone ordered from Play.com?
Am tempted by their price of the 32" samsung r87 and 37" r87 but worried about aftersales service if there are any problems.
Anyone had any dealings with them?

Bought hundreds of DVDs from them.

Never bought a telly though.

Their after sales service is probably on a par with Amazon - that seems to be who they take after. Which means if there's a problem they'll come and pick it up, and send you a replacement.

Until my last purchase from Play.com I would have put them on a par with Amazon, but not any more ...

I purchased 2 HD DVD players - 1 from Amazon and 1 from Play.com. They both arrived on the same day, and there was no problem with the product.

After Toshiba pulled the plug on HD DVD, the price went down £42. Amazon gave me a £42 refund, Play.com didn't.

Amazon will get a lot more orders from me - Play.com wont

To be frank, I don't know why you "expect" a partial refund after making a decision that held quite a bit of risk.

Amazon are far bigger than Play.com so can afford to make this kind of gesture. And that's all it was; a gesture, not a right.

I bought two iPod cases from them. They arrived on time etc and I rate them well however I'm not too sure how helpful they would be if something went wrong as I've never had to deal with their Customer Services.

Exactly, why should the retailer be responsible for a bad customer choice?.

We've still got BSB receivers in stock, that we were left with when BSB went bust (sorry - 'merged' with Sky ) - no credit or compensation there, it's a risk you take, as either a retailer or a customer.


I would imagine that Amazon received credit from Toshiba for the ones they had sold, whereas Play probably didn't!.

Amazon passed this credit to their customers, but that was probably the agreement with Toshiba.

They are brilliant, their customer services staff are friendly and well trained

I have found every aspect of their service very good even down to the speed they answer the phone & I have spent years in Customer Service. I purchased a HD DVD in December which turned out to be faulty ( I had initially put the problem doen to some discs). When I contacted them about it I had had it 6 weeks; The cs chap was very helpful & asked if I wanted a replacement or refund & I opted for a replacement. They arranged collection of my faulty player & 2 days later contacted me to say the new one would be despatched the following day BUT this was the same day that WB decided to pull out of HD & I could see the writing on the wall. I asked if it would still be ok to have a refund & they agreed without any hassle & it was done immediately.

As for expecting play.com to refund you because a product has gone down in price; come on! apart from Amazon how many other companies would do that & why the heck should they? I think a lot of people forget that these are in fact company's & they are there to make a profit all be it a much reduced one based on volume & lower overheads than a normal retailer.

I've been a long term customer of PLAY, never bought electronics from them but music, dvd, hd-dvd and consumables no problems.
I had the choice of Play or Amazon for my backup HD DVD player and only went to Amazon as they offered the 30 day balance refund if prices continued to drop which it was obvious they would, it wasn't a reflection on Play as a poor retailer just an offer that was too good to refuse.

I am a long term customer too of play.com.Brought xbox 360 from them,toshiba hd dvd.Also received today from them a samsung 19 inch hd tv for my son.Also brought hundreds of dvds and music cds and books from them.Great company.

Buying hardware from either Play or Amazon is a risk.

If anything goes wrong after 30 days neither of them will help you.

They will simply redirect you to the manufacturer.

I note than Amazon do offer extended warranties for sale so presumably you would get a collect/repair/deliver service with those.

Luckily I only had my HD DVD player 2 days before Warner dropped it , so PLAY got it back and refunded the £190.

But I just paid £60 for another one

Customer service wise PLAY have gone so far downhill in last 12 months its hard to recommend them for anything.

Go to the PLAY site and see if you can find an email link for a general enquiry.

You wont find one.

And their links only refer to specific subjects.

Never bought hardware from play.com but have bought hundreds of other items from them and I use them with confidence, I ordered a book from them last month which never arrived, I contacted them and the sent a second book with no quibble.

Play .com are based in Jersey, so i dont think even the SOG act applys to them, does it?
Please no posts on the SOG act, and how useless/great it is

That's because they offer a direct line to customer services. Much better to speak to a person that to sit about waiting for an email.

Never had a problem with them myself and 95% of their stuff is much cheaper than Amazon.

Thats why they provide an 0845 telephone number for the subjects which are not covered, when you do business on the volume play do & given the amount of idiotic emails they get in adition to genuine ones they would need an army to answer them all.

Agree! - pre-ordered the new topfield PVR from Play and it was £30 less on their site before it even arrived here. They would not refund the difference. Also had one game pre-order not fulfilled at all and one arriving well after the game appeared in the shops both apparently due to their distributors letting them down (see if I care, I pre-ordered for a reason!!). At the very least shall not be pre-ordering from them again.

That somewhat whingy opinion aside they are at least reliable, but I have not had any real product trouble to test how well they handle it. I have had products from amazon that I have had actual real trouble with, and they have sorted it out admirably, better than most of the high street experience.

No - as already explained, if anything goes wrong with something bought from Amazon in the first twelve months they will ship out a brand new replacement, and collect the damaged one themselves. Alternatively, they will offer a full refund (including postage). You can't complain about either of these options - better than being without the kit you have bought for days (weeks) while it is being repaired.

I bought a Samsung mobile phone from them about 2 months ago and once it arrived the bag it was in was open, the box itself cut open, charger was missing, the phone was on in a different language and the manual was missing. contacted play and they gave me 7 quid back for a charger which i thought was piss poor. won't be buying off them again.

Once again, I don't really see the complaint here. The cut-off point should surely be when the order is processed and paid, not during the despatch stage.

Prices change frequently (especially on Play.com) so someone is always going to "feel" short-changed if they placed an order when a product is at a higher price, but that really is part-and-parcel of shopping for ANYTHING.

I don't work for Play.com by the way (), just think it's unfair to expect certain things from them. They're a business not a service.

For what it's worth, I've been using them extremely frequently for around 8 years (since they were called Play247) and have never had any complaints.

Agree with Smerph here. If you go into Asda, and see that bottles of Coke are 20p cheaper than they were two weeks ago when you bought one, do you go round to the manager's office with your receipt from a fortnight ago in your hand demanding a refund of 20p? Of course not - you pay the price that the goods were at the time you bought them - not what they are now.

Ordered a HD-DVD player, fried it when doing a firmware update, got it swapped within five working days. Customer Service was fine.

Have spent thousands of pounds with them over the years and never had a problem. You just have to wait a day or so longer because of where the stuff's coming from.

I have bought quite a few things from play, albeit small items like dvds. cds, books, and delivery is quite slow, I have found. But prices are extremely competitive!

Couldn't comment on after sales.

bought goods from play.com including 40 inch tvs to dvds,excellent service no problems whatsoever,would highly recommend

I bought my LCD from them - never again. They are fine at delivering DVDs, but I wouldnt risk anything larger.

The item took a long time to arrive, got passed between A LOT of different couriers (so finding out "where the heck is my TV?!?!" took a lot of detective work!) and when the TV arrived, the courier dumped it outside and wouldnt help bring it in.

The problems were mainly with play.com's choice of (cheap) courier services rather than play.com themselves, but for the sake of free delivery its not worth it.