Online Sales without contact Phone?

[bogeyman]

Recently ordered some kit from Dabs.com.

The cheeky fecks have a 'policy' that states you can't contact them by phone...

As an Internet company, dabs.com is essentially a 'value' retailer whose whole business is geared towards delivering great products at even better prices, as efficiently as possible. By investing in technology to streamline our internal procedures we've been able to keep our prices low, which, when combined with our ability to quickly process and deliver your orders thanks to our constantly developing logistics engine, is the main reason customers choose to shop online with dabs.com.

We do not offer a telephone service for pre or post sales enquiries. For more information about our approach, please visit our "customer promise".

Of course, when they screw up (as they have), you just get ignored (as I did).

Surely it should be a minimum requirement for online trading in the UK (or EU) to provide a phone number that customers can call during normal working hours and talk to an actual human being.

Am I being unreasonable?

[_V_]

Phone? Don'y be daft. Dabs were bought by BT.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4956100.stm

A very good reason to give them a wide berth.

[kramer]

i have dealt with dabs return policy.... and now i don't buy from them

they are truly horrible...

[Ardesco]

Any suggestions for a good supplier?

I was dealing with Misco, but they sent £800 worth of kit out to the wrong address... (My so called account manager managed to type in the wrong address because her system went down when I placed the original order and when she reinput it she managed to do it to the wrong address even though the correct address was on her system!!)

It took them 4 weeks to finally get it delivered to me at the correct address and then a mobo in the delivery didn't work. Spent another week tryign to get an RMA sorted and a replacement sent out and in the end they just refunded me the cost of the mobo, now new one came out. I'm still awaiting a refund for the postage fro the whole mess and I wouldn't touch them with a tulipty stick now.

[DimPrawn]

I use www.ebuyer.com

[Cowboy Bob]

These guys (and gals) are great - http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/ - I get all my kit from them.

[Troll]

Agree with Novatech or recently been using http://www.tekheads.co.uk

fecking dabs...never again

[DaveB]

Whatever you do dont touch Mesh with a tulipty stick of any length.

Bought a PC off them, arrived and bits didn't work. Requested a return and refund cos the messed me about with delivery before it even got here. Refused to refund point blank. Completely ignored the distance selling laws. Had to get trading standards involved in the end.

Tried to stiff me on the cost of the Windows installation as well despite the fact it had not been registered. Got a written confirmation from MS that they couldn't do that.

Finally got the money back after 2 months of hassle. Still never got the delivery costs refunded.

Trading standards played a blinder though. Really help full and efficient and made damn sure the gits didn't get away with it.

[Clippy]

Have had good experiences with Insight (http://uk.insight.com/index.php) but as with any supplier, a good account manager makes all the difference.

So far, touch wood, have had good luck with them for several years now.

[vetran]

I use Insight as well

Cracking account manager !

I use Aria as well who seem fairly human.