The Trouble with a
Minidisc Player
By Mark Stevens
A few years back, I decided to buy a minidisc deck from Dixons. I took it home, set it up and everything was fine... for a few hours. I suddenly noticed that the system had suddenly decided to stop recording things. It would go through the motions, the little REC light coming on and the counter was ticking away. But upon trying to play the track back, there was nothing there.
Closer inspection of the machine revealed a number of scratches on the surface. Some of the discs themselves were getting partially stuck in the little flap too and it took a bit of a tug to get some of them out.
The next day, I took the faulty system back to Dixons, slammed it down on the counter and asked for a new one. The sales clerk initially tried to fob me off and suggested I should fill in a form and that they'd take my machine in for repair. I pointed out all the faults of the machine, indicating that the machine clearly wasn't "brand new" and had obviously been used. I wasn't going to have them send a second-hand machine back for repair, because I had assumed I was buying a brand new machine.
After much huffing and puffing, the sales assistant reluctantly agreed to exchange my faulty machine for a brand new one. He took the faulty system "round the back" and emerged with a new machine, all bagged up. He did a bit of jiggery-pokery on the tills, handed the bag over and mumbled a half-arsed apology. I left the shop, vowing never to return.
Two minutes later, I returned. I'd only just walked halfway back to the car park when some sixth sense compelled me to look inside the bag. Inside was a nice shiny new... CD player. WTF?! Where was my shiny new minidisc player?! Now, it just so happened that I was intending to buy a new CD player anyway. If the CD player was worth more than the MD player, I would have kept it. Unfortunately, the MD player had the higher value, so thus it was back to Dixons I went.
I slammed the CD player back on the counter and pointed out their mistake. The sales assistant's acne turned an even deeper shade of red, which I assumed was a blush of embarrassment. He then went "round the back" to actually get the brand new MD player I had initially expected. I opened the bag this time, saw that I'd been given the correct item, left the shop and drove back home.
At last! A brand new MD player. I opened up the box, slid the MD player out... and then discovered exactly the same pattern of scratches on the top of the unit. Already guessing what had happened, I set the thing up and lo and behold it was suffering from the same "Haha! It looks like I'm recording, but I'm not really!" problem. The bastards had given me the faulty unit I'd initially returned!
The next day, I went back to Dixons again. The same sales assistant was there and you could hear his heart slamming into the floor as he caught sight of me and my minidisc player-sized bag. He tried to take my faulty unit with him as he headed "round the back", but I made sure I held onto it just in case he accidentally brought the same unit back again. When he did finally return with the new unit, I made sure they opened it up there and then so that I could check I wasn't being given another duff unit.
I asked them for some sort of explanation as to how I was sold an obviously faulty unit from the start and was actually told I'd been given an ex-display model "by accident". Hmm, how convenient. Nevertheless, I left the store with a brand new unit (which, two years later, I'm happy to say is still working perfectly), vowing never to return to Dixons ever again!
2 Years Later, Mark did return to Dixons and put his money at risk again > > >