Agreed, when will I ever learn as well. I dunno what it is with some of us. Some of the electrical goods they sell under their own brand and others ARE very cheap, but are proved to be of inferior quality time and time again, yet we (well I) keep on ordering the stuff in the vain hope I'm going to get my hands on a real bargain. Recent examples, I bought a Vivitar camcorder from them, and I kid you not, it cost me less than £20 even with the postage, I was thrilled as it was supposed to take stills as well as moving images. I took it along to my friend's wedding last year, and I ended up with the most unwatchable, shaky film, and that wasn't down to me having the DT's I promise! and the still photographs were so grey and grainy I was embarrased to show them to anyone. So that's in the back of the cupboard (don't know why I don't just bin it tbh).
Then I bought a portable dvd player with freeview tv attatched. I (stupidly) believed James Russell (OMG!) when he said the battery life was amazing ( I thought he meant amazingly good!) and that the micro aerial was a good 'un! The DVD part of the deal lived up to expectations i.e, it worked, the tv well you could just about get a broken picture on about 2 of the available channels, but nothing you could have actually sat down and watched, and the remote control that came with it didn't work! I actually was going to send this back, because it cost the best part of £80, but somehow I discovered it works an absolute treat upstairs in my attic room -The remote still doesn't work, but saves the hassle of trying to get a refund or replacement!
I also bought myself a portable dab radio....It ticked all the boxes for me. Mains/battery, alarm clock, wooden case and only £24.99. It was made by Magicbox, a firm that John Lewis stock, so I thought I was onto a winner. When I got it, I asked OH to set it up for me, and he said the sound quality seems good, but there's this continuous hum you can hear when there's a quiet moment, I couldn't actually hear it. However after destroying the box, and getting down to using it, the hum became so unbearable that I had to use FM all the time which defeats the purpose really, then to add insult to injury FM developed this almost continuous "fart" and faffing around with the aerial helped a bit, but it kept coming back.
I think the hassle of ringing their ridiculous far flung call centre and having to pay to send stuff back then try to claw back compensation is why so many people put up with such inferior merchandise. What I can't measure is why people keep coming back for more, and that includes me..HELP!
