Evesham Technology - Any Problems?

[robes1986]

Hi, I'm new to the forum and have had a particularly bad experience with my laptop computer and was wondering if anyone else had been there too! I apologise for the length of the post before hand but I figured I should try get as much information across as possible!

In August 2004 I ordered a Voyager 6400 A32 laptop from Evesham Technology and since its arrival have had nothing but trouble with the machine and the company. I was wondering if anyone could offer any advice or has been in a similar situation with this company, who pride themselves on excellent customer care (something we are yet to see!).

I contacted technical support several times over this duration and eventually this got too much so I returned the laptop to Evesham for repair at the start of January 2006. Received the laptop back at the end of February 2006 only to find further problems!

Returned to Evesham in March 2006 for second repair. Received back May 2006 only to find existing problems still there or new problems appearing.

I am still waiting to hear from them regarding the latest problems (been 5 days despite their policy of reply within 2) – which it did not have before sent in for repair and now feel that I am being ignored as an ‘annoying and fussy customer.’

Evesham admitted that there was a problem with the motherboard and problems experienced have been hardware not software related (therefore their responsibility) – which would have been inherent in the laptop and there since day 1 however have refused on several occasions to offer us a replacement or refund as they feel we have had ‘reasonable’ use of it.



I worked out the other day that we have had this machine for 21 months, 6-7 of which it has been with them for repair or completely unusable, 2-3 of them I have relied on another computer to do my university work as the laptop kept failing and for the remaining 12 months I have not been able to run any graphics based programs on it or modeling software as it could not handle it – despite buying it on the assurance that it was more than capable. Does this sound like ‘reasonable’ use to anyone else?


The machine has been sent in for repair twice, been the subject of many emails/phone calls to technical support, and has had an engineer come out to repair it. We have not experienced any of this so called ‘excellent’ customer service. We felt so wronged that we even wrote to one of the Managing Directors – only to receive a letter back from the person we had been dealing with in customer service – suggesting he did not even take the time to read it.

I now have absolutely no confidence in Evesham Technology and would certainly NEVER buy a computer from them again. We received a faulty product from them and it has been subject to 2 ‘repairs’ and has come back from both ‘repairs’ with either the same problems or ones which were not there before!



Is anyone able to offer any advice on what to do with this matter or has anyone else found themselves in the same situation with this company?

 

[Anon_F]

The fact that you have let Evesham repair you Laptop for you and the time scale that has developed since buying it means that as you did not reject it in the beginning and asked for a refund, You may well sadly be at the mercy of Evesham.

I suggest you write to them in a formal letter mentioning all the problems you have had, may also be worth contacting your local council and speaking to Trading standards, but as said before due to the time that elapsed they may not ba able to help you much.

 

[robes1986]

Thanks feckit. The main reason I didn't send it in to them before is technical support constantly told me that the problem was software based - i.e. not their problem and not their responsibility and refused to come out to honour the onsite maintenance because they believed the problem was most likely something to do with some software I had installed!

I just wish I had returned it to them earlier and not listened to them at first because as you quite rightly say I am at their mercy now! I very strongly disagree with their high levels of customer service. My father has to deal with customer service everyday in his job and after going through these problems with me thinks he would have lost a great deal of customers and most probably his job if he treated his customers like we have been treated!

We have already done the formal letter (even to the MD) but keep getting the standard reply from the customer service bloke so we do not know if the MD actually got it or not! We are currently planning on sending it direct to his home address.

Thanks for the reply and I'll def look into trading standards - but don't hold out much hope for the reaon you mentioned!

 

[Adywebb]

Its sad to read this about Evesham - as you say they sell themselves on their customer service, and always seemed to be a cut above most of the other mass producing manufacturers on that score.

Some of our members here who are experienced in dealing with their many problems with Mesh Computers will be able to advise you better regarding your legal rights, but I would imagine that after this time, your consumer rights under the legislation are limited.

One avenue is to write a formal letter giving them one final opportunity to rectify your problems, and if they fail to do so you will seek an independent engineers report and get the laptop repaired elsewhere, seeking to recover the costs through the small claims court.

The Consumers Association (Which? Magazine) have a legal service that can advise and assist you in these matters.

 

[robes1986]

Thanks.

As said before I know full well that my rights are probably diddly-squat due to the length of time passed - but this was mainly down to being mis-guided by tech support. Also in my first year at Uni I did not need to use the advanced modelling software that I was assured would run easily on this machine that did not.

I am just mainly posting to see if I can find any other unhappy Evesham customers or if I am just that 1 in 1000 or whatever it may be, even so, it's not nice being that 1! lol

 

[Adywebb]

Your rights under Consumer Legislation may well be limited after this time, but this does not stop you making a case for a claim in the Small Claims Court - they look at things in a balanced manner regardless of the consumer legislation, it is a whole different issue.

Its also cheap, and doesn't require legal representation, the mere issue of a summons is usually enough to make them pay up, or often big companies just fail to appear and an order is granted in your favour

 

[Anon_F]

I have a few friends who have bought from them and are happy with the service they got. Sadly every now & then a rouge laptop gets through that does not come up to the standard you expect.

When you write to Evesham see if as a gesture of good will they will help you, it may work if your nice & polite to them

 

[robes1986]

Cheers AdyWebb for some good advice.

Its good to find out about a fair and balanced system that might give me a chance! lol

 

[robes1986]

Cheers feckit.

I don't want to badmouth the company as I know lots of people are happy customers of Evesham.

As said before I'm sure they are a very good company and I know they do provide excellent equipment, however when the equipment goes spectaculary wrong like mine they are not always as helpful as you would expect.

 

[muckshifter]

... just to add a small note here for yourself and any other readers, you do have up-to 6years to make a clame.

The rub is ... you need to make a 'claim' ... up-to 6years to make a clame.

it is the period during which one could commence proceedings to take the matter to court. Be realistic about the life expectancy of a computer or its components, a car on the other hand is another matter.

https://www.pcreview.co.uk/articles/Consumer-Advice/Consumer_Rights_and_the_Law/2/

 

[robes1986]

Just to keep you people up to date - I have just sent my third email (in just over a week) to the Customer Service department regarding the latest issue as I have not received a reply from them despite their confirmation of receipt emails saying 'we endeavour to reply to all emails within 2 working days.'

The problem is that the battery only lasts for around 3 minutes despite the indicators on the laptop saying it has a good 3.5 hours in it. This is most probably just a case of a new battery needed (hopefully rather than something more serious!) which would be covered by my 2 years parts and labour warranty, which would be very easily sorted by Evesham.

Beginning to feel ignored now ...

 

[Adywebb]

If its the battery, you may find its not covered within your warranty - they are often specifically excluded or have shorter cover.

This doesn't excuse their lack of response though

 

[robes1986]

You're exactly right there Adywebb - an email (note no apology for me having to prompt them 3 times) and phonecall from Evesham at last - battery is only covered for 3 months. The fact that the battery was fine back in January and that they are the only people that have had it and used it for the last 6-7 months counts for nothing which is rather annoying. I have tried saying this to them and complaining about the way that we have been treated as customers. The last time I got proper (well I say proper very sarcastically) was back in November.

I have been advised just to use it off the mains for now to see if it is working properly (defeating the object of a laptop some would say), although I do not feel very confident based on past repairs that it will be, and to get myself a new battery - wheres the best place to get them from and how much would I be looking at having to pay?

 

[Adywebb]

I've googled with your model, and struggling to find one - but judging by some other models it looks like it will be around £100.

I notice also you are seeking advice on this issue at PCAdvisor as well

 

[robes1986]

Well spotted Adywebb - yes i do - trying to spread the word and get as much advice as possible!

I'm sensing another formal letter to the M.D. (this time to his house so he might actually get it!) to inform him of how wronged we feel and what poor levels of customer service we have been experiencing. Would everyone else agree that this is far beyond a joke now?

I don't seem to be able to find one either - so looks like I'm going to have to email those 'helpful' people in customer support and ask if they can tell me if they have any how much one would be.

I seem to recall reading somewhere on one forum that this could be a problem as they seem to use odd choices of PSUs and batterys which are difficult to get hold of - meaning they have to order them in from somewhere?!

Just wish now that when I found the first problem I had taken it back and suffered the first few weeks of university without a laptop when it wouldn't have been as important to me as it is now!

Oh well here goes ...

 

[robes1986]

PLEASE HELP!!!

Hello everyone yet again ... as technical support are closed I wonder if any of you would be able to offer any suggestions?

Given the history of this machine I am not surprised that yet again it is misbehaving. I have only started using it properly this week after receiving it back from repair a few weeks before hand and have only installed a small handful of programs. I have used it for a good few hours on several days so far and my confidence in the machine was beginning to grow.

Anyway, I was sat there slowly working away and noticed that the machine was feeling rather hotter than it should do when all of a sudden the machine turned off. It restarted and on booting up reached a blue error screen and then promptly restarted again. On this restart it went to a screen telling me something had gone wrong giving me the usual options of using last known good configuration, start in safe mode etc etc.

Chose last known good configuration and then it restarted itself again a couple of times, then went back to the screen. This time i chose safe mode and then tried to do a system restore. About half way through the system restore the machine crashed and turned off. It then refused to turn back on and would make very loud fan noises for 5 seconds before turning itself off again.

Gone back to the machine about 10 minutes later after finding out the tech support line was shut and found that it would turn back on this time. Successfully managed to do a system restore this time and the machine came back on ok but find somethings don't work (such as Norton).

Not really sure what is happening with this machine but I now cannot really risk using this machine for work at all because I keep losing work and having to redo it inbetween saves.

PLEASE! Is anyone able to offer a suggestion to what the problem is?! Is this software related (not convinced as the exact same software is on this computer I am using now - which is running fine) or is it hardware related and in turn something to contact Evesham regarding as the machine is still faulty?!

 

[Anon_F]

DO NOT repair it yourself

If it's still under warranty contact evesham, DO NOT try to repair youself as this may void your warranty.
Contact Evesham as soon as you can when they re-open. Is it a desktop PC or Laptop?

 

[robes1986]

It is a laptop.

Read the first post by myself in this section and it will all make more sense to youself - already had 2 repairs and a lot of contact with technical support in its 22 month life.

Does this sound hardware rather than software?

 

[sonarboom]

robes1986 - from what you've outlined here the laptop is probably shutting down because of over-heating, so see if a cooler place makes any difference and also mention this to evesham. hope you get it sorted soon.

 

[sparky4000]

Which? is it really a consumer Assosiation?

The Consumers Association (Which? Magazine) have a legal service that can advise and assist you in these matters.

I had a similar problem with evesham customer service and the limited competency of evesham engineers after buying an Axis 1333 from evesham.
As evesham are or were a member of Which webtrader. I contacted webtrader, But evesham told Which webtrader that the PC was fine and any problems the customer was experiencing where entirely self generated ( I feel the same could be said of evesham's rep. ). So I tried Which? magazine's legal service. After paying an online subscription to entitle me to legal advice, the advice was as I had contacted Which webtrader the matter was in their hands and they could not offer any further assistance. The only response from Which webtrader was that they were satisfied that evesham had not broken the terms of webtrader membership because they gave a different account than my complaint ( they accused me of lieing ). Which webtrader is a trade organization, traders pay to become members and the organization backs the traders in a dispute ( in my case regardless of the evidence ).

My advice is if you commision a report by a third party expert on the laptop, get evesham's written agreement that they accept the party to be hired to provide the report is independent, and confirmation that they will accept the findings of the report. Without this written prof that they agreed to a report before it was provided the report will not be accepted as evidence in court.

Did you get a three year warrantee with the laptop?
If so you paid for the warrantee as part and parcel of the goods. I think you may be able to show to a competent Judge ( if you get one ) that evesham are in breach of contract by not supplying the warrantee terms in the contract.