CeX — Local services in Belfast

Up till now, I don’t think I’ve ever been so disappointed with the customer experience in a shop that I felt compelled to look them up and write a review online, but it really was abysmal. It wasn’t the prices; even though they were pretty bad, you pretty much know what to expect when you’re going in. It wasn’t the staff’s manners either; everyone I interacted with was quite friendly and helpful, if a little slow to move given the length of the queues.

No, the biggest problem was the entirely opaque trade-in process, and the seemingly arbitrary nature of the hardware testing by anonymous, and seemingly incompetent operators.

I left a few gadgets in to be appraised, and was quoted roughly what I expected, and was happy to let them go, but I was handed one back; a phone. I was told “they couldn’t get it to boot up”. This concerned me, because I knew the phone was in good working order before I left it in, so I was worried they’d broken it somehow. I brought it home, charged it up, and it turned right on. Apparently charging the phone wasn’t on the troubleshooting sheet in “CEX”.

The next day I went back to the store, waited in another fantastically slow queue, and eventually got to explain the situation to the clerk who booked my phone in for another test; only 30 minutes this time. Great.

I went for a coffee and came back only to be told the phone had failed the test again. This time it was the volume buttons they couldn’t get working. The clerk handed me my phone, which I immediately unlocked and tested in front of him. Lo, and behold, the volume buttons worked absolutely perfectly. I looked at the checkout guy confused: “I think he said they were too stiff; like we can’t offer a 2-year warranty if the buttons are hard”. I just maintained eye-contact and kept turning the volume up and down, because I genuinely didn’t know how to respond. I don’t know what you, the hypothetical reader, would personally describe as a “normal” amount of pressure when referring to the amount of force required to actuate a phone volume rocker, but this, to me, seemed normal. Certainly not perceptually better or worse than my current phone. Needless to say, nobody in the shop was able to clarify exactly what the metric for measuring “phone button pressure” was, nor how many units of said metric were considered to be above the threshold of what is considered operable by the average human hand, so I too my phone and left the shop for a second time.

Oh, did I mention they binned the box and charger for my phone before giving it back to me? Yeah, that was a nice bonus.

I’m obviously being a smart-arse here, but It’s a true story, and one I consider to be instructively disappointing. Will stick to...

I was in this store today to buy a DVD. A customer in front of me was selling what appeared to be their entire DVD collection. While I was standing in line, 2 or 3 of the shop assistants were busy helping this customer and another was busy with someone else wanting to sell something. At that point there was no one behind the counter to help the customers wanting to buy items. After a wait of 10 minutes (and a huge line forming behind me), there was finally someone available.

This guy, who appeared to be the youngest clerk on the floor, went to look for the DVD disc for me. After another 10 minutes and what seemed to be some random perusing on his side, he came back to tell me that unfortunately he had looked through everything and was unable to find the disc. I told him I'd seen at least three covers upstairs and that there had to be at least one disc in the place to go with these. A senior assistant then commented that there were 5 in inventory according to the system and that the young guy should go look again. After 5 more minutes of browsing I decided I'd wasted enough time and told him it was no longer necessary to find the disc.

Quite a disappointment. In the end I bought the DVD at a charity shop. I'm very glad my money is going to a good cause rather than into the pockets of this store's somewhat...

“Human error” cost me £45. Trading in a phone, was quoted £118 cash. Agreed to come back 45min later while it got tested. Value then had dropped to £73 - when I questioned this and enquired the reason for this, I was simply told the original assistant must have given me the wrong quote based on that they may have inputted the wrong device information - even though I watched her scan the box etc, and she confirmed £118. Kept being told “human error”, which I said had cost me £1 per minute while I walked about the city centre waiting in the rain. No real appreciation by the assistant to see things from my perspective and I felt obligated by myself to take the £73, as I had already wasted my time in town, which I could’ve used instead to get a quote from Game. No apologies, just “human error” which I should just deal with. Asked for this to be passed on to management but based on the attitude of the assistant, I’m not confident this will happen, which is why I’ve written...