His Master’s Vice :: Greed
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Remember happy days spent in the music section of HMV? Well, not any more.
My mum decided to surprise me with a gift of a DVD and a CD, purchased at her friendly HMV store in Leeds, England. After paying about 35 quid for the privilege she began to wonder whether she could have got a better deal online. Sure enough, she found the same two items for $30 on Amazon with free shipping to me in New York to boot.
Unfortunately, when she took said CD and DVD back to HMV, they would not give her money back. She was told that it was store policy to give credit but not refunds. When she pointed out that surely a store the size of HMV could afford to give people their money back, she was told that it was because people were buying CDs and burning them.
“But this CD and DVD are still in their wrappers,” says my little ‘ol mum. “I haven’t even opened them.”
“Well,” came the reply. “It’s people like them that are ruining it for people like you.”
Would this be the same “thriving” HMV that recently announced a share buy-back programme and 30 per cent dividend rise after achieving a 23.3 per cent rise in interim profits and strong Christmas trading?
Actually, HMV, it’s stores like you that are ruining it for all of us. And you now have two fewer customers than you had before.
2 Comments
February 10th, 2005 at 12:50 am
In 1996 I applied for a job at the HMV megastore in Manchester. Their first question was: How are you going to make us more money? What could I have said to that? I was going to be stocking shelves! I told them to turn the music down as it put off the old folks. This didn’t go down at all well and I never heard from them again. That day cost them hundreds, possibly thousands of my future pounds you’ll be pleased to know.
February 13th, 2005 at 9:19 am
http://www.play.com and http://www.cd-wow.com much cheaper, better service and they’ll do refunds. You’ll never ned to go to HMV again!
Wizz