My Dabs.com Story

Much like my good friend Gringod, I have also had some issues with Dabs.com.

I recently ordered a Logitech Bluetooth keyboard and a Lexar Pro CF card which is needed for my holiday. When I had finished the order, I was informed that the memory card was actually out of stock and wouldn’t be available untill about the time I leave to go to Spain. As the holiday was my primary reason for the purchase, I figured that I had better look for an alternative. Since I was already on the Dabs website, I searched for ‘1GB Compact Flash’ and what should show up? The Lexar Pro 1GB card that I had ordered but with 4 in stock… how could that be? On further investigation, I discovered that Dabs have the same product, with the same manufacturers code on two different Dabs stock numbers and a £15 price difference! Whether this was due to different suppliers, alternative dispatch location or just plain old incompetence I dont know but I immediately sent the support team an email explaining that I am about to go on holiday and that I would like to pay the extra money and get the other memory card! I was sent an automated reply stating that they were bogged down with emails and are not quite up to their usual 4 hour response time… I can cope with a couple of hours over that I suppose!!

To get things in perspective, I am not worried about the difference in price, spending money does not bother me in the slightest and £15 is nothing in the big scheme of things. It is certainly nothing compared to the cost of the holiday and what the emotional cost of not having it would be! I am, however, really annoyed by poor service… I couldn’t even find a phone number on their website… this is supposed to be one of the largest and most respected IT suppliers in the world!!! I want things done promptly and as I choose… isn’t that how all things should be in the Internet-age? </apparent over-expectation> If you do need their phone number… Gringod has posted them, though they dont sound like much use.

At this stage, I discovered that it is possible to add and remove items from your order before it has been sent. So after some experimentation, involving the creation and deletion of a few new orders, I finally managed to delete the old memory card and get the ‘in stock’ version added to my order. Success.. the status changed and the payment was being authorised and a few more Dabs points would be on their way! A day later I received a dispatch confirmation email with a Parcelforce tracking number on it. I then proceeded to watch for 2 days as my parcel moved accross England, over the Channel and into Guernsey where it was promptly delivered to my door!

The final part of this story relates to that email which I sent to Dabs support team 3 days before my Parcel arrived. They sent me a reply stating that all the items were out of stock and that I would have to wait for 11 days before they would be available again! Hmm… had I not taken matters into my own hands… neither of my items would have been available!! I thought about using the keyboard to write a response but in the end… I couldn’t be bothered!!