I have done quite a few transactions with Dabs.com in the past, generally in my younger years, and have generally been quite happy with their services. If you overlook a few of their flaws, such as the inconsistencies in their listings, their poor search system and the fact that their website doesn’t look like it has been updated since they opened about 10 years ago, they seem to be pretty decent company with some great prices. At least that’s what I thought 6 hours ago.
It seems that to Dabs, the concept of a “new” product actually falls under what everyone else classifies as a “working” product. My supposedly “brand new” £210 24″ monitor was far from it. From the moment it arrived, it was obvious that something was wrong. Anyone who’s anyone and has bought an LCD before will know that they come fully sealed with a polystyrene molded surrounding in a nice flat rectangular box. Mine on the other hand was bulging out almost a few centimeters and the replacement tape they had chucked over the original tape to seal it up had completely come off at one end.
Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I opened the package up to take a look.
- Monitor, check!
- Cables, check!
- Software and manuals, check!
All looked good until I pulled the protective sleeve from the screen. On the top of the shiny plastic that Samsung (who are awesome by the way) provide, several medium to deep scratches and lots of scuff marks surrounding it. It didn’t stop there, the same sort of thing was present all over the monitor indicating either a return or some factory refurbished crap.
Once I got in contact with their complaints team, I was offered a return and replacement courtesy of their courier. “Fair enough” I thought but as the monitor is quite important right now, I wanted to know how long it was going to take. 4-6 weeks they said! Now… correct me if I’m wrong but what!? If I had wanted the monitor in 4-6 weeks, surely I would have bought it in 4-6 weeks. How is sending me an obviously used product as new my fault? To make matters worse they then proceeded to “accidentally” close down the window when they weren’t getting a happy customer response from me. I wasn’t rude but hell, I was annoyed!
So yeah… now I have to either live with the scratches or wait 4-6 weeks for a replacement. Want a recommendation from me? Never buy from Dabs unless you like being punched in the face repeatedly. I’ll be forever using Amazon and eBuyer from now on. Both of which are top notch!