It's at times like these that I find it a shame that you can't give a rating of less than one star…read more
If you're ever thinking of buying computer components, I urge you to never, ever shop at May's Computer Centre. In my limited experience with the store (insofar as I have never gone back) they are rude, clueless rip-off merchants who wouldn't know customer service if it came at them in the night like an elk with a knife.
I needed a replacement microfilter for my parent's phone line, but looking around the store I couldn't see any; only a small rack with what looked like line splitters. I asked an assistant and he couldn't seem to find any either. Another assistant came over. The two shop assistants got into a small argument in front of me:
Guy #2: What are you looking for?
Guy # 1: Microfilters, but I can't see any.
Guy # 2: Here they are (grabs a bag).
Guy # 1: No, that's just a splitter.
Guy # 2: Trust me - it's a microfilter.
Guy # 1: It doesn't look like-
Guy # 2 *Trust me*. It's a microfilter.
I looked at what I was given and it really didn't look like a microfilter. It looked like a little piece of plastic crap. The feeling of crapiness was enhanced by the ridiculously cheap price (over half the price of any other mircofilters I'd seen in any other stores). As I was paying, I expressed my doubt with the original shop assistant and asked if I could return it if it didn't work. "Of course you can!" he replied jovially. This, it turns out, was a lie.
To cut a long story short; the 'microfilter' filtered out precisely nothing. When attached to the voice line I got a loud fuzzy hissing that rendered all speech incomprehensible, and when installed on the ADSL router, I got no internet. So I took the non-microfilter (which was quite clearly a splitter) back to May's along with my receipt to get my refund.
As soon as I mentioned I wanted to return an item, the guy behind the counter scurried off to fetch the manager. He swaggered out of the office, picked up the microfilter and said "It looks fine to me.". Because, y'know, you can often diagnose electronic equipment malfunctions by looking at its plastic casing. He then spent the next ten minutes trying to prove me wrong. He plugged the non-microfilter into their office phone, picked up the receiver, listened for a few seconds, then said "Nope, no hiss. I wouldn't even know what an ADSL signal on a voice line would sound like." Well then why in God's name are you the manager of a computer store? He then shoved the receipt and non-microfilter into my hand and literally escorted me to the door, saying "It's not faulty, so no refund I'm afraid." as he firmly pushed me out of the door and into the street. Customer service!
Given the choice, I would rather recommend a shifty old man called Jim who sells computer parts out of a sock before I would ever recommend May's Computers to anyone.
