CUSTOMER SERVICE? - PowerHouse

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As an ex-employee of the company I have a unique prospective to work from. There are a number of concerns that every customer should be aware of.

Firstly, The staff are trained at powerhouse to put warranty and credit above the actual product itself. he company makes very little money on selling products for cash. When you signup for a 'buy now pay later' deal you get the first 12 months free but should you go one day over, you automatically get charged either over a 48 or 56 month term at a whopping 29.9%. You will end up paying more than double for the product.

On top of this, advisers will add on payment protection insurance because it is "free". Sorry to tell you people! it isnt. The cost goes up depending on the price of the product. This is added as a charge should you go over your 12 months which you are then charged....you guessed it.....29.8% interest on....That brings the price a couple of hundred pounds over 200% of the price of the goods.

Secondly, staff get paid increased commission on a thing called 'easy to own' (or as we called it inhouse, a personal loan). You will get it explained to you but the system is setup to demonstrate the monthly payments to you over 24, 36, 48 & 60 months. What the adviser may do is conceal that you actually pay 19.8% on this. Another thing the sales people will tell you is that you can pay the loan back early and not have to pay the full ammount of interest.

For instance if you pay a 24 month loan back over 12 months then you won't pay for 12 months worth of interest. This is wrong. You will get hammered with an early repayment fee. Payment protection insurance on a loan is payable from day one and although it may only be £10 a month....you add that up over the term of the loan.

Thirdly, Powerhouse do not have their own distribution service. Items are now shipped to the shop and delivered by private couriers. Most of them are cowboys. This also adds another problem, the stock is very hard to trace so if your product goes walkies it could take a couple of weeks to sort out the problem.

The next bit of information is going to astound you and I hope it makes you think twice about shopping at Powerhouse. The company is in serious trouble. I worked in a Scottish branch of Powerhouse which was profitable. The company owes over £31 million to its creditors. In February 2006, the company entered into a company wide voluntary agreement with its creditors. The stores were downgraded to a factory shop and declared insolvent (to get them out of tenancy agreements).

I was called in on my dad off to be told that I was now unemployed with immediate effect. I was handed my final cheque and asked to leave via the back door. Meanwhile I watched two lorries strip the store I worked in. They had obviously planned this for weeks but had given us no warning. They closed every store in Scotland in the space of 4 hours and put over 150 employees on jobseekers allowance. Customers were left wondering what was happening with their stock.

The Company voluntary agreement voted on by the share holders of PRG, the company which owns Powerhouse will mean that suppliers will get around 28p in the pound for the £31 million debt. Looking forward, it is doubtful that the suppliers will stay with Powerhouse and if the way they laid of the staff is an indication, when they finally bite the dust, do you really think they will warn their customers?

Be warned! don't take the chance! The staff didn't get the chance. You as customers deserve the right to know what is happening! Ex-employee

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