The purpose of this thread is for Digital Home members to review and relay their experience buying consumers electronics at Visions Electronics

This thread is strictly for reviews and is not for discussion. If you have any questions about what belongs in this thread, then please this thread (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?p=511105) prior to posting.

When you post, please try to include the following information:


What product or service you purchased.
Approximate timeframe you ordered the product
What location you dealt with if it’s a company with many stores or service locations
Your overall level of satisfaction
If you had a positive experience, please explain what made it such a positive experience.
If you had a negative experience, please read our guidelines below.

i bought & returned 2 hd tv's from feb07 to apr07.. no problems or hassles from Visions.
I now have a Hitachi 42hdx99. good customer service!
They also seem to have the latest models available in Canada.

Mostly satisfied. They have some of the best deals on old models. Also they are the fastest to offer the new ones. They also carry lots of models that can't be found in BB/FS.

Best deals most aggressive in pricing in Western Canada. Their return policy and price protection are good and they have VIP club that gives you 1 % back as bonous on new purchases of $200.00 or more. One other thing to add is for extened warrenty if not used is given back as a store credit.
Overall I think they are great to deal with and have great products, spent at least $ 6 K in the last year and a half.!!!!

I purchased a Hitachi 42 inch RPTV in September 2002 years ago with the 4 year extended warranty for an additional $199 from Visions when it was on Broadway near Cambie in Vancouver. That store is no longer there. After the 4 years was up and not using the warranty I was able to get a store credit for $199 on a purchase of $400 or more on regularly priced items. I have until September 2007 to use this credit but I doubt I may get around to it, as I cannot see anything in the near future I would need to purchase from them. When I purchased salesman was courteous and professional. Deliver was an extra charge but was delivered promptly, unpacked with the package material taken away.

Never thought I would have anything good to say about Visions after my plasma shopping experience, and momma always said "if you got nothing good to say, don't say nothing at all."

Today I walked into the Grande Prairie location and the salesman, a young guy I always like talking with was there shooting it with another sales person. I asked him straight out if they would price match the Big 4 sale in Calgary and he asked the price and I told him $188 for the Toshiba A2. There was a hum and a haw and the other guy said we can do it but we have none in stock, so sorry we are out. He then promptly walked over to the cell phone booth. Likely story, eh!

The other young guy who couldn't get away then asked if I would be interested in the A20 and I said sure for $244 what it was on sale for in Calgary again this was even a bigger eye opener. Then the floor manager came and said that they could not do that price match due to a door crasher sale. I then promptly whipped out a FS flyer that had it for $199 and said can you beat this by 5% then.

To sum it up quickly I got the the A2 for the $188, price match would have been $189 and change. So good for Visions, there was no big deal, no one said "no" and they restored faith in me.....for now. I think it was inpart to the sales guy. I was also told that he was glad that not all shopers where like me LOL.

Later
Phil

I'm mostly satisfied with their service. I haven't had any problems or really challenged their salespeople so I guess I really have no reason to not like them. PhilD thanks for the insight on bargain shopping. I'll be sure to try something similar the next time I'm in the market.

I've purchased a number of items from the Vancouver Marine Dr. store and the Burnaby store over the years.

My partner purchased a Sony digital cam about 5 years ago + got the extended warranty which we never used (more about this later)

Bought wireless speakers which I returned for a Phillips boombox a few days later.

Bought a low budget LG DVD player for the in-laws last year.

A month back, got a NuStart remote starter and had them install.

Bought a Pioneer HD DVD recorder last week. Had the salesman promise me the expired warranty for the camera could be used. Took some 4 visits before we could use it.

Generally satisfied other than trying to use the credit above.

Be aware that the rebate on unused extended warranties expires 1 month after the extended warranty expires.

Does anyone have the procedure for claiming against their 60 day price protection guarantee?

Product purchased: Polk audio RM-30 on wall speakers.
Timeframe of the order: February 20th - March 3rd, 2008.
Location: visions "dot" ca
Overall level of satisfaction: Extremely satisfied!
Positive experience explanation: Due to existing long post, see the below digital link for more details.
Negative: The only negative was my personal impatience due to the fact I am new at ordering on line and I found this a long process for a closure of the sale (delivery). I guess this is a personal problem!
Conclusion: Wouldn't hesitate to recommend to the members!

See this one for full details:
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=80986&page=2

Posts deleted. Please see post #1 for rules regarding posts in this thread.

I purchased a DLO Home Dock Deluxe for my son in Nov 07 from Visions.ca. No problems at all with the order. I had this product fail about 3 weeks ago. It was past the manufacturers 90 warranty. Called Visions and was told to send it back for exchange. From the time I mailed it back to the time I received replacement was 8 days. Awesome service!

We purchased a 37” LCD on sale from Visions on-line a few weeks ago. Ordered it Friday evening; it was delivered by UPS the following Wednesday afternoon. I think we earned 25 Air Miles too. Other than the UPS guy wearing way to much cheap cologne I have no complaints at all.

Bought my daughter a 36 " LCD from visions. Early X mas present.
Monday Dec 1. I told the sales person I will pick it up the next day.
Went to pick it up Tuesday. The TV was gone. It was the last one in the store
Anothe sales person called other locations and found one. He took $ 25.00 off the price for the inconvience and Gas. Can't complain.

Showed up to the Faithful Avenue location in Saskatoon for the New Years Day sale. I was there before 9:30 A.M. and the sign on the door said they were open at 11:00. Waited there with several other people. When the employees showed up they all walked in and someone grabbed the sign that said open at 11 and changed it to 12. Someone standing at the front of the line knocked on the door and said "are you kidding?", the employee just gave a snide grin and walked away.

I went to another store and price matched what I was going to get from Visions. I told them about the 11AM thing at Visions and just for the chuckle they got from the story they beat Visions extended warranty - with time to decide if I want it or not.

I am sure this is not regular customer treatment at Visions but it was very disappointing and first impressions are lasting because I will avoid them if at all possible for any future purchases.

EDIT - and no it wasn't me that knocked on the door.

RB

Bought a 32 Samsung LCD in Oct they 5% bettered price matched at the time although the sales guy was trying to give me the run around saying he could only better the price match by 4%?? then in Dec FS had their Employee discount sale and my model was on sale for $120 less than I paid. I submitted the 60 day price match. Just received my 'rejection' today, granted I didn't read the 'must be post marked within 60 days of purchase' as literally as i should have (I dropped it in the post two days after the 60 days), however their letter said it was post marked 17 days after I had mailed it. I would suggest anyone wanting to claim their 'within 60 day price match' they make sure they have proof of the date it was post marked.

Another experience I had was I went into their Surrey store, I was holding onto my 3 year old who was sleeping. I was in the store for about 15-20 mins and not 1 sales rep approached me.

I'm not a big fan of FS or BB but the experience for the most part with them have been more positive.

I am writing regarding Visions extended warranty policies, which I found out today are extremely unfair toward their customers.

Let me explain the situation:
I purchased a 42" Philips plasma TV (model 42FD9954) Feb.17, 2005 from the Visions store at 3915 - 51 St SW Calgary for $2465 plus a $599.99 extended warranty. On January 2nd 2009 it completely stopped working and I contacted Visions regarding coverage under the $600 extended warrantly I had purchased at time of sale. The Visions person told me they would either fix the TV or replace it and I would have the option to upgrade if I wanted to. Visions had me contact SMElectronics (SME) to get the TV repaired, and their tech showed up, checked out the TV and left to prepare an estimate. A week later SME called to arrange to pick up the TV for service. And then on January 19th SME told me that they had informed Visions of the repair estimate, and Visions were to call me regarding how to proceed. No one called, so on Saturday Jan. 24 I contacted the SW Calgary Visions store where I purchased the TV. The manager (Dave xxxxx) told me he would contact head office and get back to me, hopefully on Monday the 26th. On Wednesday the 28th I called the SW store again, and Dave informed me Visions would give me a 42" LG plasma TV (model 42PG20) in exchange for my defective Philips unit, and I could come in to pick it up and could upgrade if I so chose.

So today (Thursday January 28th) I went to the SW store to see what the LG 42PG20 plasma TV looked like. On January 27, the Visions website showed the 42PG20 priced for "Final Clearance" at $1099 and your local Calgary flyer showed the 50" Panasonic plasma TH50PX80 priced for "Final Clearance" at $1288. I wanted to upgrade to the Panasonic 50" TV, and thought the difference in price I would have to pay would be 1288 - 1099 = $189 plus tax on this amount. Dave informed me that no, my replacement 42PG20 TV cost to Visions was around $700, and to upgrade to the Panasonic would cost me $1288 -700 or around $588 plus tax. This seemed completely ludicrous - since no doubt Visions cost for the Panasonic was considerably less than their stated "Final Clearance" price of $1288, similar to their "cost" for the LG TV.

Any upgrade would have taken the Visions "cost" for the LG TV against their "retail" for any other TV they had on sale. So the consumer is essentially limited to accepting the replacement unit specified by Visions, with no recourse other than paying a substantial profit margin to Visions on any desired upgrade. Plus you may end up without a product you need for up to a month waiting for them to make a decision.

In our case, we had built our original Philips plasma TV into a bookshelf framed enclosure and the LG replacement offered explicitly states it cannot be clamped into position because the bezel vibrates as part of the speaker sound design - so it cannot be placed into our bookshelves in a similar fashion. It is NOT a suitable replacement, as I informed the salesperson I talked to when I entered the store and told them I was there for a warranty replacement. And to upgrade to another model incurs a substantial cost penalty, given Visons policy of "cost versus retail" for upgrades. As Consumer Reports Magazine notes, any extended warranty program is a waste of money - whether you end up using the extra insurance for repairs or not. I would have been better off junking my broken tv and using my warranty money to get a new tv of my choice, at the store of my choice.

I filed a complaine with the BBB. A Visions person contacted me to say they went way above and beyond their warranty by offering me not just by giving me a replacement tv of their choice (which exceeded the technology of 3.5 years ago - big surprise), but by giving me the chance to pay their additional profit margins to get a different tv. This Customer Service rep had the audacity to say my 3.5 year old tv was virtually worthless nowadays, and implied I should be really grateful they were giving me a tv that cost them pretty much the price I paid for the warrantly.

We are extremely disappointed with Visions, their staff in responding to this extended warranty replacement issue, and recommend that consumers NEVER pay the extra cost of an extended warranty - particularly at Visions Electronics. To top it off, the Visions store staff informed me they had no 42PG20 in stock and instead gave me a 42" LG LCD TV instead, again with the same vibrating bezel problem.

I got declined on a lowest price guarantee application. Bought a Shaw HD after boxing day for just under $300. A few days later, noticed Best Buy was selling it for $250. Printed out the online availability, sent in the flyer, even got a tag from the store. The "Gotcha" was "limited availability" printed on the website page (re: availability).

That said, they did honour 2 consecutive price drops on a product I bought at their store where they subsequently lowered the price.

to ronzz:
sorry u had a bad experience like that.

I have always believed that extended warranties are a joke. Consider ronzz's case, around $2500 for the tv, and a 600 dollar extended warranty. Instead of getting these extended warranties, my view has always been this: "well, IF it breaks THEN I’ll dish out the 600 to fix it, and hopefully, if it doesn’t break, I’ll keep the 600 in my pocket."

Thats the logic i use for any extended warranty: computers, tvs, etc. If it breaks, the repair will probably cost you the same as the extended warranty, but again, thats IF it breaks. Chances are, it will be ok. And if you dont get the extended warranty, the clerks make you feel like your stupid for not getting it, but thats probably cause the boss wants them to push this stuff on us.

The companies know exactly what they are doing, they are "offering" extended warranties on everything. If they sell a 200 dollar extended warranty on 80% of the tvs they sell, for example, then thats a massive profit, and since only 10% will probably need repairs, they make quite a bit off of this practice. I figured this out from the first day i heard about this extended crap.

So ppl, let’s say no to extended warranties. And to the companies, why should we buy stuff from you if you can’t guarantee it won’t break after 90 days? Oh how I miss free lifetime guarantees, but thats what we get for letting our own companies take manufacturing jobs out of North America and shifting them to China, then selling us cheap third-world junk.

I have been a customer since 1992 and have never had a bad experience. I reccomend them to every one i know and NO I DON"T WORK THERE OR OWN SHARES!
There staff are usually very knowledgeable, They have tons of the latests models , Their price match policy guarantees low price, If your a little worried ,as some people, about quality they have a REFUNDABLE WARRANTY plan. This includes a 3 strikes lemon plan which they will give you a new model, ( I was given a loaner when my dvd player needed a repair) but the best part is if you dont use your extended warranty before it expires you gat 100% of the cost back as an instore credit!
I have double up on this twice now
1) 3 years ago at Christmas I bought a sony desktop "boom box" for my son . They beat Best Buys price by 5% as promised .
They gave me 2 x $100.00 gift card for signing up my wife and Daughter to a telus cell phone plan. This included 2 free phones. I was planning on getting them any ways. So I walk out of the store with 1 boom box, 2 cell phones and I spent about $14.00 over the gift cards!
2) I just purchased my dream t.v. 50" Pioneer Kuro. Boxing week sale (before christmas???) Was 2985.00 (Cheeper than anywhere in B.C.) and I applied 2 expired extended warranties (99.00 +199.00) and yes it was christmas and my daughter need a new cell phone so I signed another 3 year contract and was given a $100 gift card. And yes the LG Touch phone was free! So I got my t.v. and a sweet phone for 2585.00 . I know I know I have a 3year phone contract but I would have got that anyways! This t.v is still selling for 3500.00 at the few places where you can find 1.

Do yourself a favour and try them at least.

The situation is partially my own fault, but the guy I talked to was such a scumbag it soured things even more.

Basically I bought a Sony 720p projector, the referred me to another store (Burnaby BC) which had an "open box" unit. I was told the lamp was "barely used" but of course, it was almost at end of life. They had reset the timer on the projector before giving it to me, masking the actual lamp usage. After 96 hours it died.

I tried to talk to the manager, but he just gave me scumbag sales crap and told me to go buy a new lamp. $300 I'm out.

My own fault in many ways, I should not have been so desperate, and should have bought at a reputable establishment. An expensive lesson learned :(

I will never spend another cent there and will work hard to alert others, hopefully costing them more than what they cost me.

Hoop