back to article Dragons' Den badboy's biz Expansys is soaked in red

The recovery at Expansys - the consumer electronics etailer owned by Dragons' Den meanie Peter Jones - has proved shortlived. The wireless tech web seller and provider of mobile networks edged back into the black in fiscal 2012 ended April in spite of currency headwinds and hard up UK consumers. Sadly for Jones and other …

COMMENTS

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  1. The Alpha Klutz

    i phone peter jones up at home

    and i make him do my tech support

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: i phone peter jones up at home

      Does he answer the phone and say "I'm out"?

    2. jai

      Re: i phone peter jones up at home

      do you call him money for short?

  2. Neill Mitchell

    Pricing

    Perhaps they could try pricing things competitively.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They're crap that's why.

    I ordered a Nokia wireless charger and they shipped a version with a Euro style two pin plug, not a UK spec model.

  4. Atonnis
    Mushroom

    Ahahah...

    'in spite of currency headwinds and hard up UK consumers'....

    ....or perhaps their steady failure has been down to excessive overpricing, non-stop and impossible to opt-out-of spamming, constant expectation-creation and then letting people down, shoddy after-sales service and mistakes in deliveries.

    1. FartingHippo
      Trollface

      Re: Ahahah...

      So ... you're a loyal customer then?

    2. Scarborough Dave

      Re: Ahahah...

      They are on my block list now - tried unsubbing from newsletters and gave up.

  5. Adrian Jones

    I bought from them once

    And was inundated with spam from third parties.

    Scrapped that email address, never used them again.

  6. Captain Underpants
    Thumb Down

    I used to be cautiously willing to use them if they had what I wanted within ~15% of what I'd consider reasonable. That pricing never happened though - any time they had what I was looking for, the price was at least 25% higher than some other vendor in whom I'd place equal or greater trust. Given the tales of spam avalanches from other commenters, I'm glad I refrained from doing so now (and for more reasons than just the dirty feeling you'd get from contributing to that arrogant pillock's business...)

    Sucks for the people who work there, though. Not their fault the company's apparently wedded to a shit business model :(

  7. h3

    They were ok at one point.

    They used to have b grade stuff that was very cheap and quite interesting. (And it was easy to find).

    I got a dirt cheap Nokia 770 from them once. (Only issue being it was US so couldn't do wifi channel 12/13).

  8. wobbly1

    their security colander means i get knob pill spam to the unique address i gave them. Notified them twice , no response , black listed them for mails and purchases. prices were not that good and support problematic.

  9. Zola
    Thumb Down

    Expansys == Expensive

    They're just not competitive. Hard up customers? You'd have to be a total spendthrift to even consider purchasing from Expensive. Not to mention that having paid through the nose you can expect sub-par post sales service.

    All in all, it's a business that deserves to be shut down, not kept on life support.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I used to buy heavily from these guys until I got really bad lip a few times from their aftersales people (on two occations being the same person and other times someone random), I haven't used them since 2006.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No! Really?

    Good.

    I bought a Nexus One from them and they really messed me about when its power button broke.

    They first tried to make me call HTC. HTC UK won't touch it as apparently it originated from Vodafone Germany (strange considering Expansys sold it as a SIM free UK model).

    Then they tried to claim the phone was out of warranty (when the (german) warranty documentation stated 2 years, and anyway there's the usual SOGA acrobatics if that was the case)

    Then they tried to claim it had water damage and they wanted a chunk of money to send the phone back unrepaired or to pay £whatever to get it repaired outside of warranty. The phone spent its time in an Otterbox Defender with the most exposure to water being very light rain, there is no way there is water damage. Strange how they didn't prove it by sending pictures of the water sensors or anything.

    I didn't have time to deal with it so I bought a new phone (not from Expansys of course). I'm glad they're failing miserably and I won't be propping up their finances any time soon.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Passing off grey market gear as genuine UK kit

    I moved on from Expansys in 2004 after buying an iPaq HX4700 which was sold as UK spec, only to discover it was in fact a grey market import from Malaysia (where they use the same electrical system so supplied with a regular UK 3-pin plug) but with questionable HP warranty and a more limited WiFi channel selection than you would expect for a UK device (as it was effectively US spec).

    Expansys eventually came clean on the matter, promising to ship only UK spec models in future, although this was more likely a reaction to the loss of a court case brought by HP than any customer concern. And their lack of interest in assisting with future warranty issues - preferring instead to fob the customer off to HP - was also quite telling.

    Since then I have avoided them like the plague - such a shabby, underhand, deceitful (and overpriced) outfit. There are quite a number of e-tailers out there that are more honest, pleasant and yet still cheaper than Expansys.

  13. Jon Press

    I remember when...

    ... El Reg had an online store "Powered by Expansys" up to around 2008. Clearly they're missing the click-throughs.

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