Laptops Direct are a sub-brand of a company (BuyITDirect Group) that seems IMO rather poor in its business practices and an incident from last year made me reconsider ever using them again.

The School I work for has a business account with them and last year I tried to purchase 15 fairly inexpensive Lenovo laptops for Exams use i.e. for word processing and dictation. We're talking an order worth around £2k.

Let me preface this by saying that at no point did they require our business account to have a mobile phone number attached to the account. At no point did they indicate that we needed a mobile phone number when we made the order either. I bet there's a fair number of businesses and organisations that don't have a mobile phone number attached to their accounts either. You'll see why I mention this a bit later (and you'll probably guess why.)

After we put the order in, we got a notification from them to say that they'd be dispatched within 3-5 working days and that DPD would be the courier delivering them. When DPD turned up to deliver them, they asked for the code before they'd release the items. "What code" we asked. Basically because it was classed as high value items, they needed a release code in order to give the items to us, despite the School name clearly labeled on the parcels and the same School name clearly on the front of the building the delivery guy had walked into.

Nope, it's policy and we need to give the release code before he can hand them over, no exceptions. Looked back at the email address registered to the account but no email with said code. Contacted Laptops Direct's support who weren't much help initially telling me that if we've not received the release code, we need to contact DPD directly (...hang on, our contract is with you not DPD. DPD's contract is with you not us. Why are we contacting DPD?)

So off I went to contact DPD who were also rather unhelpful, told me that it was up to the supplier to resend the code and that DPD were just acting as the middleman in this case.

There was a lot of back and forth between Laptops Direct and DPD but eventually I got someone at Laptops Direct who would tell me that they'll get the code resent and I'm thinking "finally, a solution at last (I hope?)". Nope, no email with a code. This went on for a few more days with DPD attempting redeliveries but getting nowhere because we didn't have this elusive code that was required and me contacting Laptops Direct getting a promise they'll resend the code.

During the following week, I called Laptops Direct again this time wanting to make a complaint as we were getting nowhere and I finally got through to someone who explained they only send the code out to the mobile phone number registered to the account. I told them we don't have one registered to the account and to make matters worse, there's nowhere on the account to add one either (nor did our Finance dept. actually have a mobile phone but that's another matter. To make matters more worse, we seem to have some sort of legacy account which cannot be upgraded at this time as then the order can't be changed to allow the use of the upgraded account. They also can't change the order to have the code sent via email, so really they've created this impasse where the only solution was to cancel the order, which we subsequently did.

They lost our custom that day due to their inability to sort the issues out and make things right. Laptops Direct are now the absolute last resort for IT goods if we're unable to get what we want elsewhere and even then I'd still strongly reconsider using them.

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10 points Lieutenant_Scarecrow

Whats worse is that its very likely they've had this inventory before the new inflated prices. So they're actually getting an even higher margin on old product. It doesn't matter how much record profits a company makes cause late stage capitalism demands that they milk every penny out of you.


6 points Smartaces

Yes completely - even the sale person I spoke to was confused that the item was in stock but my order was cancelled because it was not available.

I recorded all the conversations - I might make a video on it and post on YouTube.

What has frustrated me is that this feels like profiteering.

They were happy to relieve me of my money as soon as they could.

Also it’s very easy to feel like you have no choice or recourse in these situations…

Hence me posting here to warn others.

I hope people call out other companies with junky business practices like this

parent root
2 points stupefy100

This has unfortunately been happening recently with the skyrocketing RAM prices


1 points Smartaces

Well yes I think that had an impact - and we can expect more of it.

I saw they did this on other customers orders on items for a good few years

parent root
3 points 0chr150

Laptops Direct are a sub-brand of a company (BuyITDirect Group) that seems IMO rather poor in its business practices and an incident from last year made me reconsider ever using them again.

The School I work for has a business account with them and last year I tried to purchase 15 fairly inexpensive Lenovo laptops for Exams use i.e. for word processing and dictation. We're talking an order worth around £2k.

Let me preface this by saying that at no point did they require our business account to have a mobile phone number attached to the account. At no point did they indicate that we needed a mobile phone number when we made the order either. I bet there's a fair number of businesses and organisations that don't have a mobile phone number attached to their accounts either. You'll see why I mention this a bit later (and you'll probably guess why.)

After we put the order in, we got a notification from them to say that they'd be dispatched within 3-5 working days and that DPD would be the courier delivering them. When DPD turned up to deliver them, they asked for the code before they'd release the items. "What code" we asked. Basically because it was classed as high value items, they needed a release code in order to give the items to us, despite the School name clearly labeled on the parcels and the same School name clearly on the front of the building the delivery guy had walked into.

Nope, it's policy and we need to give the release code before he can hand them over, no exceptions. Looked back at the email address registered to the account but no email with said code. Contacted Laptops Direct's support who weren't much help initially telling me that if we've not received the release code, we need to contact DPD directly (...hang on, our contract is with you not DPD. DPD's contract is with you not us. Why are we contacting DPD?)

So off I went to contact DPD who were also rather unhelpful, told me that it was up to the supplier to resend the code and that DPD were just acting as the middleman in this case.

There was a lot of back and forth between Laptops Direct and DPD but eventually I got someone at Laptops Direct who would tell me that they'll get the code resent and I'm thinking "finally, a solution at last (I hope?)". Nope, no email with a code. This went on for a few more days with DPD attempting redeliveries but getting nowhere because we didn't have this elusive code that was required and me contacting Laptops Direct getting a promise they'll resend the code.

During the following week, I called Laptops Direct again this time wanting to make a complaint as we were getting nowhere and I finally got through to someone who explained they only send the code out to the mobile phone number registered to the account. I told them we don't have one registered to the account and to make matters worse, there's nowhere on the account to add one either (nor did our Finance dept. actually have a mobile phone but that's another matter. To make matters more worse, we seem to have some sort of legacy account which cannot be upgraded at this time as then the order can't be changed to allow the use of the upgraded account. They also can't change the order to have the code sent via email, so really they've created this impasse where the only solution was to cancel the order, which we subsequently did.

They lost our custom that day due to their inability to sort the issues out and make things right. Laptops Direct are now the absolute last resort for IT goods if we're unable to get what we want elsewhere and even then I'd still strongly reconsider using them.