Chile Forum

Without a doubt, The worst service in Chile comes from the chain of hardware stores EASY, known to my and my Chilean Partner as DIFFCULT...."im just going to Difficult honey...back in 12 days..."
Not only is everyone in the store social unable to function in a public environment, the entire organisation or therefore lack of is unreal...
out of 27 items purchased....6 not functioning...returned and told no refunds...YEAH...Im Scottish, good luck keeping my money!!!
9 other items were incomplete, parts missing or broken components...4 of which I exchanged and 3 of which had the same issues....upon speaking with the manager ( who didnt care 1 iota) i decided to leave the store before I gave myself an annurism of frustration.

Buying anything here....open it, build it, check it before leaving the store....dont ask for help...just help yourself...ideally, find the product elsewhere...ok Gardner Breath Breath its ok .....

sadly, I have to agree with my limited experience with the one in Temuco. The employees are some of the most unhappy I have seen anywhere in Chile. They have gone on strike more than a few times here.

Yet, I go across the street to Sodimac and I get great help. I have had some long conversations with the employees that seem to actually be interested in knowing more about what they are selling, or alternatively explaining the differences about what they are selling. Exchanges have been not exactly no questions asked, but fairly painless as things go. At least when I walk out of Sodimac, I tend to leave with more junk than I need.

Many stores in Chile seem to go out of their way to discourage you from buying things. I would put Ripley and Easy in that category.

Jumbo is joined a the hip with Easy. Just a FYI for others that might want to avoid more horrid service than normal.

eeuunikkeiexpat wrote:Jumbo is joined a the hip with Easy. . . .

Interesting. "Jumbo" in Argentina is the same Chilean-owned enterprise, but its stores on the other side of the Andes (at least, those in the city and province of Buenos Aires that I've gone to) offer decent service, comparatively wide selection, and fairly good prices.

But, yes, I avoid both "Easy" and, after a less than satisfying experience in northern Chile, "Ripley".

It seems that Ripley stores are not all the same. In 2007 I bought a handbag in Ripley (Viña Plaza) which wasn't what the gift recipient wanted, so for months I kept returning to exchange it for another handbag I was told would arrive soon. I eventually gave up and decided to obtain an exchange voucher so I could buy something completely different, but they refused because I was out-of-time and was informed I'd have to keep the unwanted gift. I went to another Ripley store (Mall Marina Arauco) where they cheerfully gave me an exchange voucher, no questions asked.

Tuesday-Thursday Syndrome. Typical in this and many other places on earth. On Tuesday, you must present your purchased item with receipt for a refund or exchange. Unless the clerk's mother has hemmoroids, which then, of course means you cannot return anything until Thursday, which is fine unless your receipt is more than two days old, then you are required to produce then certified copies and four human witnesses for a voucher which is good only for size 14 stillettos or a size 52 push up bra. HOWEVER, if you have the fortitude to go across the street to anyone of four other identical stores of the same name, you may exchange an old, ripped ski jacket for a newer, twice the value issue jacket and get a free in-store credit card so you can buy your next purchase at 23% interest. Aint' it great!!!!


Do the hokey pokey, and turn yourself around.

my all time favorite was buying a hard drive at Ripley that has the click of death (i.e. hard drives should not make noise) and it reported lots of bad sectors with my diagnostic tools. I take it to their "computer expert" desk. The kid does not have anything to diagnose the problem, reformat it, and tells me that there is nothing wrong with it because windows can read it. Of course windows can read it. Windows does not care about reading and writing corrupted data. Well, then he tells me because it is more than 10 days past purchase they can not return it, and that once a month the guy from Western Digital comes to Temuco for warranty stuff (yea, I know, it was the only thing they sell and it was an emergency).

Along the same lines I recently sent a printer in to be repaired to the local Brother printer guy. We called several weeks later, and he said it was fine. We test it and it is still broken. When we ask why they did not fix it, they said it was out of ink. Of course it was out of ink, you let the cartridge dry out while it was sitting on your shelf!!! Put some new ink in it, and test it!!!!

I love the smell of rant in the morning.

Seems were all on the same page then...good!
after todays shopping trip I now add PARIS and CRUZ VERDE to the list...im going to have to become self sufficient down here what with my daily boycote list growing so fast ,,,,,,,,,,,,

wedding photographer Chile wrote:after todays shopping trip I now add PARIS and CRUZ VERDE to the list...im going to have to become self sufficient down here what with my daily boycote list growing so fast ,,,,,,,,,,,,

I know how that feels! Many times I haven´t been able to sustain my boycotts for a long time though, mainly due to the lack of good alternatives There´s only one exception: TurBus - I won´t drive them any more. (In northern Chile I try to travel with AtacamaVIP, and in the south with Pullman. AtacamaVIP seems to be owned by Pullman)

Not a competitor on the road, but in terms of poor service: Iberia. I´m not a person which needs a lot of service during a flight, I´m happy with a window seat and something to eat in order to avoid starving. But on Iberia the service makes the flight even worse than it would be without it. To end the bitching on my part: For traveling between Chile and Europe I can highly recommend LAN - I´ve had some wonderful flights with them. (But be careful: If you have to connect within Europe: It´s Iberia again!)

admin wrote:Yet, I go across the street to Sodimac and I get great help. I have had some long conversations with the employees that seem to actually be interested in knowing more about what they are selling, or alternatively explaining the differences about what they are selling..

Our experience in Santiago is much the same. The employees in EASY are not very happy and/or motivated, we don't like EASY and we checked in two of there shops a small and a very big one. We walk out empty handed.
At SODIMAC however the employees look more open and ready to help and they actually seem to know their products. I think Fallabella is linked to Sodimac and also that store we prefer to Ripley or Paris. Maybe it is the USA/European influence in management and so on...?

Easy is Easy to me. I have lived in Temuco for one year and had experience in both Easy and Sodimac. I had avoided Easy because of this forum but eventually my curiosity led me in one day and I made a great discovery. Someone nice who speaks perfect English!! Now this may not be what every other English speaking person needs but I welcomed the hand held personal shopping experience and have since become a regular. Yes I am a woman so I do get overwhelmed with the whole hardware store scenario but still it's very helpful to find a personal shopper and not have to deal with several different workers in several different sections.

His name is Felipe Veloso. I am not sure how long he will work in Easy because it does seem that they do not treat their employees as they should.

You are maybe comparing Chilean service to the USA and/or UK? Compared to service in Australia and Africa, in my opinion, different story. I have not yet (in nearly two years) had any shopping experiences bad enough to write about. I have never had bad service from Easy (La Dehesa) or Jumbo or any of the other stores mentioned and I shop a lot!

You are not likely to get the fake "Have a nice day" attitude here that some might be used to, but then again, you are not getting nose picking and indifference like in most of Africa or the "you don't deserve to shop here" attitude you get in Australia.