Harvey Norman
Reviews and Complaints

My 17 year old son who had saved for months bought himself a laptop on Friday 4th Feb. He opened it on Saturday the 5th Feb and happened to have his thumb in the bottom right corner of the screen and the screen cracked. Harvey Norman wont exchange, refund or repair as they are telling me that the complaint has never happened before so bad luck. I thought a laptop should have been more sturdy than to last 1 day!

Is there another process rather then sitting on the phone waiting for someone to deal with my complaint. The thing is,
Just before christmas I purchased two laptops on finance, the next day m grandmother died so I went in stating change of circumstances, I would like to cancel. After talking to the man I had originally done the deal with he said no he would not send through my cancelation notice to ge as 'you can more then afford it' he stated. I work in a bank and stating my rights as the nz consumers gurantee acts states I new well within my rights I could change my mind then after speaking to the manager on duty I got told I had made an 'expensive mistake' and they would not be sending through my cancelation notice to ge. Now I have no one who will deal with my complaint and I do not have the laptops as I hadnt even picked them up yet.

What is my best option? Please im desprit or im going to have to start paying for goods I do not have.

I purchased a Toshiba Laptop from Harvey Norman Castle hills in Nov 10, two month later the hard disc was burned.

I asked the store to refund / exchange to another model for me. Because I believe the hard disc is one of the most important parts of a computer, it gets damaged within such short period; I have loss the confidence to using this model

The computer department manager Eric Gie told me that themself ( Harvey Norman) actually only an outlet of these entire electricity supplier, if I want a refund I should speak to Toshiba myself. They do not hold any responsibility for quality problem.

Man, this is ridiculous. I would never go back to that store again.

Wow where do I begin to describe the uselessness of the malaga harvey norman. Well i'll start from the beginning. About 2 or 2 and a half years ago, I bought a compaq desktop computer from that particular store with 3 year extended warrenty. The computer worked fine for about a year and a half but then it started to act up and shut down every once in a while. I took the computer back to harvey norman to get it fixed. The first thing the tech bay serviceman said to me was that it would get fixed and ready for pick up in a couple of days which I thought was excellent service.

After about a week or so I went to harvey norman to pick up my computer and the tech guy said the computer was fixed. I asked him what the problem was with the computer and he said that there was no problem but they rebooted my computer anyways. I was kind of shocked when they told me there was nothing wrong with the computer even though any normal person who uses it would experience how annoying it was to have the computer shut down every 5 minutes. However I did not complain because he said he ran test and left the computer on overnight in which nothing occurred.

With the tech guy's assurance that the computer was indeed working fine, I took the computer home and started it up but after 10 or 20 minutes the same thing happened. I was shocked at the fact that a supposedly experienced tech person would miss this type of problem, so I called harvey norman up again and they said to bring it in again, in which I did. This routine conitunes for a few times because the tech guy refuses to believe that the computer was shutting down because he said he left it on overnight. However the problem with this method of finding out the problem was that whenever the computer shuts down it would restart and return to the previous page meaning he would never discover the problem. The tech guy and I argue for a few times when I took the computer in, in which I thought was rude considering he made me drive down to the store like 50 times and he nevered considered that I might be right.

About 8 or 9 times after being told that there was no problem. I asked the tech guy what he wanted in order for me to prove that there was indeed a problem with the computer and he said take a photo (Reason for why I didn't think a photo was needed was because I didn't think anyone would be that stupid to miss such a noticeable problem) so that's what I did. The next time I went into the store I took the phote of a blue screen that appears when the computer restarts (This particular blue screen illustrates that the computer has shutdown due to some problem that I was not familiar with) the tech guy finally admits that there might be a problem with the computer but instead of making it easier for me he says that he needs to send the computer to another harvey norman to get it fixed and I need to give him my iphone in which I took the photo with. I asked if I could send the photo to that harvey norman store and I # you not, he said I couldn't do that. After bickering for a few minutes I asked him what else I could do and he said I could take the computer and the photo to that harvey norman store myself, in which I reluctantly agree to do even thought it was like 35km away.

The next day when I got to the store, I took the computer and showed the photo to the new tech guy (He looked at the photo for like a split second) and said to be back in a few days when I can pick it up. When I picked it up I asked the new tech guy what he had done to the computer and he gave me some bs about it being fine and that nothing was wrong but he rebooted it again. I asked him if a photo wasn't enough evidence that there was a problem, what else do they want me to do and they replied "why don't you record it" at that point I was beyond pissed off so I agreed and recorded it. This old routine continues where I take back the computer and nothing is done so I decided to complain to harvey norman by phone. At first this lady that I spoke to was fine and she offered me all these options for the computer, in which I was happily willing to do but it would cost me a fair amount of money and time. To the end of the conversation I asked if I would be compensated if I indeed was right about the computer problem and she said no. I argued back and said how is that fair that harvey norman made me drive to there stores so many times and waste so much money on this and I wouldn't even be completely sure that my computer would be fixed, at this point she started to be hostile and rude so I hung up the phone because I knew it wouldn't go anywhere.

About a year later after going through all the hassle of trying to convince harvey norman that the computer had a problem they finally fixed it and the computer was working fine but a couple of months later the computer again started to shut down but due to the hassle that I went through I decided it would be easier just to fork out 2 grand to get a new computer instead of having to deal with incompetant harvey norman staff.

So pretty much I asked all consumers to stay away from harvey norman because they have the worst customer relations I have ever seen. I especially want to mention tony from the malaga store and the rest of there tech team for being the most useless staff I have ever encountered. I will never buy any computer products from there ever again. Oh also I want to mention the lady I spoke to on the harvey norman complaint hotline but I forgot her name but she should be fired for her rudeness to customers. All in all I respect the retail industry and I believe that it should be hard for people just to get a replacement product or a refund because people can take advantage of that but it shouldn't be impossible.

I went in to the Harvey Norman store in Fyshwick, Canberra, to purchase a new tv and blu ray. At first I had to literally go and tap a salesman on the shoulder to prompt him for some service. (He was busy chatting to another salesman on the floor). I asked for some advice on which tv to buy after explaining what I was after and his response was to point to a tv, tell me it was the best deal they had and walk away to continue chatting to his buddy. I then had a look around myself and asked another salesman for some help. i told him that I wanted to purchase one of the televisions and I showed him a receipt I had for store credit which he glanced at. he told me that that was fine and helped me pick a blu ray.
Once I had decided on the tv and blu ray I was told to wait to speak to another customer service person to approve the 40 months interest free finance. When I was called in to speak to the finance person I advised her that my address had changed and once again showed her my store credit. She also said that it was valid.
I then had to proceed to wait at the cash register to be served. After 20 minutes of waiting there I was told that I could not use my store credit as it was for a different store in Canberra. When I asked to see the manager, I was confronted by an extremely rude man who did not apologise, explain anything or offer any helpful advice, but rather just told me that I had to go to the other store to redeem my store credit. I told him that was fine but I wanted to cancel my order as I wasn't happy purchasing anything from that store with that kind of customer service. The girl at the register confirmed that she would take care of it after the manager said that I had to wait around to cancel my order!
This morning I received a phone call from a harvey Norman delivery man telling me that he had delivered my new tv at my old address! I told him that the order was cancelled and he didnt seem to have any clue and thought he had the wrong number, so I had to explain to him that he had the wrong address and the purchase was never made the day before!
I think Mr Harvey should think twice when next hiring staff cause the employees are rude and incompetent! My experience was very disappointing and I won't be making any purchases from that store in the future.

I am Chow and purchase a 50" Plasma TV from their KLANG Bandar Bukit Tinggi Branch one year ago. During the purchase we were urge to buy their extended 5 years warranty, where we were given promotion brochure on the extended warranty starting that we do not to worry about labour charges, parts cost etc. if the goods we bought broke down. Recently our TV screen break downs and we call Harvey Norman. They started to surprise us by telling us list of exclusion including labour cost. We argue but finally agree for them to check the TV first. The technician came and tell us the screen damage and they will change it if it can be changes or replace a new one. Two day later they call up and say that we can opt to change the screnn, but after changing our warranty value will be reduced to around RM1500.00 after deducting the replacement cost. We can also opt to change to a new one but since there is model change, we will have pay additional RM1, 570.00. But their brochures says we don't pay anything and there were no mentioning of reduction in warranty value in even of any claim. We were told that is the new regulation. Why do we now have to adhere to the new regulation?

This is gross misleading of consumers into buying their product which are mend what they are. I will never buy anything from Harvey Norman again. They are not trust worthy store.

Extended warranty is rubbish!
We purchased a 42" hitachi plasma & 4yrs extended warranty from harvey norman in twmba 3 years ago & 11weeks ago it failed, well if you don't want to know when or how the progress on your tv which cost $3000 is going & no customer service, phonecalls not returned & different stories getting told each time, then buy through harvey normans extended wty, great warranty supplier not, (we won't be ever again!), & to hear from the warranty supplier that we were lucky to get 3years out of it, was just a gob smacker, they had received 15 plasmas & lcds come in within 1 week to be repaired.

I'm sure gerry would love to hear this story on how good the extended warranty is! a new house is built within this time!

Nothing to keep us happy was even mentioned, they don't care that they lose business!

I represent an established building company in NSW and we (for some reason) refer our clients to Harvey Norman Commercial for things like plumbing PCs.

Back in April we were charged for items we did NOT order. After following this up repeatedly, the our allocated Accounts person acknowledged the error & requested that a credit be raised. She then went on leave for 3 weeks. The sales rep has also since left their organisation.

During that time I (again) repeatedly followed up, only to be told that it had been referred to someone else, then someone else. They are now insisting that we pay for those goods, despite the fact that we have provided numerous documents confirming we did not order the goods.

I was then referred to the Assistant Credit Manager who started off seemingly helpful and now refuses to return phone calls or emails, nor has she effectively actioned or tried to resolve our issue.

Fed up, I provided a written complaint to the Assistant Manager who promised to follow the issue through - still nothing.

On Monday I gave up & tried contacting the Credit Manager. 5 days have gone by and not an email or a phone call from ANYONE!

If this is considered an acceptable way to treat your customers then I will eat my hat. It is upsetting, frustrating and extremely disappointing to be treated this way, particularly considering this issue has been going on since April 2010 (it is now October) and also as I am supposed to be dealing with management (if they won't help you, who will?)

What are we supposed to do now? We will NOT be bullied into paying for something we did not order simply because they insist on making the process so incredibly difficult.

I certainly would NOT recommend Harvey Norman Commercial to any prospective builder or customer.

My partner and I bought a queen size Kings Coil mattress and a wooden based bed from Harvey Norman for our new house. It's been a disaster from the word go. First of all they delivered a damaged bed telling us it'll be replaced the following week. I didn't bother putting it together because it would take up room without a mattress, which didn't arrive until two weeks after purchase. After yet another week of waiting for the new bed the salesman told me that the bed hadn't been delivered to the warehouse and that I should put up the damaged one in the meantime. But after I had the bed head screwed in I realised they had given me the wrong bolts for the bottom frame. So I improvised with some bolts that didn't really fit figuring that it'll be replaced soon anyway. But when I went to put the slats on, which btw look like they were taken off the street, half of them are too short! So after paying $1299 for a bed base this is the quality of workman/(person)ship we're paying for? It's absolutely disgraceful. For the time and trouble it took I could have built a bed base.

I went into the Moorabbin store Sunday, with a view to purchasing a dishwasher whilst a special promotion was on. I looked at a few and the saleswoman said there was no need to decide today, she could hold the price etc for me for few days.
I returned today and proceeded to purchase one of the dishwashers, but was told as the promotion was over I could have the same price, but not the double guarantee and other promotional offers and she could't let me use my go-card to purchase it.
I would have made the purchase on sunday if she hadnt discouraged me at the time; after all that is what I went there for, then today I am not given the same offers, finance (which I have from previous Harvey Norman purchases) was not available on dishwashers.
Seems having a GO card is a waste of time, she insisted I put it on my bank credit card (and therefore pay interest), saying that the GE finance costs them too much - why offer it then?
I feel that she deliberately discouraged me on sunday so I would have to pay more today. I didn't buy the dishwasher as the terms had changed so much. I wouldn't have wasted my time going to the store a second time if I'd known.
Really not sure that I want to shop at HN ever again. Have searched on-line but unable to find an email address to send a complaint to the store manager.

I have been in the Harvey Norman Store to purchase many different items I could have purchased much more if it was for the lack of help from the floor staff at the Hoppers Crossing store. Today I purchased a $800. vacuum cleaner from a very knowledgeable staff member but it took me as least 10 minutes to get some help as the staff were too busy talking to each other and the young female behind the counter was to busy chewing with her mouth wide open ( not a good sight). I also tried to purchase a Lap top but no one came near me and while my partner and myself tried to get assistance to purchase a sound system for our TV we watched 3 male staff members having a great talk and laugh. They did look our way a couple of times but did not make an effort to assist us. We left not very happy. with the no service policy they have in that store. I did point out to the lady on the register that we couldn't get any help and pointed to the 3 males still standing around talking. She did say she was sorry but she had nothing to be sorry about or maybe she is sorry for working in a place that does not believe in customer service. Well I will have to take my business to somewhere else. My partner always complains when we enter that store as we can not get served we end up leaving again. He believes its just a waste of a drive. signed very disapointed

I am a woman on my own going into Harvey Norman to purchase several large white goods asking the sales man for prices on the goods I wished to purchase he conclued with he would give me the price when I got my husband to come in for the final choice.I then told him he had lost my business as I did not have a husband, and would never go into a Harvey Norman Store again the Good Guyes got the sale which was over $6, 000.
I have been in retail all my working life and have never presumed a customer's position

I bought a Toshiba laptop from Harvey Norman Mutiara Damansara on 16 Jul 2010. When I return the unit to the shop few days later because of a faulty speaker, I was told that I cannot exchange it with a new unit because I did not returned with the box. When I asked why a box is needed, he just said that this is the procedure, then he said they need the serial number when it is clearly stated on the unit itself. At this point I am totally unhappy and ask why he did not caution me about keeping the box. He then said he thought he did and anyway it is stated either on the invoice or the warranty card and I should read it. I did not immediately go through all the fine prints at the back of the invoice because it is so fine that it require a magnifier but when I check it at home later, it is not there! Did the staff even know these thing at all? When I ask to see the manager, the staff just convey the message that there is nothing the manager can do about it without even bothering to talk to me. Is that the standard Harvey Norman service to their customer? I am very disappointed with the attitude of the staff which is totally unprofessional. They have failed to offer the proper post sales service/advice expected from a perceived reputable (?) shop. They have failed to live up to the Harvey Norman claim of 'Service with a Smile'. I feel totally cheated and this will be the last time I give any business to Harvey Norman.

I always shopping at Harvey Norman because their electronics have best quality, but now I should change my mind because of their staffs. Harvey Norman should training their staff and teach them how to serve customer. They are so rude and never answer my questions.
Your service make me and other people feel sick, but you say you are professional service. Is it Your professional is not answer customer qusetion and ask them to find by theirself? Is it your proffessional service is racism?
I promise I will never shop at Harvey Norman anymore, and I will tell my friends how you treat your customers so rude.
Once they if you loose your customers, remmeber to review your service.

Over the last couple weeks I have been researching 3D televisions such as the sony HX8 and 9. I started going into the stores to have a look at them physically starting at a sony centre (awesome service and friendly staff), secondly I went into harvey norman city cross (whom I'm complaining about). Skipping to the point...the staff member ( who came over a pushy and intollerable) try to force the samsung 3d on me even though I could see plain as day the sony was far better in both the 3d quality, picture in general and build quality.

Here is the kicker I know for a fact that sony has delayed the glasses and IR sender release. Stock quantities are expected in the next couple months, from what I have experienced I can see that this staff member was just trying for a sale but happiness of the customer is first priority. Keep us happy we'll come back and or tell our friends. I know of all the tips and tricks in the trade for sales person, such as friedmann training etc. But no sales person has the right to sell an inferior product and plead the ignorance case.

I think i might stroll down the street next time and give the VISA to Sony Centre and if not them NOT HARVEY NORMAN!

REMEMBER PEOPLE ASK ABOUT STOCK IF THEY DONT SAY A THING, WON'T TELL OR THERE IS NONE THEY'LL TRY AND SELL YOU SOMETHING ELSE AND IT COULD BE SOMETHING YOU DON'T WANT, DO YOUR RESEARCH AND KNOW WHAT YOU WANT, IF YOU DON'T YOU MAY ASWELL JUST HAND OVER THE VISA AND SAY I WANT EVERYTHING.

I was shopping with my wife and 3 kids for a vacuum cleaner at 1pm on a saturday afternoon. The shop was busy but we waited patiently for a staff member to come and serve us. My wife wanted to buy a Miele vacuum cleaner because we had change 3 vacuum cleaners in 2 years and now we are prepared to pay for quality made in Germany. The staff's Name is Jennifer as we asked another staff member as we left in disgust. The headline here should be "JENNIFER, THE HARVEY NORMAN STAFF FROM HELL"
VERY VERY POOR MISDEMEANOR AND ATTITUDE, UNFRIENDLY AND DISINTERESTED! PROBABLY THE WORST F..KIN PRODUCT KNOWLEDGE AS MY WIFE ASKED HER
QUESTIONS PERTAINING TO THE PRODUCT AND YET ANSWERS WERE VAGUE AND USELESS...AT LEAST SHOW SOME INTEREST AND IF SHE DOESNT KNOW THE ANSWERS GET SOMEONE WITH A BETTER KNOWLEDGE TO HELP US. ANYWAY WE LEFT DISAPPOINTED! I RUN A SUCCESSFUL FRANCHISED BAKERY WITH MUCH SMALLER STAFF NUMBERS AND I AM SURE GLAD I HAVENT HIRED SOMEONE AS DISINTERESTED LIKE HER.
LOOK OUT FOR JENNIFER IN THE VACUUM SECTION! GOOD LUCK!

my husband and i were quite addiment that we didnt want to purchase a timber impression floor if it was going to lift.as we had one before which lastest 12 years the salesman mario from harvey norman flooring sth tweed heads assured us that this floor would be perfect with a 30 year warrenty and that water would not affect it and if it did he would rather replace the product than have harvey norman bad mouthed well the floor lifted after just 3 months and they wont do anything about it we dont know what to do hope you can help us Erich and Janette Acker.

I went into Harvey Norman, King St, Warrawong store to purchase TWO set top recordable boxes for my tvs.
I went down to the area where they were, wandered around looking at the various machines and having no idea which one I needed, wandered over to the salesman (he wasnt bothered wandering over to me!) - having said that it was around 4pm in the afternoon, so why exert yourself.. As I was moving towards him, he was paged to take a phone call. He had his back to me and I patiently waited - a distance away - for him to finish his call. When he hung up he turned around and saw me and said 'Yeah' ? - that was it - no 'hello, how are you, can I help' - just 'YEAH'? - I said, 'I want to purchase a couple of set top boxes' - he pointed to the area I had been to and said - 'They're over there'. - 'Yes, I said, been there, but I need some advice on what type to buy' - So we wandered back to where the set top boxes were and he said ' thats them there' - I sighed and said 'I need two which I can record with, I'm told you have to buy a certain type' - to which he said hands on hips - 'Yeah, you need these ones'. And THAT was the end of the sales assitance! - Great, thanks, drove down to Bing Lee, got great customer service, bought the 2 boxes and got a recommendation of someone to set them all up for me - BRILLIANT! - Last time I enter a Harvey Norman store !