Tiny 'close to collapse'

I read this a moment ago..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4719833.stm

How my heart leapt with glee! Apart from those por souls who have outstanding issues that are in need of resolving...

 

...and the poor souls who worked in the stores who won't be able to pay their mortgage and support their families?

Fill your heart with glee?

 

That will teach them to work for Tiny!!

 

so my hurried xmas eve decision to buy a laptop from them was wrong but was under 700!

anyway what happens with warranty if they go finito? think i should have til xmas this yr?

 

Has happened to me, and I have a young family, it was a great experience, finished up with a six figure salary that I wouldn't have got without being made redundant.

Made me realise that you should always work for a reputable company that makes good products that people want, and have low debts.

Don't get me started on Rover, they should have gone to walls ago.

But then again I am just a fecking idiot

 

Yep.

 

Monkeys havent pulled the websites tho: http://www.tiny.com/index.php?campaign=TradeDoubler 10-05-2004 still open for business (isnt that illegal after calling in administrators?) and anyone know who is doing it?

Who is going to want to buy a few thousand broken PDPs?????

 

Kieron why are you so touchy?

Am I not allowed an opinion?

 

I still wouldnt have one

 

Since when have tiny obeyed the law?

 

Trading when insolvent is illegal from my law paper days.

But do you know if the administrators have been called in?

Also administration does not mean insolvent.

The directors can be sued is the company traded when insolvent, hence one of teh potential reasons why they left enmasse.

 

Depends on the bank.. maybe they will do a deal with chinese supplier, seeing as tiny just stick the badge on. Still, i expect the admin. will be in within 48 hrs

 

Hi all

I know this is in the plasma section but I've got a Tiny PC.

My father bought it and had a lot of grief with it and also when dealing with Tiny to try and resolve it. He finally gave up and gave the PC to me.

I've inherited these problems but can live with them (won't bore you with the details). Their technical "helpline" is £1 per min so I'm not going down that road. Also no disks supplied for pre-installed windows etc.

Worst of all was the modem. They had optimised it (their words) so that it could only dial in to their own ISP (Supanet).

Basically, they're a s**t company to buy anything from. Maybe things have finally caught up with them.

I'm glad they're going down the tubes (with obvious exception of employees being affected)

There was small report about it on BBC News 24 this lunchtime. The business guru being interviewed said their finances were difficult to understand. They said police were in the headquarters. Not sure why that was though.

RDB

 

news.bbc.co.uk

http://www.pcw.co.uk

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4719833.stm


BUMP

 

And its been on sky news claiming the administrators have been called in...........

 

Hi I've already posted on the other tiny thread this morning but i think it is applicable here, also to the muppett on thelast page who claimed he got made redundant and now had a six figure job - u can't include the pennies

*************
Hi all I don't know if any Tiny / Time employees (former or otherwise) have ever posted so I don't know whether this is a first or not!

I worked there on the tech support desk for pc's (and pretty much everything else as usually becomes the case). The reason for the collapse having spoken to former collegues who are still there is basically a fall in sales in there bread and butter products (PCs and laptops), whilst over streching themselves with expensive to run shops. This company made a huge amount of money in its early days as a mail order company, but its margins have been getting less and less each year.

My own feelings on the reason for there decline in sales is based on my own time there (albeit however jaundiced my view maybe). Time / Tinys target customer has always been the first time buyer of a computer (or i guess plasmas in this case) they aimed to make the technology affordable for everyone. Keep the main component spec reasonable (but save on cheap power supplies and modems etc) and then bloat the package with cheap printers and scanners (the bane of my time there) and oodles of software that no one will actually use in an effort to make it look like a bargin.

Unfortunetly the maxim "you get what you pay for " is absolutly true and if a similar looking spec machine grom Dell or whoever is more expensive it is generally because it is back up with superior components throughout.

Of course this would be forgivable if it was a straight forward process to get items repaired, but my biggest fustration was that as a front line worker, i had to jump through hoop after hoop for the egotistical (yes roger i mean you ) 'dept experts' before I could get anything returned. I was supremely naffed off with having to deal with these people day in dy out so no wonder the customers were! The other problem on tech support (and cust services) is that the managements measure of success was how many calls you answered and not how many problems you solved. This created a culture of 'fobbing' or getting customers off the phone as quick as possible whether you had fixed the problem or not, in order to get another customer on, to improve your call statistics. The other measure of success was how many sales you made... yes yes this is a techincal support line that customers are paying to use but we were told it was our job to sell upgrades, warrantys, toners, whatever in order to make some cash. The incentives were pretty good - usually 5% but this also led to people selling customers things they didnt need to fix a problem. modem intermittantly disconnecting from the web? £400 upgrade should fix that....

I know that discussing the pc side of things may seem off topic but this really is the crux of the problem. If I had a pound for everytime a customer said to me 'i wish id never bought time / tiny' or' ill never but tiny again' simply down to the poor customer services and cheap component failure I could have retired after six months. The bbc quoted that time and tiny have two million pcs in homes around the country - the problem is customers are going elsewhere when they want a new one and Time really have shot themselves in the foot by tryng to save / make some cash earlier.

Of course I feel terribly for the indiviuals that i know there, hardworking and fustrated with the working practises they are forced to adopt but at the end of the day they have to put food on the table for their familiys and I really do feel for them today.

***************

 

Ditto,

Had a dodgy expereince with them once upon a time ago and ever since then on the occasion that I ahve heard/seen someone with a Tiny product, the end result has always been the same

Sympathies with all employees (well almsot all), of course but a company as as Tiny just doesn't deserve to cut it these days..

 

Yes you are,
as someone who lost his job through it, I find your comments crass and typical of the type who don't give a flying F about anyone else.

 

Actually I do care, about all the poor sods who bought your equipment and had to put up with your customer service.

 

Do you feel you need to justify urself m8? bet my dads harder than ur dad :/

''scarty16
Member


Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 117
Trader Rating: (0) six figure salary

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Was earning £60k and now I am an IT contractor, I charge companies £550 per hour, you work it out at 40 hour week and 48 weeks per year.

 

To Marie Commando and others

IT Contractor (SAP) £550 per day, 5 days a week, 48 weeks + overtime = £132,000

Previously a wage slave at £37k

Hence best thing that ever happened, got me off my backside, enjoy my work more, have a better standard of living.

Redenudancy is a good time to change your life for the better, make the most of it.

Simon

ps: still feel sorry for the poor sods who bought from Tiny as generally they are the people who buy based on price not quality and hence it hurts them more when it all goes horiibly wrong

 

Hey Scarty, You should'nt rub it in with guys who have lost their livelyhoods..
You talk like you've got a cocaine habit to go with it

Well, I hope the Directors get properly investigated. Sounds like they knew it was going to be curtains a while ago if they have'nt been up to date with their accounts for 2 years

 

I am not rubbing it in, I just don't feel sorry for them, they knew they were selling less than high quality goods to punters spending their hard earned cash (as per the previous posting), and then when confronted on this issue, they evaded their responsibilities to put things right (see the other threads on Tiny).

Stuart, I assume the apology is aimed at me, thank you for that, it takes guts and dignity to stand up and say sorry in an open forum, particularly when you are the administrator. In the meantime, keep up the good work

 

scart16:

You have been fortunate if that is the case. I'm also guessing that you do not live or work in east lancashire. If you want to get a job in IT and get the experience you need to further yourself then Time was the only decent sized computer manufactuer in the north of england never mind Lancashire that you could go to.

Don't castigate people because they may not have done as well as you or didn't have the oppourtunitys you had.

 

... and I work for SAP and at 550 a day I would expect to employ someone with with only limited skills to say the very least...Decent consultants command a lot more than that.

... easy to come on a forum like this and sound crass, even if you don't mean to...

sad for the people and sad for the customers, but it is the case that many organizations selling boxes are in for a torrid time at the moment - for example, I am planning to open a shop on the south coast shiortly. Cost £30,000 per year in rent (negotiated from a higher starting point) and £10,000 in rates. Overall annual costs have been calculated at around £70,000 including staff. Now that's for one little shop. Just think of the sheer number of computers that need to be sold just to cover turning the lights on.

My first computer was from Time and I bought it over the web, The service was fine and at the time the support was (ok ish). But I do recall every time that they wanted to sell me something else and more recently there was definately a harder edge to their spiel.

Sheepman

 

I am more than familiar with East Lancashire, since my other half grew up and lived in Accrington, until I dragged her into the real world. And I lived in Liverpool for 7 years as a student as well.