Jessops to go into administration ?

Gift vouchers are treated as a debt so as the company has gone into administration you become a unsecured creditor to them. Like all other creditors you are therefore dependant on the Administrator, either doing what both Game and Comets did and start accepting them again or hoping they get a few quid from selling stuff, there is some left after paying the secured creditors and you getting a small proportion of your money back, which is unlikely.
 
dannyjo22 said:
It's a shame but inevitable until they actually start paying attention to all the parcels arriving marked as toys from digital rev. I'm actually going to write to the customs people and ask them how they get through so often and easily.
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There must be hundreds of various parcels come in from HK daily through various ports & airports etc via different carriers (not to mention thousands from everywhere else) so the chances of the very limited number of customs agents stopping just 1 company is pretty slim, even with "advanced warning".

I'm sure they're more concerned with drugs/money etc than a small HK shop which, TBH, isn't going to be the highest priority for them.
 
ianh said:
There must be hundreds of various parcels come in from HK daily through various ports & airports etc via different carriers (not to mention thousands from everywhere else) so the chances of the very limited number of customs agents stopping just 1 company is pretty slim, even with "advanced warning".

I'm sure they're more concerned with drugs/money etc than a small HK shop which, TBH, isn't going to be the highest priority for them.
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They are scanned though, if there is a company/address that they know are doing this they can stop a large amount of them. If they know the origin they can easily nail a larger number of them.

If you ask them they out right lie about paying the duty. I will ask the question to see what the official line is and copy in my MP.
 
dannyjo22 said:
They are scanned though, if there is a company/address that they know are doing this they can stop a large amount of them. If they know the origin they can easily nail a larger number of them.

If you ask them they out right lie about paying the duty. I will ask the question to see what the official line is and copy in my MP.
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It's ultimately up to the importer to pay any duties/tax , all the exporters are allegedly doing are mislabelling goods, not sure how hard customs come down on that type of thing.

I had to pay a bit to the courier when I imported a 24-105 f4L that I got from DRev , I emailed them and they refunded me the duties I paid
 
Bought my D5100 18-105 kit from them as they were the cheapest around. I would have used them again, their prices are not bad for non import shop. I even complained about them using Yodel who I had problems with, got quick responses and they told me they are in the process of changing couriers, so seemed like they were trying to improve their business, shame they are going under.
 
its funny that parcels coming from america typicaly get flagged up and we have to pay duty and a fat handling fee, but there must be a massive volume of stuff coming from china/hk surely. maybe customs think the chinese are very generous? :D
 
I don't think everybody is buying their camera kit from abroad, while the internet may skew things to look like they are, I don't think that is the case.

Also, aren't most of the sellers we talk about based in Hong Kong rather than China. As I'm sure I've been hit for import fees from China, but never Hong Kong. I wonder if its perhaps because HMRC has a special relationship with Hong Kong (as with Channel Island, NZ and Singapore) and so things are perhaps slightly more relaxed as it was a former colony.
 
lemonade said:
Bought my D5100 18-105 kit from them as they were the cheapest around. I would have used them again, their prices are not bad for non import shop. I even complained about them using Yodel who I had problems with, got quick responses and they told me they are in the process of changing couriers, so seemed like they were trying to improve their business, shame they are going under.
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Bought the Same kit just before Christmas, The store I bought it from in Nottingham was packed with people buying, would never have thought they were about to go under :(
 
I hadn't been in a Jessops store for years until Christmas, I was shocked by their stock, they had no decent gear, all the SLR's (all 3 of them) they had were bottom of the range stuff and generally had nothing in there that interested me at all.

No wonder photographers ie the people who spend money didn't go there, I wouldn't waste my time going in one again.
 
Sorry no

niko said:
how does this work as hsbc own the biggest share are they responsible for any debts?
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HSBC are the shareholders in the business so in that regard is an unsecured creditor - so last in line after all other creditors.

They may also still be secured lenders to some extent, on an insolvency the priority of creditors means that secured creditors get their money back first.

So rather than being "responsible" for the debts/insolvency of the company, they will lose money as shareholders, get something back to the extent they are a secured priority creditor, and have no other responsibilities to customers of the business they were/are invested in and/or lent money to.

Unfortunate but true.
 
I've actually purchased a fair few things from Jessops over past few years, 5DmkII, Sigma 10-20mm, Canon 85mm 1.8, and a couple of compacts and bags. All of these were inline with online prices of other retailers (give or take £5-20) after asking them to price match. The fact that I could just pop into a local store (at home or at work) pick up what I wanted was worth the extra few pounds in my opinion.

Although that's where the usefulness ended for me, basic accessories (memory, batteries, etc) were way over priced. Not enough equipment in store for the hobbyist/semi-pro photographer, and then some of the staff were just painful to deal with.

For example when I purchased my 85mm I reserved over the phone and then went down to pick it up. Young sales girl was more than helpful but as I'm trying to pay some guy comes out from the back and the conversation goes like....

Him: Nice lens
Me: Yep
Him: You like taking photos then?
Me: (thinking, no just decided to spend a load of money of something I hate) Yep when I get the chance.
Him: Are you a Canon or Nikon man?
Me: Errr Canon (did the fact that I'm buying a Canon lens not give that away)
Him: What camera do you use?
Me: (trying to finish paying and escape quickly) 5dMKII
Him: Very flash, any reason why you didn't buy the MKIII instead?
Me: Well it wasn't available when I purchased this a few years back.
Him: Oh, well the MKIII is supposed to be a better camera, better than the MKII.
Me: Errr ok, thanks, buy!

God knows if that was an attempt at customer relations but just makes people feel uncomfortable and want to get out of the shop as quick as possible.
 
It's funny you should mention the strange staff.

I went to Westfield's Jessops with the aim to look at the 5dMKIII (potentially buying, as I wanted a UK purchased camera). The sales assistant had seen that I'd been hovering around the 5dmkIII for the past 10 minutes, eyeing it up in it's perspex security protected case. It's one of only a couple cameras which aren't on display for the public to play with.

During this point in time the sales assistant is dealing with another customer. This customer is about to agree to buying some entry level Nikon crop sensor DSLR. I haven't got a problem with this and I'm not belittling the purchase of this person, but at no point did the sales assistant look at me and say "I'll be with you in a minute". He clearly could see that I was interested but yet totally ignored me.

It was the strangest thing I've ever seen from a sales assistant in any shop. I walked out the shop and left him to it.

About the only thing I've purchased from Jessops in the past were some MF extension tubes which were going cheap, it's rare that any item they held were a good deal.
 
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This is sad news. Over the last 25 years, I have bought most of my kit from Jessops and have always found them to be knowledgable and courtious. Pricing seemed to be at the level where I would buy from them, with the advantages of a local shop, rather than pay less over the internet, without the local support.
I went into one of the shops on Monday with a couple of old lenses from my Pentax me Super days to see if they would work on the K30 DSLR. The staff were very helpful but I did not buy the camera as we could not reach an agreement over the £100 price difference. They even checked the local competition for me to see if they could offer a better deal.
 
The one in Hull isn't that great to be honest and their stock is all entry level stuff, mostly compacts for that matter and a tonne of memory cards and mini tripods. Jacobs digital was faaaar better as they actually stocked the kit I wanted so I could pop in, try it out and then haggle a deal with them. I bought one of my bags cheaper from them than amazon was selling it at and they where nice to talk to. Jessops on the other hand, not sad to see it go tbh.
 
Both the ones in Milton Keynes and Northampton have been good. I bought my first DSLR from them and have bought most of my other kit as well, usually with a price match from the website and cashback from quidco, at least recently anyway. My D600 and lenses came from them, my current P&S camera and I bought a SB700 2 weeks ago from them as well as their price was good.
 
2StepSteve said:
I went to Westfield's Jessops with the aim to look at the 5dMKIII (potentially buying, as I wanted a UK purchased camera). The sales assistant had seen that I'd been hovering around the 5dmkIII for the past 10 minutes, eyeing it up in it's perspex security protected case. It's one of only a couple cameras which aren't on display for the public to play with.

During this point in time the sales assistant is dealing with another customer. This customer is about to agree to buying some entry level Nikon crop sensor DSLR. I haven't got a problem with this and I'm not belittling the purchase of this person, but at no point did the sales assistant look at me and say "I'll be with you in a minute". He clearly could see that I was interested but yet totally ignored me.

It was the strangest thing I've ever seen from a sales assistant in any shop. I walked out the shop and left him to it.
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Had a similar response at the Nottingham banch. Wanted to take a look at a 5D MKIII or a D800 on the run up to christmas. They had them in stock, but there was no way they were going to let me take a look before handing over my card details first. I wasn't really planning on buying from there anyway (maybe they guessed), but did they really think I would make the choice blind.


Maybe I just look dodgy.
 
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