September 2025 by eloui
The St Albans store is run by very young people a couple of whom don't seem to have mastered the art of customer service. Some walk off (one girl in particlular) when you are in the middle of talking when she doesn't like what you're saying. The store is passing off iPhones that need immediate battery service as B grade phones, and don't think anything is wrong as 'they only classify based on physical condition'. The Tottenham Court Rd store would class this as non working under 80% battery health, I've just seen a review on the Hatfield Store they wouldn't take someones phone at 77% battery - yet St Albans think it's ok to sell phones like this and grade them a B. They get out of refunding you, just give you a credit note as say the phone isn't faulty (that's providing you return in their rediculous 48 hour window) that you can spend on another sub par phone you'll probably find something wrong with! Bought another from a different CEX location after them telling me not to buy refurbished as they don't use apple parts and second hand was better - to find a warning the screen was an unauthorised apple part or not working and display brightness faulty. For the same price you could buy new condition on Ebay for older phones - just don't bother. The fact you don't have a 14 day return period anymore with proper refunds just makes this a complete no. Vastly overpriced poor condition phones. Unprofessional in every aspect. The standards used to be so much higher in here, now they're on the floor. You should be entitled to refunds of products you buy. Taking advantage of people that don't know as much about technology. Their laughable responses of how well their staff are trained or they thoroughly test items - are not true as reality shows otherwise. It's a shame as used to love going to CEX, now would never purchase given their policy changes and getting poor items. It's short term thinking from management - if you have a bad experience and don't get your money back, you wont shop there again and it erodes trust if you get bad quality products. Be honest and price according to the actual condition.
September 2025 by Sally Horobin
Massively disappointed that St Albans CEX would not refund to the bankcard the value of a faulty game my learning disabled son bought the previous day. Not good enough to only give a voucher. Sale of good act clearly states faulty goods are to be refunded. This is to the method of payment, a voucher is not good enough.
August 2025 by Daniel Oliver
An excellent and very helpful team of knowledgeable people. It's a friendly place that I continue to use and go back again and again. Great job
August 2025 by Wonjae Lee
Friendly staff
August 2025 by Christopher Scott
Think carefully about selling your devices in this store. Earlier this afternoon I took an iPhone 14 Pro into it - which was in good condition. On their website they give a quote of £297 for it, and music magpie was £350. They gave me a quote of £220. Similarly when I asked how much a hypothetical good condition iPhone 15 Pro would sell for as a comparison, they said £340 - nearly £200 less than you could get selling it on music magpie. This to me suggests they are not offering valuations in good faith and which truly reflect what their value should be (or that those estimated prices are being researched, as highlighted in response to other comments below).
I am extremely disappointed because I have previously sold devices in this store and felt I got good value from them in those cases (at least comparable to what apple would offer in a part exchange). Now it appears they are simply ripping people off. At the very least I would like an explanation of why the valuation in store is so much lower and to be offered the equivalent value which is quoted on their own website. However my advice to anyone is to do thorough research on prices first to avoid ending up in the same position.
July 2025 by davjakem
Great service
April 2025 by Luke Greaves
They's little to no choice, very small,
April 2025 by Vl Ad
TL;DR: You get what they promise, but be cautious with second-hand GPUs.
I bought a second-hand GPU which had a fault that was difficult to reproduce. Initially, my refund request was rejected ( after nearly two years of usage ). However, after providing video proof and contacting support, they accepted the GPU for further testing and eventually issued a refund.
April 2025 by Yuwin Vorster
Tried to sell consoles to them, but they won?t take my Xbox because of a silly little thing just because the back seal on the Xbox one S has been broken showing that it?s been repaired even though it all worked properly and it had all the wires and controller but because apparently with the broken seal showing it has been repaired, apparently really devalues it?s cosmetic appearance which is rubbish Like as long as it works properly, then there should be no problem, wouldn?t take my PlayStation 4 simply because again everything else worked absolutely fine but my controller had a little bit of a rattling sound and I don?t have screwdrivers small enough to open up the back so they wouldn?t take it because of that reason like I don?t want to sound horrible, but they absolutely rip off their customers and they would want to give me £550 for my iPhone 16 Pro Max 256GB Mint condition But then resell it for £1000, rip off people. Everybody just go somewhere else
March 2025 by Christopher Stent
What an absolute joke of a place this is. First off, the person who initially served me was utterly and inexplicably hostile. Terrible attitude, condescending. I would describe her on her but I would probably be banned.
When I went to collect my cash, which I assumed was a slam dunk, no chance of it being queried, they denied it because of an almost invisible line on the SCREEN PROTECTOR. I was genuinely stunned. With all the garbage this place sells, for a massively inflated price, they wouldn't take my MINT CONDITION device because of a faint line (so faint I hadn't even noticed it) on the 50p screen protector.
This has thankfully been a lesson to me to not use this joke of a company again.
Your staff are utterly rude and I won't be doing any more business with CEX again.
Good luck selling your second hand junk that is the same price as just buying it brand new.
February 2025 by Daniel Candler
They are all the same, so cannot give higher star rating
January 2025 by Mags Murray
Really good and knowledgeable
November 2024 by DACRACKING
These people are scammers. Say one thing, but do another. I traded with them quite often. Everything golden until you have an issue with an item you purchases. Then they do everything in the book to prevent you from getting your money back. As much as i want to support video game stores where you can walk in and browse the games, i'm unable to do so with CEX. Your better of buying and selling from Ebay.
September 2024 by Alex
Service was okay. Staff were not very nice.
June 2024 by ilias mihalis
One star is too much I use to be regular customer there I bought from there since 2018 ps3,ps4 , plenty of games iPhone 7, iPhone 12 Pro Max, iphone 13 ,iPhone 14 Pro Max, iphone 15 pro and few more things which this in total will be more than £6,000. I was lucky I never use the warranty for a second hand tall this stuff works ok?. Last week I bought A iPad for my son unfortunately that doesn?t long keep charge overheating during the charger screen Frozen. Les than 5 days I walk in today to the St Albans store and I explain to the staff myt all this issues. They say that they will test and come back for 45 minutes. After one 1 I Ben back to the store and they said that unfortunately they don?t see any issues with the iPad. Really disappointed with the service they are lying with the 24 months warranty once you pay you never going to get solved with the problem even one week after that. JUST I WANT TO SAY THAT I DIDN?T ASK FOR REFUND I ASK ONLY TO PAY MORE MONEY TO GET THE SAME iPad for my son. Honestly I?m never going back to CEX ??
