Be Excellent To Each Other

I am seriously beginning to wonder.

So as I mentioned my 280 GTX died last week after 6 months of ownership. I sent it back at my cost (£9 odd) and rang in yesterday to see what the score was. I was told it was confirmed dead.

I asked what was going to happen next and he told me they could not replace it, as basically they don't have any of the model I had. I asked if I could get credit as I didn't expect a full refund (given that I had had it for 7 months) and he said this was fine. I stated that I would like him to ship me a 5770 and credit me the difference (about £50). I was quite happy and I thought just once that maybe there was a decent company left in the world.

After I got off the phone I realised I had forgotten to ask him to email me a tracking number for the 5770 so I sent this email.



That was sent directly after the phone conversation. I waited. Nothing. I waited some more. Nothing.

I contacted them by their chat system this morning and asked them to please tell me if the card had even been shipped at all as I did not want to spend the entire day waiting home for a delivery that wasn't coming. They said they would get back to me shortly. I have now spent half the day sitting indoors and phoned them ten minutes ago. All I wanted to know was had the card been shipped because I have things to do.

Now they tell me the card hasn't shipped and on the contrary started bleating on about if I accept the 5770 that will be it because I had owned the 280 for 6 months. So what they're trying to do now is change their story (having lied to me yesterday) and make me take a £120 card in place of a £181 order plus £9 odd to send them the 280 back. TBH I'm not even so much that angry over the loss of £50 odd in credit (because there's fuck all I'm going to get for that) but I'm just fucking angry they said it would ship and didn't, then spent half a day fucking me around.

Does any one know what I can do about this? Why is it every time I have a problem in the UK with something I brought I end up getting fucked over? I really hoped in the years I was away that a stop might have been put to that but it seems not.

Tossers.

Companies get away with this since it's such an arse about to go to small claims over something like £50. Word of mouth is pretty meaningless in the hideous tangle of bastards known as the web. There's pretty much no regulation on these fly-by-night firms so it takes getting your fingers burned to teach you a lesson.

Stories like this remind me why I stick to a few select websites when buying over the web and generally only with sites that accept Paypal or Google Checkout as payment.

The internet is great for saving money, but when it comes to disputes over products, nothing beats shouting at a pleb over a shop counter while other potential customers are watching.

Companies don't reply to emails. Ever. None of them.

That reminds me of my Blu-Ray problems with WinDVD. I couldn't play the Wall-E disc that had worked fine in PowerDVD (knockoff version) in by shiny new, paid for WinDVD. I emailed Corel support with as much detail as I could muster and the reply came back with something that basically amounted to 'Sorry, we don't know. Fuck off'

I fixed it on my own.

Woolworths.

My Sony BDrom drive came with sofware that wouldn't play any blu rays. Therefore I had a player that wouldn't do what it was supposed to.

Beat that.

Maybe we need a thread with lists of recommended businesses to avoid the likes of SVP and whoever JC is on about.

I find that the worst company to get back to you on anything is Paypal. When they do respond to me, it's usually with something completely unhelpful.

There is http://www.resellerratings.com/ but it rarely seems to have the small businesses I search for.

A feedback thread made sticky. I like it.

God I'm so fucking annoyed. It was one of those times where it actually didn't sink in what the cunt was trying to do. Fucking arseholes I'll be sure to use the web to get back at the web and write some wonderful glowing reviews of their customer service at every gaming forum I can find.

This is from their front page:

About Us
We have been selling graphics cards as a company since 2000, and 2004 as videocardshop online. Check out how we looked back then HERE. Nearly £300 for a 5950 oof, they were the days.
All our video cards are either new graphics cards or graded (refurbished) graphics cards.
Just click on the relevant tabs on the right to view each category.
All the items are backed by a 12 month warranty.

Spot the big fat lie.

Who was the company?

I always use Novatech these days because of their customer service. I know other places are cheaper, but I have always had problems with exactly this sort of thing. Novatech - no probs. When our nice big telly went all titsup & LG couldn't repair it - ok, it took a few months cos LG were crap about getting back to Novatech with a verdict, but we ended up just paying the difference between the wholesale price of the old TV and a shiny newer one (1080p instead of the old 720p one too).

Had loads of things go back over the years to various places, and Novatech have always come through when other places (like Aria) whine, moan, & generally do everything they can to not have to do anything for you.

http://www.videocardshop.co.uk

What fucking annoys me is not only did I pay out for another card in the interim (which he is fully aware of, more business his way) but two of my cousins with the same last name also brought cards from him over the weekend (which he is also fully aware of). I can't fucking believe the stupid pathetic cunt is going to cut off his nose to spite his face over £50 in credit.

Fair play. As I say I will be sure to let every single last gaming forum I post to know not to buy from him as he lies and changes his story.

We always used to at 123-reg. It was the pride of our service. It's gone a bit downhill now, though.

Not because I left ( ) but because they closed the Nottingham office and shipped the whole thing down to Slough.

I recently got a 5870 as a straight replacement for a borked (9 month old) 4970 x 2 from overclockers.co.uk and they were very good at replying to emails etc so I dont think all companies are bad.

Although I have had terrible customer service from other companies such as Dabs (who I understand are considered as a good company) who wont even reply to an email despite a number of tries.

Just buy everything from Amazon. The end.

I was disappointed to find that Amazon don't sell mattresses. They really are worth the extra pennies (even pounds) that are sometimes necessary over other retailers.

I always hear that the bloke that runs overclockers is somehow connected to the BNP. Anyone confirm/deny?

I'd probably buy more from there if they took Paypal as I've normally got a few quid sitting in that account.

In other exciting retailer news, I've had a despatch notification from DealExtreme today. I hadn't realised I'd ordered anything so I checked the site and it was an order I placed on Xmas Eve.

You can't beat Mattressman 24hr delivery and I paid half the price of my local bed shop.

I've never quite worked out if this is true or not - and I'm reluctant to perpetuate the tale I heard in case it was never true to start with.

I always use Overclockers or Ebuyer, even if I can allegedly save a few pounds elsewhere. Overclockers in particular seem to have excellent customer service and on the occasions I've had to RMA stuff over the years, they've been excellent.

Dabs can be surprisingly shite sometimes, to the extent I stopped using them about a year ago.

SVP used to be pretty good but they utterly went to the dogs when they expanded out into selling all sorts of random shite.

play are usually OK but are buggers for stuff showing as in stock when it blatantly isn't, which is a pet peeve of mine. (laptopsdirect did this to me as well.)

As a general rule, use companies for products that you associate them with - it sounds daft but it usually works.

So HMV for DVDs and music.

Overclockers for computer bits and 'enthusiast' computer stuff.

Ebuyer for printers and consumables and more 'mainstream' computer stuff.

The price is NOT EVERYTHING, if a company is undercutting the likes of Ebuyer or Dabs, be fucking suspicious.

EDIT - As also said, Amazon are pretty much 100% too.

So far I'm actually having a fairly good experience with a motherboard I bought from eBuyer, although that could all change by the end of the week I suppose. Basically I bought the motherboard from them on Monday last week, it arrived on Tuesday, I finally unboxed and tested it on Wednesday to find it no worky. Got in touch with ASUS on Thursday, who replied along the lines of "Fucked, innit?". Phoned eBuyer on Friday, told them all about it, they told me they'd issue me with a refund as soon as they had the board back (allowing me to order a new one rather than wait for their RMA process, which arrived on Saturday). Chilled on Sunday.

eBuyer actually booked and paid for a courier to collect the faulty board from me, which they did yesterday - normally I expect to have to sort out getting the faulty goods back to the seller so I wasn't expecting that. I only hope they don't fuck me about with the refund, but so far, so good.

I don't think I've ever had a single problem with Amazon, after ordering loads from them, having to contact customer support* and returning items I decided I didn't want. With Amazon Prime it's even better, but I order so little I can't justify the price**.


*City Link didn't honour the next-day delivery I'd paid £9 for, which was refunded without hesitation

**I did use the free trial, which was excellent. I decided to stay with it, but then didn't order anything for quite a while afterwards. Brilliantly, Amazon refunded me the subscription cost entirely and cancelled the service for me.

My stupid expensive Saitek keyboard developed a fault before christmas, 9 months after I bought it from Amazon. Phoned up and got a nice American lady on the phone who promptly arranged for a DHL pickup the next day and a refund of my money. Brilliant customer service.

I bought a CD years ago from Amazon that had to be imported from the US. It managed to get all the way from Amazon US, to Amazon UK to my letterbox, at which point the kindly postman, unable to fit it through the letterbox, decided to shove and shove and shove it through until it damn well would fit. A noble effort to be sure, but sadly one that resulted in the disc and it's packaging ending up very broken.

Amazon were awesome when I called them, and very promptly had another copy out to me post haste.

Ebuyer are fairly good these days despite all the horror stories a few years back.

If I recall correctly, Old Man Afterthought uses Novatech for his PC needs, if it isn't for the charity, and the service is as it should be, you never notice it.

Same, I've heard accusations, but never seen evidence.

Amazon are indeed excellent, or at least have been to me.

Never buy a Beowulf exhaust for your bike.

Well I have recieved tracking confirmation of the second 5770. I'm still pretty mad but tbh at least I got something. Have also ordered a really cheap Xfire board that I am hoping is ok (though from what I can see I will lose some performance as the PCIE slots on it are 8x each at dual and 16x with one card only) but it gives me something to tinker with.

Fucking hell that actually makes me think I got off lightly.

As I said I'm still a bit pissed off but then I am thinking that £50 for 6 months of use isn't terribly bad. I could screw them if I wanted to as they have an obligation to replace it (due to their warranty and what they told Nemmie today, the fucking idiots, talk about drop yourself in it) but I really can't be arsed. I just can't handle all the stress of chasing after a company and arguing over it.

Which is what pisses me off. It's good natured people that are nice to others that get fucked. Reading the thread you link to that chap is really polite and doesn't lose his rag. Hence why they probably took the piss out of his good nature. Which is likely what this cunt did to me. Heard me say I wanted another 5770 and then thought of a way of fucking me out of my change. Cunt.

Oh well, at least it's a brand new 5770 so I don't ever have to go near him again (lifetime warranty from XFX on new cards). As much as I am relieved I am getting something I certainly won't use him again. As I mentioned before two of my family members have both ordered cards this weekend (same surname so he knows full well they were sales made by me) aswell as many others I have linked to that site. And he's prepared to pick the peanuts out of the shit over a credit note for £50?

Fair play. I just won't ever use him again. And those that know me will know that is a fucking loss to any company. That's 2 graphics cards a year in the least that he will lose sales of.

That sure is some sweet can.

I see Zaphod!

Not me :-)

He just went over to some sweet can. Some sweet swee-swee-sweet can.

That's quite the coincidence, then.

Dell again. Rarely have I met a company so reluctant to take payment and supply goods to a customer. I re-ordered an Alienware laptop from them around lunchtime on Monday. It is now Wednesday morning and the order status is still at 'Processing Payment'. I appreciate that a laptop purchase may have triggered the anti-fraud doohickey on my otherwise-never-used credit card, but the bank would normally call me if that was the case and they so far haven't. I'm wondering if this is some higher power at work trying to convince me I don't need this laptop after all?

Why didn't you get a PowerBook again?

Logitech are great. Not only are their products almost universally excellent, their customer service is top notch too. I've heard countless stories from friends in America that they've called up when they've had problems with their mice and keyboards etc. out of warranty and the customer service rep. has just sent a replacement out for free, and not asked for the broken one back.

When my Logitech MX500's scroll wheel started to work really intermittently about 6 months or so ago, I called up their customer service and asked what could be done. I wasn't expecting a free replacement as by this point the mouse was 5 years old so well out of warranty. I didn't get a free replacement either, but what I did get was a voucher for 50% off the purchase price of any new Logitech mouse from their online store.

Now that's customer service.

Heh, my old Powerbook was an incredibly indulgent and expensive purchase at the time. I customised the spec I wanted on the Apple website, which was wonderful but meant waiting about a month for it to be delivered while they built it all in Taiwan and shipped it over. The wait was agonising.

When it arrived, I excitedly got it out of the box, plonked it on my desk and booted it up - to find that one of the speakers didn't work. 'No matter', I thought, 'it's probably something really simple'. So I gave Apple a call and the helpful chap on the phone talked me through resetting Open Firmware in the unlikely effort that might help. It didn't, so he told me not to worry, he'll declare it DOA and have a whole new one shipped to me. I pointed out it was just a speaker, I'd probably plug some different ones in anyway at my desk so I really wasn't that bothered, couldn't I just take it somewhere and have it fixed?

Absolutely not, apparently. Any fault found with an Apple product within 14 days of delivery means the whole thing gets written off and you get sent a new one. Which meant having to hand my new pride and joy over to a courier and waiting another agonising month while they built the next one for me!

Dell will be building your Alienware PC, too.

Ive also heard many a good story about Logitech. So much so, I never buy peripherals from anyone else.

Yes, and you said "we're talking about an Apple computer where more cost is a given. This may be why I use a Windows machine these days" and are now buying an ALIENWARE LAPTOP

But it's a really good price for the spec, especially if you compare it to an Apple! Like I said earlier: more capable CPU, bigger hard drive, much better graphics hardware for SIX HUNDRED POUNDS LESS. Or is that fewer? Plus, y' know, it's got coloured LEDs on it and shit.

Grim... yeah, I appreciate it needs to be built, but the order hasn't actually progressed past the payment authorisation stage yet and from I gather they don't begin the build till that's happened.

My Apple only has a single core.

But LOTS OF PIPS LOLZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ W00T!!!!11111

L0LZ0R5!!!111

Amidoingthisrite?

Certainly not. Show a little decorum.

Fine joke, Sir Zardoz. It elicited a wry smile from one's thin lips

Look, if I'm going to own an Alienware I need to brush up on my 'leetspeak'. I may take to spending the remainder of the afternoon referring to my work colleagues as 'fags' and 'n00bs'.

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