Computer Hardware Sites To Avoid

[LORD-eX-Bu]

Avoid the following like the pleague:
WWW.SHOPCYBER.COM
WWW.PC-BEYOND.COM
WWW.SPARTANTECH.COM

They will mess up your order and try and take your money. First they charge your card and send you a message that they can't verify. SHOPCYBER went as far as to try and charge me more for the item, even though I already paid a week ago. I am in the process of getting my money back, about $310 total. SHOPCYBER forced me to pay $30 shipping on a small package, and they are not even a day's shipping away, I could have paid for UPS Standard(bottom of the barrel) and it would have been here the next day, from any decent store in the area. And so far, they have not sent me any confirmations or anything, and I am still waiting on a package that I paid $30 shipping for. It is unfair and a rip-off. Look out for these crooks.

[Essense]

That's the main reason it sucks to go with the cheapest place on pricewatch. I used to go for the cheapest place I could find, although I never got burned, I realized that it was probably not the most wise thing to do and ended up shopping for almost all my computer hardware exclusively at newegg.com

They arnt always the cheapeast but they have very cheap shipping, and normally makes up for there somtimes slightly higher prices, which are generally no more then 5-10$ higher, and most of the time, in fact are lower.

Im sure some folks have had bad experiances with them, and I don't always use them, but it's good to find a solid place that you can trust.

Regards,
Mike

[Gator]

http://www.Newegg.com is a godsent of a company. :) Good prices, great service.

http://www.Gogocity.com is good, nice selection, prices are only soso

http://www.Aberdeeninc.com is nice, reliable, but kinda pricey

[SnakeEyes]

I've had problems with atacom Gator. I ordered my last motherboard (Asus A7M266) through them. I originally placed the order using their online interface on a Friday night, and ordered with next-day shipping (I wanted to get it the following Tuesday, and with the order being handled on Monday, thanks to the lateness of my submission/weekend..).

Monday rolls around and I still hadn't received an order confirmation e-mail. So I called their customer service number and asked about it. The woman at the other end looked in their system and said that they had no record of an order, and that I either must have accidently hit cancel / closed the order page before it was submitted, or that their had been an error taking the order on their end. In any case, they DID NOT have an order in the system for me. She offered to take the order over the phone, and as I thought about how polite and helpful she was, I placed the order, along with next-day shipping..

So.. along comes Tuesday. My new motherboard arrives in it's nicely foam-peanut-filled box. Great!! No problem here. I proceeded to install and use the product..

Around about Thursday of the same week, I get ANOTHER package from Atacom. Oh. It's another motherboard. It just also happens to include billing for the original order. So I dutifully get on the phone with Atacom again, wanting a return authorization as well as a credit back to my account. This time I got a man on the line..

Here's where it got ugly. First off, I was accused of making two orders. Even though I explained that I only wanted one, and what had happened that I ended up with a second order in their system, and also that their employee was responsible, since I was told that my first order never made it into their system, and I had been offered the phone order instead.. This gentleman (NOT) basically accused me of lying, told me that I'd have to pay a restock fee, along with shipping, etc. I told him he was nuts (well, I started off polite, but once he got the attitude, trying to rip me off because of their own mistake..). Eventually, after a good hour on the phone (with this person and with another that was supposedly 'in charge', I was given a UPS authorization, and told that UPS would pick up the package at my house the next day.

Next (business) day (Monday) comes, no UPS man. WTF!?! I call Atacom again. Get the same guy from my second call (not the 'in charge' dude). He assures me that there was some screwup on their end, but that he's personally submitting the request for the UPS pickup, and that they'll be by the next day. When I check to confirm that the screwup didn't affect our understanding about the FULL refund with no restock fee, he starts balking again. 'What you mean, no restock charge? It our policy.' Erm, NO. We did this discussion only just yesterday, remember? So, we played the game AGAIN. This time, the 'in charge' person wasn't around (supposedly at lunch, and would call me back as soon as he came back.). I sit by the phone..

Next day.. Having received no return call, I again call Atacom customer support. This time 'in charge' dude is in. We go around a bit, as I refresh his memory (he tried to play the 'We never said that. You pay charge..' game with me too). Eventually, they agreed (what, like the first time wasn't enough?) to refund both shipping and the full cost, without a restock fee. This time UPS actually picked up the package the next day.

I've never been so happy to be done with a company. I spent no less than 4 hours total on the phone, was basically called a liar (despite even giving them the name of the woman that I'd originally talked to, so they could verify it with her), and then was given the runaround in several repeated sessions on the phone, each one basically saying, 'yah, you get your money back. no charge, no shipping fee.', and then attempting to charge me anyway.

DON'T do business with Atacom. Their prices were good, and they appear to have an adequate stock of products (that's one reason I was getting my A7M through them- nobody else had any in stock at the time), but they'll try to screw you seven ways from Sunday if there's any problem with the order, even if the problem originates on their end.

Sorry for the long rant. All this happened about a year and a half ago (wow, almost EXACTLY. Just realized that.), but the seriously poor handling of my situation earned them a permanent position in the Snake-Eyes Company Blacklist. Congratulations folks!

[pelly]

I strictly use Newegg for all my orders...I've wast...er...spent an insane amount of money there over the years and have never had a single issue...Great service, great prices, great selection...

:D

[thcdru2k]

i agreee. newegg.com is godsend. i bought my last two computers from that place, and their standard cheap shipping only took 3 days. newegg is the best if you are just going to build your own computer because it has the best variety of computer parts of any online store, and its cheaper to get all your stuff from one place because of the shipping. i've never bought stuff from anywhere else, but if you wanna be safe just stick with newegg.

[Gator]

um... opps... ok forget ATACOM, I'm removing them from my original post



Originally posted by SnakeEyes
I've had problems with atacom Gator. I ordered my last motherboard (Asus A7M266) through them. I originally placed the order using their online interface on a Friday night, and ordered with next-day shipping (I wanted to get it the following Tuesday, and with the order being handled on Monday, thanks to the lateness of my submission/weekend..).

Monday rolls around and I still hadn't received an order confirmation e-mail. So I called their customer service number and asked about it. The woman at the other end looked in their system and said that they had no record of an order, and that I either must have accidently hit cancel / closed the order page before it was submitted, or that their had been an error taking the order on their end. In any case, they DID NOT have an order in the system for me. She offered to take the order over the phone, and as I thought about how polite and helpful she was, I placed the order, along with next-day shipping..

So.. along comes Tuesday. My new motherboard arrives in it's nicely foam-peanut-filled box. Great!! No problem here. I proceeded to install and use the product..

Around about Thursday of the same week, I get ANOTHER package from Atacom. Oh. It's another motherboard. It just also happens to include billing for the original order. So I dutifully get on the phone with Atacom again, wanting a return authorization as well as a credit back to my account. This time I got a man on the line..

Here's where it got ugly. First off, I was accused of making two orders. Even though I explained that I only wanted one, and what had happened that I ended up with a second order in their system, and also that their employee was responsible, since I was told that my first order never made it into their system, and I had been offered the phone order instead.. This gentleman (NOT) basically accused me of lying, told me that I'd have to pay a restock fee, along with shipping, etc. I told him he was nuts (well, I started off polite, but once he got the attitude, trying to rip me off because of their own mistake..). Eventually, after a good hour on the phone (with this person and with another that was supposedly 'in charge', I was given a UPS authorization, and told that UPS would pick up the package at my house the next day.

Next (business) day (Monday) comes, no UPS man. WTF!?! I call Atacom again. Get the same guy from my second call (not the 'in charge' dude). He assures me that there was some screwup on their end, but that he's personally submitting the request for the UPS pickup, and that they'll be by the next day. When I check to confirm that the screwup didn't affect our understanding about the FULL refund with no restock fee, he starts balking again. 'What you mean, no restock charge? It our policy.' Erm, NO. We did this discussion only just yesterday, remember? So, we played the game AGAIN. This time, the 'in charge' person wasn't around (supposedly at lunch, and would call me back as soon as he came back.). I sit by the phone..

Next day.. Having received no return call, I again call Atacom customer support. This time 'in charge' dude is in. We go around a bit, as I refresh his memory (he tried to play the 'We never said that. You pay charge..' game with me too). Eventually, they agreed (what, like the first time wasn't enough?) to refund both shipping and the full cost, without a restock fee. This time UPS actually picked up the package the next day.

I've never been so happy to be done with a company. I spent no less than 4 hours total on the phone, was basically called a liar (despite even giving them the name of the woman that I'd originally talked to, so they could verify it with her), and then was given the runaround in several repeated sessions on the phone, each one basically saying, 'yah, you get your money back. no charge, no shipping fee.', and then attempting to charge me anyway.

DON'T do business with Atacom. Their prices were good, and they appear to have an adequate stock of products (that's one reason I was getting my A7M through them- nobody else had any in stock at the time), but they'll try to screw you seven ways from Sunday if there's any problem with the order, even if the problem originates on their end.

Sorry for the long rant. All this happened about a year and a half ago (wow, almost EXACTLY. Just realized that.), but the seriously poor handling of my situation earned them a permanent position in the Snake-Eyes Company Blacklist. Congratulations folks!

[SnakeEyes]

:o Err, um.. Sorry about that rant, folks. It's just that I was screwed by Atacom, and then a friend of mine got a similar treatment, so I try to warn everyone even looking at the name to keep FAR, FAR AWAY from them.

Thanks for the tips about using NewEgg. I've bought from them before, but never in any quantity. I'll probably give them first consideration during my next upgrade. (Even people I talk to here at work agree with y'all) :D

[Cereal-Killer]

A few months back I found a company called Digirex.com on Pricewatch. They had the best prices, so I put together a system for a friend and ordered it. But the company was a nightmare, they sent us a broken computer and I had to return it. That was the last time I heard from them. $1280 gone, just like that. Digirex.com doesn't exist anymore... apparently many people got burned and started reporting them to the BBB. Digirex opened a new a new website called Digizone.com, which is down too.

I learned my lesson the hard way. From then on it's been Newegg or nothing.

[SavagePaladin]

resellerratings.com people! check it.
Thats how I found essencompu.com, it was the first company on the list of what I wanted that got a high rating. (8.80 compared to a bunch of 4.40s :p )

And you know, I've been using them ever since.

[LORD-eX-Bu]

Googlegear.com is a great website, they have great prices and ship really fast, for example, week before last, I ordered a 2.4 Ghz Pentium 4b processor for $192, and then I had my new Pentium 4 less than 24 Hours from the time I clicked to go thru with the order. Thats service, and I only paid $0.50 shipping.:D

[vampireuk]

For anyone in Britain there is Ebuyer (http://www.ebuyer.com) where all the prices are in pretty pounds:D

[saturnotaku]

I've had good luck with All Star Micro (http://www.allstarshop.com). Prices aren't the best, but they bent over backwards for me when I placed my order for an out-of-stock Abit KT7A board. They made a special trip to the distributor to get me a board so they could ship my entire order (mobo, CPU, NIC, floppy) at the same time.

If that's not service, I don't know what is.

And of course, I have to give a shout out to Newegg. Their sales and return policies are absolutely painless. They are my first (and most of the time my only) choice for hardware. 'nuff said.