At 13:32 25/02/01 +0000, you wrote:
>At 10:52 25/02/01 +0000, you wrote:
>>Comcal by Buchannan Galleries.
>>you _DO_ have a platinum credit card don't you? they have priced
>>themselves out of the market whenever I looked for things.
>They also messed me around something awful when I bought ~30 computers
>from them. They promised bun in testing on the machines but 4 were DOA,
>and one of these had no hard drive - what sort of burn in test was that.
>They were cheaper than most for such a large order but it turned out the
>reason they were cheaper was that the motherboard they used wasn't
>compatible with the CPU, so while it worked, it was slow and unstable.
>Half the DVD drives had to be sent back and 3 motherboards were replaced.
>
>I think the main problem was that they cut costs on too many parts, and
>simply couldn't handle the workload, but I also didn't consider them very
>trustworthy.
>
>I would recommend a computer manufacturer, but all the ones I have bought
>stuff from have been awful, especially PC World.
I'm actually being a little unfair there. Must just be my annoyance at
Comcal and my cold affecting my judgement. All the systems I have bought
have been of great annoyance, coupled with poor customer service, but when
I have bought individual parts it has not been to bad (with the exception
of PC World which has been terrible on all counts). I bought a bunch of
stuff (RAM, CD Driver, Sound Card etc...) from Computer Solutions (used to
be Software Warehouse) and it was all OK - no problems so I couldn't
comment on their after-sales service. I bought a floppy drive from Tait and
it was fine, haven't tried their after sales service though.
A friend bought a system from Infiniti and it has been mostly OK, but when
he first bought the motherboard was the wrong size for the case and the
keyboard connector was hidden. They did fix this promptly.
I know a guy who went to Creative and they seemed fine.
With all the places check the prices of every component will several
suppliers. I noticed that most suppliers were competitive on most products,
but there was always one or two that were ridiculously overpriced. You may
want to buy some kit from one shop and some more from another. If you have
problems they may start blaming each other (if they have poor customer
service), but it would save you money.
PC World are bad though - really bad. I bought a joystick from them and
after a few days it stopped working. They said it was fine when they tested
it via USB in their machine, but I used it via the joystick port and they
refused to check it on another machine with a joystick port. It took three
journeys to and from PC World before they took it back and even then the
only gave me a credit note. Here's a hint if you get any hassle - Don't go
to the support desk, try to get them near the sales counters. Then make
sure you speak loudly and clearly. I know it makes you sound really
ignorant but they only considered taking the joystick back when they saw
customers putting their goods back onto the shelves and leaving the store.
Steven.
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