- Joined
- Jul 7, 2000
- Messages
- 1,556
In 2007, I ordered a PC from IBuyPower. I am capable of building my own PC but was being lazy and wanted something that was complete, but also totally upgradeable (unlike some of the 'major' brands). The experience was pretty lousy and I would not recommend them. The final straw that made me write all of this out (since the original order was so long ago) came recently...
Anyway, I'll start from the beginning.
- IBP Charged credit card immediately upon order, which might not have been the worst thing in the world if it weren't for the fact that...
- Assembly of my PC didn't even begin until WEEKS after it was quoted (they have an online system that shows the stage your PC is in). If you are going to charge my credit card right away, it should either be because you are assembling right away or purchasing parts. Clearly IBP keeps parts on hand, and they clearly had a long line of PC's ahead of me to assemble. If you are going to significantly delay your quoted assembly/ship date, have the courtesy not to charge a credit card for such a large amount. At the VERY least, give realistic quotes for completion time. Throughout my ordeal I kept checking and IBP still had the unrealistic date quotes on their site if you tried to place a new order.
- Assembly to shipping was too fast. That probably doesn't sound like it makes any sense, but on IBP's site they brag that "All systems are fully configured, tested and pass a 72-hour burn-in control." Based on the tracking they provided on their own site, the time between assembly and ship-out was not enough for them to have performed the promised burn-in control. More proof that this was not done in the next point...
- When the PC arrived it would not turn on. I opened the tower to find that a number of critical cables were not connected (including power components). How again was the burn-in performed? Or am I to believe that the system was fully assembled, tested, then partially disassembled prior to shipping?
If a customer who ordered this computer was not comfortable with PC assembly, this would have been a dead-end. They either would have had to send it back in or take it into a repair shop - both of which would probably cost them money.
- In addition to power components, various others were not connected. Major items like hard drives were good, but case fans (just one example) were not plugged in.
- The tower was missing one of its four rubber feet. This isn't a big deal on most towers but this one utilized very large feet such that it couldn't stand on just 3.
- I contacted service and support through their site since they list that as the preferred method. I listed out the above complaints and asked them if they had actually performed any testing on my PC. They brag on their site that they have "Excellent customer and technical service" but no answer came.
- I tried calling the numbers they have listed on their site. My calls repeatedly hit a busy signal, despite their site's promises of "Highly trained and knowledgeable phone technician quick response to all computer problems."
- I submitted my complaint/request through the site again.
- I kept calling... more days went by.
- I found an email address and sent my issue directly to it. They quickly replied, only to tell me that I should be submitting my issue through the site - not to the email address. I told them that I had already done that, TWICE, but they never responded further on the email.
- I finally get through to a phone tech after a few days, get him all caught up and he basically tells me that he is on the sales side of things. He can't really help me or answer my questions and I should submit through the site. Again I wonder where the "knowledgeable phone technician" is hiding who can respond to all my problems.
- I submit a third time through the site, this time with some liberal use of UPPER CASE and attention grabbing headers. I never resort to anything rude, however.
- IBP finally responds a day or two after my third submittal. Their entire response consists of "We're sorry for the inconvenience: we will ship an extra rubber foot out to you ASAP." They do not answer any of my questions regarding unit testing, burn-in, etc. They offer no explanation as to why my unit showed up without its internals connected. I replied and asked all the questions again, but I never received any response.
- Almost two weeks went by and no rubber foot shows up from IBP.
- I finally contact the manufacturer of the case itself and ask them if they will be so kind as to send me a rubber foot. I explain that I know it is not their fault but rather that of IBP's, but I ask that they help since IBP is completely non-responsive. The company very politely answers my email that same day, apologies for my trouble (even though it is in no way their fault) and immediately sends out a replacement foot. I get the rubber foot 2 business days later in the mail.
So... in short I was charged right away for a product that came many weeks later than promised. It arrived in an inoperative condition and presumably had not been tested. Customer service ignored my inquiries through various attempts and never offered adequate answers and a missing part which they promised to ship never showed up.
So why didn't I just return the tower? Frankly, by that point I had already configured it to my needs and didn't want to deal with the hassle of shipping something back that heavy and then having to shop for a new computer elsewhere. I figured everything was behind me.
But here comes the kicker....
September 2008, I need to repair my computer's Operating System - Windows XP. It is my fault - no blame can be put on IBP for the OS issues - so I break out the Windows CD that came with my IBP tower. I boot with the disc in, start the installation and tell it to repair Windows. It gets through most of the DOS stage then says that a file on the disc is corrupt and it cannot continue. At this point I wasn't able to reboot without the computer trying to restart the install (even without the disc present) but the disc couldn't continue.
Keep in mind: the disc had never before been touched so it was not scratched. I took it out of the packaging for the first time ever on the day that I tried to repair my PC.
I checked the CD on working PC's: yep bad sectors on the CD. No way it will work: critical files on the CD aren't readable.
So in the end I had to surf around warez sites to find the exact build of Windows that came with my PC (so that my legitimate key would work), burn that, repair Windows, and then call up Microsoft to re-activate.
Thanks, IBuyPower: you guys rock. In addition to messed up service and unassembled hardware, you provided me with a "recovery CD" that won't actually recover anything because it is corrupt.
If it's not already obvious, I'll never spend another dollar at IBuyPower. If you don't like stress and frustration, I suggest you take the same route.
Anyway, I'll start from the beginning.
- IBP Charged credit card immediately upon order, which might not have been the worst thing in the world if it weren't for the fact that...
- Assembly of my PC didn't even begin until WEEKS after it was quoted (they have an online system that shows the stage your PC is in). If you are going to charge my credit card right away, it should either be because you are assembling right away or purchasing parts. Clearly IBP keeps parts on hand, and they clearly had a long line of PC's ahead of me to assemble. If you are going to significantly delay your quoted assembly/ship date, have the courtesy not to charge a credit card for such a large amount. At the VERY least, give realistic quotes for completion time. Throughout my ordeal I kept checking and IBP still had the unrealistic date quotes on their site if you tried to place a new order.
- Assembly to shipping was too fast. That probably doesn't sound like it makes any sense, but on IBP's site they brag that "All systems are fully configured, tested and pass a 72-hour burn-in control." Based on the tracking they provided on their own site, the time between assembly and ship-out was not enough for them to have performed the promised burn-in control. More proof that this was not done in the next point...
- When the PC arrived it would not turn on. I opened the tower to find that a number of critical cables were not connected (including power components). How again was the burn-in performed? Or am I to believe that the system was fully assembled, tested, then partially disassembled prior to shipping?
If a customer who ordered this computer was not comfortable with PC assembly, this would have been a dead-end. They either would have had to send it back in or take it into a repair shop - both of which would probably cost them money.
- In addition to power components, various others were not connected. Major items like hard drives were good, but case fans (just one example) were not plugged in.
- The tower was missing one of its four rubber feet. This isn't a big deal on most towers but this one utilized very large feet such that it couldn't stand on just 3.
- I contacted service and support through their site since they list that as the preferred method. I listed out the above complaints and asked them if they had actually performed any testing on my PC. They brag on their site that they have "Excellent customer and technical service" but no answer came.
- I tried calling the numbers they have listed on their site. My calls repeatedly hit a busy signal, despite their site's promises of "Highly trained and knowledgeable phone technician quick response to all computer problems."
- I submitted my complaint/request through the site again.
- I kept calling... more days went by.
- I found an email address and sent my issue directly to it. They quickly replied, only to tell me that I should be submitting my issue through the site - not to the email address. I told them that I had already done that, TWICE, but they never responded further on the email.
- I finally get through to a phone tech after a few days, get him all caught up and he basically tells me that he is on the sales side of things. He can't really help me or answer my questions and I should submit through the site. Again I wonder where the "knowledgeable phone technician" is hiding who can respond to all my problems.
- I submit a third time through the site, this time with some liberal use of UPPER CASE and attention grabbing headers. I never resort to anything rude, however.
- IBP finally responds a day or two after my third submittal. Their entire response consists of "We're sorry for the inconvenience: we will ship an extra rubber foot out to you ASAP." They do not answer any of my questions regarding unit testing, burn-in, etc. They offer no explanation as to why my unit showed up without its internals connected. I replied and asked all the questions again, but I never received any response.
- Almost two weeks went by and no rubber foot shows up from IBP.
- I finally contact the manufacturer of the case itself and ask them if they will be so kind as to send me a rubber foot. I explain that I know it is not their fault but rather that of IBP's, but I ask that they help since IBP is completely non-responsive. The company very politely answers my email that same day, apologies for my trouble (even though it is in no way their fault) and immediately sends out a replacement foot. I get the rubber foot 2 business days later in the mail.
So... in short I was charged right away for a product that came many weeks later than promised. It arrived in an inoperative condition and presumably had not been tested. Customer service ignored my inquiries through various attempts and never offered adequate answers and a missing part which they promised to ship never showed up.
So why didn't I just return the tower? Frankly, by that point I had already configured it to my needs and didn't want to deal with the hassle of shipping something back that heavy and then having to shop for a new computer elsewhere. I figured everything was behind me.
But here comes the kicker....
September 2008, I need to repair my computer's Operating System - Windows XP. It is my fault - no blame can be put on IBP for the OS issues - so I break out the Windows CD that came with my IBP tower. I boot with the disc in, start the installation and tell it to repair Windows. It gets through most of the DOS stage then says that a file on the disc is corrupt and it cannot continue. At this point I wasn't able to reboot without the computer trying to restart the install (even without the disc present) but the disc couldn't continue.
Keep in mind: the disc had never before been touched so it was not scratched. I took it out of the packaging for the first time ever on the day that I tried to repair my PC.
I checked the CD on working PC's: yep bad sectors on the CD. No way it will work: critical files on the CD aren't readable.
So in the end I had to surf around warez sites to find the exact build of Windows that came with my PC (so that my legitimate key would work), burn that, repair Windows, and then call up Microsoft to re-activate.
Thanks, IBuyPower: you guys rock. In addition to messed up service and unassembled hardware, you provided me with a "recovery CD" that won't actually recover anything because it is corrupt.
If it's not already obvious, I'll never spend another dollar at IBuyPower. If you don't like stress and frustration, I suggest you take the same route.