What with the ebuyer thread simmering in the background I thought I'd share a stunning experience with overclockers.co.uk..

Ordered a number of items for a primary school in N-yorks a ways back through a friend of mine who is VAT registered and managed to suffer from them kicking up a fuss about sending the items out to a second address because it was the first time he'd used this new card despite his having used the same card issuer and account with them in the past.. They tried all sorts of tricks including trying to say the bank had declined it... Bank put them right on that immediately... and a slew of other minor untruths..

So, when I ordered a couple of SATA hard drives from them for myself I was a little curious to see what would happen with them.. As it turned out I had to return both as they were non-functional.. and being savvy I opted for special delivery, to return them, to ensure they were tracked and delivered next day..

3 days later I queried what was going on with them and got the response, eventually, that the RMA package hadn't been signed in.. so had I really sent it?... Erm.. yes.. here's the tracking number which *gasp* shows it as delivered.. :suspect:

Ah, say they... we'll get the items back out to you no Thursday.. which I wasn't able to be in for so I asked for Friday delivery instead... No problem, say they.. Cool, thinks I...

Friday rolls around.. nothing arrives.. well I guess I can wait.. I'll get it Monday I'm sure..

... erm... no... Monday it is, nothing doing... so being once bitten I emailed them using their contact form and waited.. and waited.. and waited.. 2pm rolls around and I give in and start trying to reach them by phone... Now normally I can survive being in a queue for 15 or so minutes so long as someone picks up but I get severely miffed when the line gets cut off automatically every 5 minutes which puts me back at the end of the cue... Lovely phone system they have there then...

FINALLY.. I get through and the guy tells me... that.. really.. honest.. the dispatch note was printed off on the 8th.. and ...

... wait for it...

nothing was done with it... it hasn't been dispatched... Erm.. what?!

No, apology, no, excuses, just that... but I'll get it in the post to you today...

WAIT! I yell, please don't send it Amtrak as they have a habit of not knocking on the door (relying instead on a doorbell that doesn't sound) and better yet, not posting a card to say they've been... so please send it special delivery!! .. Ok.. say they, a note will be added to the dispatch form...


So, imagine my surprise and delight when I get an email 20 minutes later to say that my item has been dispatched by... yep.. you guessed it... Amtrak..

The mind boggles... but bottom line.. Ebuyer are a heck of a lot better than this... scarey but true..

Oh, unlucky, you've just been Spie'd (The guy who owns OcUK nick on the net is Spie)

If you talk to the members of some of the more prolific hardware forums on the net (bit-tech.net and hexus.net) you will probably find lots of disgruntled customers.

just visit www.overclockers.co.uk minus the l ;) and check some of the mirrors (not all of them work, but you'll see the site that a mate of mine did after a truckload of bad experiances with them. (Not allegedly was plastered on there after spie threatened to sue)

the OcUK forums are particulary nazi/fasist lot (the moderators or "dons" as they prefer to be called)

Just pray it works, the returns depertment is three times as bad as ebuyer.

Joel

Hey Martin_s, sorry to hear of your bad experiences, I spose it's times like that you just wanna get someone and shake 'em.

I've never heard of eBuyer beeing bad myself ... I suppose you'll go for them or dabs.com (http://www.dabs.com) next time.

I frequently use dabs.com (http://www.dabs.com) (based in Manchester/Bolton) and never had a problem, items I choose are in stock, and delievered within 3 days (or more if I order on a Thursday or Friday which I do everytime :hihi: )

This customer service story is a bit frightening, they just didn't care did they ?

Originally posted by Captain_Scarlet
Hey Martin_s, sorry to hear of your bad experiences, I spose it's times like that you just wanna get someone and shake 'em.
I won't type what I was thinking but it was something that just had me wondering out loud...

I've never heard of eBuyer beeing bad myself ... I suppose you'll go for them or dabs.com (http://www.dabs.com) next time.
Well admittedly I do shop around and I've used Dabs in the past too... Each one has had its stories to tell and to be fair I've known some good and bad experiences in the past.. Dabs can be great but on things like TFT quality they're just neanderthal... but that's another story...

This customer service story is a bit frightening, they just didn't care did they ?
Yup... but hey... when you go with the cheapest bidder you sometimes have to expect that peanuts = monkeys is going to be true more often than not...

I've probably ordered from every computer parts site you can name... they all have terrible customer support... I think the best for returns is probably dabs.com they speed is ok, and they're great once things are agreed for an RMA

personally I've never had no trouble from overclockers.co.uk but I've only ordered from them a couple of times...

the thing that annoys me most is ebuyer and their stupidly long postage times... why do they sit on an order for about 4 days before posting it first class? :?

Originally posted by xafier
the thing that annoys me most is ebuyer and their stupidly long postage times... why do they sit on an order for about 4 days before posting it first class? :?

Actually we've accidentally found a way around that. The other week I ordered a few hundred quids worth of stuff from ebuyer on the "sometime never" option, then the day after had to order a PSU on the "give me it yesterday" option.

Lo & behold, they decided to send it all with the PSU.

The biggest gripe I've heard with ebuyer is CityLink, but I think they're regional franshises, & the guy who does around here is a star!

Used to use overclockers.co.uk a fair bit a few years ago and never had a problem. Sounds like they've gone downhill since then :(

The Overclocking Store that used to be in Sheffield was the best. Top company, just a same John got let down :( he is a nice bloke.

Joel

Used to use overclockers.co.uk a fair bit a few years ago and never had a problem.

I've built a couple of machines with parts from overclockers recently and there's not been a thing wrong with anything. Everything included in both deliveries and everything working.

I guess you find out how good a company is when things do go wrong (every company on the planet sends out some faulty stuff) and thankfully I've not had that experience with overclockers yet.

On the flip side everytime I've used ebuyer something has been wrong or broken. Each time its felt like a battle to get a refund from them. I guess not having any telephone customer service (to moan/shout at), doesn't help matters.

Of the others I've found scan to be very good, Pixmania terrible and Insight reasonable.

Just to add yet another moment of humour to the whole thing..

I got the replacement drives delivered yesterday despite the hoo-ha so perhaps Amtrak should be allowed into my good books again... but 3 hours later I got this too...

Dear ********,

I have emailed you a returns number and details on how to return these items for replacement. Please read them carefully as this will help with the returns process.

You have to wonder about the communication in a place that does stuff like this don't you... :loopy: :rolleyes:

If you knew the story behind overclocking store, you wouldn't have that opinion of the guy. John was brought in for financial backing for the two original owners. He ended up muscling them out and took control of OCS for himself.

The original owners of OCS, ended up leaving and starting up tekheads.

www.tekheads.co.uk

When OCS went under, Tekheads bought most of their old stock.

Buy from tekheads, I've never had a problem, and their staff are knowledgable.