igielski@mmm.UUCP (Tom Igielski) (10/15/85)
I am currently in the market for an IBM PC. In looking through the Journals, I notice that there is a supplier called 'PC NETWORK'. Does anyone have any direct experience with these people? Are they reputable? If the hardware they supply, completely IBM compatible? Are there better sources for purchases. I would appreciate any responses to these questions from people on the net. Thanking you in advance.... Tom Igielski !ihnp4!mmm!igielski
ejb@think.ARPA (Erik Bailey) (10/24/85)
In article <244@mmm.UUCP> igielski@mmm.UUCP (Tom Igielski) writes: >I am currently in the market for an IBM PC. In looking through the Journals, >I notice that there is a supplier called 'PC NETWORK'. Does anyone have >any direct experience with these people? Are they reputable? If the >hardware they supply, completely IBM compatible? Are there better sources >for purchases. > I am a member of PC-NETWORK, and so far have been quite satisfied. Although I have not yet bought any major products, I ordered 2 boxes of disks from them (back when they were $14/box, now they are ~9$), and they came in a few days. And the greatest part was when I decided to expand my Compaq Deskpro to 640 from 256. I ordered 512k of 256k chips, and it came out to * $65 postpaid (incl. credit card surcharge) *. Not bad... I plan to get a little I/O card (serial, parralel, game, clock, etc. ) for $69. Right now, hard drives go for $330 (10meg), $420 (20meg), and they are selling the tape backup used in the Deskpro (a fine machine) for about $450. I am quite satisfied in the comany, and plan to renew my membership next year. However - I am very dissatisfied with the game rental stuff - they have not had a single game I've queried about (AtariSoft, Electronic Arts, and a couple SSI). That I'm NOT renewing. has anyone else had any other experiences? Remeber - I ahve not ordered anything big, but they seem to be nice enough (particularly the person I talked to wehn ordering the RAM). Well, hope that helps (and maybe starts up a discussion). --Erik
jmi@ihuxo.UUCP (j. irving) (11/19/85)
> In article <244@mmm.UUCP> igielski@mmm.UUCP (Tom Igielski) writes: > >I am currently in the market for an IBM PC. In looking through the Journals, > >I notice that there is a supplier called 'PC NETWORK'. Does anyone have > >any direct experience with these people? Are they reputable? If the > >hardware they supply, completely IBM compatible? Are there better sources I am a member of PC NETWORK and have purchased only software. The discount pricing is true, and I used it to buy Dbase III, Lotus 123 , and WORD 2.0. The only negative I have seen so far is the technical hotline wasn't so hot, I had a problem with dbase being removed from my hard disk and they were no help. I ended up calling Ashton Tate These opinions are mine and only mine! -- -------------------------------------------------------------------- Jeff Irving ihnp4!ihuxo!jmi
eckerj@rpics.UUCP (Joe Ecker) (11/24/85)
I too have recently purchased from PC Network, and will never again do so. On September 11, I ordered 3 Compaq systems, from about $8000. They received our check on September 29, and by the middle of October, various portions of our order had arrived. Unfortunately, things like MSDOS, our monitors, and serial ports had not arrived. On their recommendation we had bought the modular Maynard multifuntion card, each with 2 serial modules and a clock calendar. Since we intended to replace our terminals with these systems, the serial ports were very important. We received the base module by the end of October, but not the serial modules themselves. On November 21, we received notification that within the next 45 days we would receive our serial ports. This was unacceptable and we decided to get serial ports elsewhere. They had no problem with cancelling what we had not yet received, but they charged a 20% restocking fee for taking back the base boards (which were no good without the serial cards). No discount is worth waiting 4 months for such a simple thing, especially from a company that lavishly praises themselves as number 1 in everything, including speed. What a joke!
dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady) (11/26/85)
Two friends of mine ordered a large amount (over $1000) of software from
PC Network and were very dissatisfied (to put it mildly). They received
software they had not ordered, did not receive software they did order,
and in one case received (instead of Wordstar 2000, I think) a blank
diskette and an ad!! (Of course, considering the "warranty" most
software comes with, that's all you can expect anyway ;-)
They called the "customer service" department and got the usual
mail-order two-step runaround. When they asked for a refund the company
refused to cancel the order. My friends mentioned the postal regulation
that requires orders to be filled within a certain amount of time, and
PC Network claimed that by shipping an incomplete and wrong order they
had fulfilled their legal obligations.
Anyway, to avoid boring you with more details I'll just note that they
finally did get most of their money back, but they have resolved never
to do business with PC Network again. In fairness, I have heard of
other people having no problems with them, and any company can make
mistakes. But with firms around who are willing to correct their
mistakes, why do business with those that won't?
--
D Gary Grady
Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC 27706
(919) 684-3695
USENET: {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary