IKS@PSUVM.BITNET (04/22/87)
I am posting this out of concern because I would not want what has happened
Robert Briggs to happen to any one.
-Indra.
WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING
I've been ripped off to the tune of $700 by PC's Limited, 7801 N.
Lamar, Suite E-200, Austin, TX.
This whole situation started on the 27th of March, 1985 when I
originally ordered the drive. I used the drive to bring up Fido
node 15/464, and used it for about 5 weeks. Unfortunately, the
drive that I originally obtained from PC's Limited was faulty, it
crashed almost weekly, and each time it was re-formatted, it had
more and more bad sectors show up. It was returned to them for
repair. It came back "Dead On Arrival" - the person responsible
for Quality Controlling the drive failed to retract the heads,
this resulted in a bad track 0 which made the drive unusable. I
had since purchased a larger drive, and had made arrangements to
sell the drive to someone else. Needless to say, the buyer was
no longer interested in buying a hard disk from me.
The drive was once again shipped back to them on June 7th, 1985,
accompanied by a letter requesting a refund. (it is interesting
to note that the RMA number issued the second time was 3436, the
first RMA was 2973 - that means that in a period of roughly 2
weeks, PC's Limited had 493 defective products shipped back to
them!)
There was no response to my letter, nor any repaired drive
returned. I was unable to contact the person who was responsible
for handling refunds. Two months later, I sent the following
letter addressed to the Chief Executive Officer of PC's Limited:
Robert S. Briggs
P.O. Box 7175
Murray, UTAH 84107-0175
08 August, 1985
Dear Sir:
It has now been over 60 days since I returned my disk
drive to your company for a refund, and nearly six months
sine I originally purchased the drive, (which has never
worked correctly). While I (am) normally quite patient, this
situation is causing me to become angry enough to take some
rather strong measures to recover my money. Unless I receive
my $695.00 refund check by the 21st of August, 1985, I intend
to do the following:
1. Send a copy of this letter and a formal letter of
complaint to Byte magazine, PC magazine, and any other major
magazine that I can find one of your advertisements in.
2. Publish a copy of this letter in the public domain, and a
Fidonews Page 9 30 Jun 1986
warning about both the type of service and equipment that you
seem to be providing. In addition, I will request that
anyone reading that warning distribute it to any other
bulletin boards that they use. I expect that such a warning
would be distributed to well over 2000 bulletin boards in a
matter of several weeks, making this letter available to well
over 200,000 readers by the middle of September. This could
have a great impact on your sales...
The situation is becoming ludicrous; I have been unable to
contact the mysterious Tammy (the person handling refunds) in
nearly two months of calling two days a week. A typical days
worth of calls (my local time) goes something like this:
9:00 a.m. Not in yet 10:00 a.m. Not in yet
10:30 a.m. Not in yet 11:00 a.m. Out to lunch
12:00 p.m. Out to lunch 12:30 p.m. Out to lunch
1:00 p.m. Out to lunch 1:30 P.m. Out to lunch
2:30 p.m. Out on break
3:30 p.m. Left for the day - try tomorrow
I have enclosed a copy of my invoice; my original copy of
the charge slip was sent in the last time I returned the
drive for repair. The last return of the drive was under RMA
#3436, the drive was "DEAD ON ARRIVAL" when returned from RMA
#2973 repair (due to the heads not being retracted when the
drive was shipped back to me).
I would appreciate your prompt attention to this matter,
and hope that this whole situation can be settled swiftly and
in a friendly manner.
Sincerely,
Robert S. Briggs
After another month with no reply from PC's Limited, in
frustration, I sent the following letter to the advertising
editors of several magazines, PC-TECH, PC WORLD, etc.
Robert Briggs
P.O. Box 7175
Murray, UT 84107-0175
(801) xxx-xxxx
XXXXX Magazine
Advertising Manager
xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxs xxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxx, xx xxxxx
Fidonews Page 10 30 Jun 1986
August 29th, 1985
Dear Advertising Editor,
I would like to make a formal complaint against one of
the companies that advertises in your magazine. It has been
nearly six months since I first ordered a 20 megabyte drive
from PCS Ltd., (the drive was originally ordered in March of
1985), and in that time they have failed to deliver me a
either a functional disk drive, or the refund that I have
been requesting for over two months now.
Enclosed please find a copy of a letter that I sent to
the Chief Executive Officer of PCS Ltd. on August 8, 1985.
There has been no response to this letter. As nearly as I
can tell, I have simply been "ripped-off" for the sum of
$695.00. If there is any way that you can assist me in
recovering the original sum, I would be pleased, I have
already "written off" the money spent in long distance phone
calls and shipping.
Unless I can recover my money in the near future, I am
going to place a description of what I have been through and
copies of the correspondence into the public domain with a
request that it be distributed as widely as possible. It is
a last resort and a one way step - once done it can not
easily be undone - but maybe I can get some satisfaction out
of keeping other people from making the same mistake. I am
not vindictive and would be more than happy to let the whole
matter drop upon receipt of a check for what I am owed.
I would certainly appreciate any help that you could
give me in this matter.
Sincerely,
Robert S. Briggs
On September 13th, 1985, I received the following letter from
Byte magazine. It is nice to know that at least one of the
magazines was interested and courteous enough to reply. Looks
like I will have to re subscribe to BYTE magazine....
September 10, 1985
Mr. Robert Briggs
P.O. Box 7175
Murray, UT 84107-0175
Dear Mr. Briggs:
This is in response to your letter of August 29, a copy of
which we are forwarding to PC's Limited. Rest assured that
Fidonews Page 11 30 Jun 1986
we shall use whatever influence we have to get them to
satisfactorily respond to your complaint. Please also try to
understand that it is impossible, both logistically and
legally for us to try to resolve all disputes between
advertisers in BYTE and their customers.
The best we can do is to provide a conduit to start
communication between the advertiser and the customer, and to
cease offering advertising space in our magazine to an
advertiser when a clear pattern of unresolved customer
problems appear. With your complaint, we are sincerely
attempting to facilitate discussion between the parties which
could lead to an appropriate resolution.
We are asking both you and PC's Limited to keep us posted on
any results obtained from our transactions. Thanks you very
much for your patience and information.
Sincerely,
xxxxx x. xxxxxxx
Customer Relations
Here is my reply to the Byte Magazine letter:
Robert Briggs
P.O. Box 7175
Murray, UT 84107-0175
(801) xxx-xxxx
BYTE MAGAZINE
Attn: xxxxxx x. xxxxxxx
70 Main Street
Peterborough, NH 03458
October 7, 1985
Dear xx. xxxxxxx,
This is in reply to your letter of September 10, 1985,
concerning PC's Limited. I believe that I have allowed a
sufficient time for PC's Limited to reply, so I must
regretfully state that I have received absolutely no
correspondence from them. I must also assume that they have
chosen to not reply because they have no intention of issuing
me a refund - they have simply "ripped me off" to the tune of
$700.
I hope that there is some pressure that you can exert on
Fidonews Page 12 30 Jun 1986
them as advertisers in your magazine. I am also going to
correspond with the Attorney Generals Office, consumer
complaint division, and the Better Business Bureau of Austin
Texas, in hopes of getting some response (i.e. a refund) from
them.
I am preparing to distribute all of the correspondence
to date to each of the nodes in the FIDO network (watch your
BYTE bulletin board, all of this information will be
distributed under the file name RIPOFF$.700 or pc-ltd.rip or
something similar) and will request that it be passed along
to any bulletin board that the users know of, and I hope to
have copies of all of this correspondence published in
several IBM-PC specific newsletters. This action should make
this whole situation available to approximately 200,000
readers in a matter of roughly two weeks, and could reach a
million PC users, by word of mouth, in roughly a month.
I do not understand why PC's Limited is forcing me to
pursue such an unfriendly course of action. I am not
alleging mail fraud, but I think that anyone is entitled to a
refund and a letter of explanation after attempting to obtain
a working product or refund for over six months.
Thank you for your time and the help that you and Byte
Magazine have given me.
Sincerely,
Robert S. Briggs
SYSOP of FIDO 15/464
A copy of the original letter to the advertising managers
suitably modified, (below) has been sent to the Austin Texas
Attorneys office, and the Austin Better Business Bureau.
Robert Briggs
P.O. Box 7175
Murray, UT 84107-0175
(801) xxx-xxxx
City Government Building
Attorney Generals Office
Consumer Complaint Division
Austin, TX 78752
Fidonews Page 13 30 Jun 1986
October 7th, 1985
Dear Sir,
I would like to make a formal complaint against a
company doing mail order sales based in your city. It has
been nearly six months since I first ordered a 20 megabyte
drive (some computer equipment) from PC's Limited, 7801 N.
Lamar, Suite E-200, Austin 78752, (the equipment was
originally ordered in March of 1985), and in that time they
have failed to deliver me a either a functional disk drive,
or the refund that I have been requesting for over three
months now.
Enclosed please find a copy of a letter that I sent to
the Chief Executive Officer of PCS Ltd. on August 8, 1985,
and copies of other correspondence with various magazines
that they advertise in. There has been no response
whatsoever from PC's Limited, and, as nearly as I can tell, I
have simply been "ripped-off" for the sum of $695.00. If
there is any way that you can assist me in recovering the
original sum, I would be pleased, I have already "written
off" the money spent in long distance phone calls and
shipping.
I would certainly appreciate any help that you could
give me in this matter. I am not alleging mail fraud, but
the whole situation has dragged on for over 7 months now, and
I feel that a refund should have been forthcoming long before
now, from an honest company.
Sincerely,
Robert S. Briggs
As yet, there have been no replies to the latest round of
correspondence.
I guess that I have to leave it up to you, the reader to decide
whether I have been too harsh on a company that failed to deliver
me a working product after more than 6 months, and who seems to
refuse to issue me a refund.
If you can, give this file the widest distribution that you have
available. Maybe someone else will avoid getting ripped off by
this company. Maybe even you...
If you are really into such things, how about sending a letter to
PC's Limited telling them that you have read this article, and
Fidonews Page 14 30 Jun 1986
have no intention of purchasing anything from them because of it.
Anyone having similar problems with this company might drop a
letter to the BYTE Magazine Customer relations department, urging
them to remove PC's Limited from their advertising.
You can keep current on the situation and get any further
bulletins from my board at (801) 264-8290.
Robert S. Briggs SYSOP FIDO 15/464 (801) 264-8290d) from
them.
I am preparing to distribute all of the correspondence
to date to each of the nodes in the FIDO network (watch your
BYTE bulletin board, all of this information will be
distributed under the file name RIPOFF$.700 or pc-ltd.rip or
something similar) and will request that it be passed along
to any bulletin board that the users know of, and I hope to
have copies of all of this correspondence published in
several IBM-PC specific newsletters. This action should make
this whole situation available to approximately 200,000
readers in a matter of roughly two weeks, and could reach a
million PC users, by word o
-------------------- This is how I received it. ------------------------
timothym@tekigm2.UUCP (04/23/87)
About mail order,
One course of action that Mr. Briggs has not taken that may bring action
is to contact the local post office. Talk to the public relations officer
with all of the written correspondence.
He may be in the best position to actively get involved in this obvious case
of mail fraud (although what proof does Mr. Briggs have that he mailed the
drive back, and not sold it to someone).
Another tack would be to contact the card company used to charge the original
drive, and ask them to reverse the charges (it may have been too long ago to
have this done).
A last thought though. This is a fairly common complaint with doing business
mail order. Sure the savings are sometimes significant, but how many of you
have NEVER had something like this happen? I tend to do more business eye-
to-eye since I had problems (unless I know 100% for sure that the company
I am doing business with is quite reputable).
A rule of thumb I use is to do incremental business with a firm until I have
a fair amount of respect for them. That is, I will order a small item, watch
the process closely. If all goes well, they ship when promised, and the product
arrives in order, I will then place a larger order. At least this way I have
a feel for the company.
I feel far better ordering a $500.00 item if they performed well on a $29.95
order. Another thing I do is to ask for their customer service number before
ordering anything. I always call it just to see who to talk to about a problem.
This gives a general feel for the customer service dept., real quick. If you
feel like you get a run-around here, bag the order idea and go elsewhere. There
are a few reliable firms out there, worthy of you business.
--
Tim Margeson (206)253-5240
PO Box 3500 d/s C1-937 @@ 'Who said that?'
Vancouver, WA. 98668
{amd..hplabs}cae780!tektronix!tekigm2!timothym (this changes daily)dmt@mtunb.UUCP (Dave Tutelman) (04/27/87)
In article <1675@tekigm2.TEK.COM> timothym@tekigm2.UUCP (Timothy D Margeson) writes: > >About mail order, > Sure the savings are sometimes significant, but how many of you >have NEVER had something like this happen? I tend to do more business eye- >to-eye since I had problems (unless I know 100% for sure that the company >I am doing business with is quite reputable). Yes, I have had problems, but I also have occasional problems with eye-to-eye business. I'm not keeping score, but I'd guess there isn't much difference. I agree that dealing with a reputable company helps. A lot! Which brings us to.... > >A rule of thumb I use is to do incremental business with a firm until I have >a fair amount of respect for them. That is, I will order a small item, watch >the process closely. If all goes well, they ship when promised, and the product >arrives in order, I will then place a larger order. At least this way I have >a feel for the company. Good idea! +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | Dave Tutelman | | Physical - AT&T - Lincroft, NJ | | Logical - ...ihnp4!mtuxo!mtunb!dmt | | Audible - (201) 576 2442 | +---------------------------------------------------------------+