MHS108@psuvm.psu.edu (Mark Solsman) (04/12/90)
I Recently I bought a Epson EPL 6000 Laser Printer from USA FLEX. I
decided buy it there because they had the best price. ($899)
the story:
I called March 24th and talked to Karen in sales. We talked about
compatability, warranty, durability, and upgrading a meg of ram. This wa
great! I could buy a H.P. series 2 compatable for $900 and upgrade it
for use with postscript for $220! When I was done I asked her for her
ext# for commission purposes.
I called USA FLEX again on the 27th to order. Jeff answered the phone,
Karen was out sick. He asked if he could help me. I kindly said no that
already made a deal with Karen. He said that he could take care of it fo
her. He took my order and cringed at my quoted price, but then later sai
OK. He told me that THEY would call me back the next day with the
ETA and total amount. 3 days later I called back, and Karen answered.
I explained to Karen what Jeff and I did. She looked it up, all she
could say was "unbelieveable!" Jeff had not given her the sale after all
She apologized and asked "you havn't received the printer yet? Well,
you will get it tomorrow." (I did)
The day after I received the printer I wanted to order the 1meg upgrad
being that a laser printer can't do a full page of postscript on 512.
I called Karen and talked with her for 30 minutes. (she had to keep chec
ing the stock and lookup numbers) The mem-board was on back order for an
indefinite amount of time, but I needed it, so I ordered it.
To get to the point (finally, but you needed the background) :)
When the numbers started to get entered for my order is when she
realized her mistake. She had been looking in a Panasonic book for my
Epson printer all along! They do not offer a 1meg expansion for $220. In
fact, they don't even offer a 1meg board! The minimum expansion is 2megs
And with a price of $500, I said forget it! ($500 is a "we made a mistak
price") I wanted to return my printer on the spot! After all, I bought i
under false pretenses(sp?). I could get a series 3 for a little more!
I would have to wait until the next day to call a customer service #.
Then waste money talking to a voice mail system. After I explained what
happened to Desarae, a service rep, I would have to wait until she got
back to me. Two days later I CALLED HER BACK. -
They were going to charge me a 10% restocking fee!
I asked, "What?" She responded, "Yes, we are giving you a break because
it was out fault, we normally charge 20%" Is this good service?
I still have the printer - I will not pay for there mistake.
I just wanted to warn fellow net-landers of this place!
P.S. I talked to the head of customer service. She was no better.
She doesn't know what BitNet is - now she will!
* If you have questions / doubts / info please email me.
P.S.S Isn't too bad when you have to do something this drastic to get
service?
-----
Mark Solsman, Pennsylvania State University, Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA
MHS108 @ PSUVM.BITNET MHS108 @ PSUVM.PSU.EDUneal@mnopltd.UUCP (04/12/90)
-> I Recently I bought a Epson EPL 6000 Laser Printer from USA FLEX. I
->decided buy it there because they had the best price. ($899)
->
->the story:
->
[ deleted ]
->
-> I just wanted to warn fellow net-landers of this place!
->
-> P.S.S Isn't too bad when you have to do something this drastic to get
-> service?
What do you expect when you go for the lowest price? (8-}) Its
gotta come from somewhere! You think they can afford PhD's in sales?
I await the day when America realizes that you gotta pay a little above
dealer cost if ya want the dealer to survive and stand behind their products.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neal Rhodes MNOP Ltd (404)- 972-5430
President Lilburn (atlanta) GA 30247 Fax: 978-4741
uunet!emory!jdyx!mnopltd!neal Or uunet!gatech!stiatl!mnopltd!neal
------------------------------------------------------------------------------dlucy@tropez.UUCP (Doug Lucy) (04/13/90)
I hate slamming anyone, but... We ordered about $1300 bucks worth of h/w from USA Flex (SVGA card, monitor, hard drive & controller) and were promised 5-7 day delivery. 10 days later I called to cancel the order (client would not wait any longer) and found out the order was on hold because the SVGA monitors had not even begun to ship from the mfg!). So I cancelled the order and moved the USA Flex phone card to the back of the Rolodex. Two days later, UPS showed up with the SVGA card on a separate order. Right. They even called to ask why I sent the SVGA card back. Ok, move the phone card to the circular file. -- "It's such a fine line between stupid..." | Doug Lucy 703.820.3922 "...and stupid." | DC Pro, Falls Church, VA "Yeah, stupid." | uunet!tropez!dlucy
karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) (04/13/90)
>Item 10464 (0 resps) by MHS108 at psuvm.psu.edu on Thu 12 Apr 90 07:21 >[Mark Solsman] Subject: USA-Flex, and ordering from them. >(66 lines) > (tale of woe deleted) A few notes....(read the last few paragraphs even if you're not interested in this; there's a nice story in there) I can't say that I agree with what USA Flex has done here, given an accurate accounting of the matter. However, let me point out a few things: * You bought from the lowest bidder. This in and of itself has some inherent problems, as the lowest bidder also has the lowest costs. Cost includes product cost, but ALSO includes employee costs... which translates into less knowledgable employees in many cases. * The "low bidder" usually is running on a margin of 5-10% markup. This is unreasonably low for a number of reasons; the end result is that you simply CANNOT expect them to do a lot for you, or they will lose money. Now, you may argue that 5-10% is a good markup, or whatever you want. The fact remains that an employee costs a company some 2X their salary after benefits, time off, tax implications, office costs etc are taken into consideration. Remember that >all< facility costs have to be taken out of that 5-10% markup. To make this pay you have to a hellishly high volume of business, AND you can't screw up. Not even once. If you DO screw up more than once in a blue moon, you'll go out of business. This is one of the reasons that most dealers charge that "20% restocking fee" -- so they have some income to cover when they (or you) DO screw up. A retail-price dealer won't have this problem, because he'll sell at a higher margin, and can afford to "eat" a few problems to keep his/her customers satisfied. For the person who says "So what if I cost them money" -- think again. If you and a few others to do that, they go out of business. Now where are you? You have NO support at all if that should happen! I've said it before here and I'll say it again. You can't expect excellent service from a mailorder place if you want the rock-bottom price. The people who shop on price alone are inevitably going to get hurt, sooner or later. This is one reason my company doesn't try to compete with places like USA Flex; we simply won't lower our service standards sufficiently to be able to price items like they do and still stay in business. For >my< money, and my company, I am willing to pay a little more. I do this knowing that I will have a place to turn if there is a problem, that the people who work there do care about my satisfaction, and that they have the room to work with should there be a problem. Note that the big mailorder places >don't care< about whether you return to buy more product, since even if you're a huge company you account for such a small percentage of their revenue you are insignificant to them. Besides, there is always the "new blood" coming in through the magazine ads like Computer Shopper, which caters especially to the "price above everything else" crowd..... When you buy from someone who handles product for a 5-10% markup from their cost you should expect nothing other than that the product itself will be delivered to your door in a timely matter. That's it. And I've yet to meet the "mail order discounter" that is the exception to this rule more than a small percentage of the time. EVERY ONE of them I have ever dealt with for more than a couple of purchases has screwed up in some fashion at least once, and every time I've eaten their mistakes (or DOAs) in one way or another. Sometimes it is time, sometimes it is money. Either way I lose. Mail order discounters are great for people who KNOW WHAT THEY WANT and are willing to live EXACTLY within the terms of a product's capabilities and warranties. IMHO, if you are not in the position to quote part numbers to a salesperson, get a price and delivery date, and solve your own problems then you should accept the slightly higher price of a product from a local dealer, or at least a full-service mailorder place. They will not be able to deliver product as cheaply as some of the other places, true. But they will support you when you have trouble, and if there is a problem they'll do something for you about it. Speaking of which, let me tell you a story: We have a customer who bought a system from us about a year ago. Last week his hard disk bought the farm -- the system is out of warranty by roughly three weeks. We are getting his disk repaired and loaning him a drive while his is being fixed. We did this by having some pull with our distributor, who ALSO charges a slightly-higher price than the rock-bottom distributors for the same product. Those other distributors would have told US to pound sand; this one took care of the problem instead. No charge; we ate two on-site service calls as well. Note that we, and our distributor, were under NO obligation to do anything at all. The warranty had legitimately expired, by the customer's own admission and paperwork. Try THAT with a mailorder company. The disk drive, by the way, costs over $2,000 new. The only alternative for this customer, if we had not done this for him, would be to buy another drive or have his fixed at his expense -- and by expense I mean roughly $500 -- with only a 60 day repair warranty -- and be without the drive for two weeks! Not nice, and not practical if you're using the system in your business! Guess how much money AND downtime you'd be experiencing if you had bought that same system from the likes of most mailorder discount houses? NOW who do you think got the best deal? The guy who bought his system from Gateway and saved an initial few hundred (or even a thousand) dollars, or the one who spent the extra money? Sure, we can't do this all the time. But we can do it sometimes, and when we can we WILL. THAT's the difference between a full service dealer and a cut-throat mailorder house. That is why you pay the extra money to a full-service company. Make your purchasing decisions with the facts. Up-front cost is not the only thing to be concerned with. -- Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl) Public Access Data Line: [+1 708 566-8911], Voice: [+1 708 566-8910] Macro Computer Solutions, Inc. "Quality Solutions at a Fair Price"
zentner@radon.ecn.purdue.edu (Michael Zentner) (04/13/90)
In article <90102.002037MHS108@psuvm.psu.edu> MHS108@psuvm.psu.edu (Mark Solsman) writes: > > I Recently I bought a Epson EPL 6000 Laser Printer from USA FLEX. I >decided buy it there because they had the best price. ($899) > >the story: > (insert assorted horrors here) Take heart, Mark, you're not the only one. I found USA flex to have a very good sales staff when I was ordering my VGA monitor and card, but when it came to service, that was another story. The original order came promptly, however there were some disturbing black lines scanning on the monitor, so I called the service number, which happens to be a toll number. This may not be a big deal when you're dealing with corporate funds, but when it's my phone bill and I spend 10 minutes on hold, I get pretty damn mad. Well, they finally routed my call and, guess what? The line went dead. So I called back again, held another ten minutes, and finally got someone to give me a return authorization. Since it was within 30 days of purchase, they let me put another monitor on my credit card immediately and said they'd credit my card as soon as the monitor came back to them. Well, I got the new monitor right away, and got my charge bill not too long after, only to find that they had not credited my account. I called back, and held for another ten minutes. The rep said that they never got my monitor and that I had to put a UPS trace on it to prove I sent it. Well, I certainly wasn't going to send in 2*600+ dollars to the credit company, when I knew that I didn't have two monitors sitting on my desk, so I had to eat the interest cost on my charge account for one of the monitors too. When I called with my UPS tracer report, which, incidentally, showed that my monitor arrived at USA FLEX two days after I sent it, they said I had to send a copy, and then it would be another day before they could credit my account. Oh, yeah, and this time when I got the receptionist, I let her know that I wanted to talk to someone right then and that she had cut me off before. And, whaddya know, a rep picked up the phone right away. Are these guys drinking coffee or what? Well, they finally did get it right, but not before it cost me at least $30 in phone and shipping charges that I wouldn't have had to pay if I'd have went with my instincts and ordered from Compuadd in the first place, where the price was a little more than $30 higher than USAflex. -- Mike Zentner School of Chemical Engineering zentner@cn.ecn.purdue.edu Purdue University, CMET Building West Lafayette, IN 47907 {ihnp4,ucbvax}!pur-ee!zentner
MHS108@psuvm.psu.edu (Mark Solsman) (04/13/90)
...just for the people that tell me I am cheap: At the same time that I bought my $935 EPL-6000, I also bought a Gateway 386- 25 with all the goodies for $3730, and a Star NX1500 for my drafts and programs at $350, and media for $165. I don't think that I am totally wrong for going w/ the lowest price, after all, spending $5180 for a system for home was enough. The moral of the story: Please don't call me cheap. I appreciate the comments but my main point was that USA FLEX screwed me over for their mistake.
phil@pepsi.amd.com (Phil Ngai) (04/13/90)
In article <2624bc70-28e0.1comp.ibmpc-1@ddsw1.MCS.COM> karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) writes: |Mail order discounters are great for people who KNOW WHAT THEY WANT and are |willing to live EXACTLY within the terms of a product's capabilities and |warranties. I'd certainly agree with this. If you don't know more than the salesman, then buying the lowest price is pretty risky. |Speaking of which, let me tell you a story: | | We have a customer who bought a system from us about a year ago. | Last week his hard disk bought the farm -- the system is out of | warranty by roughly three weeks. This is a very nice story but my problem is how do I tell between the dealer who charges more for good service and the dealer who just charges more? You said that you don't guarantee this kind of service to everyone, you just do it when you can. So if I really need this kind of service, I can't depend on you to provide it. If I don't need this kind of service, maybe I'd do ok buying from the lowest bidder. If it would be nice to have the dealer honor an expired warranty, it would also be nice to have the savings of the best price. What I could go for is a service contract. I pay money and the mutual expectations are in writing. Otherwise, I could see some misunderstandings at the worst possible time. -- Phil Ngai, phil@amd.com {uunet,decwrl,ucbvax}!amdcad!phil The War on Drugs is the modern day Inquisition.
neal@mnopltd.UUCP (04/13/90)
->Xref: stiatl comp.sys.ibm.pc:29016 misc.wanted:5954 misc.forsale:11965
->
->...just for the people that tell me I am cheap:
->
-> At the same time that I bought my $935 EPL-6000, I also bought a Gateway 386-
->25 with all the goodies for $3730, and a Star NX1500 for my drafts and programs
->at $350, and media for $165. I don't think that I am totally wrong for going w/
->the lowest price, after all, spending $5180 for a system for home was enough.
->
-> The moral of the story: Please don't call me cheap. I appreciate the comments
->but my main point was that USA FLEX screwed me over for their mistake.
->
You are absolutely right. You are not cheap. They are cheap. Still, never
deal with a cheap outfit unless they are in town and have visible assets that
don't move around.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neal Rhodes MNOP Ltd (404)- 972-5430
President Lilburn (atlanta) GA 30247 Fax: 978-4741
uunet!emory!jdyx!mnopltd!neal Or uunet!gatech!stiatl!mnopltd!neal
------------------------------------------------------------------------------karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) (04/14/90)
>----- >Response 4 of 5 (10464) by phil at pepsi.amd.com on Fri 13 Apr 90 08:06 >[Phil Ngai] >(31 lines) > >|Speaking of which, let me tell you a story: >| >| We have a customer who bought a system from us about a year ago. >| Last week his hard disk bought the farm -- the system is out of >| warranty by roughly three weeks. > >This is a very nice story but my problem is how do I tell between the >dealer who charges more for good service and the dealer who just >charges more? You said that you don't guarantee this kind of service >to everyone, you just do it when you can. So if I really need this >kind of service, I can't depend on you to provide it. If I don't need >this kind of service, maybe I'd do ok buying from the lowest bidder. >If it would be nice to have the dealer honor an expired warranty, >it would also be nice to have the savings of the best price. This is true. The point being that it is not reasonable to expect anyone to honor an expired warranty. Some dealers will TRY, others (the mail order places that play cutthroat prices) won't bother; there's nothing in it for them, in fact, there's a big upside for them if you don't get the good deal -- you might buy another drive! It is difficult to tell who's giving the good service. One thing is certain, though; the places that sell at 5% over cost can't AFFORD to give that kind of service to their customers! >What I could go for is a service contract. I pay money and the >mutual expectations are in writing. Otherwise, I could see some >misunderstandings at the worst possible time. Agreed. Which is why we're offering 5-year (actually 4 years and 11 months) extended warranties on Maxtor drives (ESDI and SCSI) now. It's a slight extra cost at the time of purchase, sure, but the extra $100 or so is well worth it when they buy the farm. Those replacements are normally made from a rotating pool of refurbished units; we can almost always have a replacement to you within 48 hours of receiving the defective drive back (subject to your desires on shipping, etc). That's my idea of a proper way to solve the problem. -- Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl) Public Access Data Line: [+1 708 566-8911], Voice: [+1 708 566-8910] Macro Computer Solutions, Inc. "Quality Solutions at a Fair Price"