ephram@violet.berkeley.edu (07/13/89)
Well here is my experience with PC BRAND (Chicago IL). I ordered a PC BRAND 386 25MHZ machine. I had reservations about the company's Tech support and customer service history. I had heard that they re-vamped those areas of their company and were now OK. To start, The machine that arrived was not the machine that I ordered. The salesperson told me that PC Brand has their own mother board design. I said, "oh, You do not use micronics or mylex or any of the others?" "No we designed our own.", They said. BULL! The computer arrived and there was a Micronics 386/25 board in there , The one with the Intel cache controller and 32/64 Kbytes of cache. Talk about lying to the public! I called them up and they said that the sales staff is told that the motherboard is their own design! The company is sanctioning misleading the buyer. Its their policy! The next problem came when I set up the hard disk that they sold me. The disk has >1024 cylinders. What this means is that Not even DOS 4.0X that can handle big disks, can use all of the cylinders. They supply a driver from some third party but the catch is that certain commands will not work on the "D" drive that must be created to access the higher cylinders. CHKDSK will not work on the D: disk. Well I called customer support and They only had slower disks. I decided to upgrade my controller and change disk's while I was at it. So I sent in My 1:1 MFM controller and the Miniscribe 3085. I await a 1:1 RLL controller with a Toshiba disk drive. The paperwork cleared our purchasing Dept 3 weeks ago. They claimed never to have gotten it. I FAX'ed them (I told them about it 1st) a hard copy of the PO and thought it would be done with. I called them up the next day and they claim never to have received the FAX. I can not believe that they managed to misplace the original order and then lose the FAX! I have speant the last 4-5 days trying to get through to their customer support line and all I get is either 1) Busy, or, 2) Terminal hold. At this point I am contemplating shipping the whole machine back and ordering from someone else (non-mail order). At this point I certainly would not recommend that anybody buy from PC Brand. The hassle I have gone through is not worth any $ savings I might have received. I'll keep the net informed as to the outcome. We must prevent those commies from compromising the integrity of our precious bodily fluids. -Gen. Jack D. Ripper Ephram Cohen ephram@violet.berkeley.edu 466 44th St. #1 3210 Tolman Hall Oakland, CA 94609 Berkeley, CA 94720
phd_jacquier@gsbacd.uchicago.edu (07/14/89)
> > here is my experience with PC BRAND (Chicago IL). > I ordered a PC BRAND 386 25MHZ machine. > etc... follows some nightmarish story. > Now i am reading than, not very happy. I just ordered a PGS MAX 15 monitor from them... Today arrives the monitor. I told myself: "What can they do anyway. They don't manufacture it... I try to open the box and i can't... I finally open it to discover that the foam protecting stuff around the monitor has molten totally and resolidified around the monitor. You have to see it to believe it! Their wherehouse must be pretty hot! I will try to return it myself (I live in Chicago) and get an exchange. That should be a test of how well they handle these cases. I will report the end of the story.
jimb@athertn.Atherton.COM (Jim Burke) (07/14/89)
In article <26281@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> ephram@violet.berkeley.edu () writes: > >"No we designed our own.", They said. BULL! The >computer arrived and there was a Micronics 386/25 board in there , The >one with the Intel cache controller and 32/64 Kbytes of cache. Talk >about lying to the public! I called them up and they said that the >sales staff is told that the motherboard is their own design! The >company is sanctioning misleading the buyer. Its their policy! I do not question that this happened, but it is amazing if true. Why would anyone prefer a generic motherboard from an unknown company to a major brand name like Micronics? I think I would be relieved to find that it was a Micronics... -- Jim Burke (408) 734-9822 (temp) | I'll stop posting when they pry my jimb@Atherton.COM | cold, dead fingers from the smoking {decwrl,sun,hpda,pyramid}!athertn!jimb | keyboard.
scott@vicorp.UUCP (Scott Reed) (07/14/89)
In article <4436@tank.uchicago.edu< phd_jacquier@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes:
<I try to open the box and i can't... I finally open it to discover that the
<foam protecting stuff around the monitor has molten totally and resolidified
<around the monitor.
<You have to see it to believe it! Their wherehouse must be pretty hot!
Could be heat, but seems more likely that some solvent vapors got in there.
- scottjimb@athertn.Atherton.COM (Jim Burke) (07/14/89)
In article <4436@tank.uchicago.edu> phd_jacquier@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes:
:>I try to open the box and i can't... I finally open it to discover that the
:>foam protecting stuff around the monitor has molten totally and resolidified
:>around the monitor.
:>You have to see it to believe it! Their wherehouse must be pretty hot! I will
:>try to return it myself (I live in Chicago) and get an exchange. That should
:>be a test of how well they handle these cases. I will report the end of the
:>story.
Sounds like the problem could easily have occured in transport. It can get
awfully hot in a truck trailer. In any event, don't you all think you should
get to the bottom of this kind of thing before posting a business' name? I
mean, if it does turn out that the trucking company was at fault, you have
already damaged the company's reputation. You could possible even be sued
for lible.
--
Jim Burke (408) 734-9822 (temp) | I'll stop posting when they pry my
jimb@Atherton.COM | cold, dead fingers from the smoking
{decwrl,sun,hpda,pyramid}!athertn!jimb | keyboard.phd_jacquier@gsbacd.uchicago.edu (07/15/89)
>In article <4436@tank.uchicago.edu< phd_jacquier@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes: ><I try to open the box and i can't... I finally open it to discover that the ><foam protecting stuff around the monitor has molten totally and resolidified ><around the monitor. ><You have to see it to believe it! Their wherehouse must be pretty hot! > >Could be heat, but seems more likely that some solvent vapors got in there. > - scott End of my story: They do melt foam around equipment as was pointed out to me by some charitable souls but... The foam is melted inside plastic bags so that you do have two pieces of a casing that are reusable. The shipment i received had the monitor wrapped in a bag and the foam melted around it di- rectly in the carton box...absurd. In addition the monitor was damaged (casing and knobs). Also there was no manual or cables of any kind. PC Brand did let me drive myself to their offices and gave me an exchange on the spot with correctly melted foam ,cables and manual. So they did do the maximum to correct the problem.
Kenneth_R_Jongsma@cup.portal.com (07/16/89)
Not having seen the box your monitor came in, consider this a guess! There is one packing method I've seen used a lot where liquid foam is poured in the box, a sheet of plastic is layed over it, followed by the equipment in question. The top is then covered reversing the steps. In effect, a custom molded box each time. Perhaps this is what you received? Then again, perhaps not!
stenstro@algol.crd.ge.com (Ross Stenstrom) (07/20/89)
In article <26281@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> ephram@violet.berkeley.edu () writes:
&
& Well here is my experience with PC BRAND (Chicago IL).
...
&The one with the Intel cache controller and 32/64 Kbytes of cache. Talk
&about lying to the public! I called them up and they said that the
&sales staff is told that the motherboard is their own design!
... & The next problem came when I set up the hard disk that they sold
& The disk has >1024 cylinders. What this means is that Not even DOS
&4.0X that can handle big disks, can use all of the cylinders.
... & So I sent
&in My 1:1 MFM controller and the Miniscribe 3085. I await a 1:1 RLL
&controller with a Toshiba disk drive. The paperwork cleared our
&purchasing Dept 3 weeks ago. They claimed never to have gotten it.
... & I have speant the
&last 4-5 days trying to get through to their customer support line and
&all I get is either 1) Busy, or, 2) Terminal hold.
&
& At this point I am contemplating shipping the whole machine back
&and ordering from someone else (non-mail order). At this point I
&certainly would not recommend that anybody buy from PC Brand. The
&hassle I have gone through is not worth any $ savings I might have
&received.
Well, I had just decided that their price on their 286/12, The glowing
comments from Personal Computing's Feb 1989: 10 Best Mail Order Companies
-------- -----------
featured in their ad in PC Magazine July 1989, their 5 *Five* year
warranty, together with reasonable looking system features was hard to
beat.
The frabulous review:
"PC BRAND is the L L Bean of the personal computer mail order...
PC BRAND wants no unhappy customers, and it's service and support
policies help to insure that"
(But then I once was sent a Christmas wreath from LL Bean, a perishable
one, but they didn't bother to tell me on the outside of the box that
I should open it right away. When I opened it the season was mostly over
and it was shot...)
Now I know that two sample points does not a population make, but it
is not really good that the only two comments on PC Brand were negative.
Has anybody had a good experience or more bad experiences, for that
matter? Is the 5 year warranty a crock? How long have they been around?
What is "Personal Computing" really, an advertiser's rag whose comments
are bought by the advertisers?
Come on, lets have some more data points. I know that complaining about
mail order companies seems trivial but this is a big concern.
Kind of like the girl in Casablanca who asks Rick if Louie can be trusted,
will he keep his word, I believe she asks...
I'd also anxiously take recomendations on good cheap mail order places,
I can swap you a couple for cameras and stereos!
Thanks...
Ross Stenstrom
stenstro@algol.crd.ge.com (no m!) uunet!crdgw1.ge.com!stenstromchao@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Chia-Chi Chao) (07/21/89)
In article <1280@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> stenstro@algol.crd.ge.com (Ross Stenstrom) writes: >Now I know that two sample points does not a population make, but it >is not really good that the only two comments on PC Brand were negative. > >Has anybody had a good experience or more bad experiences, for that >matter? Is the 5 year warranty a crock? How long have they been around? >What is "Personal Computing" really, an advertiser's rag whose comments >are bought by the advertisers? I haven't bought any computer from PC Brand, but I got my 2400 baud internal modem (with BitCom) from them for $89, including shipping. All the line noise I have experienced with my other modem is gone. I am very satisfied. A friend of mine bought a Teac 3.5" 720K drive complete with 5.25" mounting kit from PC Brand sometime ago, and no complaint at all. The warranty is 100% parts and labor for the first year, and partial for 4 more years. This applies to items advertised as "PC BRAND" only. Other items carry the regular 1 year warranty.