caldwell_t@darwin.ntu.edu.au (10/18/90)
I am considering buying a harddisk and interface from Montgomery Grant. Has anyone had any experiance with this firm. The reason I ask, is that living in Australia, I have a fair distance problem if something goes wrong. Thanks for any help. Malcolm Caldwell CALDWELL_T@DARWIN.NUT.EDU.AU Darwin Australia FIDO 3:690/648.3
whinery@hale.ifa.hawaii.edu (Alan Whinery) (10/19/90)
In article <1990Oct18.064518.464@darwin.ntu.edu.au> caldwell_t@darwin.ntu.edu.au writes: >I am considering buying a harddisk and interface from Montgomery Grant. >Has anyone had any experiance with this firm. > Malcolm Caldwell CALDWELL_T@DARWIN.NUT.EDU.AU > Darwin Australia FIDO 3:690/648.3 I bought my Amiga 500 from them 2 years ago. They are at least legitimate, if slightly inefficient. I called them 2 weeks after my order for a status report, and the phone guy had forgotten to take my phone number for a verification call, which they required before shipping on credit card orders. Of course, I was living in Connecticut at the time, which is about a three hour drive from Brooklyn, not a 20 hour airline flight. If I were you, I would consider it worth it to spend about 10-15% more for a local dealer. All in all, Montgomery Grant would be all right, though. A repectable company, very high profile. Alan Whinery whinery@hale.ifa.hawaii.edu No affiliation with MG
es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) (10/19/90)
In article <9926@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> whinery@hale.ifa.hawaii.edu (Alan Whinery) writes: >In article <1990Oct18.064518.464@darwin.ntu.edu.au> caldwell_t@darwin.ntu.edu.au writes: > >I bought my Amiga 500 from them 2 years ago. They are at least legitimate, >if slightly inefficient. I called them 2 weeks after my order for a >for a local dealer. All in all, Montgomery Grant would be all right, though. >A repectable company, very high profile. You are totally unfamiliar with Montgomery Grant. They are NOT legitimate, they regularly sell used equipment and refurbished equipment as new. They are not an authorized dealer and Commodore has tried to cut their supply source with no success. They should be avoided at all costs. They try to charge extra for keyboards and mice, they will ship you machines with KickStart 1.2 or the old agnus if you don't specifically ask, and God forbid is someone from AUSTRALIA tries to buy from them! -- Ethan Ethan Solomita: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu GorbachevAwards++; free (SovietUnion); IndependentRepublics += 15;
rchampe@hubcap.clemson.edu (Richard Champeaux) (10/19/90)
In article <1990Oct18.064518.464@darwin.ntu.edu.au> caldwell_t@darwin.ntu.edu.au writes: >I am considering buying a harddisk and interface from Montgomery Grant. >Has anyone had any experiance with this firm. The reason I ask, is that >living in Australia, I have a fair distance problem if something goes >wrong. > >Thanks for any help. > > Malcolm Caldwell CALDWELL_T@DARWIN.NUT.EDU.AU > Darwin Australia FIDO 3:690/648.3 NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! Don't buy from Montgomery Grant! They are scum! For instance, they are not an authorized Amiga dealer, and are therefore a grey market dealer. (They buy their Amigas from whoever will sell to them.) The fact that they are not an authorized dealer is particularly obvious from the fact that they sell Amigas through the mail, which Commodore forbids. They also have hidden costs, such as shipping. Look closely at the ad, they charge 5% of the cost for shipping and handling, and that's just within the U.S. I bought my Amiga 2000 from them (a story which I will tell below) at an advertised price of $1399. This was a very low price compared to other mail order houses, which is why I ordered it from them. However, they then tacked on about $200 (a little over 10% extra, since I requested it 2nd day air) for shipping and handling, which made the total price close to the other mail order houses. I had to send my Amiga back to them, and it only cost me $15 to send it UPS ground, including $1500 of insurance (it would have cost me $35 to send it back UPS 2nd day air). My Montgomery Grant story: I bought my Amiga 2000 from them for $1399 + $200 shipping. I received it promptly. However, the Amiga box itself (it was shipped within another box) was very abused and had had shipping labels cut off it. The computer was obviously used. The fan was very dirty (not dusty, dirty). The case was bent so that it didn't sit level and rocked. The mouse was obviously used. It's feet were worn and it's ball and rollers were dirty. Worst of all, it was an Amiga 500 mouse and didn't even fit through the hole in the 2000's case. The serial number of the computer didn't match the number on the box. The box said the computer came with Kickstart 1.3, yet the computer had Kickstart1.2. And finally, the drive didn't work. After some screaming over the phone, at my expense, they promised to give me a factory sealed Amiga. I agreed and sent the computer back with a fairly nasty letter included, one copy inside the outer box, and one in the Amiga's box. I received a replacement and have been happy with it ever since. After relating my story on the net, I received several letters from other people who had experiences simmilar to mine. One, for instance, was with a monitor. Oh, and by the way, I believe that computers bought from a grey market dealer are not covered under Commodore's warrenty. Even though you are buying a hard disk and controller, not an Amiga, I would avoid dealing with them. Just the fact that they are a grey market dealer would be enough to discourage me, because if they are dishonest in that respect, they might be slimy all over. Of course, my experience with them was 2 years ago, and they might have cleaned up their act. Yeah, right, they're still selling amigas mail order. If you are still dead set on ordering from them, call them up and ask them how much they will charge for shipping, and then call other places and compare the prices. I have a feeling that Montgomery Grant won't end up being all that much cheaper, if any. Looking at their ad, I notice that they now discount the shipping to 3% for orders over $1200 dollars. However, I also notice the sentence "Trade-in your used commodore or amiga equipment for a new, better model" Gee, I wonder what they do with the trade-ins? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rich Champeaux PLT: The plotter device for the Amiga! rchampe@hubcap.clemson.edu Ask for it at your neighborhood FTP site! "They say I'm lazy, but it takes all my time." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
jhc00614@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (10/19/90)
I strongly suggest not ordering from them, especially overseas.
Try Briwall or Safe Harbor...they are very reputable.
Briwall has lots of good hard drive deals that are every bit as
competitive as Montgomery Grant, too.
Jasonsattlerc@motcid.UUCP (Chris Sattler) (10/19/90)
caldwell_t@darwin.ntu.edu.au writes: >I am considering buying a harddisk and interface from Montgomery Grant. >Has anyone had any experiance with this firm. The reason I ask, is that >living in Australia, I have a fair distance problem if something goes >wrong. >Thanks for any help. > Malcolm Caldwell CALDWELL_T@DARWIN.NUT.EDU.AU > Darwin Australia FIDO 3:690/648.3 As a past customer of Montgomery Grant I will echo the advice which always appears on the net when this question is asked. STAY AWAY FROM MONTGOMERY GRANT
terry@helios.ucsc.edu (Terry Ricketts) (10/20/90)
In article <4859@copper.UUCP> motcid!sattlerc@uunet.uu.net writes: >caldwell_t@darwin.ntu.edu.au writes: > >>I am considering buying a harddisk and interface from Montgomery Grant. >>Has anyone had any experiance with this firm. The reason I ask, is that >>living in Australia, I have a fair distance problem if something goes >>wrong. > >As a past customer of Montgomery Grant I will echo the advice which always >appears on the net when this question is asked. > >STAY AWAY FROM MONTGOMERY GRANT As a side note to all this Montgomery Grant bashing (they deserve it too), .Info magazine has been running some full page adds for Montgomery Grant for the past few issues. I complained to them about accepting advertising from a company that is so well known as a poor risk for mail ordering. Their response to me was that they had heard rumors to that effect but had no documentation of actual cases where people had been having problems with Montgomery Grant. As soon as they got some complaints from some readers who had actually dealt with MG & had problems with them the adds would be dropped. So all of you who have horror stories to tell about Montgomery Grant should send them to .Info magazine. If this company cannot advertize in the popular & respected journals that Amiga users read maybe they will eithor clean up their act (which I doubt) or just go away. At least it will prevent some other poor trusting souls from believing that this is a good source of Amiga peripherals. I don't know what other magazines they advertize in. If each of the magazines starts getting piles of letters from angry readers they will drop this sleaze bag of a company from their magazines. | Terry Ricketts | Internet: terry@helios.ucsc.edu | Senior Electronics Engineer | loel@helios.ucsc.edu | Lick Observatory Electronics Lab | Phone: 408-459-2110 | University of Calif, Santa Cruz |
barrett@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Dan Barrett) (10/20/90)
In article <1990Oct18.064518.464@darwin.ntu.edu.au> caldwell_t@darwin.ntu.edu.au writes: >I am considering buying a harddisk and interface from Montgomery Grant. >Has anyone had any experiance with this firm. I have never ordered from MG. However, I have been reading this newsgroup for over 5 years, and I have read many, many complaints about MG. MG gets more complaints in comp.sys.amiga than ANY other mail-order firm. In addition, MG is (or at least was suspected of being) a grey-market Amiga reseller, according to reports in this newsgroup. I would not order from them. Try Safe Harbor Software or Briwall (they also advertise in the major magazines). Dan //////////////////////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ | Dan Barrett, Department of Computer Science Johns Hopkins University | | INTERNET: barrett@cs.jhu.edu | | | COMPUSERVE: >internet:barrett@cs.jhu.edu | UUCP: barrett@jhunix.UUCP | \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/////////////////////////////////////
lord_zar@ucrmath.ucr.edu (wayne wallace) (10/20/90)
rchampe@hubcap.clemson.edu (Richard Champeaux) writes: >In article <1990Oct18.064518.464@darwin.ntu.edu.au> caldwell_t@darwin.ntu.edu.au writes: >>I am considering buying a harddisk and interface from Montgomery Grant. >>Has anyone had any experiance with this firm. The reason I ask, is that >>living in Australia, I have a fair distance problem if something goes >>wrong. >> >>Thanks for any help. >> >> Malcolm Caldwell CALDWELL_T@DARWIN.NUT.EDU.AU >> Darwin Australia FIDO 3:690/648.3 >NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! >Don't buy from Montgomery Grant! They are scum! For instance, they are >not an authorized Amiga dealer, and are therefore a grey market dealer. (shipping cost of $200 horror story deleted) >My Montgomery Grant story: >I bought my Amiga 2000 from them for $1399 + $200 shipping. I received it >promptly. However, the Amiga box itself (it was shipped within another box) >was very abused and had had shipping labels cut off it. The computer was >obviously used. The fan was very dirty (not dusty, dirty). The case was >bent so that it didn't sit level and rocked. The mouse was obviously used. >It's feet were worn and it's ball and rollers were dirty. Worst of all, it >was an Amiga 500 mouse and didn't even fit through the hole in the 2000's >case. The serial number of the computer didn't match the number on the box. >The box said the computer came with Kickstart 1.3, yet the computer had >Kickstart1.2. And finally, the drive didn't work. >After some screaming over the phone, at my expense, they promised to give >me a factory sealed Amiga. I agreed and sent the computer back with a >fairly nasty letter included, one copy inside the outer box, and one >in the Amiga's box. I received a replacement and have been happy with it >ever since. After relating my story on the net, I received several letters >from other people who had experiences simmilar to mine. One, for instance, >was with a monitor. >Oh, and by the way, I believe that computers bought from a grey market >dealer are not covered under Commodore's warrenty. >Even though you are buying a hard disk and controller, not an Amiga, >I would avoid dealing with them. Just the fact that they are a grey >market dealer would be enough to discourage me, because if they are >dishonest in that respect, they might be slimy all over. Of course, >my experience with them was 2 years ago, and they might have cleaned >up their act. Yeah, right, they're still selling amigas mail order. >If you are still dead set on ordering from them, call them up and ask them >how much they will charge for shipping, and then call other places and >compare the prices. I have a feeling that Montgomery Grant won't end >up being all that much cheaper, if any. >Looking at their ad, I notice that they now discount the shipping to 3% >for orders over $1200 dollars. However, I also notice the sentence >"Trade-in your used commodore or amiga equipment for a new, better model" >Gee, I wonder what they do with the trade-ins? >------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >Rich Champeaux PLT: The plotter device for the Amiga! >rchampe@hubcap.clemson.edu Ask for it at your neighborhood FTP site! >"They say I'm lazy, but it takes all my time." >------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I bought my A2500/20, Magnavox 14" monitor(non-stereo), and an A1010 (??) floppy drive from them in Jan '90, found out my check didn't cover shipping insurance ($100) by the end of january/february, and received it all at the end of march, within the 6-8 week shipping time, once they had received full payment. My A2500 was apparently factory sealed, as the box was intact, the mouse and keyboard were quite clean, and I experienced no problems with the Amiga aside from taking a while to remember some old games like Solitaire Royale (Spectrum Holobyte, tetris-warrior) and Robocop (Data East, they need some real programmers!!!) need to be booted up in 68000 mode :-) I am in southern California, and yet they somehow were able to ship reliably to me all the way from NYC. Maybe they're cleaned up slightly, but not to to the extent of stopping their sales of Amigas ? Oh, guess what ? I ordered my Amiga 2 weeks before I saw the first of several notices on c.s.a. that Montgomery Grant was a "grey market" company. I've d/l'ed animations, demos, and some other stuff, all of which has been running perfectly on my A2500, bought from that paragon of distrust, Montgomery Grant. I've found a BBS sysop who can buy software & stuff from a wholesaler, at 30% off retail, so I doubt I'll be dealing with any mail order companies for the forseeable future :-) If you can, do the same. I'm already enjoying Pirates! (MY GOD, the first game that has the ability to install itself on your HD with a point and click!!!!!) and have ordered more. Now to d/l a good word processor that outperforms or duplicates vi... (I hate EMACS. you can certainly customize it, but it takes longer for setting defaults for anything else I've ever seen! ughh!!! ) Anyways, add my story to the non-horror list. But, with what Rich has been through, maybe you should stay away. Just my $0.02, Wayne -- * // Only /\ |Lord Zar,Commander Of All He Surveys|Stay Alert! Trust * *\\ // /--\MIGA |(and hater of spaces near commas.) |No One! Keep--AHHHH* * \X/ Internet: lord_zar@ucrmath.ucr.edu QuantumLink & Portal: Lord_Zar * * I'm a Purple Hearts & Yellow Moons kinda guy; I'm vay-teeng for you, dahlink* ******************************************************************************* *Don't think of them as pedestrians, think of them as semi-mobile speed bumps.* *-Lord Teka * *******************************************************************************
J56QC@CUNYVM (10/22/90)
Hey I agree.. and I live a few miles away from the city... this store sucks.... . I never go their... they sell shitty stuff... I bought a floppy drive.. and i didn't work.... This STORE SHOULD BE SHUT DOWN
david@starsoft.UUCP (Dave Lowrey) (10/23/90)
>In article <8004@darkstar.ucsc.edu> terry@helios.ucsc.edu (Terry Ricketts) writes: >In article <4859@copper.UUCP> motcid!sattlerc@uunet.uu.net writes: >>caldwell_t@darwin.ntu.edu.au writes: >> > As a side note to all this Montgomery Grant bashing (they deserve it too), >.Info magazine has been running some full page adds for Montgomery Grant for >the past few issues. I complained to them about accepting advertising from >a company that is so well known as a poor risk for mail ordering. Their >response to me was that they had heard rumors to that effect but had no >documentation of actual cases where people had been having problems with >Montgomery Grant. As soon as they got some complaints from some readers who >had actually dealt with MG & had problems with them the adds would be dropped. > So all of you who have horror stories to tell about Montgomery Grant should >send them to .Info magazine. If this company cannot advertize in the popular >& respected journals that Amiga users read maybe they will eithor clean up >their act (which I doubt) or just go away. At least it will prevent some other >poor trusting souls from believing that this is a good source of Amiga >peripherals. > I don't know what other magazines they advertize in. If each of the >magazines starts getting piles of letters from angry readers they will drop >this sleaze bag of a company from their magazines. > AmigaWorld has their ads. I called them once, and they said the same thing. If they got 1st hand complaints (not rumors), they would "take action" (whatever that means). > >| Terry Ricketts | Internet: terry@helios.ucsc.edu >| Senior Electronics Engineer | loel@helios.ucsc.edu >| Lick Observatory Electronics Lab | Phone: 408-459-2110 >| University of Calif, Santa Cruz | -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- These words be mine. The company doesn't care, because I am the company! :-) Dave Lowrey | david@starsoft or {uhnix1,moray}!starsoft!david Starbound Software Group | Houston, TX | "Dare to be stupid!" -- Weird Al Yankovic
gordon@sugar.hackercorp.com (Gordon Niessen) (10/24/90)
I can't say much bad about them yet, I haven't had time to investigate the problem. But I do know the ST296N hard drive I ordered has a problem. The light on the front of the drive does not work. They also didn't ship it until more then a week after they said they would. Though they had already charged my credit card the day after the order. I hope they don't give me a hassle about the return. And please no flames about Seagate. -- /-------------------------------------------------------------------------\ | Gordon Niessen | My opinions are none of your business. | | gordon@sugar.hackercorp.com | "Never underestimate a users stupidity" | \-------------------------------------------------------------------------/
glin@lehi3b15.csee.Lehigh.EDU (George Lin [900116]) (10/25/90)
In article <11026@hubcap.clemson.edu> rchampe@hubcap.clemson.edu (Richard Champeaux) writes: >I bought my Amiga 2000 from them for $1399 + $200 shipping. I received it >promptly. However, the Amiga box itself (it was shipped within another box) >was very abused and had had shipping labels cut off it. The computer was >obviously used. The fan was very dirty (not dusty, dirty). The case was I had a similar experience with a New York camera mailorder place. They sent me a used camera (probably display model) with the big orange dot on it. If you've been to New York before, all the items they have in the display window have those orange and green dots. I was just thinking about buying a hard drive w/ controller from them but I think I'm going to make sure to tell them to send it in a factory sealed box. If anybody have seen a package deal with better price than theirs, please email me. Package: IVS Trumpt Professional w/ Seagate ST1096N for $559+$30 shipping. Thanx.
waw5805@isc.rit.edu (W.A. Willis ) (10/26/90)
>Article 1803 of comp.sys.amiga: >Path: nowhere!rit!rochester!cornell!uw-beaver!mit-eddie!wuarchive!uunet!munnari.oz.au!uhccux!hale!whinery >From: whinery@hale.ifa.hawaii.edu (Alan Whinery) >Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga >Subject: Re: Montgomery Grant? >Keywords: mail order dealers blancmange extraterrestrial >Message-ID: <9926@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> >Date: 18 Oct 90 18:53:55 GMT >References: <1990Oct18.064518.464@darwin.ntu.edu.au> >Sender: news@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu >Organization: Institute For Astronomy, Hawaii >Lines: 19 > >In article <1990Oct18.064518.464@darwin.ntu.edu.au> caldwell_t@darwin.ntu.edu.au writes: >>I am considering buying a harddisk and interface from Montgomery Grant. >>Has anyone had any experiance with this firm. > >> Malcolm Caldwell CALDWELL_T@DARWIN.NUT.EDU.AU >> Darwin Australia FIDO 3:690/648.3 >> >I bought my Amiga 500 from them 2 years ago. They are at least legitimate, >if slightly inefficient. I called them 2 weeks after my order for a >status report, and the phone guy had forgotten to take my phone number >for a verification call, which they required before shipping on credit >card orders. Of course, I was living in Connecticut at the time, which >is about a three hour drive from Brooklyn, not a 20 hour airline flight. >If I were you, I would consider it worth it to spend about 10-15% more >for a local dealer. All in all, Montgomery Grant would be all right, though. >A repectable company, very high profile. >Alan Whinery >whinery@hale.ifa.hawaii.edu >No affiliation with MG I bought my amiga from them about 2 years also (in addition to a Magnavox monitor, Amigamodem, power strip). I agree with the above article when he says that it would be worth it to spend 10-15% more for a local dealer. I would definately not, however, call Montgomery Grant a "respectable company." There are enough horror stories about MG on thenet already so I wont add anymore (even though I have enough of my own). If I were you though, I'd stay away from MG.
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) (10/30/90)
david@starsoft.UUCP (Dave Lowrey) writes: >AmigaWorld has their ads. >complaints (not rumors), they would "take action" (whatever that means). Why doesn't Commodore call them up or take some action? It should be clear cut because: 1> MG is not an authorized Amiga dealer, and yet they are advertizing Amiga's for sale. 2> Amiga's are not supposed to be sold mail order and they are doing so in their (MG's) ads. That alone should be enough for CBM to get the magazine to pull their ads. Or even for CBM to sue MG. -- John Sparks |D.I.S.K. Public Access Unix System| Multi-User Games, Email sparks@corpane.UUCP |PH: (502) 968-DISK 24Hrs/2400BPS | Usenet, Chatting, =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-|7 line Multi-User system. | Downloads & more. A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of----Ogden Nash
lcline@sequent.com (Larry Cline) (10/31/90)
In article <3431@corpane.UUCP> sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) writes: >david@starsoft.UUCP (Dave Lowrey) writes: >> >>AmigaWorld has their ads. >> >>complaints (not rumors), they would "take action" (whatever that means). > >Why doesn't Commodore call them up or take some action? It should be clear >cut because: > That would be anti-trust and get the Feds on C='s butt. >1> MG is not an authorized Amiga dealer, and yet they are advertizing Amiga's > for sale. > They are buying their Amigas used/refurbed/from excess stock/out of business sales. They are not buying machines from C=. >2> Amiga's are not supposed to be sold mail order and they are doing so in > their (MG's) ads. > C= requires that all sales have a face-to-face meeting with the customer (at least the last time I was involved in sales - rules could have changed since then). This would preclude mail order normally. If C= could prove an authorized dealer was selling to MG or by mail order they would probably pull that dealer's authorization. >That alone should be enough for CBM to get the magazine to pull their ads. >Or even for CBM to sue MG. C= could conceivably sue MG and spend a lot of money and look like a bad guy to Joe Bloe consumer because they (C=) are trying to force the consumer to pay higher prices. Or they could just try to strangle the grey market supply and customers will stop calling MG because it takes 6 months to get a system in. C= could not force a magazine to pull an ad unless that ad violated criminal laws (maybe even civil) and they got the Feds to have it pulled (which is an unlikely prospect). >-- >John Sparks |D.I.S.K. Public Access Unix System| Multi-User Games, Email >sparks@corpane.UUCP |PH: (502) 968-DISK 24Hrs/2400BPS | Usenet, Chatting, >=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-|7 line Multi-User system. | Downloads & more. >A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of----Ogden Nash Larry Cline lcline@sequent.sequent.com ".sig, Contractors don't need to stinkin' .sig!!!"
bwdavies@rodan.acs.syr.edu (11/04/90)
As long as I've been reading this group (about a year), there have been complaints about Montgomery Grant. I think that the solution to this problem is for the readers of the magazines to pressure the magazines to not take ads from companies that screw their customers. Most of the magazines I read frequently will investigate complaints about their advertisers, and will refuse to take future advertisements from these companies if they get enough complaints. Send letters (or copies of letters) complaining about the way you were dealt with to the magazine that carried the ad you ordered from. Hint that you might be considering cancelling your subscription if they continue to carry ads from bad businesses. If enough people complain, the magazines are going to have to do something, and if they stop carrying ads from problem companies, then there will be fewer orders sent to those companies, and thus fewer problems. Commodore doesn't have as big a problem with MG as the consumers do, it's up to the consumers to take care of themselves. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sam Hill Cabal "If there's anything insidious going bwdavies@sunrise.bitnet on in the world, the media is behind bwdavies@rodan.acs.syr.edu it!" -T.J. Teru