sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) (06/08/89)
A few weeks ago I posted a request for some of you to help me in gathering
information for an article I am writing for my local user group. I wanted
to write an article that would help my local group to buy Amiga 2000's and
2500's through mail order. First, let me thank all who replied: "Thank you".
Now, many people wrote and wanted me to post the newsletter article when I
finished it. So here it is. I am submitting it here first in hopes that some
of you might be able to add to it or critique it before I submit the article to
the newsletter.
BTW: Our local Amiga group is A.S.K. - The Amiga Society of Kentuckiana
(serving Louisville and southern Indiana).
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The Mail Order Amiga
by John Sparks
There are three main methods of buying Amiga equipment:
One is to go to a dealer, who will happily help you in selecting your purchase.
The advantages to buying through a dealer are multiple: You can try before you
buy. The dealer (usually) has repair facilities on site. Very easy return
policy, just drive on over. But all these fringe benefits are not free. You
pay for them by having to pay a high price for the product.
Another is to buy used equipment. With this method you take your chances. There
is no warranty. But you can get excellent prices. A major drawback is that you
have to wait around till someone is selling the piece that you want.
The third, and the subject of this article, is Mail Order. Mail Order can be
risky, but if you follow the guidelines provided below, you can minimize those
risks. The major advantage in Mail Order is PRICE. Not only can you find some
extremely good discounts, but most prices quoted are not carved in stone. You
can haggle them down, sometimes hundreds of dollars and sometimes only a few
dollars. Many will be willing to beat a competitors price, so use this fact to
drive the price down.
In researching this article I called several mail order places and received
prices on an Amiga 2000, 2500 and the boards that make the 2000 into the 2500.
I chose these particular pieces of equipment for two reasons. One: I am
planning on buying a 2500 next year. And Two: Most members of A.S.K. already
have Amiga 500's or Amiga 1000's, and will be interested in how much it will
cost them to upgrade. Also I received help and prices from several people on
Usenet, a nationwide computer network.
Well, let's get on with it! First, The Amiga 2500 is an Amiga 2000 with the
following options: A2620 - 68020 card with 2 meg of 32bit memory
A2090A - SCSI hard disk controller
40 Megabyte Ronin hard disk drive
Price Comparisons:
These prices represent the first quoted price to me from the mail order house.
Your prices may vary. Take them as a reference only. Prices from May 1989.
Product Computability Go Amigo J&R Music
-------- ------------- -------- ---------
Amiga 2000 $1489 $1479 $1499
Amiga 2500 $3299 $3399 $3359
A2620 $1349 $1499 don't carry
A2090A don't carry $ 319 don't carry
Flicker Fixer ? $ 469 ?
Mitsubishi 14"
Multisync monitor ? $ 599 ?
AT bridge Card ? $1195 ?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
? = not able to check on availability or price on this item
Notes:
Go Amigo and Computability are very helpful on the phone.
J & R kept me on hold for 5 minutes then passed me to three different people.
The salesman then didn't even know what the parts were and had to look them up.
Of course they sell more than just Amigas.
I generally found that it is cheaper to buy the Amiga 2500 as a package deal
rather than buying the parts separate. You basically are getting the Ronin disk
drive for almost free when you buy the 2500.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are several other mail order places you can try, I just picked a small
sampling for this article (I also had some help in getting the prices)
Some of the other reputable mail order places I know of are Computer Discount
and Computer Mail Order.
There is least one that I think of that I should warn you against. Several
people on Usenet warned me away from Abel Supply. Many complained about losing
their money and others warned of their 'No Refund, exchanges only' Policy. I
was told a good rule of thumb in regards to Abel was: "get it C.O.D." that way
you have the product before they have your money. Make sure it is in stock
before you buy it. That goes for any mail order place. If they want to back
order it, tell them you will place your order when it arrives and not before.
Below is a guide that will help you in dealing with mail ordering.
--
A Users Guide to Mail Order.
Before ordering from a mail order company there are a couple of questions
that you should ask yourself first.
1. Am I prepared to wait for the item if something goes wrong? In most
cases the items that you want to order is available from your local
hardware/software dealer immediately. Granted it is probably more
expensive then the mail order price, but that is what you pay for
convenience. The item is there and you can take it home right away.
2. Can I get a better price from my local dealer? Usually your local dealer
can be talked into giving you a better price on an item. And if you
and some other people are looking for the same item you can organize a
'group purchase' and usually get a better per unit sales price.
If you do decide that you want to purchase via mail order make sure that
you look around first. There are a LOT of places out there each saying that
they are the lowest, and a lot saying they will meet or beat any other
advertised price. Take advantage of this and shop around. Invest in a few
phone calls and do some comparison shopping.
While you are asking about prices from companies you should also ask the
following questions to them as well. These questions SHOULD greatly
influence your choice on who you want to deal with.
You also should consider calling the company's local Better Business Bureau and
check and see if there have been any complaints lodged against them. Another
source of information is to contact the companies local UPS office and check
for complaints about shipping from dissatisfied customers.
(Most of these question are taken without permission from page 112 in the
August 1988 issue of Computer Shopper. The page is an ad from the
Microcomputer Marketing Council.)
1. How long has the company been in business?
2. Does the company offer technical assistance?
3. Is there a service facility?
4. Are manufacturer's warranties handled through the company?
5. Does the seller have formal return and refund policies? Very Important!!!
many places have a 'All Sales Final' Policy or will only let you choose
alternate soft/hardware instead of refunding your money.
6. Is there and additional charge for use of credit cards? (This is the one
that I hate the most. Companies WANT and NEED your business. To get
it they offer the consumer a more convenient way of purchasing. Why
should you pay a penalty to use this form of payment???)
7. Are credit card charges held until time of shipping? (They SHOULD ALWAYS
be held until time of shipping)
8. What are the shipping costs for the items ordered?
9. Are there any re-stocking fees? (these fees should NOT apply to you
the consumer. This is a general maintenance type fee that the company
SHOULD have to pay.)
Reputable dealers will answer all these questions without giving you the
run around. If they do [give you the run around] , do not deal with them.
Chances are they are not very reliable.
Now that you have decided to deal with a certain business you should be
a specific with them as possible.
1. State as completely and accurately as you can what merchandise you want
including brand name, model and catalog number (if possible).
2. Establish that the item is in stock, is READY to ship and confirm
the shipping date.
3. Confirm that the price is as advertised.
4. Obtain an order number and identification of the sales representative.
5. Make a record of your order, noting exact price including shipping and
handling, date of order, promised shipping date and the order number.
6. If you can avoid it, NEVER pay with cash, cheque or money order.
Use a credit card, it is safer for you in the end. you can always
call your credit card company (Visa or whatever) and refuse payment
on an item. You should also not use a debit card. Debit cards are like
credit cards but the money comes out of your checking account. The dangers
of checks, money orders and debit cards are that if you have a problem,
it's too bad... the seller already has your money. An alternative to
credit card is COD. With COD you are sure that you have your order before
you pay, but you still may be in trouble if the product is unsatisfactory.
You may have difficulty returning it for a refund since they already have
your cash.
If you do have a problem with a company, and you wish to do something about it,
here are some things you can do.
1> Call the manager of the company, Tell him the problem [make sure you have
all the numbers, dates, etc. ready]. Tell him you will follow up in a few
days and will keep calling until the problem is resolved.
2> Tell the manager that unless your problem is solved, you will:
A> Call your credit card company and refuse payment.
B> Call the publication that you found their ad in and make a formal
complaint and request to get their ad pulled.
C> Call the US Postal service and lodge a complaint for mail fraud.
D> Call the Better Business Bureau.
E> Get your Lawyer to call them.
Make sure you stay civil in your discussion. Even though yelling will make you
feel better, it only angers the person on the other end and will make it that
more likely (s)he won't do anything to help you. But don't take a lot of run
around from them. Be firm and make sure they know that you know your rights.
Using these simple guidelines you can avoid a lot of hassles and headaches
that others have gone though. You are a costumer with certain rights and
you deserve to be protected. Make sure you exercise these rights and
protect yourself. It will save time and money in the end for both you and
the mail order business you are dealing with.
---------
I would like to thank Trevor Paquette for writing most of 'A User's Guide to
Mail Order' and Blaine Gardner for helping with some of the pricing data and
some of the tips that I added to the 'Guide'.
Computability: 1-800-558-0003
J&R Music: 1-800-221-8180
Go Amigo: 1-800-232-6442
Computer Mail Order: 1-800-233-8950
Computer Discount: 1-800-825-2943
--
John Sparks | {rutgers|uunet}!ukma!corpane!sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps
||||||||||||||| sparks@corpane.UUCP | 502/968-5401 thru -5406
Anything not worth doing is not worth doing well. -- G. Bellej0s+@andrew.cmu.edu (Eric Jenkins) (06/09/89)
John Sparks writes: >6. Is there and additional charge for use of credit cards? (This is the one > that I hate the most. Companies WANT and NEED your business. To get > it they offer the consumer a more convenient way of purchasing. Why > should you pay a penalty to use this form of payment???) The reason companies have an additional charge for use of a credit card is because credit card companies charge the companies for use of a credit card; usually between 3%-5% of the purchase price. That means that if you could purchase an Amiga 2500 from Go Amigo for $3399 with your Visa credit card, Go Amigo would submit a charge order of $3399 to Visa, Visa would debit your account by $3399 and Visa would send Go Amigo only $3297.03 cash. To make up for this $101.97 difference between the purchase price and the amount of money actually collected by Go Amigo when you use your credit card, Go Amigo charges you the difference. What Go Amigo could do instead is advertise $3500.97and not charge extra for the Visa, but then those people who want to pay cash would have to pay the extra $101.97. So, it seems to me that the way it is done now is the best policy since purchasers are given a choice of low price or ease of payment (assuming that choices are good things). --Eric Jenkins
cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) (06/09/89)
In article <MYXg=3y00VA6E4WFIr@andrew.cmu.edu> (Eric Jenkins) writes: ^^^^ this looks just like line noise :-) John Sparks writes: >6. Is there and additional charge for use of credit cards? (This is > the one that I hate the most. And Eric explains : > The reason companies have an additional charge for use of a credit card > is because credit card companies charge the companies for use of > a credit card; usually between 3%-5% of the purchase price. And interestingly enough, in CA it is illegal to charge someone a surcharge for using a charge card. [You see all those bank lobbiests are good for something] There is a place locally called Fry's Electronics that got nailed by this law. Now it isn't illegal to give a discount for cash, (which astute readers will notice is almost the same thing) just to charge extra for credit cards. The original intent of the law was to protect people from being lured into stores with low prices and then having the price jacked up on them when they whipped out the plastic. --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you. "A most excellent barbarian ... Genghis Kahn!"
thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) (06/10/89)
John Sparks writes:
" Well, let's get on with it! First, The Amiga 2500 is an Amiga 2000 with the
" following options: A2620 - 68020 card with 2 meg of 32bit memory
" A2090A - SCSI hard disk controller
" 40 Megabyte Ronin hard disk drive
^^^^^
and
" I generally found that it is cheaper to buy the Amiga 2500 as a package deal
" rather than buying the parts separate. You basically are getting the Ronin disk
" drive for almost free when you buy the 2500. ^^^^^
While I'm sure the fine folks at Ronin R&D (in Alameda, CA) would be pleased
to learn their name is associated with a crucial part of the Amiga A2500, the
drive is actually manufactured by RODIME (of Scotland). :-)
John's article is overall quite good, but one issue I didn't see covered is
that of sales tax; there's a move afoot by states such as California and others
to badger companies to collect sales tax even when the company(ies) don't have
business offices in the state. Such sales tax collection "persuasion" could be
the death of mail order when the tax collection erodes some of the advantages
of mail order. :-(
Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]ins_adjb@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Daniel Jay Barrett) (06/10/89)
In article <MYXg=3y00VA6E4WFIr@andrew.cmu.edu> ej0s+@andrew.cmu.edu (Eric Jenkins) writes:
:The reason companies have an additional charge for use of a credit card
:is because credit card companies charge the companies for use of
:a credit card; usually between 3%-5% of the purchase price. That means
:that if you could purchase an Amiga 2500 from Go Amigo for $3399 with
:your Visa credit card, Go Amigo would submit a charge order of $3399
:to Visa, Visa would debit your account by $3399 and Visa would send
:Go Amigo only $3297.03 cash. To make up for this $101.97 difference
:between the purchase price and the amount of money actually collected
:by Go Amigo when you use your credit card, Go Amigo charges you the
:difference.
I was under the impression that it is illegal for a company to
charge you extra like this for using a credit card. This is why two-price
gas stations (cash/credit) always put the credit price on the pumps and give
you a "cash discount" -- it's a loophole to pass credit charges to their
customers. (Think about it -- a cash price on the pumps makes more sense
because credit card customers are not concerned with exact change....)
Does anyone know the actual laws about this?
--
# Dan Barrett barrett@cs.jhu.edu (128.220.13.4) ARPANET #
# ins_adjb@jhuvms.bitnet BITNET #
# ins_adjb@jhunix.UUCP UUCP (unreliable) #
# Dept. of Computer Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218 #Doug_B_Erdely@cup.portal.com (06/13/89)
Richard Sexton mentioned something about Credit Card Surcharges being
a no-no in CA.....
So that explains why Creative Computers dropped their surchage for Credit
Card orders a few months back. I figured it was NOT out of the goodness of
their heart. :) :)
- Doug -
Doug_B_Erdely@Portal.Cup.Comjmsc@inesc.UUCP (Miguel Casteleiro) (06/13/89)
In article <767@corpane.UUCP>, sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) writes: > [...] > In researching this article I called several mail order places [...] > [...] Also I received help and prices from several people on > Usenet, a nationwide computer network. Usenet is a worldwide computer network. Just my $0.02 !! > [...] > > John Sparks | {rutgers|uunet}!ukma!corpane!sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps -- __ Miguel Casteleiro at __ /// INESC, Lisboa, Portugal. \\\/// Only UUCP: ...!mcvax!inesc!jmsc "Life is hard and then you die." \XX/ Amiga
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) (06/13/89)
In article <19326@cup.portal.com> thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes: >John Sparks writes: > >" Well, let's get on with it! First, The Amiga 2500 is an Amiga 2000 with the >" following options: A2620 - 68020 card with 2 meg of 32bit memory >" A2090A - SCSI hard disk controller >" 40 Megabyte Ronin hard disk drive ^^^^^ > >While I'm sure the fine folks at Ronin R&D (in Alameda, CA) would be pleased >to learn their name is associated with a crucial part of the Amiga A2500, the >drive is actually manufactured by RODIME (of Scotland). :-) BIG OOOOOOPS! on the phone I could have swore the salesman told me RONIN. Oh Oh. Shit.... [red faced with embarrasment] Thanks for the correction. please don't invalidate the article because of this misunderstanding. > >John's article is overall quite good, but one issue I didn't see covered is >that of sales tax; there's a move afoot by states such as California and others >to badger companies to collect sales tax even when the company(ies) don't have >business offices in the state. Such sales tax collection "persuasion" could be >the death of mail order when the tax collection erodes some of the advantages >of mail order. :-( Damn straight it would. already shipping costs make up for any money saved on Taxes, that's why I didn't bother mentioning any advantage to not paying sales tax. I wasn't aware of this move to start charging sales tax. This would put a large damper on mail order. > >Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ] Now I have to track down all copies of my article and change RONIN to RODIME. :-) -- John Sparks | {rutgers|uunet}!ukma!corpane!sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps ||||||||||||||| sparks@corpane.UUCP | 502/968-5401 thru -5406 Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) (06/16/89)
>Response 3 of 6 (205) by ins_adjb at jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU on Sun 11 Jun 89 06:04 >[Daniel Jay Barrett] >In article <MYXg=3y00VA6E4WFIr@andrew.cmu.edu> ej0s+@andrew.cmu.edu (Eric >Jenkins) writes: >:The reason companies have an additional charge for use of a credit card >:is because credit card companies charge the companies for use of >:a credit card; usually between 3%-5% of the purchase price. That means >:that if you could purchase an Amiga 2500 from Go Amigo for $3399 with > I was under the impression that it is illegal for a company to >charge you extra like this for using a credit card. This is why two-price No, it's not illegal as far as I know, but it IS usually against the processing company's policies to do this.... That is, the company that clears the charges (and in actuality posts the money to the company's bank account) sets the rules -- and one of these is usually "no credit card surcharges". The "cash discount" is the way around this, of course. Where you get into the grey area is when a company accepts COD payments that are not certified. In this case it's debatable whether you're paying cash....and if the lower price applies to these payments, they are almost certainly breaking the rules. There are SOME credit-card processing companies that say "no price differential between credit cards and cash allowed". If a company uses one of these for processing their charge slips, and offers a cash discount, they will get NAILED by the bank and credit card processing company should they get caught. It's a contractual breech, yes, but what business would want their bank to get pissed off at them?! Note that MOST processing companies do prohibit a surcharge -- but only a few prohibit cash discounts. Thus, if you run into one that has a surcharge, and can divine which processing outfit they use, you can stick it to them and good. The problem, of course, is in finding out where they bank.... and which of the many firms handles that bank's merchant accounts. IF you can figure this out then sending the ad to the company that does the processing and/or their bank should get the heat turned up nice and high. (We accept VISA and Master Card, so we are "in" on all this good stuff). -- Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl) Public Access Data Line: [+1 312 566-8911], Voice: [+1 312 566-8910] Macro Computer Solutions, Inc. "Quality Solutions at a Fair Price"