[net.micro] Mail order

Drew.Anderson@CMU-CS-C.ARPA (Drew Anderson) (05/19/85)

Would the gentleman who mentioned the bad experience with CalDig please
send to me or post the information concerning his experience?  I too had
an experience with them which I would not call good (but not necessarily
bad, just unusual) for the amount of about $700.  I had ordered two
SA712 disk drives which I was told were in stock.  A few weeks went by
and I called them and complained.  They told me I would get shipment
in the next couple of days.  The next day, a UPS Red (overnight) package
came (impressive) but it only had one drive in it.  I called them back
and said to cancel the other drive.  Here the different thing happened.
They issued a credit to my account instead of to my visa account.  I do
not know if that is what they thought that I wanted or what, but I did
get it straightened out without much hassle.  All of the other dealings
with them have been very good and I would recommend them.
			Drew Anderson
			DDA@cmu-cs-c.arpa
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dal@tikal.UUCP (Don Ledford) (05/20/85)

I also had a bad experience with California Digital.  I ordered $80
worth of diskettes.  When they arrived none would format (tried them
on several machines).  So I packed them with a letter
explaining I wanted replacements and sent them back.

After a month of no response I called California Digital.
"What you didn't call and get a return requisition number?!" 
Several weeks and phone calls later I was told if I could prove the
package got there they would replace the diskettes.  Since it was over
3 months since I had sent the diskettes the mail trace failed.
California Digital told me I was out of luck.

I delt with them in good faith and in a businesslike manner.  I feel
the diskettes were returned properly (in retrospect I should have
insured them).  California Digital was unresponsive and often rude.
I got the impression they never even checked on my order; all phone
calls were initiated by me.

I've been to busy to bother with them since, but this sure feels good.

Don Ledford

roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (05/21/85)

> So I packed them with a letter explaining I wanted replacements and sent
> them back. [...]  After a month of no response I called California
> Digital.  "What you didn't call and get a return requisition number?!"

	I know this won't help much in this specific case, but in general
it is a bad idea to just pack something up and send it back without first
contacting the company for instructions.  Everything I've ever bought has
come with specific instructions not to return the item without getting a
rma number first.

	Also, never pay for something until you get it.  Once they have
your money, what possible interest could they have in solving your
problems?  If you order something on your Visa, etc. and are dissatisfied
with the product (or just plain never got it), you can usually refuse to
pay the Visa bill will little or no ill effects.
-- 
allegra!phri!roy (Roy Smith)
System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute

bright@dataio.UUCP (Walter Bright) (05/29/85)

I am posting this account of my experiences in order to save someone
a lot of trouble (by not dealing with this company).

Two months ago, I ordered a 33 meg disk drive for my PC from PC's Limited,
a mail order house in Austin, Texas. The drive arrived a week later. The
problems with the drive were:

	1) It was dead on arrival.
	2) The documentation was terrible.
	3) There were programs on the supplied floppy with no
	   explanation of what they were for.

I called up PC's Limited, got an RMA #, and returned the junk by
registered mail. 1 week later I got another one. This one was also
dead on arrival (I carefully followed their lack of instructions
in installing it, having to do a lot of guessing). I called up
PC's Limited again (they won't talk to you on their toll-free number,
you must call their toll number), got another RMA # and send that
junk back too. That was some weeks ago. I have not heard from them
since. They do not return my phone calls. The clincher was that
I was charged for BOTH disk drives! I am now out nearly
$3000 and have nothing to show for it. I am currently pursuing other
avenues to try and get my money back.