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Nah, you are alright mate, I read some of the negative reviews with a pinch of salt and when things go wrong, Scan, OCUK and other similar companies are just as bad. The negative comments did give me a good giggle though. Like if you overclock a machine or install your motherboard incorrectly, how is it the shop’s fault?
Anyway, I didn’t want to make last my post longer than it already was as it wasn’t the whole story, but here goes:
Their mail orders, which is what my order falls under, they have a single point of failure. All mail orders have to go through this guy who has actually consistently not been good. I remember the first time I emailed him (or rather Scan) with 4 questions about a month ago with a parts list. One of the questions was build cost, he replied to tell me the faster ram was better with a link to the more expansive ram and no answer to any of my questions. Fair enough, the faster rams are probably better, but what about my other questions? And I think for the sort of machine I am wanting, asking 4 simple questions wasn’t that OTT... he eventually gave me a quote of a 3XS system that couldn’t be configured online, so it isn’t a 3XS system then... he also changed everything to basically Asus, Corsair and Seagate. While they are good brands, except Seagate, I had really bad experience with it. Why change what a customer has chosen without communicating with them first? Particularly, the actual models or functions are the same. He also went for a smaller cooler because the case I chose wouldn't fit, would it make more sense to go with a larger case? I pointed it out and he swapped for a larger case that could more than host a 360mm AIO cooler but kept the 240mm AIO in the quote. The 240mm is probably enough but again, it would have been nice to explain or make a note rather than just change it in the quote without mentioned it.
So I left the whole thing cold for a while because I was busy anyway. When I picked up the phone again last week to ask if I really have to speak to this guy again and very politely and briefly explained why, they told me categorically and absolutely he is the only person who can deal with my sort of orders . So I thought OK I’ll give him another go, history basically repeated itself. Except this time with my updated parts list, he didn’t change the brands I chose, but he still managed to change it to a 3XS system that can’t be configured online. So again, is it or is it not a 3XS system? I really have nothing against 3XS but if I wanted that, I’d have gone online and clicked away.
What force a customer into their own brand if they don’t want to? The up side? I’d get their 3XS welcome pack consists of an anti fray mouse pad and a mug. Yay!
On the subject of discount, remember I said I sent the email on Mon and didn’t get a reply till Fri? So when I called on Wed, I was more than reasonable to ask if they could reserve the parts that are low stock for me and also lock down the price as of Wed while we wait for this manager to reply so he could take his time and I wouldn’t lose out? They gave me a flat no - if you want the parts, you’d have to pay now and they’d deal with price difference refund if necessary. I wasn’t comfortable with it so I told them this and I said in that case, can this manager get back to me by the end of the same day, I got a yes but this never happened. The same conversation basically happened on Thu and again on Fri.
By the time he got back to me, I actually felt really pressured into paying. In my chaser email, I cheekily asked if they do student discount, not only didn’t he ignore that question in its entirety, he also told me the quote was only valid until the end of yesterday because of Black Friday. I mean I have never seen any quote would expire within 5 hours.
In the end, I think computer parts are compute parts, they don’t talk, they either work or they don’t. It’s the human beings that matters, if anything were to go wrong with this build, I dread to think having to speak to half a dozen of people to not get any issue resolved.
OCUK seems to have very similar rating and the really bad reviews share very similar storylines. So at least first impression with them was more professional.
I don’t know... maybe I’d go to PC World this afternoon... (only joking)
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ExTra
Sorry I didn't reply to your PM. Received it when drunk and subsequently forgot to reply.
Sounds like you've had a torrid time at Scan. Why not just persist with them? You've dithered for a year, the company has a Google rating of 4.6/5 from 4,000 reviews. You've had a shit time because you've gone outside their ordering process and the human beings involved have screwed up. Why not try to sort it out with them, maybe see if they will discount?