calamarain
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Do not buy anything from the company Acer. I'll repeat that - do not buy anything from Acer. As I write this, I am quite furious with them - allow me to explain why.

Recently, I ordered a monitor from a third party company - a flatscreen monitor made by Acer, to be exact. It had a single dead pixel (expected), but worked fine for a month. And then the side of the screen started fritzing and going staticy, becoming a semi-mirror of the other side. Understandably, I wasn't happy, but as requested, sent it back to Acer for repairs, as it was still under guarantee/warranty. The monitor was well packed in a large box with lots of packing peanuts. All appropriate accessories (the AC adaptor, the kettle lead and the connector) were included.

That's not the bit that made me angry, defects like that can happen.

Acer got the monitor, held it for 2 weeks and then shipped it back to me. With just the kettle lead and the connector, no AC adaptor. This annoyed me, I rang them up and told them about their mistake, and they promised to send out an adaptor. Only they didn't. A week later, another connector arrived in the post, they'd got it wrong. Now I was beginning to get peeved. They'd screwed up twice. I rang them up again and told them about the problem, and was told that the case had been closed, and transferred me to technical support.

When I spoke to them, they claimed that I'd never included any of the accessories in the box to begin with. No adaptor, no kettle lead, no connector. Bullshit. I included them all, they were right there with the note explaining what was wrong with the monitor. And the guy on the other end of the phone... it was like talking to a robot. I kept saying that they'd made a mistake, and he was just repeating that the warehouse people are thorough, and their records indicated that the cables had not been packed. And he refused to send out another ac adaptor.

And then he gave me the number for their spare parts so I could order and pay for a brand new adaptor. £20 with shipping, according to the lady on the spare parts number.

Screw that.

I fully intend to fire off a blistering barrage of complaints, especially to whoever is responsible for the retarded gibbons who're in the warehouse. I packed those cables. They didn't mark them down, and either misplaced, threw out or stole them.

Do not buy anything from Acer. It might be slightly cheaper, but their customer service and internal procedures are some of the worst I've ever encountered. I'm posting this here because I'd like you all to avoid the same mistake I made in buying a product made by this useless company.

I'm having visions of genetically engineering a Slayer just so I can send him over to their offices. "Keep running, delver... er... telephone monkey!"

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Briareos
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calamarain wrote:
Do not buy anything from Acer. It might be slightly cheaper, but their customer service and internal procedures are some of the worst I've ever encountered. I'm posting this here because I'd like you all to avoid the same mistake I made in buying a product made by this useless company.

*sigh*

Too late here...

I've got a clunker of a 20" 16:10 Acer monitor next to me that's unusable for anything other than office work since it's got a fixed internal refresh rate of 59 point something Hz - so no matter what refresh rate you set your graphics card to you'll get dropped frames in games and video every few seconds at best...

Of course, my BenQ 17" 5:4 monitor eats any refresh rate from 55 to 75 Hz for breakfast, and my Samsung projector goes down to at least 48Hz - haven't tried less than that yet...

np: Future Sound Of London - Head Hunter (From The Archives Vol. 1)

____________________________
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Pneh
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Some companies has this bad support. Companies like acer should really look over their delivering system and support center. I accually have a friend that it happend a similar thing for. His mobile phone was broken. The screen wasn't lighten up anymore. He sent it back to the company to get it repaired. They repaired everything but the thing he wanted to be repaired. How could the company miss to see that the screen was broken? They should look harder.


And one thing has happend to myself. But this was not very bad. When I ordered a laptop from a big company, they accidentley sent the laptop to another town. That lead to me getting my laptop a day later. Not very horrible though...

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[Last edited by Pneh at 02-19-2008 08:25 PM]

calamarain
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It usually seems to be the big volume sellers. It's harder for smaller companies to get a bad reputation, mainly because if they do then they go out of business. I'd much rather buy from a longer established smaller company with a good rep. Sadly this wasn't a monitor for home, it was one for work and I was required to get the cheapest one.

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Someone Else
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Pneh wrote:
They repaired everything but the thing he wanted to be repaired.

This statement reminds me of Marvin, from The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, who lived 37 times longer than the universe itself, and had every part of him replaced many times over, except the diodes down his left side. His diodes down his left side had pained him since soon after he was built.

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[Last edited by Someone Else at 02-19-2008 09:50 PM]

Stefan
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Hmm, my personal experience with Acer support has not really been very good either, but I wouldn't go as far as not ever buying anything from them again.

I have an Acer laptop which started having problems with the processor fan (Edit: Blowing away dust from the fan usually fixed it for a while, so it might have been possible to largely prevent the problem from happening by cleaning the fan every once in a while... (which I hadn't really done)) about a year after I bought it. It got shipped (free of charge using DHL, I definitely don't have anything bad to say about their delivery system (relatively fast and convenient)) to Acer support, but then I didn't really get any updates on what was being done and how long it would take. After about a month I got an e-mail from them telling me that they were having problems finding a suitable replacement part (or some such), and that I should perhaps consider getting another computer instead (the e-mail included specs for the laptop they had in mind - it was a newer model, but not "good enough"). I turned down the offer and told them that I'll rather wait for a while longer. I waited... and about a month later they sent me an SMS telling me that a replacement part had been found. Ok, good, I thought. Well, two weeks later it was still not ready. Argh. About a week thereafter I finally got it back (shipping took about two/three days).

Apart from this issue, I've been very happy with the laptop (and it's still working great). I can't say I'm looking forward to sending it away to support again, though, if anything else crops up (at least not if it takes them nearly three months to get it fixed).

However, I think it's generally better to have bad/lacking support than bad/short-lasting hardware - an issue I and several people I know have had with Fujitsu-Siemens computers... they tend to break (beyond reasonable repair costs) a couple of months after the warranty ends.

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0.099³

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[Last edited by Stefan at 02-21-2008 09:18 AM]

robin
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something I learned over the years, if something is broken:
only sent the thing that's broken, now adapters or holders or cables etc. because when a company loses them, you're ...

and if they need something for the repear, trust me they'll have it around.

Last, my perfect draft was broken, (something with cooling)
I only sent them the cooling-device now lose parts and now I've got some spare parts
they acually put a new part in the box, that I left at home.

Thank you Philips

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calamarain
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I tend to find that a company can be judged by two parameters

1) The quality of its products
2) The quality of its service.

1 is important of course, but 2 tends to be the deciding factor for whether I choose a company. There are restaurants I don't go to because although the food is good - the service is bad. The place I get my bike serviced and repaired at is not the cheapest in town, but the staff have never been anything less than reliable and helpful. etc.

And this is the same thing. I know now that if I buy something from Acer, and there is a problem... it will be much harder to have it fixed than if I spent a little more originally and got it from a different company.

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eytanz
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For me the relative importance of quality of product vs. quality of service depends on the product - I will happily tolerate bad service for great food at a restaurant, for example - but when it comes to computer stuff, I agree completely; when my iPod dies a final death, I will probably buy some other model mp3 player, even though I like the iPod's interface and it has all the features I want, just because of the way I was last treated in an Apple store. On the flipside, even though my Lenovo laptop was more expensive than comparable models by other companies, and it has a few design quirks that annoy me, I have never had a problem with it that a single, painless phone conversation, followed by a very quick repair time, didn't solve. I'm pretty sure that my next laptop will come from them as well.

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coppro
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I can vouch similarly for Dell - my computer has seen a bit of trouble (probably my fault in most scenarios). But every time, all I've needed to do is call them up and they courier a replacement part in a few days. If it's something that they don't trust the customer to do (like when one of my RAM slots fried and I needed a new motherboard), they will send out a tech to do it for you - without you ever needing to lose possession of your computer.

And they tend to send out replacement parts without much of a fuss if you are still covered by warranty.

calamarain
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Mmm. My university does a lot of orders from Dell, and customer service with them has always been quick and efficient.

But this isn't a typical case, as the uni is a large customer and thus has a not more negotiating power. They're also more motivated to keep us happy.

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b0rsuk
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Hit them where it hurts the most - comments on price comparison websites, newsgroups etc. I intend to retaliate this way against ultima .pl shop. I bought (pre-paid) Enemy Territory : Quake Wars in there. After long delay they said the shipment was rejected at German border. And sugested I could have the localised polish version instead.
I said english version, or my money back. Now they don't repply. But they dare to send me spam. (not that gmail doesn't deal with it easily...)

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Briareos
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b0rsuk wrote:
I said english version, or my money back. Now they don't repply. But they dare to send me spam. (not that gmail doesn't deal with it easily...)

Hmmm... why didn't you just order the game somewhere in the UK?

Since both the UK and Poland are in the EU there'll be no customs or taxes, and stores like Play.com (technically in Jersey, which is not in the EU, but I still haven't ever had to pay anything extra for shipments from them) offer free shipping...

Just my 0.02 EYPO...

np: Radiohead - Videotape (In Rainbows)

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R.I.P. Robert Feldhoff (1962-2009)

b0rsuk
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Briareos wrote:

b0rsuk wrote:
I said english version, or my money back. Now they don't repply. But they dare to send me spam. (not that gmail doesn't deal with it easily...)

Hmmm... why didn't you just order the game somewhere in the UK?

Because it's really really hard to transfer your money to foreign banks. If you find a way, prices are prohibitive.
I have the cheapest credit card (visa electron) and as far as I can tell it doesn't work with paypal. Now I earn more and could afford Visa Classic, but I suspect getting one is NOT any easier, faster, or less frustrating than Electron.

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[Last edited by b0rsuk at 02-23-2008 12:10 PM]

Briareos
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b0rsuk wrote:
Because it's really really hard to transfer your money to foreign banks. If you find a way, prices are prohibitive.
I have the cheapest credit card (visa electron) and as far as I can tell it doesn't work with paypal. Now I earn more and could afford Visa Classic, but I suspect getting one is NOT any easier, faster, or less frustrating than Electron.

Hmmm... I can see how that could be a problem, although I wouldn't suggest using PayPal for anything more than paying a handful of Euros anyway.

But shouldn't your Electron card work with stores like Amazon.co.uk, Play.com etc. anyway? (Then again, I only ever had a VISA card that my bank issued to me ages ago, and it works with anything I've come across... but I can't say I've ever had problems with it...)

np: Cobblestone Jazz - Change Your Apesuit (23 Seconds)

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"I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole
R.I.P. Robert Feldhoff (1962-2009)

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[Last edited by Briareos at 02-23-2008 01:41 PM]

b0rsuk
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It turns out they introduced the possibility of internet credit card payments very recently. On 4th march, to be precise . I already managed to order something. Case closed :-)

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[Last edited by b0rsuk at 03-09-2008 05:01 PM]