anyone have experience with webuildpcs.com?

[rabidsloth]

:|
I have had a terrible experience with the idiots down there. I ordered a IWILL XP333 from them and when it finally got to my house I opened up the box and realised that they had sent me an RMA'd board. There was only one thing in the box besides the board, the driver cd. No manual, no cables, no nothing. So I thought "Well, if it works maybe I'll just keep it and not be a pain in the a$$." No go. Seems the reason that it was RMA'd was because it didnt work. If I could get it to post at all it would freeze as soon as I left the bios, those times it let me into the bios.

I have no desire to deal with a company that can't even keep their RMA'd stuff seperate from the new stuff, or tries to pawn off RMA'd stuff on people. So I gave them a call and I got a completely worthless machine that said it was for Ability Wholesale, 2 options, customer service and sales. If you pushed customer service it had a message "Due to issues out of our control we are not able to assist customers over the phone so email us and we will get back to you within 15 minutes." If you pushed sales it said "sorry this voice mailbox is full." So of course I emailed them and said that I wanted a refund and a return label ASAP. No response to my email, not in 15 minutes not in a day, not in two days. So I emailed them agian was a little more beligerant, and called, same, no use calling and no response via email. After repeating this for 3-4 days I came home to a message on my machine along these lines "we understand that you want a refund upon return of the defective item, why are you being so beligerant with your emails?" and that was about it. So the next day without any warning that someone was coming a FedEx guy shows up while my wife is home alone and tells her he is here for the IWILL something or other and she asks him if he means the Motherboard and he says yes. She asks him if she should pack it back in the box that it was sent in and he says no it'll be fine like it is and takes it.

Well now its been a week since that happened. No word back from WebuildPCs.com no email, no call, no money, nothing. Anyone have any ideas? help?

 

[Russ]

They were formerly known as OverclockersZ (or something like that). They are so bad, that this BBS banned them.



<< realised that they had sent me an RMA'd board. >>



This is very common, unfortunately. You can bet that the majority of vendors who accept non-defective returns and charge a "re-stocking" fee are putting the merchandize back in to inventory and selling it as new.

Russ, NCNE

 

[Vic]

Check this out.
And this...
And don't forget this...

Doesn't look too good...

 

[zogg]

 

[zogg]

Yea
I had the same experience with webuildpcs as a user on this board named"goodadvice" had:

I bought a floppy drive, an athlon 1800+ XP, and 2 sticks of PC3200 ram that is supposed to run at 166 mhz at cas2 higher at cas 2.5 on an abit kr7a raid which is what I have. I received my 3 day express delivery in four days missing the two sticks of pc3200 ram!
I emailed them and got back a response that they would definately have it tome by yesterday friday 4/12/02
IT's saturday and I still had no ram. I told them that i wanted my 30 day waranty on the cpu to start as soon as I get the ram because its already beeen about 15 days, so It's not fair that i can't test the cpu because I dont have the ram to test it with. They assured me that their would be no problem with the cpu and that I would get my ram. Now I am seeing the same ram for almost 50 dollars cheaper then what I paid for it.
I also ordered about two weeks prior to that from abilitywholsale.com which is under the same umbrealla as webuildpcs,cencom( central computers)
That order came promptly and without a hitch???? I recieved an iwill333xp mobo, some pc3000 ddr ram copper clad that by the way, ran on my kr7a raid at 154 cas2 , highest(fastest) memory timings, without so much as a hickup, but could not go higher then 137 on the iwill board at cas 2.5 lowest mem timings, that everyone says is the same thing as a kr7a raid as far as overclockability but with an an amd chipset. But now Im going off on a tangent, back to the subject at hand.
I threatend them with a nasty letter that I copied to all of the agencies below in goodadvices post.

3/27/02 3:54 PM
No Service, No support, Defective Fraudulent Products, AKA Central COmputers, OCZTech, Read Below:

This company advertised pc2700 memory which would only run stable at pc1600 cas2.5. Would not return messages and had only advertised a long distance number for support. No email was replied to (send more than 30 over the course of weeks), and no attempts have been made on their behalf to right the situation. I will list the following contact information for them since I have done quite a bit of digging for this. www.webuildpcs.com AKA: www.ocztech.com www.central-computers.com www.athlonoc.com www.abilitycomputers.com www.theoverclockerzstore.com ...amost others..they are doing business under the umbrella of CenCom which stands for Central Computers. There are two address I have come up with for sure: Cen Com, Inc 3287 Willowcreek Rd Portage, IN 46368 and: CENTRAL COMPUTERS 6335 ROBINS ROAD PORTAGE, IN 46368 They have the following webmaster: Eric Hull Who may be reached at: eric@webuildpcs.com They list the following phone numbers: Phone: 219.764.3366 Fax 219.764.0173 BUT I HAVE FOUND A TOLL FREE NUMBER: 1-866-755-1766 The better business bureau of NW Indian can be found here: http://www.nwin.bbb.org/ And their local Police and detective bureau is here: http://www.ci.portage.in.us/police/detective_bureau.htm And aparently you can lease THEIR OFFICE LOCATION here: http://www.portageindianachamber.com/ecodev.phtml (3287 Willowcreek Rd) - CHECK IT OUT. i CAN BE REACHED AT USEPOST2000@YAHOO.COM FOR FURTHER COMPLAINTS. I WILL BE REGISTERING THIS WITH THE INDIANA ATTORNEY GENERALS OFFICE WHICH CAN BE FOUND HERE: http://www.in.gov/attorneygeneral/


GoodAdvise

comments posted: 0
user type: profesional
transaction date: 10/30/01

Comment

So I wrote them a very harsh email saying I was going to pursue this to full extent of the law and copied the email to all of the above agencies in Indiana...chamber of commerce, attorneis genral oficces, BBB, and the indiana detectives in their town.
Low and behold, I got answer in 8 hours with a new traking number. My ram will be here monday, albeit, I am now seeing it for much cheaper prices even on their own website. But try to goto www.webuildpcs.com ...the website is down with a message saying that the server is going to be down for an hour for maintainence, check back in a few minutes. Gentlemen, this has been the same thing for three days now. 1hour my ass, they are shutting down hoping to scam many thousands of dolaars out of people that wouldnot knowwhat to do in a situation like this.

 

[Instagib]

I live right by there.

 

[VTrider]

I use to do a lot of business with them last year, mainly because of inexpensive prices and reasonable shipping. Aside from one problem I had (which the owner, Eric Hull personally called me and fixed the problem) I've had nothing but positive experiences with them. I even noticed that for a while, the pres./owner? (Eric Hull) was even posting here at AT defending some of these allegations. I haven't noticed his posts in a long time though. Although I have had good experiences with this company, based on the feedback I've seen in the last 6 months about them, I don't feel comfortable recommending them anymore. To some it may seem that this company has given up on their customer support and/or using some shady business practices - that's a shame, I was really hoping to find another dependable online retailer (like my exp. w/Newegg).

-VTrider

BTW: The 'problem' I had was that the power supply in the 'new' case they sent me seemed tampered with. The 'void if removed' sticker on the unit was torn - so what is the first thing any wise ATer would think? Yeah, the old switch-a-roo power supply fast one. I ordered a 400watter, so I was thinking that they were switching parts , etc. Well, after I got nowhere with their phone customer support (yes, I got thru!), I promptly and professionally e-mailed every single e-mail address that I could find on the site. I basically told them the truth as a consumer, and what I thought of their business practices - the owner called me within 1/2hr after I sent the e-mail! I'd like to give this Company the benefit of the doubt, they did for me, but they seem to be going downhill very fast.

 

[zogg]

Well, I'll see, when I get the ram. If it is truly better ram then the pc3000 stuff, then I will give them the benefit of the doubt that they just over sold the product, and could not get more for a while. If I get some remarked ram, instead of legitimate merchandise or something like that, I will not take it lightly. What would you do if you ordered ram and didn?t get it for two or three weeks, and now the same company that you ordered it from is selling it, excuse me, [advertising] it at price watch for 49.99 dollars a piece cheaper. If webuildpcs.com would have indicated on their web site that the ram was not in stock, maybe I would have waited and been able to buy 3 pieces for the price of two [if it was possible to log into that website, that is]; Because that?s what it would work out to now, for the amount of money I paid to get that ram.

ERIC HULL if you are following this thread, do the right thing by me brother, and maybe you can salvage your credibility on one of the best hardware boards going. I don't understand how you can advertise one of the lowest prices on price watch, but not have your website up because of maintenance? Didn?t you here of redundancy, Eric? You should have a redundant system all the way around; from the battery backup, to raid controller cards, to mirrored pairs, and at least a dual node cluster. So that if you have taken down a server for service, or it crashes, the other node automatically takes control of the drive rack. This way there can?t be any lame reasons like the server went down.

Peace

Zogg

 

[XMan]

<< ERIC HULL if you are following this thread, do the right thing by me brother, and maybe you can salvage your credibility on one of the best hardware boards going. >>



I don't know that it's worth it, man. They've been given about 18 different chances under various names. I guess the moved to Indiana to get away from the Utah police - that where they used to be HQ'ed. They even had employees sign up as members here to stroke people along when their orders went bad. "Oh, we're getting bigger than we expected, please be patient with us," etc.

 

[zogg]

Time will tell Xerox man.

BTW, I used to work for the big X, NY Downtown branch back in the 80's, right around the time that the japanese were killing us in cars , electronics, and copiers. Right around the advent of pc market. Xerox choose to go with apple , instead of ibm in those days. Now that I think about it, IBM and Xerox were arch rivals in those days, so they had no choice.

 

[SKORPI0]

Looks like they haved closed their business. Went to the computer show they have in Orland Park, IL and all they had was memory chips. I was told that they are trying to find a buyer. :Q Wanted to exchange a 400W Power supply I bought from they last month. Tried e-mail & calling them, but no answer from anyone. Looks like I'm out of luck here. :frown:

 

[Jeepfreek]

I haven't been by the store there on Central ave. in awhile but I think they closed that store front down. Not positive though. Where do you live Instagib? I used to live in Portage. Now I'm in Hammond.

 

[zogg]

I said I was going to give Eric Hull "The Benefit Of The Doubt"
as far as over selling the ram I bought from them and he might have had a problem getting more.
I received my ram today in via fed ex.
When I posted here on 4/12/02 the very next day I received an email from Eric with a new traking number. So I want to say thanx Eric Hull for at least getting me my ram.

But why are you selling it on price watch for $50 dollars cheaper then I paid for it but your]webuildpcs.comwebsite is still down with this message????

We are down for regularly scheduled server maintenance.
Expected down time is less than one hour
We are sorry for any trouble this may cause
Please check back in a few minutes

I just do not understand how you expect to sell the ram if no one can go to your website.