(DEAD)CenDyne 24x10x40 $34.99, after $40 rebate & $25 coupon at OfficeMax

[Bad Dude]

You guys got me all wrong:
1) I know we all want a good deal. I do too. No doubt about that. Otherwise I would not be here.
2) I have nothing against using coupons at my store as long you bring the coupon in and not just giving the code since we are not allow to take coupon by codes. We must have the actual coupon in hand.
3) It OK and I don't mind helping out customers at all. I sometime spent hours to help some one with a $25 digital camera.
4) Of course customer service is my primary objective.
5) Matter of facts, I sometimes will ask the manager to honor most of the Anandtech deals just to help you guys out.

However,
This is what I am not happy about:
1) Jerks that bought drives online and return them to our store or exchanging drives at our stores.
2) I would be happy to help you out if you were just came out and say to me I like Lite-on and I am looking to exchange for this drive.
3) Everyone just lied to me saying that the drive is defective when it is not. We got many complaints from manufactures about 80% returned not being defective.
4) Jerks that call our store 10 times per day to find the Liteon. The same jerk I mean.
5) If you want to buy a Liteon, just come into my store and ask for one and I will be happy to go and search it for you. DON'T ask me to waste my time just to exchange the drive. THIS IS WRONG.
6) So don't tell me to relax. I was relaxed until the same jerk keep calling 10 times per day to ask us to check for serial numbers.

The bottom line is, if you all want a Liteon then come into our stores and ask us to find it and buy it there. DON'T buy it online and then waste my time to exchange it out when it's not a Liteon and it's not defective.
I am upset b/c many people wanted to buy the drives regardless of brands inside and we had none to sell since some jerks just exchange and looking for Liteon drives, and not we got none to sell to others. The funny thing was that, only one of the 10 drives were Liteon and it turned out to be the defective one. I know b/c I tested it.

As far as the Polaroid incident:
I have 10 at my stores and 5 of them are Liteons. I checked them for 5 of the members from here and sold them. I did not bother to check the other 5 remaining. The top labels say Polaroid and under is Liteon. It does say Smart burn on the box and it has 2 MB buffer on the drives. So I don't see any thing fraud about that? As far as those who drove 3 hours and got a BTC, sorry, you had bad luck. How do we know you actually drove 3 hours for sure?

So we welcome bargain hunters. Just don't be a jerk about it.

 

[spanky]

u should still relax. u sound mad. high blood pressure for an online forum? not worth it

 

[conlan]

I recieved my CDRW today, it's a Lite-On , but to be honest, for $35, i would have been happy with an Acer as well

 

[Bad Dude]

I was mad but not any more, I am relax now. I am not at work now.

 

[spanky]

<< I recieved my CDRW today, it's a Lite-On , but to be honest, for $35, i would have been happy with an Acer as well >>




trade ya?!!?

 

[Kuhlman]

The bottom line is, if you all want a Liteon then come into our stores and ask us to find it and buy it there. DON'T buy it online and then waste my time to exchange it out when it's not a Liteon and it's not defective.

I agree it's wrong to return a drive and say it's defective when it is not but I see nothing wrong with ordering a drive on-line and if it's not what you wanted bringing it in and exchanging it at the store for a drive that you actually want. That's called providing good customer service and you shouldn't resent people for that.

 

[GregANDTCH]

Well I got mine today and it's an A-Open.
As long as the rebate comes I'll be happy.
My GF doesn't burn many & she's using my
old 4x HP right now.

 

[ScrapSilicon]

your welcome, borr ..now onto the next bit of business

<< the acer drives are perfectly fine >>

well finally decided to install the Digital Research(aka HiVal and I/O Magic) 24x10x40 I acquired from BestBuy a few weeks(..ok...13 days) ago ...an Acer ..well I install it after deleting all my IDE controllers and both my old 16x10x40 Lite-on(man I love that one ) and my 16x Lite-on LTD-163( seems its not a D ) pull both drives..put the Acer as Master on the secondary IDE w/ the DVD set as Slave ..clear my BIOS for about 5mins(had to break up a catfight outside ) fire up..rework my BIOS( yep everything recognized)..reboot..allow XPPro rebuild the goods, reinstall Nero(full version)..reboot..Check My DevMan everything looking sweet( both at UltraDMA2..using an ATA100 cable not the 33 supplied) and proceeded to burn one(used a Princo CompUSA generic..what ?..throw a TDK or Imation at it..no way..not yet)..my comp just about puked itself :Q it failed at somewhere between 85 and 95% done..(using Nero ...yeah had even uninstalled and reinstalled that too during the IDE dump/rebuild and subsequent reboots). Okay, I say, re-attempt with an Imation and put the CD that I'm copying into HardDrive temp folder and burn from there DOA again same point..hmm..back to Princo and this time failure at 40% complete..egads !! I gave up ..tried on the secondary IDE by itself as Master making a Data CD w/Nero..another #3 type result w/Imation as media..Final straw that was hauled the Acer rebadged DigiResearch back to BB..got my store credit walked around( was not happy ) and came upon Pine Technology 32x12x48 ...looked it over ..saw the seal had been popped went to Tech/CS counter and opened it up ...CW058D paid the difference with a giftcard ($40) I had from a previous screwup at BB ...lol..burned a 250MB disc in 3:58 while surfing and chatting on IM no problem...here's the kicker next burn happened with a buttload of user error(i.e. stupidity on my part..hehe) took 12 minutes to burn a 626 MB data CD :Q ...lol...ExacLink..well it worked quite a few times..buffer randown...paused burn..buffer back up,,resume burn.. this where stupid showed up..forgot I was downloading a 60MB(took 13 minutes) game demo Operation Flashpoint Singleplayer Demo v1.42. .. Guess who's happy? <edit> and if not otherwise noted burns were done on the fly

 

[morkinva]

Good deal.

Hey, can I return this drive after I've installed it, cut out the UPC and sent it in for the rebate? Heh, j/k

I got the Acer also. I just burned 650 megs onto the included disk in 5:03, which I think is pretty good for my crappy celeron 400 and pio mode. I was doing other stuff at the same time (well trying to anyway, it was slow going).

Is the burner supposed to show up in device mgr as 'ATAPI CD-R/RW 24X10' ?

 

[Bad Dude]

<< I agree it's wrong to return a drive and say it's defective when it is not but I see nothing wrong with ordering a drive on-line and if it's not what you wanted bringing it in and exchanging it at the store for a drive that you actually want. That's called providing good customer service and you shouldn't resent people for that. >>



If it's wrong then why do it? Customer service is provided if your drive is defective. Not when it's fine. That's cheating on the customer's part.

 

[gswpete]

Still waiting for my drive to come....

 

[Kuhlman]

<< I agree it's wrong to return a drive and say it's defective when it is not but I see nothing wrong with ordering a drive on-line and if it's not what you wanted bringing it in and exchanging it at the store for a drive that you actually want. That's called providing good customer service and you shouldn't resent people for that. >>

If it's wrong then why do it? Customer service is provided if your drive is defective. Not when it's fine. That's cheating on the customer's part.

I don't know if you are referring to me or just making a general comment. Personally, I'm not returning something and claiming it's defective. I bought a drive and did not open it. It's brand new and still shrinkwrapped. I am returning it unopened which is 100% ethical and legitimate. Every store on the face of the earth accepts merchandise returns that are unopened and unused. No need to open the box and claim defect in this case when you can see right on the outside of the box what drive is inside.

 

[borr]

Bad_Dude,



<< Jerks that bought drives online and return them to our store or exchanging drives at our stores. >>


i don't care what brand i get as long as it is NOT DEFECTIVE, so i asked for the exchange without specifying the serial number pattern. i received another acer, and came home. while doing this, i had no idea i was hurting OfficeMax's business. in fact i still don't understand why what i did is so bad to OM's business. i bought online, got the defective, didn't want to call and wait until the pickup truck comes in, and probably wait some more for a replacement. so i went to the local OM. what did i do wrong?

how can you be so sure everyone lied to you when he said his drive was defective? i wonder why manufacturers are saying only 80% are not defective while none is defective according to you. did you read my previous posts? if you read, how could you still say that none of the acer drives are defective? oh, i know what you are going to say, maybe this?

<< How do we know you actually [returned the defective drive] for sure? >>




several hours ago i was happy because i could return what i bought online without paying the shipping charge, received the replacement instantly, and also because the process was quick, then i read your posts. so you would have cursed me if you had been the clerk who took care of my exchange?

i am not buying anything from OM ever again. let's see who hurts OM more, you or me. funny how you must have thought you were doing good to your company... i am not saying no more, not that i have no more to say

 

[wasssup]

I've never understood why people care so much about their companies, especially retail employees...it's not like the CEO is gonna give you a raise. I worked part time at some retail stores before college and always dealt with ridiculous people OBSESSED with their nationwide chain. I understand it must be annoying dealing with the person who calls up 10 times a day (i would too), but seriously --- why should you care if OM loses money or not? I doubt they're going to go out of business due to this incident.

 

[JameyF]

<<
As far as the Polaroid incident:
I have 10 at my stores and 5 of them are Liteons. I checked them for 5 of the members from here and sold them. I did not bother to check the other 5 remaining. The top labels say Polaroid and under is Liteon. It does say Smart burn on the box and it has 2 MB buffer on the drives. So I don't see any thing fraud about that? As far as those who drove 3 hours and got a BTC, sorry, you had bad luck. How do we know you actually drove 3 hours for sure? >>



You may have had the only Lite-On Polaroid drives in existance in your store. Every encident of selling a MTK Superlink supported drive is False Advertising. Scanning the thread that was posted about the Polaroid special last week, I didn't see one instance of someone getting one. Certainly you don't want to argue that this wasn't false advertising. I'm not saying this was intentional on OM's part. Something was advertised. It was incorrect in a major way. You should have seen the three managers I talked to about this. They seemed shocked that the drive's box that was pictured obviously was different than the drive's box that was sold to me. Couple that with the Smart Burn text undernearth, and you rule out a typo which could be the only defense to this arguement.

Then, you insult me or others by questioning the time we took to drive. If you bothered to do a bit of research before you ask the question, you'd notice I posted they wouldn't deliver to me in the Polaroid thread because I was out of their delivery area. Obviously you can't judge time by this, but it's what you call corroborating evidence to the statement I made. If I had only to drive down the street, it's still FALSE ADVERTISING, and NOT my fault. I expect to be given an exchange, and there should be a little leadway in satisfying me...perhaps an appology from the store that sold it to me. I got those things without problems from three stores (except the exchange...only one store had the smart burn drives).

My quote:


<<
He didn't know I had called ahead and was told I could since I was from out of town, and there was going to be an extra shipping charge for getting it online. After verifing I had called, he processed the coupons without another word. >>



Of course, trying to get in on deals sometimes results in less than expected outcomes. I wasn't upset or rude when I returned the drives. I asked politely to exchange them based on the facts. They verified all the information I gave them, and most of the time two people verified it. I can understand your impatience with customers who are trying to return things that aren't defective but saying they are. I woudl suggest explaining it doesn't have to be defective to be returned. Many people really think the drive is defective though. I work in retail and wholesale, so I see both sides of it. I can honestly say more than half of the people who try to return defective products aren't defective. Many times I can simply explain their situation and let them go from there. Only a few still insist they have a defective product when faced with evidence it's not. I'll say it again...

Don't squalk at your customers who are trying to spend money at your store with no thought of deception or fraud. If you're not happy with that, then look up the chain not down!

 

[BigEdMuustaffa]

<< your welcome, borr ..now onto the next bit of business

<< the acer drives are perfectly fine >>

well finally decided to install the Digital Research(aka HiVal and I/O Magic) 24x10x40 I acquired from BestBuy a few weeks(..ok...13 days) ago ...an Acer ..well I install it after deleting all my IDE controllers and both my old 16x10x40 Lite-on(man I love that one ) and my 16x Lite-on LTD-163( seems its not a D ) pull both drives..put the Acer as Master on the secondary IDE w/ the DVD set as Slave ..clear my BIOS for about 5mins(had to break up a catfight outside ) fire up..rework my BIOS( yep everything recognized)..reboot..allow XPPro rebuild the goods, reinstall Nero(full version)..reboot..Check My DevMan everything looking sweet( both at UltraDMA2..using an ATA100 cable not the 33 supplied) and proceeded to burn one(used a Princo CompUSA generic..what ?..throw a TDK or Imation at it..no way..not yet)..my comp just about puked itself :Q it failed at somewhere between 85 and 95% done..(using Nero ...yeah had even uninstalled and reinstalled that too during the IDE dump/rebuild and subsequent reboots). Okay, I say, re-attempt with an Imation and put the CD that I'm copying into HardDrive temp folder and burn from there DOA again same point..hmm..back to Princo and this time failure at 40% complete..egads !! I gave up ..tried on the secondary IDE by itself as Master making a Data CD w/Nero..another #3 type result w/Imation as media..Final straw that was hauled the Acer rebadged DigiResearch back to BB..got my store credit walked around( was not happy ) and came upon Pine Technology 32x12x48 ...looked it over ..saw the seal had been popped went to Tech/CS counter and opened it up ...CW058D paid the difference with a giftcard ($40) I had from a previous screwup at BB ...lol..burned a 250MB disc in 3:58 while surfing and chatting on IM no problem...here's the kicker next burn happened with a buttload of user error(i.e. stupidity on my part..hehe) took 12 minutes to burn a 626 MB data CD :Q ...lol...ExacLink..well it worked quite a few times..buffer randown...paused burn..buffer back up,,resume burn.. this where stupid showed up..forgot I was downloading a 60MB(took 13 minutes) game demo Operation Flashpoint Singleplayer Demo v1.42. .. Guess who's happy? <edit> and if not otherwise noted burns were done on the fly >>




Am I missing something? So what about ACER?

 

[ktg]

I got an Acer from online, took it to the local OMax store and honestly explained why I wanted to exchange it; got all excited because the "dummy" empty Cendyne box on the display shelf was obviously a Lite-On, but unfortunately the only drives they had in actual stock were all Acers. Oh well, could do a lot worse. It's not a BTC.

The manager was very obliging and had no qualms about exchanging my unopened drive, and was actually interested to learn that numerous companies were manufacturing this drive for Cendyne.

 

[psteng19]

<< I've never understood why people care so much about their companies, especially retail employees...it's not like the CEO is gonna give you a raise. I worked part time at some retail stores before college and always dealt with ridiculous people OBSESSED with their nationwide chain. I understand it must be annoying dealing with the person who calls up 10 times a day (i would too), but seriously --- why should you care if OM loses money or not? I doubt they're going to go out of business due to this incident. >>



I don't know about you, but I'd rather be dealing with an employee that gives a damn about his job/store/company than one who doesn't.
Because the one who doesn't is going to be giving you crappy service.
When you ask the indifferent employee to go to the back and check for the "Lite-on", he'll just run to the back room, jerk-off for 3 minutes, come back to you and say, "Sorry, couldn't find any."
You're not going anywhere fast with an attitude like that... definitely won't get promoted if I was the manager...

anyways.... sorry for getting off topic.
I'm not sure what drive I received (I'm in school, drive shipped home).
My sister tried to read me the serial - all digits.
I asked her to find the words burn-proof technology or the like - no dice...
Probably got a Verbatim and if it works, I'm happy.

Some of you are really asking too much for a $40 drive. If it works, just be happy.
If it doesn't, then you obviously deserve a refund/exchange.

 

[ScrapSilicon]

<< Am I missing something? So what about ACER? >>

Acer went back to BB..the Teac from OM still here..and the CyberDrive that I got from the BB exchange is in my main machine..

 

[buckeye]

well, My AOpen drive works like a charm. the "justlink" and "justspeed" technologies are awesome...copied an audio CD with 19 songs (78 minutes~680 MB) in 4:22. Sweet!!! I saw the Z-CLV actually working. I used a TDK 24X cdr (taiwan) by the way!!!

 

[spanky]

<< I'm not sure what drive I received (I'm in school, drive shipped home).
My sister tried to read me the serial - all digits. >>



damn! i should've intercepted ur package and replaced it with mine

 

[boa]

<put the Acer as Master on the secondary IDE w/ the DVD set as Slave >

just FYI:
it is conventional wisdom to have the cdrw as master, however, with my Plextor 24x CDRW as slave and Pioneer 16x DVD as master, the system works MUCH, MUCH, MUCH better. So if you are having trouble, you might switch the master/slave settings.

 

[Kuhlman]

Just curious is there any benefit or detriment to using the cable select setting if your system supports it? The Dell computer I received had a DVD drive and a CDRW both set as "cable select".

 

[Bad Dude]

People are all upset and thinking I would refused an exchange if the drive was sealed. I have no problem with exchanging anything that is still sealed. Matter of facts, I would prefer to exchange it to make my customers happy. However, I am only upset at those who open their drives and not yet installed the drives and come back to the store and said it's defective and make us waste time to look for a Liteon and then later on call back or come back and ask some one else for the Liteons. You get 10 of those same calls from the same guy per day and see how you would feel.

The second point here is that if your drive is defective, I would be gladly to exchange the drive for you according to our policy. Most of our drives come back opened and never installed and customers say they are defective. Then later on, many customers came in and would like to buy them and we don't have any thing new to sell, then our business is hurting.

I am not accusing of anyone here of lying or being deceptive, but from many of the posts here, some of you have already admitted to it. So I don't need to accuse anyone of anything.

As for those who don't care about your retail stores, that is your choice. I care about every job that I do. If you don't care then you have no customer service. Once you accepted a wage, you should perform your best and not complaint. If you don't like the pay, then don't take the job. I know corporate could not care less about us, as long there is some to work and make money for them. However, for those less fortunate who care about their, what seem a worthless job for others, will always prosper in your own good work ethics and generousity.

So I hope everyone understands my points.

 

[ScrapSilicon]

hi boa,

<< <put the Acer as Master on the secondary IDE w/ the DVD set as Slave >

just FYI:
it is conventional wisdom to have the cdrw as master, however, with my Plextor 24x CDRW as slave and Pioneer 16x DVD as master, the system works MUCH, MUCH, MUCH better. So if you are having trouble, you might switch the master/slave settings. >>

thanks I should of put the1st setup in my novel up above as well..did that first..as I did not want to move the DVDRom from the topmost position( cabled as Master) but that caused XP to do a dump/no start..had to an F8 without any drives attached to get back in the OS thru Safe Mode..man..starting another novel here...so what do you do(even tho that is my preffered method of IDE secondary DVDRom as Master CDRW as Slave) you follow the manufacturer's written instruction on setup of their considerably time/engineered product(at least I think they would test their products and make their literature match the best settings....) I even gave it(Acer) its own IDE channel on HPT 370 and same 45% kill a CD blank..like I said tried to keep the novel cut down