Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
I wonder if anyone ever recieves their systems from this crook? If so, what does he send them? and how did the guy from THG resist pimp slapping him for lying to his face like that? :evil:
Yanked from Slashdot:
"A little background: About a year and half ago I found myself needing/wanting a monster PC, P4 2.8, 5 WD drives, 4 in a raid 10 array for photography, music, video, etc. Gotta protect all those thousands of pictures. For fun I also wanted a gaming config as well, Radeon 9700 Pro, DDR 400, etc. Long story short, I wanted a top of the line Voodoo PC or Alienware, or Hypersonic, custom built for me, not built by me. But in NO WAY did I want the silly paint job or the price that came with it.
I also do enough hardware fiddling at work that I just didn't want to deal with it at home (busy + lazy). I wanted Uber Box to show up at my door. Go ahead poke fun, I wanted it, I could get it, so I got it.
Back then his site was much less over-the-top, he had a 7 year warranty, etc. I dealt with Michael over the phone and we came to a price which was quite agreeable for the parts and labor. I knew the pricegrabber price for every part in there, MB, sticks of memory, etc. The spec sheet he sent was right on.
The PC is great, nice build, no widgets, no crapware, XP Pro with all MS-Phone-Home-ware removed or disabled, all those services in XP that most of us know to turn off, he had them off, etc, etc. When I had trouble with the Firewire ports, he walked me through the pin-outs on the Audigy 2, when that didn't work due to meager support from Creative, he overnighted me a firewire card. He has been outstanding as far as customer service is concerned, I'm quite happy with the "uber-box", yes it's over the top, but i like it that way and in a few years I won't be aching for a complete replacement.
I always ignored his marketing. He's a VERY exhuberant fellow in person, and it shows! HA. He's a one-man-show. He knows how to build a nice PC, and is willing to do it, where I am not. I disapprove of the direction his marketing has taken (who wouldn't). Because of it, I've taken to sending folks here [pugetsystems.com] and elsewhere who want a PC built for them.
It's sad because if you remove the marketing aspect, and of course haggle on price, he DOES do just as good a job as the Alienware / Voodoo PC folks. Actually better because I hate that tricked out case stuff, and I have yet to hear of Alienware calling or emailing you back in 5 minutes with a fix or a tracking number to a free replacement part you haven't asked for yet.
Just goes to show that running a [Widget] business takes a lot more than being a [Widget] expert. You've got to have your marketing, order processing, legal angles, etc., all figured out as well.
Maybe this "expose" will help him improve. I wish him luck. He's a real nice guy. "