On 12/1 I posted a negative review for FrozenCPU here -
http://www.resellerratings.com/seller2013-p3-s1-d1.html
On the morning of 12/1 after I got off the phone with the employee at FCPU I decided to order the Mach II from the same vendor I got the adapter kit from. They also happens to be the sole distributor for the Mach II in the U.S. I purchased it at $200 more than the price FCPU had. Ouch.
On 12/2 I miss a call from the president of FCPU but later I see an e-mail from him saying he wants to work on getting me a Mach II and he has seen my RR review. I reply I'll call him in the morning. A couple more post trade hands that night confirming the time I place my call in the morning to the employee I spoke to originally. I'm stuck by the how late these guys are working. The holiday season obviously must be in full swing for FCPU.
12/3: In the morning I hear from the employee that they would be willing to sell me a Mach II for $525. I was hoping to be offered the item at the original $400 price. The employee says they can't do that since the original item is no longer available and the new Mach II they are offering is different and better. I ask him to e-mail me the offer.
At this point I wonder which model I have coming from the distributor. I look around the internet looking for any mention of a change in design or model number for the Mach II. I can't find any so I fire off some e-mail inquiries. I pick up the phone and talk to a person at the distributor about the Mach II that they have sent me. He tells me that there have been no design changes and the one that I will receive would be no different from the one I could expect from an authorized reseller now, or earlier in the year. At no point in the conversation, did I mention FCPU.
In my reply in to their e-mail offer, I asked that since according to their distributor, the model they are offering me should be no different from the one they were selling last week, I would like the original price offered.
I got a call from FCPU's president. He was not happy. He asked if I had purchased a Mach II from their distributor. I confirmed this. He said that my RR review, and subsequent actions had upset multiple employees and he alluded to some possible friction between himself and his distributor. Despite the upset I caused he was still willing to sell me the Mach II at $525, although the offer was contingent on a retraction of my original RR review. When I asked him about which portions of the review that caused the upset, he only touched upon the fact that I had used an employee's name and that it was a very long review relative to the average length of reviews. He did not object to or contest the sequence of event that I had related in the review. He did not mention if some of the suggestions with regard to their auto e-mails would be considered. I asked if I could think about his offer and get back to him. At that point he withdrew the offer. He asked me not to shop with FCPU again. He told me that he would get RR to void my review since no transaction had taken place. He also let me know that he and his employees found me to be a very annoying person.
I know that the holiday season is a very stressful time for retailers for a variety of reasons. In addition to those factors, FCPU deals with customers who's profiles differs from the average consumer by being more demanding, yet lack interpersonal social skills, y'know gamers. Maybe FCPU deals with this all day. Maybe the call I got from FCPU's president was fueled by all those elements. I don't think any of my actions warranted the openly hostile call I got.
I decided I would update my review but ran into a problem with the maximum characters allowed for a review. I contacted RetailerRatings via e-mail about this. On 12/6 a RR representative replied and encourged me to post the update into the General Discussion and Buyer Guidance forum.
On 12/7 the RR rep sent me an e-mail saying they had to pull my review because FCPU told them I never had a valid transaction because I was never charged for the Mach II. RR asked me to provide proof, which I promptly did and they reinstated my review shortly thereafter.
When I went to the RR site to see if my review was back up and I see the following:
Linear Mode
