I just bought an entire system. I bought most of the parts at EBC. I was a little nervous to do so, after reading the reviews on this site, but in the end, the fact that they were close and cheap won out. I did have to return the first monitor, but they replaced it swiftly and without complaint. I put everything else together and it worked perfectly. I am very pleased with the merchandise and the service I received at the Ogden store.

Ive been purchasing parts from EBC computers for a number of years. I too have been in the store when customers have braught in parts to replace or return. From what i've seen in person, and read on this forum, most of these company/client problems can be atributed to the stupidity, and ignorance of the clients, not the company. I have spent over 40,000 dollars a year for the last 8 years at EBC and have only had a handful of defective parts which EBC swapped for me no hassle. I suggest to anyone who knows how to arm a computer without damaging it, to purchase from EBC as their prices are the lowest arround.

I'VE HAD NOTHING BUT GREAT RESULTS FROM EBC, NONE OF THE AFORE MENTIONED PROBLEMS HAVE AROSE,I 'VE BEEN DEALING WITH THEM FOR ABOUT A YEAR NOW NEXT MONTH. OVERALL PERFORMANCE WITH CUSTOMER REPS TOTALLY SATIFACTORY!

Let's flip the coin over.  
 
I, however, do not agree with EBC selling used parts as new. The parts do go through a 36-hour re-testing process, but this doesn't mean they are new or refurbished. This is a very gray area to try and verify the parts are as good as new. Especially, if the problem was intermittant in the first place. EBC should lower the price on these parts, sell them as used, and raise all of their prices on other products slightly to cover the increased cost ( or loss). They should also offer no in-store warranty and state the remaining manufacturers warranty on the used parts. In this manner there are no illusions in the customer's mind as to the customer service on these parts.  
 
I also feel that there are some customers requests that have been mis-handled. Unfortunately, anger often gets in the way. I am not speaking so much of Eddy personally (he's usually as cool as a cucumber), but of some of the staff and some of the customers. The key is to be civil and polite. If you lose your temper as a customer, it can result in the management losing their tempers and then you lose. At that point, you may as well kiss your service goodbye. As my mother used to say, "honey attracts flies better than vinegar".  
 
Additionally, the time that it takes sales associates to enter an order is too long. They need to revamp the invoicing system to a realtime system that makes a sales order and invoice all at once by scanning the serial barcode or an EBC specific SKU barcode into the system. This would solve the long waits for sales orders.  
 
And finally, I suggest that you inspect all parts that you recieve from EBC extremely closely, and be extremely careful with the part when installing it into your computer. Any physical damage caused directly by you or others (besides Tech support) will void any EBC AND Manufacturers warranties expressed or implied.  
 
If you recieve damaged or equipment that you suspect is used, I suggest that you refuse that equipment. (Keep in mind that in order to scan serial number barcodes into their computers the seals on the static bags are often broken on motherboards and modems. This means you should inspect the part closer for possible marks from mounting or inserting motherboards or video/modem/network/sound cards. Also, check the seals on monitor boxes and power supplies {whether inside or outside the case}.)  
 
My final words are this:  
 
Research your products  
Know what you want  
Call ahead for a will call  
Don't accept used equipment  
Inspect closely  
Wear static wrist strap when installing your equipment  
Don't overclock (or admit to overclocking), or play with settings in the BIOS you don't understand  
Know the warranty, RMA, and return polices of EBC and expect them to enforce them.  
Don't break seals or remove stickers  
Keep your original invoice  
Be polite and calm when seeking a return/RMA  
 
 
This is a way to avoid problems and hassle with EBC if you follow it closely. If you choose to ignore me then, "let the buyer beware."  
 

This review was modified by its author, brightglaive, on 6/19/02 6:31 PM.

Despite what others have said, both me and my brother have spent around 3k total and havn't had any problems that we could trace to EBC or bad parts. Good prices, though the salespeople are a bit impersonal. As has been said before, make sure you know what you're getting will work in your machine and you won't have any problems. I had to return one item before and it went farily painlessly.

I have used EBC Computers dozens of times over the past 10 years or so. I will never buy another motherboard from them again. I have purchased 4 bad motherboards from them that I had to return. I do not necesarily blame Ed Bodoya, but he does need to take a better look at his return procedures. EBC has always replaced my defective merchandise, but it seems very disorganized and has been time consuming at times. EBC is a good store where if you need something quick, it is available. I would not assemble an entire computer from EBC, but occasionally, I will buy a hard drive or a fan if I need a part quickly and don't worry too much about it konking out within 30 days. EBC offers very good prices and good availablity of parts. I am glad that EBC has hung in there. A lot of the problems with returns is not understanding their policy and trying to make them enforce your wishes when they do go against their policy. The close out items, I would never touch with a 10 foot pole simply because they do not take them back after 3 days, and they are ALL used parts. Be careful. At least they are honest about their advertising of their close out special items. Overall, EBC is a good computer store and they have soom cool looking computers. Just be careful and know what you are doing when you order there.

when i first started to use EBC they were great but now they just suck, i was just in there the other day and after waiting 30mins for some to come out of the back to help me, the guy we got was in such a rush to get off, he messed up and only had taken half the order and then he told some other guy to help us because he was leaving, and many other times when i have bought parts there, the sales person i got didn't speak eglish very well or the person didn't know how to spell very good.

Ebc Computers is one of the worst computer stores i have ever been to Never buy motherboards from them and dont expect them to honor any thing they say. there testing for bad parts is if it POST's it works.  
 
P.S. there warnty is absolute bull

I bought a heatsink/fan, it sounded like a JET ENGINE, no returns, so I sold it on eBay. I heard from an employee of EBC Computers that they sell returns as new! As long as the product will post at bootup, they will resell it. They don't even properly test returns, and don't hesitate to resell bad products. I won't shop EBC Computers anymore.

If you're in need of anything reliable, buying from EBC Computers is masochism. I bought the parts for two whole new systems from EBC just last week, including two ASUS P4C800 motherboards. I had tons of problems (most notably, random shutdowns and random blue screens and processes crashing on fresh installs of Windows) and since I had two of everything, I was confidently able to narrow it to the motherboards. EBC charged me a $40 restocking fee for returning one of the motherboards with a ribbon cable that didn't say "ASUS" on it, even though it was a brand new cable. I suggested he sell me a new ASUS motherboard so I could give him his ASUS cable, and did so, but when I did, I noticed traces of thick dust around the SIDES of the back connectors, the type that could have only been put there by a case fan over the course of months. Right there I knew I was being sold a well-used part as new, and right there I shoved my entire order back in their face and told them "NO MORE MOTHERBOARDS, just charge me the damn restocking fee, I don't want to troubleshoot your garbage". I wasted one weekend and $40 for the privilege of troubleshooting EBC junk... then went to COMP USA and bought two new motherboards and my systems worked flawlessly afterwards.

The prices at EBC are just great. The quality of service is okay. The quality of the parts for the most part are alright - the ones that work. From my own experience, their parts have a fairly high return percentage. Do they scrape the bottom of the proverbial barrel in order to get them at such low prices? And it sure doesn't help that it takes me more than 20 minutes just to swap a bad part for a good one.  
 
Prices are decent, but something needs to be done about the quality of parts and time it takes to return them.

Purchased an AMD Athlon XP 1800 and an eVGA Geforce 4 Ti 4600. As of today, 13 July 2002, both parts are DEAD. The Athlon burned up, and the Geforce freezes any system that I put it in. I have a suspicion that I was sold a REMARKED VIDEO CARD (RETURNED AND SOLD AS NEW)!!. As he was processing my RMA he said that they had only sold 2 of those cards. Things that make you go HMMM. Anywho, I am never going to buy another AMD processor from them or anyone else. I am currently using my 1 GHz P-!!! and have no problems with it at all. Avoid EBC for all major parts purchases, smaller things like cables and such should be all right.  
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
10/11/2002  
EBC Computers profiled on local news  
 
From kutv.com  
 
EBC Computers  
 
Bill Gephardt  
 
Oct 3, 2002 12:52 pm US/Mountain  
 
How would you feel if you bought something only to learn you couldn't use it until you bought a plug or a cord that was supposed to be in the same box? When an Orem man didn't get an item he was supposed to get when he bought a computer video card, he decided to Get Gephardt.  
 
It's simple, I think. If the front of a package tells you what's inside, you can expect it to be inside. More than that, it's the law. So, what happened in this case?  
 
Gary Meyer handles his frustrations through computer games.  
 
"Takin' out my aggression on someone else."  
 
Gary's latest frustration is with a computer accessory he bought from EBC Computers in Orem. He paid $275 for his new video card, and then came the surprise...  
 
"When I checked the contents of the box one of the parts was missing."  
 
That missing part is a plug Gary needed to be able to run the device. The plug is pictured right here, as included, on the back of Gary's box. So where's the plug? Gary says when he asked the Orem store manager, he said...  
 
"We are actually instructed to take that part out of the box and sell it for an additional $7 cost."  
 
What? When Gary challenged EBC's policy, he says he was told he was free to do with the product as he wanted to.  
 
Gep: "Oh, really. We contacted MSI, the manufacturer of that video card, and said is that true? That the retailer is allowed to reach into that box and take that plug out? MSI said absolutely not. Anything that is included in that box should stay in the box and be sold that way."  
 
That seems to make sense...  
 
"The contents of the box should be as the contents of the box are listed as being."  
 
So, I contacted EBC to ask about their policy of removing this part from the box.  
 
Gep: "I talked with EBC owner Eduardo Bedea, and he didn't want to talk about any of this on camera, but he said that he didn't know that the practice of taking things out of the box was illegal."  
 
But now, he'll make a deal with Gary, and anyone else to whom this may have happened. Rather than selling the plug separately, he'll give it to them for free.  
 
It's simple, if it's listed on the front of the box, you can expect to get it when you open the box.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This review was modified by its author, Sosai_X, on 10/12/02 1:23 AM.

10/20/09 ---- EBC Computers SUCKS!!!! Here's the reader's digest version of my experience with them and their owner. I bought a computer drive for $91 exactly 3 weeks ago and was told at the time I could return it within 30 days if there were any problems. Well, it won't format so I took it back today and their "tech" tested it and said it was fine. I then had to explain directly to the "tech" the problem so he could test it properly at which time he determined it was indeed bad. So, they were going to swap it out for a new one except that they didn't have this one in stock leaving me the option to downgrade or upgrade. Here's the catch....they were now selling this same drive for $80 and would therefore only give me that amount of credit instead of the $91 I initially paid. I explained that this is not right and was offered the manager. He was a young kid who walked onto the sales floor with a gaping hole in the crotch of his jeans. VERY impressive!! He told me he could ask "him" if there was anything he could do. Who is "him" I asked. "The Owner" he replied. I then asked to speak to the owner and was immediately told by this manager that he would go and see if he was too busy to speak to me. I restated his comment and said, "You are going to go ask the owner if he is too busy for one of his customers". After visiting the owner, the manager told me he was busy and that no exceptions could be made to their policy. DESPITE my explaining to him that it was not my choice to bring the drive back, but it didn't work anymore so this policy should not apply to this situation. I again asked to speak to the owner and after the manager visited the secret room once again, was told that he was busy ordering but I could wait for about 1 hour to talk to him. REALLY!!!!!! You are too busy to talk to your customers and try to retain any loyalty???  
 
There was nowhere to sit and wait so I took my drive and left disgusted. I spoke to another customer on the way out who said that EBC has a reputation for putting damaged items back on the shelves to sell to future unsuspecting customers. Crazy that they can somehow still be in business!!!! Check out www.ebccomputers.info for more reviews of EBC.  
 
 
 

Worst experience that I have ever had!!! I purchased a power supply that ended up being defective and they won't exchange it or refund my money. They want to charge me a 25% restocking fee because the box it came in is damaged, although the damage to the box occurred before I even purchased the item. They are very unwilling to help and didn't even believe me that the power supply was faulty until the third time that I brought it back in when they finally tested it. Even after they admitted that the device was faulty, they wanted to charge a 25% restocking fee. I would strongly advise anyone who is considering shopping at EBC computers go elsewhere. They do not believe in customer service. Little do they realize that the 25% restocking fee that they are trying to charge me is not going to make them any money in the long run; it will end up costing them hundreds in lost sales because I will never go back and I am going to be sure to never send any business their way.

I should have read the reviews on the internet about EBC Computers because for one thing they are right and I would have saved myself some $ and problems with them and defective equipment. I work in IT, am technical, and can tell you seriously that this place is awful and I will never shop there again. I bought a Pioneer DVR-215 dvd burner from them because it was highly rated. However this one had problems in the computer I was building. I had bought an extended warranty from EBC so I figured I was covered and would get a replacement. I took it back to the store but they said before they could do that it would have to be tested.  
 
In the meantime I bought 3 dvd burners from NewEgg including the same exact Pioneer model. It had no problems in my machine and neither did the others. A week goes by and no call from EBC. I called them and they said it tested fine and I could come and pick it up. I replied well what was I supposed to do with a defective drive that wouldnt work in my computer? They said I could not get a replacement but instead could return it for a refund but with a 25% restocking fee because it was scratched and they would have to sell it as used. I said that it would cost me less to send it back to Pioneer. When I went back to pick it up I looked at it and at first couldn't see a scratch. Then I saw a very faint line on one side where it had rubbed up against the cage where you install it in the PC. So let me get this straight, a part that you are putting into a computer where metal rubs against metal and you're not going to honor a warranty because of that and even with an extended warranty to boot?! They won't even give me a replacement?! They are crooks!!! This means that your extended warranty is worthless no matter what and they can "test" it and come up with any result they want and blame you and not have to honor a warranty! I do testing and I don't think they probably performed any kind of rigorous testing that would've identified the problem and now I have to send the worthless drive back to Pioneer! I emailed the owner and explained what I was unhappy about and he never replied. Well there you go. I told him why should I continue buying from there? There was no reason!  
 
A number of the people I dealt with in the store didn't seem to know much about the products they were selling. That can't be a good sign when I go into a computer parts store and I know more than the people behind the counter.