1/5

posted Jan-03-2008
My feelings on my experience with PCMicroWorks and their BlackHawk laptop (10/2007-1/2008):
They delivered the laptop fast within 5 days I was totally stoked on the laptop and PC MicroWorks!
They delivered it with incorrect hardware (ABG instead of ABN) and didn't notify me which they said was my fault because I ordered the laptop without an OS and they normally put the paper in the box as part of the OS (Now you start to see my problem is with PCMicroWorks and their employees, it’s never their fault always the customers).
The laptop immediately black screened and locked up when put in SLI mode for Vista x64 which I explicitly asked if it worked and they said yes (Obviously they never tested it or did and decided to lie to me anyway).
They blamed the video problem on NVidia saying NVidia told them it worked so they shipped it. They also blamed this on me not ordering an OS for them to have installed (Oh by the way there site offers the laptop without an OS as the default choice). They also blame me for getting 4GB of memory and said the problem doesn't exist with 2GB (they never ask me to take out any memory to fix the problem? Also once again their site offers the 4GB upgrade for free at the time I ordered).
They promise me a working driver in a week or so and have me disable some features to get SLI to work which it never does.
Then they ship the new driver which basically has the same problems not as pronounced but still present.
After over a month they finally offer to swap the cards temporarily for 7950 which are not DirectX10 which is the main reason I bought this system and how it is advertised on their website.
I said I would take the cards if they would upgrade the 8700 to the 8800s coming out for my trouble and they would not commit but did send the 7950s.
Now during all this two SATA drives fail one after the other. They overnighted drives to replace them.
I have now spent more money and time on this laptop than it cost me originally ~$5,000.00.
Also the customer support is terrible. They are overly aggressive, blame the customer, refuse to take ownership of the problem, follow through is terrible; don't follow their written or oral agreements.
Back to the video problem so I hadn't heard from them in over a week so I decided to call and either say give me the 8800s with a working driver or take the laptop back. The customer support person was terrible. First off he started complaining about me wanting to game with the laptop, buying it without an OS again, and various other absurd, unprofessional , and just plain ridiculous statements like "we are taking care of you by going out of our way to do such and such" etc. This guy was unreal. He taunted me and finally after I told him I wanted to return the laptop offered the 8800s and told me I would have to get a new motherboard too. I told him no thanks not only do I not want it because of what has transpired (Especially the conversation with this customer service manager) now I really know PCMicroWork’s marketing gimmick of being upgradeable is totally mis-leading seeing you have to change the motherboard to upgrade video cards.
I tried to get a hold of upper management but they refused to let me through.
Needless to say I returned the portable and they gave me a full refund and all shipping was at their cost. They drew out the refund return (during the holidays the worst time for me to tie up 5K of mine, affected my 8 year old daughter’s Christmas) and once again broke their written agreement on that. Even though they think they made me whole they are not even close with the time I invested.
I write this because before I bought the laptop from PCMicroWorks I searched for info on the company and their support and found little to none. If someone had written an article like this I may not have made the purchase.
There are plenty of other companies out there that sell similar systems based on the exact same core Clevo system that will provide much better customer service and support and not waste your valuable time and money.
“Customer was sent the wrong product on an order for IC7 5 gram thermal grease on May 16. We speak with a lot of customers on a daily basis, and when this one called, his call was easy to not forget. Customer was verbally belligerent and rude. After apologizing for sending him the 1.5 gram syringe instead of the 5.0 gram syringe, and immediately shipping him the correct part, I assured him he did not need to return the 1.5 gram syringe since we made the mistake. Several minutes later, he called again and apologized for being so belligerent, and thanked me for correcting the issue. On customer's order from 06-02-2010, a significant number of man hours were spent with customer via email and on the phone by our support staff. We provided him with an extensive email support from 05-24-2010 to 06-02-2010, and a listing of parts he would need for his specific application. We referred him to other businesses for his phase change applications. The parts list was emailed to him, which he confirmed also via email. The order shipped UPS ground on 06-03-2010, which he called repeatedly to confirm were shipping on that day. Customer claims we left off a reservoir, but after researching our email communications to him on 06-02-2010, the list sent was complete, it matches his invoice verbatim, and he confirmed the list while at the same time, asking to send him free products:
"Hey I wanted to talk to you about your company sponsoring my rig to get some word of mouth and ground up advertising. I just got IC Diamond to sponsor my rig. I am looking to get multiple sponsors like race cars do. In return I can help build you a channel of people on forums that are veterans with good street cred recommending your company/products. This is really a new method of buzz marketing that can really help your sales. Let me know if you’re interested."
This, along with our previous encounters, such as the threat to discredit us and our service publicly simply for taking just over a week during Memorial Day Holiday to prepare a custom quotation, continued to sound alarms. Our denial to provide him with free products likely played a role in his rant this week.
Customer placed an online order with us on Monday June 7th at 5:10 p.m. EST. A subsequent order was placed on Tuesday June 8th at 00:00:28 EST. The order was picked by our Engineer and checked by two of us here because of our previous experiences with said individual. In spite of his treatment of us over the phone, we were kind enough to make the extra effort to merge his two orders, and refund him appropriately the excess shipping charges on the second order. The following day the customer called and was again upset. He claimed an o-ring was missing on one of his fittings, which left our hands sealed in plastic, pre-packed by the manufacturer. We did not question the customer's claim, though it was peculiar that every single other fitting (there are 77 others) in our stockroom did have the o-rings with the fittings. We stated we will mail a spare o-ring immediately that will work with the customer's fitting. The o-ring was removed from a spare o-ring bag, the same spare o-rings that hundreds of other competent customers have purchased from us, placed into an envelope and mailed out that day, and he received it the following. The following day the customer called again the day he received it, and was verbally abusive and rude. He was upset because the color was black instead of green. Of course, it does not matter as once the fitting is installed in his particular application, as the o-ring is no longer visible. When I indicated this, he claimed the o-ring we sent would not work at all because it was three times larger (thicker) than the o-ring and would not fit on the fitting. His wife even chimed in in the background that it was three times thicker and could not be used.
specifically, this black o-ring, shown with the green one side by side at equal thickness: http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/sidewindercomputers/orings.jpg
He continued to make wild claims, such as it not being a real Bitspower o-ring and some other o-ring (its the only one we carry) At this point, I agreed to get him a green o-ring. Again, the customer became aggressive and belligerent, because he stated that this solution was not good enough - it had to be another sealed fitting, because he no longer trusted my hands to touch it, and that we must be conspiring against him to mess up his orders. At this point, Falcon CMH was treated in the same manner as he had treated us over the last several weeks, which has now resulted in this public complaint. This customer, up until today was treated with nothing less than respect, only to be treated in return like rubbish. We have had our fill of his potty mouth. Other resellers should take note of this individual and take appropriate precautions to protect themselves. ”