1/5

posted Aug-21-2004

In hindsight, I should have read the reviews about this company from this site before placing an order through nt-micro.com.

I also found them through pricewatch.com. They had the lowest price listed for the MS multimedia natural keyboard OEM version (No shipping and no tax for $17.99). How did they get away with selling it for that price and not require the customer to purchase hardware with the keyboard I don't know. It makes me suspicious that they're not following the OEM "rules" like the excellent neweggs.com (which requires you to purchase hardware with this OEM keyboard for $22+).

I placed my order on the 17th and still have not received a tracking number (it's now the 21st). I sent them 3-4 emails and they all come back bounced with a message saying that their mailbox is over the quota limit. What kind of company has maxed out their quota limit for three days straight?

I also receive a complimentary auto-reply. Which I just now noticed it has a different email address:

Dear value customer,
Currently we are using Fedex and USPS for all our shipment.
Please note that all tracking start with 0180 or 2180 that from USPS.
The tracking start with 792 or 144, please check it using Fedex.
If you have any more questions please fell free to email at cs@nt-micro.com (not sales@nt-micro.com)

Thank You
NT-Micro.com

The "sales@nt-micro.com" is the email address on their website and in the initial email that they send to you after you placed your order.

I have sent an email to the "cs@nt-micro.com" address and have not received a bounce yet.

But after reading all these emails about the end product received from them (after a week or so of waiting) looking like the product has been pulled from an existing system, I'm very skeptically that I will get a new keyboard.

If I do not get an email response from them later today, I will cancel my order and order from newegg.com. Even though it costs a little bit more, I get excellent customer support from newegg.com in the past and have received my orders promptly and without any problem whatsoever.

They have a place on their website to login and check your order. It's rather pathetic compared to newegg.com. There is no progress or status indicating that your order is being processed or being looked at. You get the feeling that they're not very experienced in this department.

I have not tried calling them. They have a $10 charged for something called a will call in addition to their number not being toll-free. This is yet another sign that this company doesn't care about its customer.

Here's an excerpt from their order confirmation email:

For technical assistance with your order, please email
sales@nt-micro.com

Yeah, if you do send them an email, your email will get bounced. How's that for technical assistance?

In conclusion, I have never experienced such a mediocre service from an online reseller like this before.

***** Update *****

I finally received my keyboard (08-26-2004; I originally placed the order on 08-17-2004 which comes to 10 days). The keyboard arrived in an eVGA.com box. One of the side stickers has a label that says:

VGA GF6800GT 256DDR TV+DVI

Why is my keyboard shipped in a box that's marked for a video card? Whatever. I opened the box expecting to get a used keyboard or at worst something entirely different (like a mouse pad). To my surprise, it's the Microsoft natural keyboard that I ordered and a brand new one too.

There's not much to the packaging inside the box. The keyboard is neither sealed or in its retail box. Instead, it came covered in a plastic, half opened (looks like by design and hand opened) keyboard bag.

So in the end, I got what I ordered. But I still do not recommend this reseller to anyone until they start to answer their customer's email. Also, the time it took to get my order is something less than desirable. About the only thing good about this reseller is the low price.

For anyone reading this, take your money elsewhere (like newegg.com). It might cost a little more, but you won't have to wait as long or be ignored.

This review was modified by kidaware on August 28 2004 02:14:40 PM

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