Good on price, apalling service (Eclipse Computers (Coventry))

Member Name: philmar

Product:	Eclipse Computers (Coventry)
Date:	08/01/01 (778 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The price is right

Disadvantages: service is non existant

Eclipse Computers are a PC component supplier based in Coventry and advertise weekly in Micro Mart. Their listings are always comprehensive and spread over three to four pages. Their price list is also quite detailed with as much information provided as can be fitted on the page. There is a draw back to this in that the font used in the ads is extremely small which ordinarily wouldn't be a problem, however Micro Mart's printing process is not always top notch and if the print is smudged slightly the page can be unreadable. The one major selling point of this firm is their prices; I have found that they are consistently about the cheapest in Micro Mart.

Eclipse has a website with online ordering which seems to take quite a while to load and uses quite a bit of java. Most companies that supply computer parts charge a surcharge for credit card orders, however if you order on the Eclipse website there is no surcharge with no minimum order and delivery is free if you accept the one week delivery time. If you want the kit any quicker there is a charge.

I have been buying parts from them for years and have recommended them to many of my friends. On the whole the service has been good apart from the fact that the telephone lines seem to be permanently engaged or you spend ages in a queuing system. A lot can be forgiven for the prices they charge though. However, just before Christmas I had to order a hard drive and decided to give the Eclipse website a go. I placed the order accepting the warning they had up that because of the time of year delivery may be a couple of days beyond normal. When the order still hadn't arrived well in to the second week I gave them a ring to find out where the order was, after another week of phone calls a drive finally turned up. Days later another drive turned up, no problem I thought, a slight cock up in the ordering system, I'll just give them a ring and return the second drive. How wrong can you be? They
refused to accept the second drive was their mistake and insisted they wouldn't accept it as a return. I spent weeks of non returned phone calls, managers telling me they didn't have authority to make a refund and so on. Eventually as I was going through the process of contacting trading standards they relented.

All I can say is If their attitude to an unopened £100 hard drive is so shabby what is their warranty worth. Frankly I would now rather spend the extra money in my local computer shop and know there won't be an issue with any returns. I can't help feeling If I had been round the corner and was able to go in face to face there wouldn't have been a problem, because I was a couple of hundred miles away they thought they could fob me off.

They may be cheap and if you decide to use them pray you don't have any damaged goods shipped.

Summary: