Price USA News

My agent and I have decided to stop taking order for refurbished computers (laptops in particular) from Dell and HP. This is because of three major reasons:

1. It is really difficult to actually place orders for refurbished laptops or other computers. The stock tend to only last minutes to hours and so by the time your payment clears the computer has gone.
2. They take for ever to ship and the tracking details provided by HP in particular are useless.
3. 60% of the computers actually ordered and shipped have turned out to be the wrong model. We think HP and Dell aren’t able to identify what refurbished laptops they actually have in stock, or their shipping staff can’t tell one laptop from another, but the end result is the wrong model ends up getting delivered. This is then a nightmare to sort out.

I know that some people will be disappointed by this, but we can’t keep dealing with these orders and until such time as HP and Dell sort out their problems we won’t be taking any more orders for refurbished laptops or other computers from these two companies. I would not turn down your business unless I knew I was saving you from a terrible fate.

Carolina

I have updated the order form to make it a little easier to use. The major changes are:

• You can choose the country. This should make it easier for people from New Zealand or other countries to access my service.
• The mail-in rebate fields have been removed since very few people use it. You can still get mail-in rebates, you just need to put the details in the order description box.
• The form now warns you if you are likely to be charged GST or duty (ie the total is over A$1000).
• I have changed some of the name of the fields on the form and updated the help function.

I would welcome any feedback anyone might have on the changes.

Carolina

Edit. Thanks for the feedback some of you have provided so far. There was an issue with the USA shipping field which I think have been corrected. If anyone else is having problems with the form please let me know.

I have made a couple of changes to my fee structure to improve the service I offer.

1. All laptops will now be opened, checked, and have a hardware profile run on them before they are shipped to make sure that they match what you ordered. I have had to introduce this policy because some suppliers have been shipping laptops where the internal specifications don’t match what is on the box or what was actually ordered. While this change will mean that no more wrong or DOA laptops will be shipped, it does take up quite a bit more of my agent’s time. Because of this he is charging me an extra US$8.00 to do this testing and which I will be passing on to you.

2. I have also had quite a spike in orders that are paid for and later cancelled. Until now I have been happy to provide a full refund, but these orders are now taking up too much time. To try to cut down on these cancelled ordered, I have introduced a new processing fee of A$5.00 for cancelled and refunded orders. I will wave this fee if you place a new order within a week. This fee only applied to orders that have been paid for – quotes are still free.

Carolina

My agent had an out-of-town emergency family issue and had to leave with no notice. He told me that he will only have sporadic internet access (he will try and place as many orders as he can when he gets the chance), but he won’t be able to ship any orders until he gets back. He is trying to get a friend to ship orders for him, but he is not sure if they will be able to. These situations can happen and I will keep everyone updated.

Edit. My agent is back and all is back to normal.