Gateway/necx canceling recent Visiontek 4400/4600 orders without notification, check your orders

[DestruyaUR]

All I know is that I got my cancellation notice around 10:30pm. There are gonna be 100X more pissed off people than there are now when they check their inboxes tomorrow morning.

Interesting they sent all the notices out WAY after customer service was closed. Ten bucks says their lines are gonna be down or "very busy/no one picking up" tomorrow.

For sh*ts and grins, I'm gonna check some of the other Hot Deals forums around the web, specifically FW. Those guys oughtta be about five times more irate than us!

 

[MemnochtheDevil]

While it sucks that you guys aren't getting your deal, some people need to take a few deep breaths, no point in having high blood pressure over this. As to gateway using GF4s in their computers, the accessory store and their direct sales line are 2 completely separate entities, with different supply lines. And these are actually 2 different products, oem versus retail.

My guess as to what happened is visiontek has less production than they and/or gateway thought, so their shipping fewer retail GF4's because they have to fulfill their OEM contracts (where they make their real money).

As for gateway cancelling these because their losing money on them, I doubt it. The mark up has to be more than $50, especially when they obviously have a few thousand orders, so they can buy in quantity.

I still think this is simply a case of them vastly under estimating the demand for 2 new items due to a coupon combo that made theirs the best price. Gateway/NECX most likely contact visiontek or their suppliers found out the could not fill the orders in a reasonable time. I'd try to email them and say your willing to wait 90 days or whatever, but if they truly are not going to carry the product for another 6 months, your out of luck.

Does it suck, yes. But gateway may not have any other options right now if they can't get the cards.

On the other hand I could be wrong anf gateway could start selling them in 30 days. Then they would deserve the profanity, anger, and lawsuits. But right now this is just another new product that is in short supply.

Memnoch

 

[golfreak]

GetReal, umm follow your own handle and get real !!!

I don't give a damm where the coupon came from.
The FACT is that they floated them out there for us to use.
If they were so swamped with these coupons, they could have cancel the coupons earlier but they didn't.
In fact the coupon were good all until Feb 28.
As a matter of fact, I pointed this deal out to my friends and they got their order in just before it expire and had no problem getting their 955DF that they ordered.

So what the reason for them to cancel orders when their supplier(Ingram) has them(or will have them) in stock ???
NONE.

When companies make a pricing mistake, they have the right to cancel orders, I have no qualm about that.
BUt clearly, none of this is a pricing mistake, Gateway just decides to cancel all orders(they even charge some people before hand).
What they are doing is unethical.

Lets see here, they got millions of hits on their site, charge quite a few people and then canceling it for no reason and you don't think theres anything wrong with it ??

Get your freakin head out of the gutter man.

BTW....they are not just canceling orders on the 4400 and 4600.
They are canceling orders on other stuff too.
Read my earlier thread....INGRAM MICRO does have the the 1.6A INSTOCK.
WHy did Gateway list the 1.6A for 2 months and now that INGRAM have them instock now, Gateway decides to cancel orders for them ????
This is why I and so many people are so furious about the situation.
They have no legimate reason to cancel all the orders.

 

[DestruyaUR]

Memnoch:

The simple fact remains that this was not even a policy of G.A.S. (Gateway Accessory Store)'es prior to this. Their policy was to keep all orders for 60 days then cancel them - ONLY if the customer had not requested a longer period. There is no other explanation other than this is a half-assed attempt to get out of selling something for a legal price. If Gateway is smart, they won't sell a single one of these until mid-May - because that will be within the 60 day period.

I, for one, am going to exercise my right as a consumer, and call tomorrow saying I want my order reinstated for the price with the coupon applied and kept on record until or *IF* I see fit to cancel it. According to their policies as sent in the email, that is completely within my right as a customer of NecX/G.A.S. (as they'll be known to me from now on). As I've said before, I didn't mind waiting nearly two months for my GF3 - I wouldn't mind waiting one or two for a Ti4400.

From now on, I think screwjob deals like this should be called "GASsy Deals". Gateway got their positive publicity - now let's give them some negative publicity!

 

[Instigator]

This is complete crap! Nothing like getting the double shaft (i.e. Best Buy and Gateway). There is no way in hell I'm going to give up on this. Specifically because I've been waiting for 3 weeks and have a system on the way that I planned on using the Ti4400. Also, unlike Best Buy this was a legit offer ($50 off). Truely unbelievable!

 

[DestruyaUR]

Also - I think it's safe to say, that since everyone is pissed enough as-is - that if anyone actually DOES get their order filled, that they NOT POST IT HERE.

I cannot tell you how frigging pretentious it is when people flaunt things (i.e. "WOW, THIS'LL GO GREAT WITH THE FREE MOBO/CPU I WON IN THE XPP PROJECT THAT I'M NOW RUBBING IN YOUR LOSER FACES!")

So, just FYI. I do think they cancelled every order, though. I cannot believe they did not get at least 200 of each card in.

Edit: Who am I kidding? There are gonna be jackasses who do this anyway for the hell of it and to get a rise out of people. Just like the WallyWorld DVD-R/W deal.

 

[mrbass]

<< If you do not want your order automatically cancelled 60 days from today, you may request that we keep your order and fill it later. If you do request that we keep your order and fill it later, you still have the right to cancel your order at any time before we ship it to you</B>. You may contact us by emailing us at GWASmail@gateway.com or by calling our Client Relations number at 800/961-9261, either to <B>request that we fill your order later or to cancel it.

WHAT A SURPRISE. I BELIEVE I WILL CALL TOMORROW AND ASK FOR THIS VERY THING!
>>



I just got my ti4400 cancelled and will be calling them daily (first to requrest that they keep my order and fill it later) and then each day to see if they haven't gotten it shipped. Then if they ever do ship it and I get it I hope they go out of business. This crappy service probably can all be blamed on Ted Waitt as he recently took over again as CEO and instituted stingy, highly suspicous business practices. I believe this calls for an SEC investigation. article

 

[IshmaelLeaver]

As for gateway cancelling these because their losing money on them, I doubt it.

Everything seems to point that direction. They are canceling the orders for other items besides the GF4s.

 

[dishawbr]

You are absolutely correct 1YellowPeril.. we lost.. that's it
But I do agree that this is totally bad for business.. don't think I won't be calling them about my order...

 

[DestruyaUR]

Heh - I'LL be calling them non-stop. It's a 1-800 number. THEY pay for the call. I figure three times a day might do the trick...and WHAT'S THIS? A SPEAKERPHONE NEXT TO MY COMPUTER???

I'm normally not a vengeful person. But when I get screwed like this - people gotta pay. I think the man-hours spent and cost of my calls over the next 60 days will be more than enough to satiate my need for revenge - and the old rule applies - "the longer you bitch, the more likely you are to get what you want."

The tenacious are the ones who still might benefit from this deal - it's the people who say "eh, f*** it, I'll just never buy from them again" who get nothing. That's what they're expecting you to do.

BB gave everyone 30 dollars credit for a *price mistake*. Gateway deserves to give us something more or similar for a *legitimate purchase*. I offhandedly wouldn't mind 40-50 dollars in credit so I can buy a graphics card when they finally decide to get them in stock.

Even in terms of numbers, you can't deny this. A LOT of people who were in on the BB fiasco got in on this one (and got screwed twice) - so that's a few thousand (not sure of the exact number) people. Only problem - BBY is at 67.25 a share and looking good while GTW's stock has dropped 15 points to around 5 in a year from around 20.

It's pissing people off like this that can bankrupt a company at 5 dollars a share. Add up everyone who got in on this deal with the P4 1.6A customers and the Fujitsu deal, and you've got one pretty big angry mob to go to the SEC with.

 

[KMHPaladin]

<< GetReal, umm follow your own handle and get real !!!

I don't give a damm where the coupon came from.
The FACT is that they floated them out there for us to use. >>

No they didn't. Read.

<< . Unless Gateway specifically mailed you the coupon then what makes you think that you were entitled to use it in the first place? Gateway did not advertise the coupon anywhere on their website. The $50 coupon like most that float around deal sites are posted without the companies permission and unless you have a copy of the original coupon email and that email explicitly states the coupon is transferrable then you used it illegally. >>


Do you think they wanted to give out $50 off coupons to everyone or just select customers? I can understand people being unhappy, and Gateway is pulling a real BS trick here instead of saying "we know all you crazy Anandtechers pulled one over on us, so screw you" but frankly some of your attitudes are way off. These coupons were not made for general distribution, so far as I can tell, and Gateway, if they intelligently labeled them as nontransferrable, should not be obligated to honor them. Don't tell me you haven't used underhanded tricks with price errors for PMs or edited receipts, etc. to get what you wanted. Let's cut out the hypocrisy shall we?

 

[golfreak]

How can you think these coupons were only for selected customers ??
If they were indeed for selected customers, they would have made them for 1 usage only for their customers(like what Dell does sometimes).

Don't you know that Gateway Acess floats out coupons all the time. YES they do.
They have already set a precedent by letting customers use coupons before
(For example in the last few months, they have had $30 off $199, $25 off $150, $40 off $299, $35 off $299, etc....)
So why is this coupon any difference ??

So don't sit there and tell me this coupon was for "selected customers'
They already set a precedent so we can assume that this coupon was for the public to use.

 

[KMHPaladin]

wow, I would have thought Gateway would have been smarter... my mistake, golfreak.

 

[mrbass]

Clarification. I said in an earlier post this warrants an SEC investigation. This may or may not be far fecthed. But here are the facts

--$50 coupon was for hundreds of products over $199 which resulted in massive sales of tons of products.

--coupon last for quite a few weeks until Feb 28th. Can someone check when their month-end is for accounting?

--just throw out some numbers ti4600 $339 x 10,000 = $3.3 million ti4400 $235 x 10,000 = $2.35 million + all the other insane order with that $50 coupon = $20 million dollars worth of sales within a few weeks just for their gateway accessory store. I know this is only revenue and not profit but for accounting purposes it makes the books cooking. Why stop the coupon the last day of the month? Can you say Betty Crocker Cook those books? So their sagging stock gets a needed infusion which allows Ted Waitt and others privy to the info to sell off massive stock in the company for a profit knowing full well they artificially increased their stock price on purpose.

Ok call me a wild consipiracy theorist but it sure looks like they're going under and I'll be monitoring their stock like a hounddog.gateway stock If it swings way up I'll be tipping off an SEC Investigator and hopefully I'll get some reward money or a 'free video card of your choice' would suffice too.

 

[gunf1ghter]

They always do these massive coupon deals to prop up sagging sales (or to drive a competitor out of business).

They know full and well that they are going to lose money on some products... lots and lots of money in some cases as a $20 loss per piece adds up fast if you sell 10,000 of them.

I think that the most likely explanation for this cancellation is that they simply found out that there was no way they could get an allocation of cards to meet the orders.

There is certainly a possibility that they cancelled these because the loss was too great, I guess it's possible if they sold enough of them. Demand for this card will be sky high for a loooong time...

 

[boa]

Sorry to hear about the gway problem. I learned my lesson about them on the gway 6400 year. I feel your pain :disgust:

 

[ChefJoe]

Feb 28, 2002 Yahoo's Gateway News ticker

Analyst: Gateway may not be with us much longer
Gateway slumps 10 percent after loss warning
Gateway Sees Up to $120M Loss in 1Q

Closing The Door On Gateway's Options

Not that it's really anything new, but perhaps they're shutting down the on-line shop for everything or having creditor problems.

 

[mrbass]

damn...lost $1 billion dollars last year forbes
"Last week, Gateway said it will lose $120 million in its first quarter, ending in March, and that sales will be down more than 50% to $970 million. That comes after the company lost $1 billion in 2001. "

that's it...the reason Gateway was forced to cancel our orders was Gateway's Line of Credit is CRAP. In other words no way in hell Visiontek is shipping them $5 million dollars worth of video cards and then next month or in the near future when they go to collect it Gateway closes and VisionTek is screwed up the butt. This is all making sense now. Why in the hell would Amazon have Visiontek GeForce4 Ti 4600 IN STOCK and shipping for $379 now. Simple..cuz Amazon has a line of credit that Visiontek Inc. can trust.

Visiontek Credit Manager "You want a line of credit of how much again?"

Gateway Purchase Manager "A few million if you'd be so kind even though we'll probably not be able to pay you. We have over 18,000 orderes for your Geforce4 line of video cards."

Visiontek Credit Manager "I won't even consider shipping you, Gateway Inc., one video card looking at your recent financial predicaments. I make $60k/yr at my work and don't want to lose my job."

Gateway Purchase Manager "Just out of pure curiousity, you would by any chance be hiring over there yonder now would ya?"

Visiontek Credit Manager "Sure I run a tight ship and have only 2% default on credit lines so we are expanding all the time. Send me your resume."

 

[DestruyaUR]

Bass raises an interesting point. Smart companies with stronger financial backbones might sense the outrage of consumers following this - and I wouldn't be surprised if a big retailer like Amazon, Buy.com, or ecost decides to make it so you can get the 4400 and 4600 for 250 and 350 respectively. Don't tell me none of you wouldn't jump on that. Hell, Amazon has the 4600 for 379 - they COULD live with shaving 20 bucks off and possibly 30 (though in 2-3 weeks the free shipping offer should be long-dead - so that effectively makes it a max of $20-24 off).

Be on the lookout - stronger retailers should smell blood in the water where money can be made - and if they ARE planning on doing something like this - it's gonna be a few (2-3) weeks away, since they know there are the diehards who would buy the cards for OVER MSRP (case in point: idiots on eBay buying 4600s for over 400 bucks).

I did this deal on a whim - because I knew I wasn't gonna get it on the 5th and wanted to wait. I even bought a damn DVI->VGA converter that I now have to take back - heh - but at least I can EASILY take it back - y'all who bought the 6 buck adapter from MWave need to send it back or wait for the 4200 now.

Quite frankly, now that I've seen the specs for the 4400, I'm content to wait until another (re: VALID) deal like this comes along for the 4400. The more I look at the specs for the 4200 the more I realize nVidia has nothing to gain and a lot to lose from making the 4200 an "overclocker's dream" - just like you don't really have a good chance of getting a 4400 up to or past a 4600's speed...perhaps except for core speed....just a thought.

I still am gonna call and say I want to wait the 60 days - and I haven't checked my statement yet, but if they charged my card already, I'm putting that sumbitch in dispute.

- Dest

 

[kof]

Check out this thread also to see where Gateway/necx is also cancelling out on a camera deal.
The aholes want you to go to their site for the $50/off deal and order something else. Plus the phone wait for a CSR is alway 15 minutes. And they send out their cancellation notices LATE - my went at 23:32.:|

 

[DestruyaUR]

<< The aholes want you to go to their site for the $50 off deal and order something else. >>



Yeah, too bad the four items actually worth buying have been cancelled and the items with rebates on them (AOE2/Asheron's Call) are mysteriously disappearing - making Z560 deals nigh impossible to get. ( Only thing that'd be me back onto G.A.S. is a 50 off 150 code. But that'd lose them more cash than the vid card deal.

Oh well, at least I got in on that free after rebate HP 9900 deal. Hasta la vista, G.A.S., you'll never see another dime of mine again!

 

[KenAF]

> I think this cancelling is only for items that Gateway has no hope stocking in future:

Dollars to doughnuts says that the Gateway store does stock the Visiontek GF4 cards in the future. Any lawyers in the house? This would seem grounds for a class action lawsuit, particularly if Gateway is not fullfilling any orders.

My guess is they'll leave the Geforce4 boards off the online store for a few weeks...and then put them back on.

 

[mrphones]

Yep, mine got canceled last night, I'll be calling them today. The one thing I don't understand, in the e-mail is states that the product is no longer available from Visiontek, what a load of crap!!! My thought is that they just don't want to honor the $50 off. Oh well, just another online retailer that I will never order from again.

 

[lordex]

My order for the 4600 got canceled, too, with an email exactly the same.
This is absolutely intolerable. At least they could have asked me to choose whether to continue waiting or to cancel. I wonder if there will be a class act law suit.

 

[dmk11]

Let me just say that I don't think they're canceling your order because of the $50 coupon. It probably have something to do with them not being to get the quantities they want. After all, it's a new card.

I ordered something else that was just over $200 w/ the $50 coupon, and I got it last week. I'm sure they lost money on my order, but they sent it anyways.

In general, their email notification sucks. It's always a few days after the event happened that they emailed the notification.

just my .02 cents.