Monarch Computers?

[ncage]

Have you guys every had trouble with monarch? I think i have ordered from them twice in the past and don't remember having problems but i have had problems with my recent order. I ordered a psu sunday night. I got a quick email from them confirming my order. I also got an email i think on monday saying my order had been sent to the warehouse and that it might take 2-3 days to process. THey said they would send me an email with a tracking number when it shipped. Well as of yet no email. Every time i have tried to call them i get a message "the person you are trying to calls mailbox is full". I emaild them yesterday and still no reply. I went to resellerrating.com and there are a lot of people that have been complaining about the same problems i seem to be having. Have any of you ordered from them recently and what was your experience?

thanks,
ncage

 

[mpitts]

I have never had a problem with them. I have also been to their store many times and was always taken care of very well.

They are generally who I deal with when I need to pick up a computer part in the Atlanta area.

 

[PinmasterJay]

I've ordered from them a couple times never had any problems...But this was a couple years ago

Keep trying...

 

[randay]

Yes. Last time I ordered from them 2 Xeons and they were in stock at the time, they charged me same day i ordered, ~1400 dollars. Couple of weeks later, no replies to email, phone calls only got me some BS replies about the processors coming in "next week". Along with the fact that getting on the phone with them is rediculously fustrating (I think they hung up on me one time). I finally got a satisfactory answer like 3 weeks later, and only after I posted on thier forums. Go to thier forums and you'll be able to see whether people have problems or not.

 

[eplebnista]

No more ordering from them for me either.

 

[cw42]

I've ordered from there tons, no problem. On hardforum.com they have a Monarch rep there that's very active on their forums, and you can always get a quick reply from him.

 

[bennylong]

I'll never order from Monarch again

 

[screw3d]

I've had problems with them too and I have ordered quite a bit. Never again. They never reply to emails and shipping takes forever (beyond what they promised).

 

[AMDMaddness]

I ordered a Thermaltake full tower case from them, they ddint even bother to tell me for over a week until I called for the 3rd time that they were out of stock. Ah the hassles with them... your better off skipping them if you can in the future.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I ordered my DFI mobo and my Athlon 64 3700+ SD from them.

I ordered on 7/29/2005, and we know that the X2 3800+ debuted on 8/1. I gambled thinking AMD wouldn't cut prices because there was no talk of it, but guess what... they did. San Diego 3700+s went from 339 down to 270 or something? Monarch slashed prices down to $299 immediately, and I begged them on 8/1 to let me pay al ower price since my order didnt ship out yet.

And they said fine even though they sounded reluctant.

2 months later I saw my CC statement, and I got a credit of $115 from Monarch. San Diego 3700+ prices leveled around $260, so technically I could've only saved $70 by waiting, but I expected only a $40 credit back (339 - 299), but $115? Hell yea.....

 

[bennylong]

Their customer service now is "if we don't response, maybe they will start bothering us"

 

[cr0ssfire]

I just had a very positive experience with Monarch, actually. I ordered an 80mm Enermax Air Master fan (gooo Enermax! ) with Fedex Saver Shipping yesterday. I was told it would take 2-3 business days to process and, naturally, would take several days longer to arrive at my doorstop.

I checked my mail today to find out not only that my fan had shipped today, but it had been spontaneously upgraded to Fedex 2-day shipping at no additional charge. Now that's what I call service! :thumbsup:

 

[Trikat]

I have had several problems with Monarch, but I did place quite a bit of orders.
The worst is when they charge your card without first shipping out the order. For example if you place 2 orders back to back the 1st order will get shipped, but the 2nd will not. You card will be charged and posted to your statement. You will have to call in, email, or contact them another way to get the order shipped as it is due to some fraud protection I believe.
Another issue is ordering instock items to only have to set aside to backorder status/not instock. A real-time inventory would be helpful. For example, I ordered some computer memory and it was instock for both kits (I assumed so since it didn't say out of stock). It did not ship out until 8, yes 8 freaking days after I ordered it.
Their site seems to lack a good order status page as the order status only says order received/processing. Order sent to warehouse to be shipped, and/or order has been shipped. No page showing an invoice, receipt, or order status page with the items/prices. The only way is to view the emails which will come in an order received page and later on an invoice email. The invoice email does not show the order date, only the invoice date so for rebates you will want to send in the packing slip in combination with the invoice or from what I heard the packing slip alone might be sufficient.
Another issue I can think of is, is their customer support is not really good at all. Sometimes you can get an email reply within a day, but other times it can take 2-3 days or never.
The phones are probably the best way to contact them and the representatives have been nice to me.
O yea and for computer memory they open up the kits and put their own little warranty stickers on them. I kind of don't like that as they are opening a brand new product and risk a chance of frying it. I'm doubtful that it will get fried, but I just don't like it when they do that. Adding another sticker to the heatspreaders also defeats the purpose of having heatspreaders as it will just trap even more heat...

Even after expericing all these issues I still would order from this company if the price is right and the fact they use FedEx instead of UPS. The shippping for me is always bumped from a regular ground FedEx to 2 day Fedex on every order. So I do get my package fairly fast, but even if it was shipped by ground it would get to me in 2 days (GA to NC). I once tried to convince them to change it to FedEx Ground instead of 2nd day so they can save some money, but I guess they didn't feel like doing so. O well.

At hardforums the have a Monarch rep that sometimes posts deals or frequently reviews to message boards for any deals people want. However a lot of people are annoying and kind of demand deals from Monarch instead of "asking" for it.

 

[ncage]

thanks everyone. I dought i will order from them again. Unfortunatly OCZ makes you mail in your rebates within two weeks (including weekends). They better ship this thing out in time enough for me to get my rebate or i will be very very pissed. and to think i did this to save $1 freakn measly dollor over newegg. I thought i would get it faster since they were closer to me too. OH well lession learned from now i will stick to newegg, zipzoomfly, and chiefvalue.

ncage

 

[imported_gshock]

I ordered through monarch when I got my FX-55 and DFI motherboard. I think I got ram from there too. I had no problems back then. I recommended them for a friend of mine and he had very hard time contacting customer service and shipping took longer then expected. He paid to get it expedited too. I might have to reconsider on giving Monarch my recommendation because of this experience.

 

[rhino56]

wow their reseller ratings are dropping like a bird with 1 wing

 

[ncage]

Well they finally shipped my psu today. I had to call them twice. The first call they said they would call me back cause they had to contact the warehouse and of course they didn't call back. On the second call they were able to help me. I sent 3 emails and got a reply to one just being almost an automated reply. They upgrade my ground to 2-day fedex but they should have after all the trouble i went through. Least i know i will be getting the psu in before the rebate runs out.

ncage

 

[GlobalHPSJoe]

I understand that we've recently had some problems with our ratings but we are actively working to resolve these as quickly as possible. Here are the the things that we're doing:

(1) Both Sterling and I are back to being involved with Customer Service full-time with our number one goal of resolving the issues we currently have and restoring our level of service to what you were used to and beyond;

(2) We are replacing our phone system which was described in the first post with a new advanced system that will decrease times on hold and allow for noticeably quicker and more efficient handling of phone calls;

(3) Likewise, the entire accounting process and department are being overhauled and upgraded to resolve all issues there as quickly as possible.

While these changes won't all occur overnight, it is happening very quickly. In interim, please be assured we (Joe and Sterling) are here to take care of you.

If you have anything that needs immediate attention, please do not hesitate to contact me directly at joe@monarchcomputer.com

 

[ThePresence]

That website makes my eyes hurt.

 

[buzzsaw13]

I've ordered a bunch of stuff from Monarch, everytime has appeared at my door within 3 days or less.

 

[eplebnista]

Originally posted by: MonarchJoe
I understand that we've recently had some problems with our ratings but we are actively working to resolve these as quickly as possible. Here are the the things that we're doing:

(1) Both Sterling and I are back to being involved with Customer Service full-time with our number one goal of resolving the issues we currently have and restoring our level of service to what you were used to and beyond;

(2) We are replacing our phone system which was described in the first post with a new advanced system that will decrease times on hold and allow for noticeably quicker and more efficient handling of phone calls;

(3) Likewise, the entire accounting process and department are being overhauled and upgraded to resolve all issues there as quickly as possible.

While these changes won't all occur overnight, it is happening very quickly. In interim, please be assured we (Joe and Sterling) are here to take care of you.

If you have anything that needs immediate attention, please do not hesitate to contact me directly at joe@monarchcomputer.com

That is the same thing Monarch has been saying for at least two years now, possibly longer. I remember almost those exact words being posted a few months back in either AT or in other forums I check in on from time to time. It really doesn't matter to me how much you claim to be trying to improve your system, as I will no longer shop there.

 

[neutralizer]

I"ve never had a problem with them. They're cheap, just slow at processing.

 

[randay]

Originally posted by: neutralizer
I"ve never had a problem with them. They're cheap, just slow at processing.

There is a point where slow turns into unacceptable, seems many have had experiences like that. Including me. Also the main problem is that the customer service department does not help to relieve the issue, it just makes it worse.

It will take a hell of a lot more to earn back the business of scorn customers. To be honest for many, this will be too little, too late. But good luck anyway, hope you can solve the problems so that one day I can confidently browse monarchs site and actually think about buying something again.

 

[neutralizer]

Originally posted by: randay

Originally posted by: neutralizer
I"ve never had a problem with them. They're cheap, just slow at processing.

There is a point where slow turns into unacceptable, seems many have had experiences like that. Including me. Also the main problem is that the customer service department does not help to relieve the issue, it just makes it worse.

It will take a hell of a lot more to earn back the business of scorn customers. To be honest for many, this will be too little, too late. But good luck anyway, hope you can solve the problems so that one day I can confidently browse monarchs site and actually think about buying something again.

Yeah, I haven't really dealt with their customer service. For me, it usually takes them 3 days before they ship which isn't bad considering the deals I've gotten there.

 

[darkswordsman17]

I've personally never really had a problem with them, in fact I think they've upgraded my shipping every single time I've ordered from them, although they take longer to process the order than Newegg.

My problem is how they handle pre-orders. They charge at the time of your order, and so if they don't get the product or enough of the product to fulfill your order then you can kinda get screwed a little. The biggest problem with this is that they won't allow you to cancel your order, so you're stuck with it. Sure they put a little disclaimer, but its just not cool that you can't cancel your order at all even if it might be delayed for months.