Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Recommended Amiga Dealers => Topic started by: Hyperspeed on November 19, 2004, 06:12:28 AM
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Do a search for Analogic on Amiga.org and you'll see that they are
still going but haven't a very good reputation at all.
I hope I can say this here since mentioning a bad service is far more
useful than reccomending a good one. It's like advising someone not to
get their hair cut with a serial killer barber.
:-D
They ripped me off big time in '95/96 and a lot of it was due to plain
incompetance and arrogance.
They are a small repair company in Kingston-upon-Thames that sell a
few OEM bits and pieces - don't expect after sales support or even the
correct goods to arrive or be repaired.
Bad news, please avoid.
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Hyperspeed wrote:
Do a search for Analogic on Amiga.org and you'll see that they are
still going but haven't a very good reputation at all.
I hope I can say this here since mentioning a bad service is far more
useful than reccomending a good one. It's like advising someone not to
get their hair cut with a serial killer barber.
:-D
They ripped me off big time in '95/96 and a lot of it was due to plain
incompetance and arrogance.
They are a small repair company in Kingston-upon-Thames that sell a
few OEM bits and pieces - don't expect after sales support or even the
correct goods to arrive or be repaired.
Bad news, please avoid.
That's just down the road from me... Hmmm... their website is VERY pricy... :-o
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Yep, "Stinker" pretty much sums them up...
I've told the tale of my dodgy 68060 accelerater they sold me here before, but their refusal to pay for shipping costs for faulty goods to be returned, someone telling me that Motorola has mislabelled some 68060RC chips as EC (EConomy models with no MMU/FPU) and even questioning my competance when I dared to complain that my expensive 68060 accelerator was missing both an MMU and FPU...
Personally I'd urge everyone to avoid Analogic Computers like the plague. If anyone connected with Analogic Computers is reading this then I would be absolutely delighted to discuss my grievances with them.
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They charged me 49.99 GBP to keep my A1200 for a few months and return
it without repair.
:-D
I visited their premises which is basically a tin shed on an
industrial car park, half of which is taken up by a courier van.
My Amiga came back covered in fingerprints, grease, worn screwholes
and the warranty sticker SUPERGLUED to the base. Yes, actual superglue
was used.
Wizard/Compute! fixed it for 29.99 GBP within 3 days.
I'm in two minds whether to write to the Office of Fair Trading about
them, despite it being 8-9yrs since the problem. If they have a
complaint on file it'll make the 2nd complaint all the more likely to
raise eyebrows.
And I'm pretty sure Analogic will earn themselves a few complaints!
:-(
Oh, and have you noticed something missing from their logo? Analog,
Logic, Analogic - Anal-Logic.
:-D
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Hyperspeed wrote:
They charged me 49.99 GBP to keep my A1200 for a few months and return
it without repair.
:-D
I visited their premises which is basically a tin shed on an
industrial car park, half of which is taken up by a courier van.
My Amiga came back covered in fingerprints, grease, worn screwholes
and the warranty sticker SUPERGLUED to the base. Yes, actual superglue
was used.
Comes as no surprise. My '060 card appeared looking like someone had eaten their lunch off it, with greasy fingerprints covering everything and unidentifiable substances lurked in the chip sockets.
Wizard/Compute! fixed it for 29.99 GBP within 3 days.
I'm in two minds whether to write to the Office of Fair Trading about
them, despite it being 8-9yrs since the problem. If they have a
complaint on file it'll make the 2nd complaint all the more likely to
raise eyebrows.
How about we all put a dossier together and submit it? I had my problems with them in 2001, so maybe the OFT will investigate. It's in all our interests that rogue traders like Analogic are closed down.
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Hmmm... I wonder if it'd be a good idea to send individual complaints
or some sort of parcel.
It'll be interesting to see if any others notice this thread - the
more the merrier (to kick Analogic's derrier).
:-D :-D ;-)
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Count me in too!
Had troubles with them about a year ago when I bought a 2.5 inch HDD from them. :pissed: :-x
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For the sake of balance, back in 1999 I bought a 720MB drive from them and never had a problem with it.
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Hyperspeed wrote:
Hmmm... I wonder if it'd be a good idea to send individual complaints
or some sort of parcel.
:-?
Like a letter bomb you mean?
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Naa! That would be extreme.
Just something that says "Congratulation you have won" and inside have a smaller box with a smaller one inside that and so on until he last tiny box contains a small voucher worth 50 cents that can only be used in the US within 24 hrs. :-D
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I bought TurboPrint 7.10 from them in November 2000, there was no problems it arrived as expected.
Although these stories have certainly put me off using Analogic (even though I stopped buying new Amiga hardware/software years ago).
I think our best bet is to use general computer retailers as much as possible, if we need something generic then go to where it is cheaper, or support a well-known good Amiga dealer like Amiga Deals.
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thats because its software someone else wrote.. if it was something they wrote it would either be pirated or be written in AmigaBASIC, but the interpreter would not be included..and half the code would be "REM"ed out.. LOL
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GadgetMaster wrote:
Naa! That would be extreme.
Just something that says "Congratulation you have won" and inside have a smaller box with a smaller one inside that and so on until he last tiny box contains a small voucher worth 50 cents that can only be used in the US within 24 hrs. :-D
Or we could just send them one of Bloodline's socks...
:-)
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TheMagicM wrote:
if it was something they wrote it would either be pirated...
Err, how do you pirate your own software? ;-)
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I dunno..sounded funny at first.. lol
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altough i understand the disappointing, i think that the "black list" has to be applyed to other resellers too.
How about Vesalia, selling DOA CSPPC in 2001-2002? (and they KNEW it)
Or sending CSPPC 180Mhz (in 2002 a 604e-180?!?) instead of a already paied 233 Mhz and DOA too?
no words . .
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About two years ago when I was still running a ZorroII based Amiga1200 machine I ordered a ZorroII PowerFlyer card from them. I was quite pleasently suprised to find someone still selling these cards as I hadn't had any luck anywhere else. I placed an order with them, paid, and waited for the card to arrive.
Two months and a multitude of phone calls later I was still waiting, and each time I contacted them I was fobbed off with a similar story about how they were still waiting to get hold of a couple of these cards and they were expecting to do so very soon. As soon as they got the cards in stock, my order was going to be despatched straight away. I remember wondering where these cards were supposedly coming from, and suspected that Analogic were infact lying to me. There were no cards, and there never was going to be.
3 months later I still hadn't received anything. I gave them a phone call and demanded that I get a refund, since I had not received what I'd ordered over 3 months previously and it seemed plainly obvious that I was never going to either. They offered me a standard PowerFlyer instead, but by this point I was so annoyed with their terrible service that I declined the offer. I still wanted a powerflyer, but I decided I'd wait for their refund and then take my business elsewhere.
To cut this story short, I never received a powerflyer from Analogic - Zorro or standard. I never received a refund either, so basically I paid Analogic a lot of money for something I never ever received. Infact, I'd even paid extra for the super-fast postage, so I paid for immediate postage on an item that was never posted! Eventually I stopped bothering to contact them about it. I was so completely annoyed and frustrated with them that I decided I was wasting my time. The only way forward was to take them to the small claims court, but I couldn't be bothered with the hassle, I'd had enough of it already. I wrote off the money that I'd paid out for the Zorro Powerflyer and decided never to deal with them ever again.
Analogic Computers are very, VERY dodgy people to do business with. There are quite few decent UK dealers these days, but if I am in the market for some hardware/software for a classic or new Amiga I'd definately recommend AmigaKit.com
Brian Hoskins
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They are a waste of space. I also had issues with them in 96-97 when I sent my A1200 off for repair. They held on to it for several months claiming they couldnt get the part - my local PC store round the corner said they could order it in and do the repair for me - and they only occaisionally dealt with Amigas!
Analogic promised to send my machine back so I could take it to the PC store, but didn't. This dragged on for months. My Mum (I was 16 at the time) threatened them with legal action - till in the end a call to trading standards scared the crap out of them and they sent it back. However, the serial number didnt match and this A1200 was dirty, greasy, fakey to boot and would constantly crash. I phoned Analogic up and was told to "push all the cables in" .. they then hung up on me.
DO NOT DEAL WITH THIS COMPANY. From my experience with them and what I have read here they are clearly a bunch of incompetant {bleep}tards.
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I wonder how it is possible that these kind of companies keep on existing?
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BTW . . . Hyperspeed , where have you found an Analogic AD or so on AOrg? i haven't found nothing Analogic related as suggested retailer here.
A lot of complains, yes
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I bought an 060 from Analogic a while ago and am quite happy with
although the price did manage jump an extra £20 between reading the ad
and making my order but £170 seemed reasonable at the time.
The chip is marked as an XC68EC060RC60 an genuine 60Mhz part. I while
back I tried overclocking it to 80Mhz but discovered that setpatch
crashed it because the FPU is the weak link. I remember posting this
on an overclocking thread in one of the forums and being told by
someone that it didn't have an FPU.
I don't know how they worked that out without seeing my system there
was also the fact that setpatch crashed it because it activated the
FPU plus I ran quake and FPU versions of software on my system and
also my showconfig below.
PROCESSOR: CPU 68060/68060fpu/68060mmu
CUSTOM CHIPS: AA PAL Alice (id=$0023), AA Lisa (id=$00F8)
VERS: Kickstart version 45.57, Exec version 45.20, Disk version 45.3
RAM: Node type $A, Attributes $5 (FAST), at $78000000-$7BF7FFFF (63.5 meg)
Node type $A, Attributes $703 (CHIP), at $4000-$1FFFFF (~2.0 meg)
BOARDS:
Board + ROM (HD?) (phase 5): Prod=8512/17($2140/$11) (@$EA0000 128K)
Board (Index Information Ltd): Prod=2206/32($89E/$20) (@$EC0000 128K)
Board (Index Information Ltd): Prod=2206/160($89E/$A0) (@$200000 8meg)
Ayway I was happy with what I got so guess I'm lucking in that
respect. When it was at 80Mhz I tried out a demo which didn't require
an FPU and it absolutely flew.
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I got a couple of little things from them a while back, and everything came through ok (albeit at an obscene price!!).
God only knows how they managed to get things greasy / messy - my house is always in a mess with cat hair everywhere (got 7 of 'em) and I've never had a problem keeping components/computers clean.
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I also took advantage of their 060 deal in 2001 - i paid £183 for it complete with MMU and FPU, i have used it constantly since (with varying degrees of success!).
I also bought an 810 MB 2.5" HD in early 2000 which worked well, and has recently been re-installed successfully in my main A1200 following recent 3.5" troubles (grr).
The transactions went smoothly and i never asked for follow-up, but their telephone manner left a little to be desired...
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I am suprised to hear someone mention Vesalia Computers as a "bad supplier" because I've had nothing but good dealings with them. Infact I find most German Amiga dealers to be excellent, a favourite of mine are KDH.
I suppose it all comes down to the sad realities of business, and that is no matter WHAT you do, you can't possibly please everyone all of the time and there will always be some complaints from somewhere. That said, I do feel Analogic get more than their fair share of complaints and I definately feel they were unreasonable when dealing with my particular order. I'm quite a reasonable man and do understand that there can be problems from time to time, but I feel Analogic failed to resolve my complaint and I think that's the worst crime of all.
Brian
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@thread
Every reseller of Amiga-goodies seems to misinterprete the book on The Reseller's Proper Practices.
In the years past I purchased quite a lot of stuff from my supplier. Up to an amount of some 7000.-- Euri's. Including an x86-based Amiga Develloper system as it was then advertised. Not a small customer by any measure I'd think!
But one day I ordered some stuff and got the wrong one, so returned it straight away after calling the company about it. Still awaiting the replacement or refund (E50.00). Amiga Format dropped beside the road. My supplier used to send me a copy of it every month. While still three copies to go, AF suddenly stopped. Instead I got a chance to jump on the AmigActive bandwagon, as my supplier made me an offer to change accordingly: my remaining rights to 3 AF's(Note well: with accompanying CD-ROM) were supplanted with a right to get exactly one copy of AA (Note well: without CD-ROM). Later on I paid for my annual subscription to AA and while having paid for it, nearly at the same moment AA dropped also by the wayside.
All this has set me back, IIRC, some 230 Euri's, so I wrote a letter about this and a second one a few months later. Now after 4 years I still have no reply. If I'd only gotten an explication about it, I would not make all this fuss about it, but nothing came.
And now that I'm looking for an A1 I'm NOT inclined to call on my former supplier! But that A1 will be here sooner or later (rather sooner then later).
My 2 cents...
Jettah
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Some interesting points here:
* Amigans never forget bad service- even years after
* Market is too small for dealers to alienate some users and move onto other Amigans.
* Bad experiences are always documented- not the countless good transactions.
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amigakit wrote:
Some interesting points here:
* Amigans never forget bad service- even years after
* Market is too small for dealers to alienate some users and move onto other Amigans.
* Bad experiences are always documented- not the countless good transactions.
About your first point:
When my car dealer would apply bad service, I would make a complaint about it. Equally so when the supplier of household machines would apply bad service. This is NOT Amiga specific!
About your second point:
Very, very true! Could not agree more.
About your third point:
Good transactions are expected, as they are paid for! That's why they go unnoticed. Anything that is out of order in your perception, is litterly remarkable. But when someone provides a service of a quality above expected, it is being made known publically. As that Swedish reseller, who supplied free SiL0680 cards to A1 purchasers to overcome a hardware issue. Can't say it went unnoticed.
My opinion.
Jettah
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Hi BrianJHoskins,
i have absolutely (quite) anything against Vesalia but the above mentioned behaviour (selling DOA CSPPC) are FACTS.
We are speaking about many boards sold from the 2001 DCE production, sold at about 800-900 EUR each . . .
Have tryed to contact Vesalia AFTER a good or a bad deal?
My personal "bad dealing" with Vesalia, is too little to be mentioned here.
I was speaking about what i've heard/read around.
Customer care is an essential issue for a Company . . . .even if small like Vesalia.
Ciao :-)
PS- during the loooong DCE thread time, i've contacted Vesalia, doing this simple question:
"i'm interested in a CSPPC233-060 . . . have you tested them before the shipment?". . .3 times . .
never received a reply.
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@Jettah
You are right, every transaction should ideally go off without a hitch but sometimes customers expectations are exceeded and those circumstances are rarely noted.
Also, it has been mentioned before, but it is worth saying that dealers can be let down by external factors. Remember that you are a customer of the dealer and the dealer is a customer of their suppliers. When the dealer is let down, it goes straight down the chain. In the PC market it is easy to get a contingency plan as you have several suppliers providing the same product, but in the Amiga market, items are exclusively available from one source, so product slippage cannot be managed around.
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@AmigaKit
You've got a point there. But when a customer writes a letter as to inquire after some practices and none of those letters have been answered to, then that customer may justifyingly regard himself as being pissed off. In my case ANY answer would have been sufficient, as long as it had been an answer with some body.
Being in some kind of trade myself, although due to worldwide market situations not so actively anymore, I may speak of having had pleasant encounters with my customers when it came to knowledge of the matters at hand. I have always felt that the better the (potential) customer was informed the better it was for all involved.
I have had very little complaints at that time and those that eventually came through were dealt with in a proper way, me not being Sinterklaas (Dutch for Santa Claus).
So even as a reseller is a customer in his own right he cannot and may not neglect the final customer! My reseller did and is rewarded for that in my own way: no more business even when he's about 50% cheaper, faster, better, whatever!My money is as good as anyone's and I want to be treated with due respect. And, yes I take the particular Amiga-market into account: guess what I could have gotten myself for that 7000.-- Euri's Windoze-(un)wise!But that would include headaches by the score, extensive headbalding, heargreying and nightmares to boot probably :-D
Cheers,
Jettah
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amigakit wrote:
* Bad experiences are always documented- not the countless good transactions.
But that's what the customer is paying for!
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I agree, that is what the customer is paying for.
However, in these forums, we must keep a sense of proportion.
I will illustrate what I mean: one company has 1000 happy customers and 1 unhappy customer experience. Should we mention them in the same context as a company that consistently lets their customer base down?
Its all too easy to document the repeated failings of a significantly bad company and then for someone to mention an isolated bad experience from another and then in the thread it appears that they are tarred with the same brush.
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I see your point - which is why, as you say, threads like this can be quite dangerous.
For example, misunderstandings arise, a small operation run by one person - well that person may be ill or go on holiday.
However, my personal experiences with companies, is that they will go out of their way to keep customers happy. If you complain, you will get an apology or even a gift voucher.
Of course, with the Amiga market, we are talking about a whole different kettle of fish, because the customer base is so small, and the operations serving them are so small. It isn't as easy for them to bend over backwards for their customers.
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Actually, I have often been known to compliment good service. Just the other week I received quite a bit of help from someone in our local WHSmiths store so I wrote a letter addressed to the manager informing them as such.
That said, I work in customer service and I know all too well about the frequent disregard given to service beyond customer expectations. It's a fact that bad experiences go announced far more often than the good ones - why do you think you hear more bad news in the papers than good ;-)
I think consistent good service DOES get noticed though, and people who have had consistent good service and support will recommend that to their friends. As I mentioned earlier you can never EVER satisfy everyone, it's completely impossible. As long as you can be sure you've done your best to ensure good service for every customer then basically you're going to earn yourself a good reputation.
Going back to the original point of this thread, I wouldn't agree that Analogic do their best to ensure good customer service. My complaint with them doesn't surround the fact that I had problems with them, but more the fact that they dealt with it badly. So badly infact that I paid for a product that they never sent to me, and I never received a refund either, despite many many MANY phone calls (all of which I made) attempting to resolve the situation. That's the kind of thing that isn't easily forgiven, in my opinion. And as I said before, I think Analogic get more than their fair share of complaints, and that's why they end up with a bad rep.
Brian
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I've written compliment letters too actually, but you're right, there are probably plenty of instances when I've had outstanding service and not bothered.
What I think a lot of businesses don't appreciate (although I'm sure a hell of a lot of them do, as well) is that, as you say, keeping your customers happy can pay dividends.
For example, garages. The garage I use to get my car serviced, was recommended to me by my dad. I went there, got charged peanuts for some pretty routine work that was carried out that day, and as a result I've sent three friends there to get their cars serviced. If only some businesses weren't so short sighted....
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Speaking of software that Analogic might write - you should have seen
their 2.5" hard disk installation software.
Here's a copy of the file list on that disk (you may have read this on
my other Anal-Logic thread):
An old trashcan (WB1.3 anyone!?)
DiskDoctor (Is that some sort of 1989 PD virus?)
ancient icons (and dodgily drawn ones)
d.rive definitions
drimve definitions
drive definitions
drive definitions1 (Errr... highly worrying)
yy (Why oh why)
Test/Who.info (A icon with peoples signatures on it)
Devs/Keymaps/dave (It's probably a Klingon character set)
STARTUP-SEQUENCEO (sounds spanish...)
t/version.number (Version dot number? For what! Why in T/ !?)
davesetup (Dave Clark Five)
formathdo (not a zero worryingly)
Also, on Wed 4th April 2001 the following advert appeared on Amibench:
raj@analogic.co.uk
RajShukla
London
Surrey
UK
Wanted : Large quantity of Amiga A1200 new or used computers or motherboards need
to be working.
When I referred to a 'parcel' I meant a bundle of complaints to The
Ofiice of Fair Trading. I can see the appeal of the alternative
though.
:-D :-D :-D
When I said to do a search on Amiga.org I meant for previous threads,
I don't think Analogic have advertised on Amiga.org before. They do
advertise with Google though when you do a search for memory.
PMC, AMIGAZ & BrianJHoskins - What say we organise a joint complaint
to the OFT with a claim for the amounts owed. I have kept a file on
them since '95/'96 so it's a long shot. The evidence is there though.
:-)
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Rob wrote:
I bought an 060 from Analogic a while ago and am quite happy with
although the price did manage jump an extra £20 between reading the ad
and making my order but £170 seemed reasonable at the time.
The chip is marked as an XC68EC060RC60 an genuine 60Mhz part.
I ordered a full 68060 from Analogic and was sent what they told me was a 66Mhz model because I'd "been waiting patiently". Turned out that they sent me the CPU you describe; the EC model which lacks both an MMU (memory management unit) and FPU (floating point unit) leaving it largely useless for my system.
When I complained about it, the chap from Analogic tried to convince me that the 68060EC was in fact a full '060 that had been "mis-badged by Motorola". He then went on to question the validity of several benchmarking programs I ran to verify the type of CPU installed.
Moreover they refused point blank to pay for shipping charges - I phoned the receptionist who assured me that the accelerator would be collected, but who later admitted that they wouldn't pay shipping charges - who was unhelpful in the extreme.
With everyone's permission, I suggest that we email Analogic to advise them of this thread and invite their feedback before we go down the Trading Standards route?
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E-mailing them would give them a chance to think up more bull. I think
an under-the-radar approach would be best. Hit them when their pants
are down.
:-D :-D :-D
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Sorry PMC, I just tried to message you using Amiga.org's forwarding system but it doesn't work on IBrowse2.3 or Voyager for some reason.
I've heard people saying it doesn't work on PC either!
:-D :-D :-D
I'll get the address for the OFT and Trading Standards tommorrow and paste them here. We can decide then if it's best to make a joint complaint or pursue things individually.
Personally I think a joint complaint would get more attention to the case as it would seem like fraud as opposed to a customer dispute.
:-)
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Okay, it's the 9th anniversary of Analogic ripping me off so it's
time for a bit of payback.
If anyone would like to contribute towards a file heading for the
Office of Fair Trade, Trading Standards and possibly The Small Claims
Court then private-message me your details and we can get in touch.
Analogic are still in business so I might make enquiries about a
no-win, no-fee case.
Get in touch if you want justice done folks.
:-)
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Be very very careful where you go with this. Going on my own personal experience alone I would agree that Analogic certainly ripped me off and no doubt they ripped others off as well. But what you're talking about doing is taking an Amiga dealer to court when there aren't many left!
I hear what you're saying and I agree as well, but I don't think I'd be interested in stirring up yet more bad feeling in a community that's got enough of it's own problems to be dealing with regardless. Personally I'm just never going to deal with them again, and leave it at that.
Brian
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BrianJHoskins wrote:
But what you're talking about doing is taking an Amiga dealer to court when there aren't many left!
Er....your point being? Better a bunch of {bleep}ty dealers than no dealers?
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Well Analogic don't appear to be advertising or contributing to the
Amiga Community any more. They seem to be making their money from the
PC market so if I sue them I'll get money to spend at some Amiga.org
advertiser.
:-D
I'm serious about this and if the outcome is just their name being put
on the OFT shltlist then that's good enough for me. I don't want even
PC users having to go through such trauma as what they put me through.
It was like banging your head against a wall.
So does anyone want to private-msg me on Amiga.org to get a dossier
put forward to the Office of Fair Trading/Trading Standards?
How about a joint Small Claim action (£20 with no solicitor fees).
:-)
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Hyperspeed wrote:
Well Analogic don't appear to be advertising or contributing to the
Amiga Community any more. They seem to be making their money from the
PC market so if I sue them I'll get money to spend at some Amiga.org
advertiser.
Ok. That would be the reason that they haven't responded to 3 different emails in the last month. Guess I'll just cross them off the list. OTOH, I recently(in the last few months) bought a GVP 060 board from Softhut and could not get it working in my A4000T or A4000D and they replaced it with a Quikpak 060 board that works flawlessly. Score one for Softhut. It's always a bit sad to see an Amiga dealer go away for whatever reason but it doesn't hurt quite as much when they're just bad....
Thanks for the thread
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Anyone had any trouble with Amiga dealers lately? How healthy is the
brand new market for Amiga stuff?
Last time I bought new Amiga software it came on a CDR (Scanquix
5.4)...
Any knowledge on the whereabouts and dealings of Anal-Logic?
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There are not many dealers left now
We are still here providing Classic Amiga and AmigaOne kit. All our regular customers that come back keep AmigaKit.com going- thank you- you all know who you are!
BTW: AmigaKit.com is now one year old - a celebration is in order :-)
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Congrats AmigaKit!
:-)
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Err, how do you pirate your own software? ;-)
Vision/X BBS... Nuff said.