Analogic Computers - The Stinker

[Brian Hoskins]

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

[Brian Hoskins]

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

[Brian Hoskins]

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

[Brian Hoskins]

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