My AmigaOne Experience

[reflect]

before you honk your own horn too much, JoannaK, you should perhaps hear both sides of the story. Alan just replied on ANN.lu and he gives a quite different story than Staticman does.

[SHADES]

@ thomas
Beta or not, unless stated that hardware warantee is to be done by the end user, whcih I seriously doubt it was, then they are responsible, period.
They should pay for shipping or return his money.

What has happened here is wrong, they should have givin him a 3rd party shop to go to at the very least. Not piad by him of course.

Man!, no one goes and changes their h/w on a new system by themselves! That's just obsurd. If you have the know how, and I do, that's fine, but this is a pretty clear cut case. That's why we have warrantees, What kind of compay is going to keep to a warrantee contract where home users start "trying" to repair thier own boards. That's BS

Mind you I can only go off his explination of things, i.e he may have asked to repair it himself. I havent' heard both sides here, but if it's like he is stating, it's all very wrong.

[Wain]

SOMEWHAT OFF_TOPIC

@Redrumola

While I do believe it would(should??) be in Eyetech's best interest to help staticman out with at most a small fee, depending upon the repairability of the board, "the customer is always right" is the biggest load of crap ever introduced to the retail world.  There is not a statement I loathe more because it is primarily only used when a customer is doing his darndest to rip off a company and not acknowledge his own fault in the situation.

More often than not, not only is the customer wrong, but the customer is trying to scam the company because they learned at McDonalds that if they scream loudly enough they'll get something for free.

Interestingly enough, a study was done a few years back (can't find a reference off hand) on the quality of retail customer service and salesmanship in the US as compared to a study done in the seventies.

The original findings were that customer service and salesmanship quality had dropped by HUGE amounts as compared to a couple decades ago.  However, further research was done and it was eventually found, that Customer Service and Salesmanship quality in the US was actually greatly higher than it had been in the 70's, however the CUSTOMERS had become such downright awful, despicable people by and large, that it made it look like CS was really bad nearly everywhere you went because people were always unhappy because they didn't get a free yacht with their pop-tarts, and they felt they were "owed" somtheing.

Last time I heard someone yell "The customer is always right!" at me was when they'd thrown a glass bottle at their monitor, cracked the screen, and were pissed off that my company wouldn't give them a new one for free.
We weren't even the manufacturer of the monitor.

[Skyraker]

Alan Redhouse has replied to this thread over on ann

HERE

I think this can be safely put to bed.....

[JoannaK]

Reflect: Yep.. Read it (assuming it's real and from AlanR)...
Apparently (according him) they are dealing with underaged kid or
something. Ah well.. Like I said earlier.. Likely cause is people
beign too eager to sell/purchase New Amigas.

At this point Question IS.. IF these boards were prototypes (as now
been told) then why they were sold to wide audience? (even kids?)
What's the point of causing end-users grief with partial product?
Shouldn't seller rather select their clients to get those who really
can work with them and help on debugging systems?

[redrumloa]

@Wain

I cannot agree with you completely. While I agree there are times the customer is simply out for something for free, overall I believe in the saying "The customer is always right".

In retail, especially with such extremely high markups, there should be the expectation that X amount will be returned. That is just the reality behind retail.

I don't know all the details behind this incident, so I can only take this posters claims at face value. I know how I handle the returns.

Second to last feedback.

[redrumloa]

BTW to be fair Alan's response sounds pretty convincing.

[xeron]

@Red

I can't comment on this case specifically, but my only experience of Eyetechs customer care has been extremely positive. They have ALWAYS gone the extra mile. I have heard similar from other customers.

For this reason, and because the IP of Alans post comes from the same ISP that Eyetech use, I'm inclined to think that that post is most probably the truth.

[redrumloa]

@xeron

It's funny how the choice of words can seem to be convincing one way or another. I hope I didn't sound too harsh against Eyetech. I only meant to take the original poster at face value, Eyetech made an error of judgement. With the follow up it doesnt seen as clear cut.

[meerschaum]

well it appears alan has made his statement and it remains to be seen who is right or who is telling the whole truth, I'll guess its the customer because in my opinon given amiga.inc et al you just cannot take these people at their word alone. (You have your opinon, I have mine)

[Wain]

@redrumola

Most markups in the computer industry aren't high at all.  Markup on $3500 laptops is usally around $100-200 at most.  Markups on motherboards and printers and such are usually around 5-7%.  10% is considered really high in the industry. Companies make up for this in volume.  This is one of the reasons why the AmigaOne boards are so expensive.  The only thing with really high markups in the computer industry is cables.

[redrumloa]

@Wain

Once again I will have to disagree with you. I really don't want to get into a deep arguement about PC component markup, but I will say this.

1) PC profit margins are more than retailers will let on.

2) Amiga retailers do not play by the same market dynamics that PC retailers do. Not even close.

[GadgetMaster]

I have dealt with Eyetech in the past and I found their service quite good.

So having heard both sides of the story now, I would give them the benefit of the doubt in this case.

Also upon reflection it does seem quite impossible to rip out a rom socket with a paper clip.

The screwdriver explanation makes more sense and shows how inappropriately the customer  dealt with a sensitive piece of electronics. (Or was it his dad, not too clear)

[SHADES]

I still can't beleive that Eyetech really expected the customer to replace the ROM at their own expense.  
I am sure there is a law supporting this. I know that here in Australia, the company would be "coughing up"

Although they did make attempts to rectify the problem, I would want to know if eyetech would still honour the warrantee after having it's customer do a chip replacement. If it was my company, I certainly would not.

I still beleive that Eyetech should honour this sale and replace it with a known working PC.
Sending out chip replacements for your customer to install is not acceptable. No where in the contract or agreement would this policy be entered. I saw the statment about the "Early Bird" systems not being a switch on and go system, however, it is sold under a opinion that the PC will be a working system. If not it is false advertizing and unclear or misleading information is being passed onto the customer. It needs to be very clear in how it is presented to sale otherwise it breaks the law on consumer rights. IE the conumer has a right to have a working PC when the sale is for a working Personal Computer.  If it fails to Compute, it can not be sold as such etc...

I am sure in a court of law, only one person would win in this case. If I was the person affect by this, I would start to look at my legal options.

[Stew]

  What!!
  I can't rip my mb apart with a screw driver? What kind of junk are they selling? Boycott!!!

  Posted after thinking 3 seconds, should I have waited longer?


Stew

[unclewilli-amigalover]

just read the statement, sounds like mom/dad and all involved were trying to give advice, but in haste you ripped the chip socket out, can't blame this on eyetech. infact the saying "the customer is always right" is just plain wrong. i used to work in lead acid batteries for five years nearly daily some one would drive in with a battery where they beat the cable end on with a hammer/plyers/rock etc., trying to get a good connection at the same time driving the post into the battery case ,ocourse thats the wrong way to connect a cable end, but out of haste they wanted it to make contact right then and destroyed the battery while they could have taken 10 minutes and done it right. you had the knowledge of right and wrong, but chose the wrong way... :-(