Need advice Re: Eyetech Order

[iMacMiga]

Well I am sat here drumming my paws on the deck. On March 11th I ordered an Eyetech EZ-TowerZIV and a EZKey keyboard adapter for my A1200 project. It is now April 13th, over a month later, and I have seen no sign of it arriving. I have e-mailed Eyetech about the order several time and only got one response saying it would be with me late that week or the following week. That was on March 30th. Nothing arrived.

Am I being an impatint git? I am fully aware of Eyetech's situation regarding AmigaONE and the winding down of their Classic Amiga side, and also that they had an e-mail outage not so long back, but I have waited a good deal longer than the 2 weeks stated on their site and I'm starting to wonder if they actually want to sell me this stuff at all. They haven't so much as even charged my card for it (good job too or I'd be round there with an axe  :-D )! Oh and forget raising them by phone - I get an answer machine whenever I try - and yes I left a message (3 actually) but got no reply.

So what do I do? I'm strongly considering looking for a tower second-hand (I can't afford a Power Tower from PowerC) and buying the k/b adapter from someone else. Is there someone there I can call or e-mail direct to get some sense out of them? I'm not looking to roll heads here I just want them to send my stuff - I've got a Mediator sat here in a box waiting for a tower and k/b adapter and it's (a lot of) good money sat doing naff all!  :-(  :-(  :-?  :-?

[Doobrey]

AFAIK, you are within your rights to cancel an order if it hasn`t shipped within 28 days of ordering ,unless they notified you of a longer delivery time before ordering.
 But then you`ve still got the trouble of contacting them to cancel it !
Maybe you should ring up and leave a message saying you want to enquire about purchasing a couple of thousand Micro A1`s..bet they`d ring back pretty quick.. :evilgrin:

[swift240]

I have the same problem as you, well except that I am waiting for the Universal keyboard adapter from Power Cmputing, but the Z4 Tower I am still waiting for.
It has been 3 weeks so far, Power Computing are having problems with there tower cases otherwise I would have cancelled and got it from them instead.
I tried to phone Eyetech up but nothing.  I have emailed them a few times but again nothing.  Sorry to say but this is a S*** way to treat customers.
I cant get one from Elbox the shipping will be to much.
I will just have to wait UNLESS some one knows where I can get one from??

Mike.....

 :pissed:  :pissed:  :pissed:

[swift240]

Come to think of it, does any one know of an ATX case that will be suitable for an Amiga 1200 and Mediator board?
My PC case is ATX but it just wont be suitable.

The must be some sort of ATX case out there that with a bit of modification both the 1200 and Mediator will fit.

Is there any one out there with this knowledge of ATX case at all?  Me and this guy are getting desperate, (well I am) looking at the Mediator in its box.


TIA,

Mike...

[justthatgood]

That sucks.  Just to think that you live in the UK, and they are in the UK too.  I was going to order stuff from them, but I live in the US, and I think that I would never get my stuff..  Why are there so many idiotic companies out there

[Lando]

swift240 wrote:
Come to think of it, does any one know of an ATX case that will be suitable for an Amiga 1200 and Mediator board?
My PC case is ATX but it just wont be suitable.

The must be some sort of ATX case out there that with a bit of modification both the 1200 and Mediator will fit.

Is there any one out there with this knowledge of ATX case at all?  Me and this guy are getting desperate, (well I am) looking at the Mediator in its box.


TIA,

Mike...

I had my A1200 + Mediator in an Antec SX1030B black tower (also known as an Antec Dragon) - took a bit of dremeling and I had to drill new screw holes for the mobo but it fitted fine.

[swift240]

Ahhhaaaa I shall do a search on that.... :-)

Mike....

[swift240]

I dont supose you have got any pictures of it have you?



Mike....

[thinlega]

I made an order with Eyetech on the 22nd of march and have had no replys to my emails and no sign of any EZkey and SD/FF movement! grrrrrr

well at least i now know it is not just me with this problem  

[eyetech]

I made an order with Eyetech on the 22nd of march and have had no replys to my emails and no sign of any EZkey and SD/FF movement! grrrrrr

A word of explanation is in order I know.

The AmigaOne (and other non-Amiga activities) now take up virtually all our time. By contrast the 'Classic Amiga' stuff produces only a handful of orders a month. That doesn't even support a 'classic Amiga' technician for 1 day a month - so we don't have any dedicated classic Amiga technicians at Eyetech any more. This is also the reason that we only accept orders and queries over the net - and not over the phone - these days.

All the bought-in 'classic Amiga' products that we still have in stock are well out of manufacturers warranty, and so need testing (= technicians time) to make sure that they are worth selling rather than binning, and if so are worth our while taking the risk on a have-to-write-it-off-if-it-breaks warranty.

It is also not viable to build our own stuff any more - towers, keyboard adapters, EZMice, midi interfaces, etc etc. We still have a number of these things left - hence their availability on our webshop - but these all have to be tested before shipping, and that means diverting a technician from profitable activities or bringing in a contract technician specially.

We have recently had a (relatively) big run (nearly 10!) of orders on Ready-to-Use A1200 towers and keyboard adapters, but as the absolute volumes are low and the 'clearance' prices on the website are in most instances below cost, it is just not economic to bring anyone in to build any more units.

We had expected to have some technicians 'slack' time available over the last month to undertake 'classic' testing, but this has simply not materialised for a variety of reasons. Sorry.

We are hopeful of being able to test the last couple of dozen keyboard adapters and EZMice over the next few of weeks, but there is really no economic way that we can produce any more Ready-to-Use EZ/Mk5 Towers at the advertised (clearance) prices. We do however have a number of self-conversion (DIY) towers available for shipping (both Mk5 and Z4).

So I'm really sorry that a dozen or so of you have had to wait a while whilst we worked out whether we could satisfy your orders economically.

We do however have the stuff for Mr Benson's order - its just that it didn't work on switch on and needs another half a day of very scarce technicians time to get it sorted. We will be emailing individuals with their own order status over the next few days.

We are also in discussions with some other dealers - who are better equipped to handle these small orders than we currently are - to take our remaining 'classic' stock. Details will be posted on our web site in due course.

I realise that our current service is not very satisfactory for the few people that actually still want Classic Amiga stuff. But the only other alternatives are to either pull out of this market altogether and to bin the rest of the stock - or put up the prices of the remaining items at least 5 fold to cover the technical support and testing costs. Neither of these really helps the would-be purchaser of Classic amiga products.

Thanks (hopefully) for your understanding


Alan

[iMacMiga]

Firstly I'd like to thank Alan for being open and honest (as ever!) about the situation. This has put my mind at rest for the most part and I can now patiently await the completion of the order in due course. I'll just have to polish my Amiga mouse and read the OS 3.9 manual in the mean time .

The only thing I would suggest is that Eyetech's sales staff should maybe be as comminicative as their company chairman! Customers shouldn't really have to go to these sorts of lengths to get answers. Not giving the customer information is the worst possible thing you can do in an e-commerce environment.

<<<>>>
Secondly I'd like to thank Ryu for getting onto Eyetech's case on the behalf of all the users waiting for goods from them. For the "nearly 10" of us that had been sat waiting frustratedly for our kits it is a big help and I'm sure all of us are very grateful. Thx Mate :-D

[eyetech]

The only thing I would suggest is that Eyetech's sales staff should maybe be as comminicative as their company chairman!

No, actually, this is all at my door. I have to be very specific with my Amiga-loving staff not to answer phone calls or emails that aren't going to pay a fraction of their salaries. Thats one of the reasons why we're still in business whilst most of the other Amiga dealers have ceased to be or completely deserted the platform.

It's my job to try to achieve a balance during the current transitionary times which keeps the company in financial health but also helps out past customers where economically possible. I don't always get it right but I keep trying.....

Thanks again for your understanding

Alan

[eyetech]

The only thing I would suggest is that Eyetech's sales staff should maybe be as comminicative as their company chairman!

No, actually, this is all at my door. I have to be very specific with my Amiga-loving staff not to answer phone calls or emails that aren't going to pay a fraction of their salaries. Thats one of the reasons why we're still in business whilst most of the other Amiga dealers have ceased to be or completely deserted the platform.

It's my job to try to achieve a balance during the current transitionary times which keeps the company in financial health but also helps out past customers where economically possible. I don't always get it right but I keep trying.....

Thanks again for your understanding

Alan

[thinlega]

Thanks for being honest about the situation.... :-)

[iMacMiga]

Well yes I suppose time is money, so that also makes sense. It's just a bit frustrating for us, but i suppose it's the cruel old world of business :-D

Can't you offer an incentive to Amiga users in your area to work 1 day every so often and get the returns in the equivalent value of Amiga upgrade parts (by some means that keeps the tax man happy, of course)? If I were in your area I'd certainly be pleased do that, but I'm not so sadly I can't.