Have Best Price Computers aka Poweroid gone bust?! Need Advice Please!!

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apollo11

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PC Review have given awards to their computers and professionalism, but it looks like they may have gone, or are going bust? I have a serious problem and I need advice?!

What makes me think they are going down the tubes?

1. Their front page says they are no longer accepting orders.
http://www.bestpricecomputers.ltd.uk/profile/contact.htm

2. The have taken down their affiliation program:
"The Poweroid Affiliate Scheme (discontinued as of August 2005)"

3. Address for visitation to the company is "by appointment only???"

4. They say they will still honour warranties:
"Customers with products still under warranty will continue to receive support."
However, they have removed their email address and phone numbers from the site.

5. I have a phone number (0870 2200444), but when you phone it, a rather hurried and cut off "Welcome to Poweroid" followed by an operator "out of memory" ...

Now I'm worried. I purchased a very expensive video editing system from them (over £4,500) late October and it's still under its 1st year parts & labour warranty (+ 4 years labour). I have a very important job on the hard drives that needs to be out this week.

The SCSI 36GB system drive went down last night and the controller can't find it, it looks bust.
I'd fix it myself, but they have "warranty void if removed" stickers all over it, even if I open the case.

What should I do? The site says it still honours warrantys but I haven't been able to get in touch.

I thought this was supposed to be a professional, reputable company?

Does anyone know what's going on? Please help, the data HDs appear to be fine, but my important job is on it. (and no, I don't have a backup; and yes, I'm an idiot)


Thanks,

Chris.
 
We haven't given awards to them before? Perhaps it was someone else?

I'd say it doesn't look good from the evidence you suggest, I will update this thread if I hear anything!
 
Ian,

You're right of course, sorry for that. The award came from PC Plus, "Best Performer"
http://www.pcplus.co.uk/reviews/def...leid=5022&subsectionid=372&subsubsectionid=34

There were also a number of reviews from other well known reviewer sites, ie. Trusted, ZDNet, the Register, What PC. I also saw you yourself rated the retailer only 1 star a while ago.

Most of the reviews raved about this company. I checked it out thoroughly before spending so much money. I guess no one can predict a company going into liquidation.

Thanks,

Chris.
 
No, your not an idiot, but I would say a little worried.

Afraid we have not 'endorsed' or even heard of bestpricecomputers.
Address:

7A Eldon Way
Hockley
Hockley
Essex
SS5 4AD


Phone:

08702200555



Best I can find ... can't seem to see who owns Poweroid.ltd.uk

:(
 
I looked on Companies House. It still says it's "active"
http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/1275226846103c8384c21b9565f3ada9//compdetails

I was able to find out this information from a seperate, domain dispute site here:
http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache...d2002-0713.doc+poweroid+out+of+business&hl=en
Which states the following:
"The Complainant is Best Price Computers Ltd ("Best Price Computers"). It is a computer hardware supply company incorporated in the United Kingdom in 1996 and trading from premises at Poweroid House, 7A Eldon Way Industrial Estate, Hockley, Essex SS5 4AD. The Complainant is represented in the proceeding by its authorised representative, Mr. Clinton Lee of Best Price Computers."

I like playing detective.

Still don't know what the best advice to do with my super computer is though?
Do you think I should fix it myself?
 
If you 'need' your work, and, have the knowledge to do the 'fix' then I would if I were you ... and I'll argue about legality of warantee stickers with my lawyer.

:thumb:
 
Hmmm,

I actually had a reply from them...

--------------------
Dear Sir,

Thank you for your mail and sorry you are having problems with the machine.

As you may know we are not currently building any PCs and not taking any orders... as per the notice on our website. We are however doing our best on any warranty claims. If you need us to look at the machine below please send it in with a full covering letter describing what you want us to do/what you want us to test. While we don't deliberately erase customer data please appreciate that we don't guarantee that we can get any of your work off the hard disk/s.

Should you take the machine to a data recovery specialist you may be in a better position with regards the recovery (please mention to them that's it's a SCSI drive). It could be a simple matter of a SCSI BIOS configuration or firmware update that resolves the issue.... but if you attempt something and the problem lies elsewhere you further reduce your chance of recovering data. Any specialists would, probably, need to break the warranty seals and that is a tradeoff decision you need to make. Please let me know if we can be of any other assistance.

Best regards,

Poweroid
------------------------

So basically, if I take it in somewhere to get the data off the hard disks, they will wipe their hands of me with regards to warranty.

Yet, they can't guarantee they might wipe the data off the HDs (seperate physical drives) that are unharmed by the system SCSI disk going offline and shouldn't need to be touched. (ie. They are storage devices).

Hmmm.
 
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personally i'd fix it myself although thos drives arent all that cheap
 
Well, it might actually be cheaper and safer to fix it myself. Apparently I would have to pay for all the carriage costs associated with the repair (see below). That's surely going to cost more than the SCSI HD.

According to their latest letter, they aren't in financial difficultly; it's a shortage of staff, they say. Just received:

----------------------

Dear Sir,

>> Do I meet the cost of sending the unit back to your centre?

Unfortunately, you would need to pay all carriage costs associated with the repair and also any costs of work that is not covered under the warranty.

If there is no fault with the other drives you could of course install Windows in a temporary folder there to enable you to back up your data to DVDs/external storage. You'd need just a basic Windows installation and drivers etc would not be required for this purpose. (You would need to make BIOS changes to point to the SATA hard disk as the primary boot device)


>> Can I be assured I will receive it back?

I understand your concern. However, unlike the Time/Tiny debacle - and other such cases - we are not in any financial difficulty (and haven't been in any financial trouble since we started business 10 years ago). We do not see any reason why the machine can't be returned after repair. Please note though that we are not working to a full complement of technical staff and turnaround would not be to our usual quick standards.


>> Will you replace the SCSI HD when you find it to be faulty?

We will honour any legitimate warranty claim and *if* the drive is faulty, machine still sealed etc, we will replace the drive.

Regards,

Poweroid
 
I can just see Ford now ....

... with a sticker on the bonnet of their cars "warrantee void if removed" ...


I can't advise but merely point you into some more reading ... Distance Selling Regulations ... its up to you.

Unfortunately these 'stickers' are quite legal ... however, under the Regulations, a customer should not be "out of pocket" due to costs for returns of faulty items.

Now, if the item is not 'faulty' but merely a 'glitch' somewhere, you will incur those costs.


Sorry to say it is up to you ... :(
 
Just a short update:

They've kinda gone quiet since I asked for a suitable time/date I can bring it in. No doubt they'll get back to me before long. Have to watch the warranty dates though, only just over a month before it's expired.

I couldn't boot the machine off the SCSI, and it rarely gave me access to the BIOS on boot up (it went straight to looking for the SCSI system)... Finally managed to disable the SCSI boot and installed a fresh copy of Windows on one of the storage drives (effectively wiping my data for that drive). Still, I have the important data from it now.

One of the CPUs isn't working and the Matrox RTX100 card doesn't like the non-scsi drive very much, so I have a barely working video editing machine.

Thanks for all your help guys. I will keep you updated on how these guys perform my warranty fix.

Chris.
 
Please do ... we like to here of a good ending, but also interested in any feedback about any company. :thumb:
 
>> but it looks like they may have gone, or are going bust? ... I guess no one can predict a company going into liquidation.

Speculative, and possibly something we can take legal action on. There is no evidence to suggest that and in fact the company is in sound financial health. Please refrain from starting baseless rumours.

>> Afraid we have not 'endorsed' or even heard of bestpricecomputers.

Best Price Computers Ltd is, of course, the company that owns the Poweroid brand and that is amply evident from a basic search or two. These 62 results in Google suggest you had some inkling the company existed: Google

>> I was able to find out this information from a seperate, domain dispute site here

That the Poweroid.com domain was fraudulently taken from us and we had to seek legal advice and initiate action to recover it many years ago is hardly relevant to anything.

>> and I'll argue about legality of warantee stickers with my lawyer.

The warranty sticker situation is made plainly clear to customers prior to their purchase. Every PC related page on the website mentioned it, the pre order quote mentions it, invoices mention it, and customers are told about the warranty seals prior to purchase. We ALWAYS actively advised customers against buying our PCs if they wished to be able to open the case themselves. Yes, though it sounds incredible that a company would turn down orders, that is exactly what we used to do: What we do not do

Over the last few years we have been very, very selective in what orders we took on. Over 50% were turned down: FAQ. And, ones where we thought the owner would need to open the case were definitely not accepted.

As our PCs were often specialist machines usually ranging from £4,000 - £10,000 - using a lot of specialist devices not available in the general market - we never believed the average PC "engineer" out there was competent enough or experienced enough to effect proper repairs. He's probably never even heard of a VT[3] switch - what chance has he got of setting it up correctly? He's probably never built a PC in a Zalman TNN-500A case - he probably doesn't even have the tools to open the case and change parts! And, what training would he have in managing and fault finding on hardware based SCSI RAIDs?

>> Apparently I would have to pay for all the carriage costs associated with the repair (see below). That's surely going to cost more than the SCSI HD.

Our customers typically have data on their machines worth several tens of thousands of pounds. IF they haven't got that backed up (their responsibility, not ours, check your Terms & Conditions) and IF they wish us to perform an outside warranty backup service for them it's hardly unreasonable that they pay £20-£30 to get their machine to us. In any event the warranty wasn't an on-site. If you feel it'll be cheaper to take it to a local PC shop, be our guest. It's your machine, it's your choice to invalidate the five year labour warranty and remaining hardware warranty. And, you may just get lucky. Some the the PC shops out there have a good engineer or two.

>> Unfortunately these 'stickers' are quite legal ...

And the only sensible solution when dealing with specialist products that any half baked "PC engineer" could quite easily mess up. We've got more than enough examples of what has happened when people took their Poweroid machines to local "experts".

>> They've kinda gone quiet since I asked for a suitable time/date I can bring it in

What part of "use a courier" do you need explained?

We did not realise that our emails were generating fodder for a running commentary and criticism in this thread. And we do not appreciate it. You've got a problem with the PC, we're willing to help even though we're not actively seeking new orders. We provided carefully thought out email replies addressing individual points you raised - not the boilerplate emails you typically get elsewhere. We made suggestions that we thought would help you in the interim and till you got the PC looked at. That some of the problem is outside the warranty is not something we quibbled about. We were willing to help and get you fully back with all your data recovered. That, I believe, is more than what you'll get from a lot of PC companies out there - even ones who ARE looking for new orders. It's a shame that you choose to paint that good service in a negative light here and elsewhere on the net.

<edited to correct non-working links>
 
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Poweroid,

I appreciate the fact that you have clarified your companies position, however this thread has not been a "running commentary and criticism". I also find your "It's a shame that you choose to paint that good service in a negative light here" comment hard to swallow.

If I had paid several thousands of pounds for a computer and a problem arises, and find that the company in question was no longer taking orders, the address is by "appointment only" and the affiliate scheme has been discontinued, I too would be a little concerned.

The original poster simply asked for advice in this situation, which I am sure we would all do if you could not get through on the phone.

After the recent Tiny/Time farce it is quite right for consumers to be vigilant in situations. Thankfully, you have clarified your position and this is not the case.
 
>> After the recent Tiny/Time farce it is quite right for consumers to be vigilant in situations

It is always right for customers to be vigilant. It is never right to put forth speculation on a company's financial status and attempt to make a case that there's something awry.

>> the company in question was no longer taking orders, the address is by "appointment only" and the affiliate scheme has been discontinued
Again, a matter of presentation. We are no longer taking orders from the general public. The address has been by appointment only for the last 10 years as we never encouraged people to drop in to have a chat (the address is offices, workshop and warehouse not retail premise, showroom or shop). We've never had any affiliates. But I don't really need to justify any of this.

>> I also find your ..... comment hard to swallow
Fair enough, you're entitled to your POV. We replied to the customer's original email within six hours. And we provided a personal, carefully thought out email addressing the issues he raised. And replied promptly to his subsequent emails. His panic in starting this thread in the short while between his email and our reply was premature. Companies can be adversely affected by rumour and I really do have better things to do than following him around replying to the posts he's made, here and elsewhere, some of which are borderline libellous. The poster signs every email with his organisation name, one that suggests he's either a lawyer or closely involved in law. It's highly unlikely he's ignorant of the seriousness of his comments.

We're very much still in business, and still more solvent than some of the biggest names in the UK IT industry.
 
btw if it was purchased via mail order and was delivered and then goes faulty within the warranty purposes then it's the VENDOR's responsibility to pay for the collection and return.

This is regardless of any "Return to base warranty" claims etc.

How do I know, well I'm not long back from the small claims court vs a PC retailer in Manchester with a computer that failed in it's warranty period and they wouldn't pay for the carriage charges.
 
It's weird, isn't it? I suppose we should take all those ads off the site, put our phone number back on, start taking your phone calls just to tell you individually that we aren't looking to take your order. That makes more sense than sending you away directly from the site via ads.

BTW, a year and a quarter since this thread was started the company is still very solvent, thank you very much.
 
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I think this thread has more than been exhausted - time to be closed :thumb:
 
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