`OCUK forums and Overclockers retail shop not related!'
Or are they ???
By name, yes they are. By host and domain registration, yes they are. However, ask thier staff via the phone at Stoke and no, they are not. With the exeption of one Mark Proudfoot (aka Spie) who apparently isn't able to speak to a lowly customer on the telephone anyway.
Why this opening paragraph ? Right, cue a slightly long winded but relevant explanation.
I have a good friend who has used OCUK forums for a few years and has been a regular customer for longer of the shop in Stoke. I used to be a Scan customer and will now be returning to Scan following a brief stay on the OCUK forums. Of all things, quite innocently I posted to a thread about three weeks ago, marked as a Friday night joke thread. Ok my joke had some four letter word for feces disguised by the use of stars in place of letters. I duly got a suspension of my account notice through my email which said that I would b suspended for 48 hours. Fair enough, I thought I could handle that. My freind and I laughed about it a little bit, naturally enough.
However a couple of mitigating circumstances lead me down other roads of thought as to how `caring' they OCUK really are (or are not as the case may be). Another very highly esteemed friend of mine who I used to see quite frequently got himself severely injured through electrocution and landed in hospital with a minimum four month stay. Two threads sprouted on the OCUK forums about him and I had previously registered a forum account a few months previously so thought I should join in and voice support for our friend. Three weeks ago was when this was going on, and about that time is when I made the joke post. I earned what was described in a notification email to me was a 48 hour suspension.
Well, a week went by and nothing had been done to rectify my account. Two messages over the weekend revealed no answer or response. Two weeks later, a further message to admins asking very politely what was happening earned no answer. Three weeks later, this evening I am still suspended and unable to make any comment in the OCUK thread about my friends condition noether to his daughter who has an OCUK account, nor to his son who also I believe has an OCUK account. I mentioned the fact that I wished to track activity in the aforementioned threads in each message to admins about my suspension as well. Also on the second week I telephoned Overclockers and spoke to `Chris', who stated that Overclockers have little bearing or relationship with OCUK forums, aside from Mark Proudfoot who apparently was unavailable at that time and would remain unavailable in terms of discussing the OCUK forum.
All things considered, and, given the original situation as it stood (that I had `merely' been suspended for 48 hours) it transpires that basically the shop are accepting no responsibility for thier forum despite the opposite being true of the forum itself as being a sales prop for the shops operation, sales and marketing. This is a conclusion I have come to and I may be wrong (I still hold out hope that I am), however I have stated the siatuation on the phone with regard to my elecrocuted friend now three times at least via message to the forum admins and nothing has been done, not have they seen fit to honour me with a reply (even to say bog off or something would be better then nothing).
The way I see it is that the forum is a yardstick against which I now judge the entire Overclockers operation as a retail outlet of computing goods. They do not appear to be caring in the slightest, nor particularly considerate of the individual needs of forum members, and therefore I assume nor customers. I have shopped with OC before but have no intention of spending a single penny with them again due to this treatment.
I would never reccommend Overclockers to anyone ever again, however good thier price strategy might apparently be. It is no use to progress of society and business when the disillusionment of a client falls on deaf ears.
Stay well away from Overclockers and it's mafia inspired forum setup. Or, at the very least go and take a good loook around the forums before committing your business expenses to them, or your hard earned money. You will see just how imho they are purporting themselves to be a greater asset and entity over and above maintaining the fine service they used to provide, which is now seemingly almost non existant and disconnected.
A far from happy place and one very very far from happy EX customer.
You only find out how good a company is when things go wrong. Faulty hardware is a fact of life, but if you get a replacement or a refund with the minimum of fuss then you can ask for no more. However, with this company, getting ANY sort of after sales help is like getting blood from a stone. I spent £370 on a top of the line liquid cooled graphics card. It arrived no problem, however, when I installed the card 2 things became apparent. 1st - the card had a fault as it displayed artifacts during heavy 3d rendering. 2nd - the quoted speeds of the gpu and memory were incorrect. I reported this by email as my phone calls ranged from disconnected, to evasive, to rude. I then drove through to their store and eventually (2 hours) someone took the card away to be tested. Now, even though the card was running at the incorrect speed, they would not agree that they were at fault, claiming I should contact Sapphire myself !. Secondly, regarding the fault, they said they tested it and didn't find any fault (they wouldn't show me it running though). I created a stink as is my way, but the manager would not budge. I was sent home with my faulty and "not as advertised" goods. Now regarding their "testing" proceedure - anyone who knows about the current high end set of Ati graphics cards knows that they run at 2 speeds, a slower speed for normal 2d mode, then they shift up to full speed when entering 3d. Now what OCUK do is to make sure that the critical service that "ups" the speed when 3d mode is detected, is not running, thereby keeping to the slower 2d speeds all the time. Now this is why the faults don't show up ! Companies get away with this kind of thing because of the cost and hassle of taking them to court is usually too much, and the few times it happens they can absorb the cost of any judgement against them. I cannot stress enough, NEVER buy from this company. This experience was very stressful and costly for me, and a simple google search will find many similar stories of this retailer.
