Order from Gentech or excaliber

Hey all, I have been frequenting these boards since mid-May when I first looked into buying a new laptop (trying to get info on the C90S). After reading through this, I fealt compelled to write my experiences in case anyone else in my situation was thinking of buying from these resellers. I saw this thread after looking for the latest inputs by Ken Lee of Gentech to see if he is active lately. My reasons will follow below.

First off I am a soldier in the U.S. Army and stationed in Iraq right now. The importance of that is that I have an APO address in regards to shipping and a stateside address for billing.

The first company that I was going to buy from was BTO, however, being in Iraq and having an APO is not conducive to business with them, unless you want to send money via wire transfer. With the scams online with e-bay and wire transfers, I feel that that is a no go. I understand Eddie's reasons and do NOT fault him for that in any way. It is just not what I was willing to do.

Then I stumbled on Gentech. I wrote them several emails prior to clicking the buy button and got quick and concise answers to my questions and concerns. I was assured that having a different billing address from my shipping address would not be a problem (from Ken actually). Well, that was not the case..... at all. On the first occasion they (their billing company) tried to charge my card (july 13) to no avail saying that my billing address did not match my shipping address. Remember I was told that this would not be the case. I managed to get a phone call to the states (not always easy where I am) and got my bank to change my address to reflect the shipping address (july 14), my bank had trouble with military APO zip codes. The second time they tried was not successful either... not sure why, nothing changed from this time to the future third attempt, this second time they asked for a digital picture of the front and back of my credit card to be sent to them through email. I may be paranoid being in the military, but being around tech and the internet for as long as I have, I know that that is not secure and that I would do no such thing. Well 2 weeks after the first attempt the third attempt went through (july 27).

All through that process communication from Gentech (Brian and Ken) was like pulling teeth. I had to send a couple emails before I got a reply. Most were several days after mine. Prior to buying, near instant, after.... UMM.

Ok, so I have paid for a system now. while the payment was processing I finally got hold of brian and he said that once the payment goes through, it will be a week to build and burn the system, then ship it. The day after (july 28 which was also the day my payment processed) I send an email to Ken expressing the disappointing service and lack of communication that I have been given. A friend (also here in Iraq) bought a different system and was getting near instant replies still, and others on these boards were getting good communication, why can't I get an update once and a while? Surprise.... no reply.

Ok, so a week goes by. No word from Gentech saying the payment did go through and they were building the system (my bank showed the payment went through confirmation on the 28th), and no reply to my email of concerns (bios and other issues that i was wondering if I would need to take care of when I got the system. I don't have non-military internet here to get updates whenever). I email an less friendly but not rude email asking for some word. It had been a week, and by my estimate I should be getting something saying my order will ship tomorrow right? I also mention that if I could I would just cancel the order, I am not getting any word on a system I paid for. This email gets a response from Ken within minutes. He said ya there were problems with charging my card, those were solved now and yes my computer would ship tomorrow (friday Aug 3), no sorry for telling me the wrong info about billing. I say thanks for the reply and he says thanks for understanding.

well that was last week. I have come to expect to not hear from them and true to form, I have not. I asked for an update more than a full business day ago... still no word. As of tomorrow it will be 2 weeks since I PAID for my system. I am not "supposed" to be charged for the system until it is ready to be built, and that building is "supposed" to take just one week. well 2 weeks later, the only word I have gotten from Gentech was after I wrote a very unhappy email a week ago.

So why say all this? Well before I clicked that buy button I got the impression that Gentech would be a great choice for buying from (they said they ship to APO's no problem). They have been for a lot of people on these boards. Some even paid for and got their systems since I started this debacle of a purchase. I am glad that many have had such a good experience. Maybe I just expected too much, but I don't think so. I would have been happy with the same service as everyone else. I am limited in my communications with Gentech because I am stationed in Iraq, but that was not a problem for my friend that is here too in his purchase.

I won't go as far as to say not to buy from Gentech if you are in the States, but if you are not, or you have an APO (like me) I would probably recommend going elsewhere. If you do buy from them, I HOPE that you get the great service I have read about, and somehow did not recieve. I wish all 3 of these companies success, I know it can't be easy all the time. I hope that I am just one that slipped through the cracks. I know not all transactions will be the best they could be. I bought the full system (incl O/S) from Gentech and still have hopes that I will get a trouble free machine. Maybe these delays are from problems they are fixing, maybe not.... I can only guess because they don't communicate with me.

Thanks for your time, and sorry for the long post. I wanted to be complete and honest.

Kevin
SGT, U.S. Army
Iraq.

Not 5 minutes after posting this I got an email from [email protected] saying my order had shipped. No other type of reply, but that is good news none the less!! I still stand by my statements above and my disappointment in the service I have recieved so far. I can't wait to see how my system turns out.

 

Hey Kevin, while I echo many of your sentiments (as I have expressed in other threads), I do want to point out that I ordered mine the same day as you originally did and mine just shipped today (well I don't think it has actually shipped yet, but there is a tracking # anyway). So considering you are APO, things turned out pretty well, relatively speaking anyway.

 

People are finally having their laptops shipped this week so I think that Gentech is not having the problems they were having earlier. This is good news

 

I got my G1S shortly after release from Excaliber, had my questions answered quickly via the (always an excellent idea IMO) forum there, as well as emails about payment internationally and other things. In short, I had zero problems ordering for delivery to Europe, and am typing this now on my flash new laptop.

I have seen really good things said about GenTech here as well, and although I haven't tested Excaliber's post-sales service (no problems at all, well, not caused by Vista compatibility anyway), they did me pretty well.