A warning about ibuypower

Seriously.. too many people here and elsewhere (such as resellerratings.com) have been giving ibuypower way too many thumbs up. It has been, to date, 27 days and counting since I've ordered. I'm going to go out on a limb and say Danny was sincere when he said it shipped out today. That puts it in the middle of next week, longer than a month from order date, when it will arrive. Hold times are excessive, and although some of the customer service reps are sincere and nice, you're lucky if you haven't thrown the phone out the window before you get to them. I'll update this post, if you all wish, and let you know if the computer is actually what I ordered.

Ordered:
3400+ amd64-m
1024mb kingston ddr-333
60gb 7200hdd
radeon 9600pro 128mb

basically, upgrades maxed on the Battalion-SL 101... graduation present. Too bad it's 2 1/2 weeks after graduation.

 

looks like a nice machine, hopefully it arrives well.
Also, hope that this is not an indication of their customer service incase you need to ever get it repaired.

zx5000 :: 2.4M :: 512 DDR :: 40gb 4200 RPM HD :: 15.4" :: Radeon 9600 Mobilty M10 :: Aquamark3 22,856

 

Hi Vapor,
I agree and have warned people about them. They have an +8 rating at resellerratings, but if you look at it most of that rating is due to the pricing. If you look at service or returns the ratings drop to into the 5 range which is very bad. Not only do you need to wait a month and play their games to get a notebook from them. I feel really sorry for anyone who needs service or has to return it for some reason.

Jack

 

Thankfully, on the 32nd day of waiting (one day earlier than the previously stated date of arrival) the notebook arrived. There appears to be absolutely nothing wrong with it, and for that I am thankful. I still haven't even noticed one dead pixel, after putting full black and red and white screens up. As far as my experience is concerned as of now, all I could say is that if you like waiting 5 or 6 times longer for 200 or 300 dollars, go with iBUYPOWER. Also, I don't know what everybody's problem with customer service is... if they could ship out stuff in time it would be fine. Everybody's problem seems to originate from the fact that their order hasn't yet arrived.. giving them a negative bias in the first place. Ask to speak to Danny; real nice guy

 

Hi vapor,
Glad you got your notebook and hope it works out for you. Even if people don't mind waiting 4-5 weeks, I'm not sure I would steer them towards Ibuypower. They are not an honest outfit. If they were they would let everyone know up front the amount of time it's going to take period, none of their canned lies about every aspect of the whole deal. Come on 4-5 days to verify a credit card when most places can do it in a matter of minutes. From reading the comments on resellerratings even more problems happen when a return or repair is required. Even if this company can save you $200-$300, is it worth it for the 4-5 weeks of waiting and worrying and then if something breaks during the warranty period, the amount of hassle and fighting you will go through to get Ibuypower to fix it? I think not.
I just hope everything works out for little_midget, he ordered his the last week of May, so he must be in his 4th week of waiting now.

Jack

The color of justice in america is green.
http://pbase.com/joneill

 

I was one of the stupid ones that puchased a laptop from them 1 year ago, the Battalion SC-101, and it has broken down 3 times and never worked right since. In fact they still have it for repair, been gone for almost 2 months now and they don't have a clue as to why it keeps failing. The first break down was Dec. 24 2004 and they had it for 3 months! It lasted a few weeks and then they had it for almost a month. (same exact symptom/problem too) Now on June 7, 2005 it dies out after a few minutes so I sent it in again. (still in for repair) I pleaded for a new one since this is a lemon but they say "It was a new one when I purchased it" but that doesn't help me out. It is junk and always will be junk as far as I'm concerned. I just want it back repaired so I can immediatley sell it on e-bay because I don't want to deal with them any more. I have never had so much hate for an inept comany as Ibuypower before. They just don't care about customer satisfaction, only taking your money. I will also be contacting some computer magazine companies to help me fight this one out with them. That's what Ibuypower needs is more bad press!!

 

I've heard nothing but bad things about them, though their prices can be somewhat tempting.

 

My experience with IBuyPower has been so bad that I have filed a BBB complaint on them and I intend to pursue further action through the Federal Trade Commission over their business practices. I am urging anyone that has had a similar experience with IBuyPower should file a complaint with the FTC ( http://www.ftc.gov). Below I have detailed my experience with IBuyPower thus far. This is an excerpt of the letter that I have recently sent them regarding my notebook.

"To start out, I’m going to describe my experience with your company so far. Initially in June of 2005 I became excited about your line of notebooks and their capabilities. I decided to purchase one to test the capabilities and offer my recommendation to the president of my company in terms of an upcoming technology purchase. I ordered a colored notebook with the 5 business day shipping option [The ship in 5 business days option on their site, the subject of my BBB complaint] and the shipping took over a month due to the color (this was never disclosed during the order confirmation or credit card entry). After it was not shipped in 5 business days I became somewhat agitated and called your company to find out that the shipping date was expected to take 2-3 business weeks. The mystery with this is why your company did not immediately refund the 5 business day rush shipping option. To be totally honest, by the time I received the notebook, I was very angry with your company. Even with the inconvenience that your company had caused, your company still declined to offer any sort of resolution to expedite the shipping and provided no form of compensation for the major inconvenience.

Within 2 weeks the notebook ceased to function and I had to send it back to your RMA department. This really snapped with me and I filed a BBB complaint against your company about your product quality and misleading advertising. The BBB complaint went through without a resolution as your company still has the misleading product information on your site. Eventually after another month or so I received the notebook and it worked for several months with minor issues. Near January 23, 2006 your company received the notebook for a second RMA service request since the notebook ceased to function off of the AC power cord. So far I have sent the RMA department several emails regarding the status of the notebook, but in both cases they have failed to respond in a timely manner (within 3 business days). Although the first time may have been my fault since there was a typo on the RMA number, the second time has not been my fault. Since it seems that your systems go back to the manufacturer when they go through your RMA department, it seems that the RMA department should have all day to answer emails."

Companies like IBuyPower should not be allowed to remain in business.

 

I too ordered a Batallion SC 101 Turbo, and it is absolutely horrible. Great specs, but something keeps failing and of course Ibuypower has no clue. I have returned it three times, they "fixed" it three times, and it came back to me after 3 attempts still not working. So, I went to BBB to try and resolve the matter, but Ibuypower didn't reply to my complaint. Now, I'm probably looking at a letter-writing campaign or small claims court. It took them about 1 month or so to ship my computer (that's 1 month after the ETA) and then, 5 months later, it stopped working. My warranty on the computer has now expired, even though they keep offering to fix it again. Why do I want to wait another 1-2 months for them to "repair" my laptop? I've heard great things about this company in terms of desktop computers, just don't EVER buy a notebook computer from them.

 

Horrible laptops.

I ordered an iBuyPower laptop, a Battalion-II model. Within 3 months the hard drive crashed. The USB/Flashcard readers went next, then my Firewire port. Next my soundcard broke, and finally my video card broke became so broken the computer could only run for 5 minutes without serious problems. All of this is caused I suspect from the extreme heat inside the laptop.

When I got it back, after a 2 month+ long repair in which they sent the computer to Taiwan to get fixed, the battery then broke in about a month. Soon after that the computer would start beeping while running indicating the processor was overheating. As of a few days ago my computer will not boot.

The laptop model was discontinued soon after I purchased it with no explaination.

The company does not care in the least. They offer no solutions to my problem and could have at least offered me repair parts for wholesale prices.

 

i also bought a battalion 101 ml turbo (Uniwill 259EN3) from ibuypower, actually i found it to be pretty good, heat wasn't that big a factor even with the graphics card on. it has ran great for 5 months.
however just last week i have ran into a problem. The LCD inverter burnt out, although it could be my fault because of removing the ac cord and plugging it back in quickly. so now i have to RMA it for fixing. im keeping my fingers crossed because of some bad customer service reviews. And yea my battery wore out pretty quickly, but they replace it after 90 days. Im going to take pictures of the machine so i can make sure nothing happens to it while its getting fixed.