I would stay away from Reflex Notebook, pretty bad experience.

Making a new thread because atleast I believe my order is shipping now. The old thread can be closed.

I first contacted reflex notebook as they were the only major reseller in Canada and I wanted free shipping. After talking through email with them, they told me that the maximum days it takes to ship should be 14 business days, so I ordered from them on August 5th. On august 6th, they actually called my mom (who doesn't speak english well at all) to confirm the order. This was my fault, I shouldn't have given them my home phone but I think I gave them my cell as well. Anyways I called them the day after and apparently things went pretty smoothly. However, I started getting worried after the 14 business days was approaching fast and my laptop still says it was "processing". I called them (they didn't even tell me this) and apparently there was a conflict between the names on the credit card and the name that I said was on the credit card, which, according to them, probably delayed the order by a day.

So whatever, I keep waiting. On august 20th, 11 business days and still no sign of the laptop shipping, I called them again. The people on the phone seemed pretty terse and curt with me like I was wasting their time, and the first guy I called seemed confused as to why it wasn't shipped on friday, but he had no idea, so he got me on the phone with someone else. That person told me that there were delays with Sager and that the tracking number "may" come today or tomorrow. Keeping in mind I thought 14 business days would be the latest I would get the laptop, and I specifically told a representative I needed the laptop to be here before I leave for university or else I would have to pay extra for shipping (to my university) and also wait even longer. Expedited shipping with UPS costs $200+ so I can't really afford that.

Well now it's the 21st so I decided to give them another call as I absolutely needed my laptop before I leave for uni, and they haven't contacted me yet. The last email I sent them was on the 19th and I haven't gotten a response. So I call them, and again, same tenseness to the call. After I asked about the status of my laptop they checked and apparently it was actually shipping out on the 21st, but they didn't even give me a tracking number. Even my order on their website still says "processing" which is actually pretty silly.

So now I might not even get my laptop before I leave for university and I might have to pay a hefty HST for shipping my laptop by myself to my university if it doesn't arrive on time. By hefty I mean 13% of the cost of the laptop which was $1550. I would also miss a significant amount of time at school without my laptop which I was planning on using (in addition to some gaming) to take notes. I'm just hoping that the laptop arrives earlier than the expected time so I can quickly grab it before I board my flight.

It was just a lot of miscommunication and simply not telling me anything. Since they're a reseller and the main reason for that is for customer service I think I should have been informed that there may be delays (especially since my laptop was supposed to be sent out on friday and it wasn't) and I had to call them to figure out what was going on.

Might as well have gotten the laptop straight from sager. I don't understand the point of a reseller if I still have to worry so much about the laptop as I have the past month. Next time I'm just going to go for lpc digital or mythlogic and just pay the shipping costs as atleast they seem to have better service and if I have to pay to have it shipped to my university location like I might for this order it would cost more anyways.

 

Allow me to clip in since I've purchased few clevo laptops and am a Canadian.

For Reflex's defense, I believe they dropship directly from Sager in USA. They have little control over when their orders might ship. They can bug Sager about their orders but they are at Sager's mercy really.

Now that's out of the way, there are reasons I keep purchasing clevo laptops from US. There are resellers who have their own stock at their own office. I believe Malibal and Pro Star keep their own stocks. I know there are others but I don't have first hand experience to say.
Having own stock means they can ship fast as long as what you want is in stock. In fact, my latest Clevo laptop purchase, Clevo W230ST, was shipped in a day.
Most importantly, when you need RMA, those with their own stocks can repair your rig faster than those who might have to order parts.

The point of a reseller is RMA. Dealing directly with Sager is a pain in butt. Some resellers have their own extensive coverage. The troubles you have experienced are mostly out of Reflex's control.

P.S. Always choose express/expedited shipping even if it costs more. The less time your shipment stays with a courier, the less chances of something bad might happen to your shipment.

 

I understand the delays in shipment are out of reflex's control, but the mediocre customer service and just plain bad communication isn't. Seriously, the laptop shipping without them notifying me that it's shipped when it's way overdue to be shipped? I could have planned something if they kept me updated on the status of the laptop but they kept me in the dark.

Again, I don't blame reflex for the slow order, I blame them for the general crappy customer service experience (me calling constantly to figure out what's going on).

 

Chances are that they were as clueless as you were. Like I said, they were likely at Sager's mercy. It's not really about customer service.

Take my advice and order from resellers with their own stock next time from US. Less headaches in longer term.

 

When they never notify you about the status of your laptop and when your laptop ships and they don't give you a tracking number until you call them the next day wondering why it's been 12 business days and the laptop hasn't shipped when it's supposed to get to me at 14 businses days it's bad customer service. They kept telling me they would get me a tracking number as soon as the laptop ships. Will definitely order from someone else the next time.

My laptop STILL says it's processing on their page:
imgur: the simple image sharer

 

Good morning, we apologize for the bad experience you had, customer service is our top priority. As mentioned before we advise all our clients at time of purchase that notebooks (if stock is not an issue) typically take 10-14 business days, if you were not advised of this please let me know as we let everyone know before charging anything, we would like to rectify the situation.

Please PM me your order number.

 

I understand and I'm not complaining about the time it took, I understand that's not your fault (even though it'll be far past 14 business days before I get my laptop. I do not know why you need my order number but I will give it to you anyways.

 

Because we want to refer back to it and see what happened on our end, if we can't pinpoint who the client is then we can't fix the problem to avoid this in the future.

 

Just recently purchased from ReflexNotebook.ca, I like the fact of knowing my final costs up front for shipments to Canada, and they are Canadian retailer with Canadian pricing.

My order is currently being processed at Sager, and I'm currently on business day 17 since original time of order.

However, some back and forth on updating/verifying CC shipping address (Reflex only ships to verified shipping address on CC), as well as confirming Sager-requested changes on SSD and HDD took up 5 business days (Reflex custom order form was inaccurate due to changes in updated SSD/HDD parts, Reflex notified that the site was updated quickly after the situation).

So it's been 12 business days since the final confirmation, and 7 business days since I made a call for an update on the process.

During this time Reflex has been pretty quick at notifying me of changes or possible concerns/errors. Also, they were very polite and courteous in regards to the situation, and were up front and honest when explaining that they don't have control over the build time, fair enough.

I don't think calling them will do me any benefit since it's still at the Sager factory.

alucasa made some good points about speed and shipping when ordering from retailers that keep stock on hand.

If there's anything about what Reflex Notebook could improve on, they can update the shipping expectations on their website, and having weekly reminder emails about our order would be much appreciated. Retailers like NCIX do this for back-order/out-of-stock items.

 

We will take this into consideration and discuss it at our next meeting. Thanks for the constructive criticism, we value any input to improve the customer's experience.

 

Something for your next meeting might be the experience I had, I'm sure you'll remember me. I received my laptop in the expected delivery timespan but got a bad battery. It was a week and a half before you got me the link to order it through Sager (who would not deal with me directly because the laptop was registered as being sold to you). I went through the order process and printed to a file the resulting successful submission. That was on a Friday night and I asked Simon to check up on it early the next week because I didn't want to keep waiting for the battery only to find it wasn't sent (glass half-empty kind of expectation). This was especially true since it wasn't 100% that it was the battery that was at fault. A bit over a week later, I ask Simon about the battery shipment again and was told the next day that the form was never submitted and no battery was on the way. I was VERY angry and decided to just return the defective merchandise since a month had passed without any resolution. Although everyone from your company was polite (although sometimes very slow to repsond) and you had graciously offered to throw in the 'no-hassle' warranty service (which should be standard frankly) I'd still have a few suggestions for you.

First, when someone writes you with 2 or 3 questions, don't just answer the first one and ignore the others.

Second, If you can't get an answer for the customer right away (within 24 hours of it being sent to you) email them back just to let them know you're dealing with it and am waiting for a response from Sager. No one wants to think they're being ignored, especially when you have their money and they aren't happy about something rightly or wrongly.

Third, if you offer 'free shipping', make it obvious BEFORE the order is made that returns will incur the cost of the original shipping and brokerage fees - even when original shipping is free. When I read that in the receipt and on the website, I mistakenly assumed that was only the case if you HAD paid for these fees up front in the purchase price, as per your normal operation. It was something that would be completely expected by me for online/mailorder purchases where I had paid those fees. Also, when you're a Canadian buying from a Canadian company (website) it implies (factually or not) that you are not going to be paying for a brokerage fee (or does that not seem obvious to you?). Having to pay these fees is just adding the cherry on top of my totally miserable overall experience. I'd like to save someone else the hassle when things don't go according to plan.