avoid kobalt computers

Having read some previous posts about the poor business practises of Kobalt (I should have checked the bad reviews before buying - doh) I thought I would just write to say I have had the same experience after trying to get a laptop out of them. I ordered a laptop on the 11th march and after 2 missed etas I emailed them for a new eta givjng them until the end of the day to reply or I would cancel. That was on a friday and by monday evening they had still not replied so I guess they didn't want my business that badly.

It is not possible to have a dialogue with them once you have handed your money over. Their phones "do not work" for some reason (they don't want to talk to customers?) and I'm not sure they read the emails you send them, well not in a timely fashion. They never once initiated communication with me.

I'm pretty sure they will refund the money (fingers crossed, but I bought with credit card so not worried). Being without a laptop for 9 weeks has been a pain as has been waiting for the money to be refunded. Not a bad scam to take the money up front for 8 weeks and get the interest.

I was quite prepared to wait until the laptop was ready but the consistent lack of comms and an inability to explain the missed etas was what got my goat in the end.

I've specced out another lappy but am waiting for a refund so that I can actually buy it.

So if you want a happy laptop buying experience then my advice is to avoid Kobalt

 

Was the lack of contact this past weekend? Where Friday & Monday were bank holidays?

 

So lack of customer service because i just bought the new 17 inch kobalt thanks the laptops are good yes ? they should be please could you enlighten me as i just spent 1700 Quid on a monster !

Hows the cooling ?

Temps

Build quality ?

 

as mentioned it was a bank holiday in the uk and there has been plenty of notice on their forum that they would be closed friday to monday 22nd-25th and again 29th-2nd.
also what laptop was you waiting for? wasnt a sandy bridge by any chance which has had a worldwide recall

 

I sent the email asking for a reply on april 15th which wasn't a bank holiday, nor was the monday. Incidentally I would not have minded waiting to get the laptop, it was the complete lack of communication and now the lack of speed of refund that irked me

The laptop was as the following: -

G890
Chassis - :: Kobalt G890
Screen - :: 18.4' Full HD 1920x1080 X-Glass
Processor - :: Intel� Core i7 740QM Quad Core 1.73GHz - 2.93GHz 6MB Cache
Video Card - :: 2x NVIDIA� GeForce� GTX 460M 1.5GB GDDR5, 384 CUDA Cores, DX11 & PhysX
Memory 1 - :: 8GB DDR3 1333Mhz CAS9 2x 4GB DIMMs
Hard Drive - :: 120GB OCZ Vertex 2E
Hard Drive 2 - :: 500GB Western Digital 7,200rpm with 16MB Cache
Hard Drive Config 1 - :: No RAID
Operating system 1 - :: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Optical Device 1 - :: 8x DVD�R/W
WIFI - :: Intel 6300 Ultimate-N WIFI module
Bluetooth - :: Bluetooth V2.1 Module
Keyboard - :: English UK
7 in 1 card reader - :: 7 in 1 card reader
Soundcard - :: Integrated High Definition Audio
Power Cable - :: UK
Warranty - :: 2 Year - European Collect & Return
Cyberlink Power DVD 10 Ultra 3D/BluRay/DVD Playback

 

Good Afternoon Sungamb,

I have looked into your order and see that you emailed us at just gone 2pm on the friday and followed it up with an email at just gone 9am on the monday. It is not always possible (however we would like to!) respond within that short period of time. Especially as we do not generally work over the weekends.

Our phones have been an ongoing issue since December due to the exchange being flooded not once, not twice but three times! This is out of our control and we have tried numerous things to rectify this even down to hosting a phone connection via broadband, sadly the bandwidth isnt enough for us to maintain this for long.

We read every email and try and reply the same business day where circumstances allow.

It is no secret (nor have we attempted to make it such) that the bad weather at the back end of last year coupled with component shortages gave us one heck of a rough time. We made it through it, we offer the best service that we can for a family run business, I always ask people to remember that we are not the size of Dell or samsung or whomever. However we have made drastic improvements (as attested by our customers) and our level of service is returning to what we would consider a good standard.

We have been assembling laptops over some of the bank holiday time as well to try and get peoples machines to them asap. We will not stop working on this and we will continue to improve as we have over the past couple of months.

I actively encourage anyone here with any issues/questions to simply ask me, I get the Pm's here on my blackberry and I try and answer them as soon as I can.

Obviously I am sorry that you have cancelled your order and wish you well in the future.

Regards

Pman

 

Mine hope it ok OP to post mine also cheers if not tell me i will remove cheers.

G170
Chassis - :: Kobalt G170 17.3" 1
Screen - :: 17.3" 1920x1080 Full HD X-Glass LED Backlit NTSC 72% 1
Processor - :: Intel® Core i7-2630QM Quad Core with HT 2.0-2.9GHz 6MB Cache 45W (+ £93.00) 1
Video Card - :: AMD HD6970M 2GB GDDR5 DX11 (+£43.00) 1
Memory 1 - :: 6GB DDR3 1333Mhz CAS9 1x 2GB, 1x 4GB DIMMs (+ £30.00) 1
Hard Drive - :: 500GB Western Digital 7,200rpm with 16MB Cache 1
Hard Drive 2 - :: None Selected 1
Hard Drive Config 1 - :: No RAID 1
Operating system 1 - :: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1
Optical Device 1 - :: 8x DVD±R/W 1
WIFI - :: Intel 6230 Advanced-N WIFI Bluetooth combi module 1
9 in 1 card reader - :: 9 in 1 card reader 1
Keyboard - :: English UK 1
Soundcard - :: Integrated High Definition Audio with THX TruStudio Pro 1
Mouse - :: None Selected 1
Mouse Mats - :: None Selected 1
Power Cable - :: UK 1
Extra Battery - :: None Selected 1
2nd AC Adapter - :: None Selected 1
Warranty - :: 3 Year - European Collect & Return (+ £70.00) 1
Business Software - :: None selected 1
System Recovery - :: None Selected 1
External HDD - :: None Selected

Have not placed my order however as i said i need to know about cooling build quality and so forth as this is a lot of money !

Thanks Kobalt cheers from AsusS.

 

Hi Mate,

Well the G170 is an awesome machine, there are alot of people who love thier machines and we are shipping alot of them!

The New AMD 6970 is an awesome card and it really is quite cheap compared to the 485! for close to the same gaming performance.

We have getting our first 6970's this week and have had no problems so far with them, People always comment on the build quality of these units they are study, clean as well as very understated but exceptionally powerful. Just look at the owners thread

The Quad core is prob our highest selling CPU and is very popular again price to performance ratio is very good.

The machine will run quite cool actually and the performance that you should get will be blistering.

Any questions you can always drop me a PM here or on our forum

Regards

Pman

 

why do you not reply as quickly to emails as you do to a public forum? Where's my refund?

 

Hi Sungamb,

As you can see by my forum sig, I am the support and production manager, Our sales teams are working flat out going through the tens of emails and queries that we have every day.

I was a long time customer of Kobalt before I started working for them (joined this forum in April 09 and started in Feb this year as part of the improvement process here) So I know what has gone on and can appreciate from both sides of said fence.

Our sales team do try and answer emails as fast as they can but when they get an email at gone 2 on a Friday they cant realistically be expected to reply by 9am Monday when they do not work weekends.

Although we would love to!

Regards

Peter

 

what about sending out emails when another eta has been missed?

I'm sorry but it I experienced extremely poor service and I had to let other people know so they didn't experience the same bad service. It seems that you have been aware of the problem for quite a while so I can only assume that the problem is systemic.

Also why the long wait for a refund?

 

We have taken a number of measures to improve all aspects of our business, not least of which was hiring me

We have our own sections on the forum for order queries and the preferred method of order tracking or emails. As I mentioned before Our sales guys do answer them as fast as they can. But we can not put a guarantee of a time limit especially when there are a number of bank holidays making our email inbox heave lol.

Regarding your refund, I simply can not for legal reasons talk about financial matters in public, PM me if you want to discuss that.

Regards

Pman

 

Cheers will decide tonight if the GF gives the heads up .

Also thanks i shall register on kobalt forums cheers your prices are the best however customer service according to most people is decent alienware have terrible custom service to over the phone that is home service is exceptional however i am certainly going to have a long think about this.

Cheers .

 

Well if you need anything you know how to get hold of me

As many of our customers do

As for the GF, mate I have to wrestle with mine regarding my own laptop/upgrades constantly, for that you have my neverending understanding lol

Pman

 

well thanks for the quick updates, you should do the same for non-forum customers as well, I would still be gladly waiting for a laptop if I had had some comms like this before. I'm sorry that my anger is being taken out on you, but this is the first time I've ever had anything like a conversation with a Kobalt employee. good luck in the future.

With regards the payment i have asked for my credit card company to refund me and then they can deal with you - you could say why you are unable to make refunds - unless of course its a cashflow issue and you are near to going broke. But if its not a cashflow issue then where's my money? Either way its incredibly bad service - sorry to say it but that has been my experience.

 

Also don't forget it was bank holiday mate and the UK had the royal wedding Friday >_>.

However i can not say anything good luck with your refund.

 

Nothing to do with cash flow, but this is exactly why we have a procedure that we go through regarding refunds as the amount of people that if we refund quickly THEN go on to talk to the credit card company and THEY refund you as well means that we are then in a whole world of mess.

As I mentioned previously if you want more specifics I cant give them to you in public, it really as simple as I am not allowed to under the Data protection act.

Regards

Pman

 

Indeed, quite a few bank holidays in quick succession

Few days off for the country

Pman

 

Not for me Security LOL i watched the wedding at work rofl .

My boss had that strange THE HELL IS THAT nob sack DOING

Cheers take care optimus.

+Rep

 

Hi Sungamb!

I just wanted to tell you good luck! I had similar issues in the past with Kobalt. I had to wait 4 months to get my refund and if I didn't use this forum I guess I would never had my money back.

I honestly don't understand why someone has to come complain on a public forum to get his money back. This unfortunately seems to be the only way!

Not even mentionning that they hold the money of several customers for a while. They are basically getting a loan from customers with 0 interests .

Anyway, I really hope Kobalt fix their refund and delay issues ASAP and that no other customer will have to go through the same pain I had with them!

 

So you payed a huge amount of resources for a kobalt laptop then backed out ? of course its going to take a while they need to strip your build find out what your account details are and finally arrange a refund it can take ages.

Its not like your bank they have a professional business and when it comes down to giving money back im sure they will take time to know exactly the problem !

Again not sure on your circumstances sorry.

 

We have a standard set of procedures that we have to follow for our own accounting purposes.

As the OP pointed out people quite often go straight to the credit card companies if they want a refund which can mean that the refund will go through twice. We then have weeks of paperwork to sort out.

People would be surprised how much paperwork it generates when that happens, hence our internal procedure This unfortunately can generate delays depending on the stage of the order, how it was paid, when it was paid etc...the list of variables is endless which is one of the reasons we do not get into this on the forums (along with that pesky law too )

Pman

 

umm?

10char

 

I purchased my G170 from Kobalt, communication was responsive and despite the worldwide Sandybridge recall, they still managed to provide a really good service.

 

Another anti-Kobalt rant thread? It seems they're not being cut much slack here on the forums.

I've changed my own order and am keeping expectations low regarding delivery so as not to disappoint myself. However given the last two weekends and the apparent problems with SSDs, I think they've acquitted themselves admirably compared to the mess last year.

 

LOL. I noticed that too. I smell something fishy there...

 

That is true, we do seem to get the brunt of it lol

The SSD problems were resolved with the last BIOS update, this has obviously left us a little backlog to work through but it was better to ensure we were sending something that wasnt having issues then have to have a load of machines back due to a problem we could have fixed Everyone involved was told of the issue and 99.9% of people were happier for us to have caught this and resolved it then ship them a laptop that didnt work

I think MrDJ has a fan judging by that quote

 

It's good you've detected and resolved the SSD problem.

I'll just have to wait for my own cancelled order to be updated with the correct details, I suppose that'll need a separate support ticket before it can be properly resolved though.

 

i think he may have posted it as i put monday instead of sandy bridge and me not putting capitols where they shopuld be, by mistake DOH!
jeez,something fishy. enough of the conspiracy theories already

and my ruddy work keyboakd is knakkered as it keeps adding letters im not pressing arghh!

 

Just to put my 2 cents worth of opinion in. I ordered a G150 from kobalt around the same time as the OP. I took (partial) delivery of my laptop on saturday( I ordered it with a pair of vertex 3 ssds and it was shipped to me with just one as they found an issue with the second one and as I needed the laptop for a work project am still waiting for the second ssd.) I am reasonably happy with the delivery timeframe and the fact that they shipped me the laptop on saturday. However I have to say that the communication from kobalt is very poor. You don't get any status updates until your ETA has been missed and any support tickets aren't responded to for 48 hours usually with a response that isnt totally stisfactory. Additionally I have to say that any ETA's you get from kobalt are generally on the optomistic side. Overall I found the buying experience from kobalt quite stressfull I wasn't sure when I was going to get the laptop and my queries wern't responded to in time. My last gripe with the order was that I ordered a screen upgrade and while the upgraded screen is very nice it has a bright pixel in the centre right of the screen having paid around £150 extra and being a bespkoe laptop builder you'd have thought they would be shipping a screen with no dead/bright pixels. Having said that kobalt offer a good range of configuration options (in fact probably offer the most options of any clevo reseller), are reasonable in pricing and are an established company so warranty/support should be ok. When buying another laptop I would consider using kobalt again in the future but would definately think carefully about it.

 

Hi Ash,

We do try and answer all emails within 48 hours, that's the maximum target that we have for standard issues (order changes, questions etc) sometimes it takes longer if the issue is more complex. Quite often we can and do answer faster then that but when its something like the SSD issues that have been going around then we need to make sure that information that we pass on to our customers is 100% correct

Pman

 

Pman on kobalt forums go to what do you want to see there is updates man someone asked for G170 Video ME .

Also my mates will look for this video and if they are pleased they will order the same laptop so please do it for your profit wise margins .

 

you are so right, i am in the same situation as yours, been 2 months since i ordered (G150 £1900), asked for canceling and refund, no reply so far. the days without laptop, hard!

kobalt computer definitely the one to avoid!

 

I have seen your request

I am looking at one of the G150's with a 6970 around the end of the week beginning of next and will do a few videos then

At the moment my screwdriver is steaming through overuse lol

 

Hi, Peter:
I am one of your customer as well (order g150 since 11th march), take ages still, no idea what is going on to my order, i want to cancel it as well, could you refund me assp.

 

its just a shame that the hundreds of happy customers dont post on here as well just to show this is a very small minority of unhappy customers.

 

I paid a huge amount of money and then backed out because after 3 weeks ( which by the way was my ETA), they didn't even start to build the laptop. The order status was still "payment accepted". I have been told at that time by the sales team that I can cancel my order and the refund would be done within 5 to 10 days. I cancelled the order and got a confirmation email from their sales team. The refund happened only 4 months later because I happen to know this forum. Without this forum I am not even sure I would have got my money back!

They also denied receiving any email from me. Their response was that they were sorry but they didn't get my emails so they couldn't proceed with the refund. But seriously, even without emails, shouldn't they notice that they have some money on their bank account that doesn't belong to them?

I personally had a very bad experience with this company and will definitely not recommend anyone to buy a laptop from them.

 

The point is not that there are a lot of happy customers but it's that there are too many unhappy customers! If it happened only once or twice, it would be understandable but these refund problems seem to happen way too many times!

 

absolutely agree with you, avoid kobalt.

 

i am new here, guess what? because of kobalt, i am in the same situation as yours, my (g150 no idea?! building?! £1900). at the moment just want my refund! don't want to deal kobalt any more, utter waste of time and money, i am even looking for some legal action currently.

 

Wow I can’t believe so many people are venting their hate at Kobalt. I actually decided to make a new account on here just so I could comment I’ve also bought a G150 I’m pretty sure it’s going to go past its ETA, there have just been too many delays this year with the sandy bridge issue and SSD issue too can’t really blame them for that and they are only a small company so you have to take that into consideration. However I have to admit that I’m willing to wait just not too long because I need this computer for work. I hope things work themselves out I would prefer not to cancel mine like so many others have.

 

Our actual cancellation rate is very low

The problem is that people often just register to vent anger or grumbles, when 99% of our customers just go into the sunset and enjoy their machines

 

I would rather go into te moon set where my kobalt laptop can cool better IMO.

The sun would not do it very well i hate the sun !

Also the moon is cool ! i game on the night outside with 2 extra batteries this means lots of disgruntled kids hearing me own people over MW2 at 3:40am in the morning .

 

im not really one to comment on reseller policy in general, but not being able to contact a rep by phone, for whatever reason, just doesnt seem right.

 

Well after enquiring about general delivery times and being told 3 weeks and thinking that could be too long for me. Now hearing people waiting upwards of 2months is enough to stop me ordering.

 

What laptop and configuration were you thinking about buying?

 

G170 with i7-2630QM, Ati 6970m and 8gb ram, Kobalt seem to have the best deal but a few of these stories are very off putting.

 

Have to agree about the stories they did cause me to think long and hard about ordering but I did so anyway because there are a lot of positive reviews it was just a bad time for them. I’m actually thinking of a backup just in case but there are not many good Clevo resellers in the UK with the config that I want, and importing could be troublesome but I would not rule it out. I assume you are from the UK also you might be able to get the laptop you want maybe cheaper than you realise

 

Where do you live ?

 

Well I have no idea who are you are, evil orange isnt really enough for me to go on to help you....

Couldn't agree more, As much as we would like to please everyone we cant, simply not possible in the retail industry

Pman