Wire Transfer to pay to Xotic - Safe??

Hey guys,

I'm just writing 'coz I have to somehow convince my dad that it's fine to send a wire transfer to Xoticpc as it's really the only way that we can pay in Australia.

Unfortunately, the sum of the laptop is going to be close to $6,000 AUD, which is a heck of a lot of money. I think Xotic sound like a great company, they have good prices and their support is 2nd to none (I normally get a reply within 2 hours, which is great 'coz of the time difference!)

Really, the "only" way that I could convince him to let me wire the funds (I could do it without his 'permission' but he'll get crappy at me) would be to answer this ultimate question:

"If they take my money and run, what can I do about it?"

Hopefully someone here can give me some ideas on how to deal with this problem; I've looked all over Google and the forums but so far it seems like it's a "let's send the money and hope we don't get screwed over" kind of affair.

 

Based on their reseller rating, it is highly unlikely that they will take the money and run. However, if they do and you paid by wire transfer, it is equally highly unlikely that you will ever see you money again.

Can't you pay by credit card?

 

safe yes. the other thing you could do is get a free paypal account and pay with an e-check which is free but takes about a week to go through (this is what i did). you'll have to pay a fee for a wire transfer

and xotic is pretty much the most reputable reseller out there

and you can pay by credit card but there is a cash discount. when i got my notebook the cash discount was almost $300

 

totally safe. xotic is very trustworthy. dont have any worries about it.

 

Xotic is totally real don't worry about it.

 

Well, I spoke to Justin about the possibility of paying by eCheck with PayPal, but he said "We don't take PayPal for international orders."

Perhaps he mis-read and saw the "PayPal" bit and reiterated their stance?

If so, I might be tempted to pay through eCheck, but are the currency exchange rates deadly?

 

Paypal does have a cap on how high the exchange rate goes, which can burn you. When the loonie was high (1.03 USD and higher), they capped it at 0.95 USD.

And yes Xotic is totally safe.

 

PayPal takes out a good chunk for international business, which is probably why Justin will not do it.

 

Have never heard a single complaint about Xoticpc's payment policies, or practices.

 

I highly doubt XoticPC will take your $6,000~ over their long standing reputation.

Have you checked the Australian resellers?

 

i also made payment to xotic through bank wire. they have confirmed my payment. don't worry its safe.

 

OK, let's take XoticPC out of this. Let's just talk about the safest way to pay for any purchase from any vendor.

A wire transfer, bank check and money order offer you the least protection in case of any problem with a vendor. Once a vendor has your money through any of those payment vehicles, it is their money. If they don't want to return it to you, you have virtually no recourse unless they are located nearby (i.e. you are able to take them to court). Think of it as mailing the vendor actual cash. You can go to your bank and scream at them all day but there is nothing they can do to recall that wire transfer, or bank check or money order. Contrary to popular belief, you can actually put a stop payment on a bank check or money order, but it has to be very timely to have any chance of suceeding.

The safest way to pay is to use a credit card AND then pay through PayPal. (BTW, PayPal fees are paid by the vendor, not the sender). Why is this the safest? If you have a problem, you first file a complaint with PayPal. PayPal does very little to investigate complaints. They'll ask the vendor for their side of the story, then they'll tell you to send the item back and refund your money whether you send it back or not. (Second BTW, couple this with the fees and its why some vendors won't accept PayPal).

If by some bizarre reason PayPal actually sides with the vendor, you can then contest the charge with your credit card company. You will win this every time. Here's why. Since PayPal is the"customer", the credit card company submits the case to them for response. PayPal immediately puts a hold on the vendor's funds to cover the amount of the chargeback. Then they sit back and do nothing. The time to respond expires, the credit card company gets your money back from PayPal and PayPal simply deducts it from the vendor's account.

There are a few other twists to this that I didn't go into. Sometimes its not the vendor who is cheating the customer, sometimes its the other way around.

I am going to be buying a laptop from either XoticPC, PCTorque or PowerNotebooks. All three get excellent reviews here and on resellerratings.com, and all three offer a cash discount. The setup I'm looking at is $3284 so the cash discount is $99. However, I can tell you there is not a chance I will pay cash. Its just not worth the peace of mind that a credit card affords, plus I get points on my credit card anyway (although it doesn't fully make up for the cash discount).

 

Theres risks to every method of payment.

Even paypal has risks, go read the NBR users horror stories where their accounts got blocked for high amount transactions.

Personally, id go with the wire transfer on this one.

 

Credit cards are a scam, plain and simple.

 

True, but some are riskier than others, and a wire transfer or check is much riskier than a credit card or paypal for precisely the reasons NoSpinZone stated.

Accounts being locked because a large transaction attempted to clear through the account is actually one of the better devices to prevent actual fraud, and can be easily and summarily dealt with if you simply inform the creditor who holds the account, e.g., paypal or your credit card company, a couple of days beforehand what you're going to be doing, who the merchant is going to be, and give a high-end estimate of what the amount of the transaction is likely to be.

You should also tell the creditor beforehand if you have an alternate address to which you want the purchase shipped, so that way, when the merchant calls up the credit card company to verify your address, the sale doesn't get scotched because the credit card company can't verify that the shipping address you gave to the merchant really belongs to you.

One of the perennial credit card scams used to be to order using a fraudulently obtained credit card and then have the merchandise delivered to a vacant house, or in a few cases even just a vacant lot, that you can access easily. That way, the owner of the card is none the wiser until the bill shows up, and once the packages are dropped off, you can hang back and wait to see if anyone's watching them before you go in and grab them and head off for the pawn shop to launder the goods.

But the scammer here is the clueless cardholder, not the issuer.

 

Thanks for the great response guys.

I spoke to one of the companies who do the TT and they basically told me the same thing; "we take responsibility until the person picks up the money, and then the rest is up to the gods."

I still think it's highly unlikely that Xotic are going to take my $6k, and if they did, I'd fly over there and kick their . ($6k > cost of ticket, lol)

Now my dad has got it into his head to use an escrow service. Yay, add ANOTHER 3rd party that you can't verify is trustworthy either. *sigh*

I'll keep nudging him to do the wire transfer.

Thanks again.

 

Here's one more point to consider. No matter how good a retailer is, in this current economic environment almost any retailer can declare insolvency at any time. Just within the last couple months in the US, large chains such as Linens 'n Things, KayBee Toys, Tweeter and Circuit City have gone (or are going) out of business.

If you had paid for product that you ordered and didn't yet pick up, you are what is termed an "unsecured creditor". Which means that you get in line behind secured creditors who will only be paid cents on the dollar, which really means you are probably SOL.

 

I used wire transfer with XoticPC and it was ok.
Just make sure you understand it might take around a week until they can clear everything up.

 

By experience, I can tell you I made a wire transfer directly to Sager and there were no problems at all.

 

What sort of escrow service? Such exist, and frequently they'll be bonded or insured, so using one does mitigate risk; however, you're going to need the merchant to agree to go along with using an escrow, because typically an escrow won't release funds until the merchant has performed (at least performed enough so that the goods in question could not be taken back by a bankruptcy trustee if, God forbid, the merchant should declare bankruptcy before you receive the goods), and for that to happen you need to have the merchant's agreement to abide by such an arrangement.

That, of course, is more or less what a credit card company does, at least in practical effect, so I would guess that any escrow service that's legal is going to charge approximately what a credit card company would charge for such a service.

 

Majaka,

Before I moved to Canada I used to do wire transfers from Australia over to here and I've subsequently sent wire transfers back from here to Australia without having any issues. While I haven't had any experience sending money to XoticPC, they are by far and away the most well known and although some of the European resellers might slap me around for this reliable resellers around.

With regards to your dad choosing Escrow, I'm not going to say the service is poor...but when I had the choice I used wire transfers. Adding another party that didn't guaruntee your money seemed like a lose/lose to me.

 

good luck on purchase.

 

I bought my lap top from xoticpc paying with wire transfer, I live in mexico, It was very stressfull let me tell you because sometimes international transfer may take up to ten days to be completed, mine took two days and my father was nearly eating me alive but finaly the order was completed and I got my lap top , so yes it is safe to pay by transfer but if may be a bit stressfull, especially if you are a person that gets stressed easily such as me

 

Yahooo!!!

Thanks guys for all the comments. I showed my father this post (especially the 3 or 4 of you who talked about your own experiences with the wire transfer) and it finally convinced him.

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone; I signed up with a wire transfer company who seem like the real deal with EXCELLENT customer service. Right now I'm going to go and write Justin and e-mail and ask him what the next step from here is.

Cheers again guys.

 

Good luck and keep us posted

 

its safe, xotic can be trusted.
xotic probably wont take paypal internationally since most paypal address confirmations are for US, so they cant verify an address to the paypal account if its not confirmed. theyre just trying to minimize their risk.

 

Update:

Alright, I finally managed to barter with my transfer company to get a decent transfer rate (not really; it still stung like heck, but it's about 2 cents better than what I would be getting today, which translates to a savings of about $150) and sent the money off.

I had a bit of a hiccup where *I* signed up for the company, so they couldn't accept money from my dad's account, and my bank basically said "sorry mate" because they put a $1k a day limit on there, so I essentially had to get my dad to transfer the money from HIS account into MY account, and then I had to wire it from my account to the bank's account, then they would wire it to Xotic's intermediary, and finally to Xotic.. phew! Bloody bureaucracy! Plus my stupid bank charged me $28 to do it... *grumble grumble*

Add in the fact that they don't do transfers after 3pm (what sorta stupid rule is that?) and that I have Uni the next day (but still have to come in the middle of my class or have to wait until Monday to do everything, essentially my wire company will then fine me for not doing my end of the deal on time).

Anyway, all went well (although my moolah = gone) and the money finally got to Xotic. I had a scary email saying "Sorry, but we haven't received it yet" and I was crapping myself, but then an hour or so later it said "Great, we got the money and the order's been updated".

SO; now it's off to be assembled, tested, and then it's on its way to Aussie land to be hit by another fee of 10% + $47.50 (Essentially another ~$600 on top =( )

But since this is about Xotic, I'm adding my experience as proof that they're for real, and I'll update again when everything arrives letting everyone know how my overall experience was.

 

Good Luck with your new laptop! I'm sure you'll enjoy it. This was an interesting thread to read as I have just recently gone through the same thing. I posted my wire transfer last Friday, and I have to admit that it was a little unnerving (having never done that before). I happened to go through another vendor (Powernotebooks.com) but from the sounds of it they are very well respected as well.

 

majaka, I've just completed a wire transfer to XoticPC for my 9262. I'm not the least bit worried. Couldn't you just let your bank do it? banks usually do a better job than 3rd party companies..

 

@Umberto.

The problem with using the bank is that they give extremely bad exchange rates. For example, I got my exchange rate at 64.18cents to the dollar, ($1AUD = 64.18cents american) whereas my bank did it at 61cents. The difference of 3.18 cents translates to a difference of about $300.

Plus, the wire transfer company were much easier to work with than my bank who were just taking every opportunity to throw fees in front of me... The guy I spoke to on the phone was great and understood that it was my first transfer and guided it through when I had that problem of having to transfer the money to my father's bank. The bank made me sat there for 30 minutes then told me "sorry, $1k maximum"... lame

 

Yeah there are some scummy banks around. I suppose i should consider myself fortunate. Well the important thing is that the money gets sent, one way or another and that the notebook comes back safe and sound, can't wait for mine

 

I paid this way and received no troubles. Xotic is a great company to deal with and they would never scam you.

 

Another happy buyer here where i paid through online banking in 2 consequtive days due to existing limit posted by my bank in a day's transaction. Initially there was a delay on xoticpc's side regarding acknowledgement of receiving my 2nd payment. Nevertheless all went smoothly after that and in the end i got my laptop in tip top condition.

 

Not really sure why you didn't use an Aus reseller...

 

Because over here, even though there's a lot of pressure to "buy AUSTRAAAALIAAAAN", it really shoots yourself in the foot because you end up paying THOUSANDS more. It literally costs an extra $4,000 to buy the same laptop from an Australian reseller. Adding the 3.0ghz quad core CPU adds $1,300, for instance, with the beginning price being something like $4,000 (double what it is from xotic)

On the plus side, everything seems to be going well! Xotic sent me a message saying it was delayed because they had trouble getting parts in, and that everything would be there mid this week. This morning I opened up my email (friday morning) to get a status update to show that it had been already shipped, and was now already in AUS. That is just outstanding! 2 days to get from the US to AUS??!! Now I'm just waiting for all of the clearance papers to come through and for customs to jump on me like a pack of rabid dogs.

All-in-all, even with the delay, Xotic treated me with great care and professionalism and I have no trouble trusting them any longer! Highly recommend, even with the fear of the wire transfer.

P.S: Since the laptop got through customs this morning at 2:07AM, I'm really hoping the dude was just like "stuff it" and decided to spare me the extra $700 :S

 

thank you NoSpinZone for your very helpfull post.

now that i found out how it worked: +rep

 

Hey, you're welcome Real. I can't contribute any technical info on this forum since most folks here know way more than me concerning computers. I am constantly benefiting from the knowledge I acquire here. So when a subject comes up that I actually know something about, I am happy to contribute.

As a good friend of mine always says, "I can talk for two hours on any subject ............ four hours if I actually know something about it!"

 

LOL

 

I got my wire transfer confirmation yesterday too! can't wait till it's sent out!!

 

I got the fullest spec M570TU from p4laptops.com.au and it only cost me $4500 Aud when I bought it (including 3 years warranty), not sure where you got your prices from, especially when you were saying $6000...

 

'Coz I bought a different notebook =P
According to the AUS resellers, the prices are:
Pioneer Comps: $4,200 BAREBONES. My config = $7,500, without the 3 year warranty.
P4Laptops: $4,595 BAREBONES. My config = $7,288.

So in total I paid about $6,000, which is a fairly decent saving!

I managed to get the laptop extremely quickly, UPS did all the paperwork and had COD. Now I finally got the RAID drivers installed for it and I'm installing XP right now =D Pretty soon i'll be able to post here from my laptop, hah.

Now I need a bag, I'm looking at the Targus XL. I can get them for just under $100, which is a fairly decent price.

Good luck with that wiretransfer bud, I guarantee that things will go very smoothly =D

 

Good luck with that wiretransfer bud, I guarantee that things will go very smoothly =D

I don't mean to be a wet blanket, but some of you guys are crazy to pay with a wire transfer. There is no question many previous customers have paid that way with no problem. The problem is that it isn't a problem until it's a problem.

In the US companies are going out of business everyday in this terrible economic climate. Who's to say that Xoticpc or any other reseller couldn't fold up shop tomorrow, or even at the close of business today?

You do what you want and I wish you the best, but there ain't no way I'll guarantee your money!

 

I paid through the paypal echeck and it took 1 business day to go through. I would have no issues wiring to xotic, Justin is extremely knowledgeable and helpful. I trust them 100% thus far. I am just waiting on my new NP8662.

 

NoSpinZone, the thing is: most of us who live abroad have no choice. If we want a Sager/Clevo and don't intend on spending a fortune more than what people pay in the states for the same product then we have to wire Xotic.

Just for comparison, the Clevo D901c you see in my sig costs between 3900-4100 EUR (5000-5300 USD) in Germany. 4950 EUR in France (6420 USD), which is just astonishing. I paid 3550 USD for mine (2700 EUR)

If you weigh advantages and disadvantages, I'm sure the risk of using a wire transfer to pay a reputable company like Xotic becomes insignificant compared to the prospect of saving $2k on your notebook (3k if you're French)

 

Yeah its true the crisis is causing business to end. In the past, weak resellers have closed up shop and disappeared with customers $$$$ and warranty terms.

This is why you have to be careful and buy from reputable and credible seller thats likely here to stay.

 

Umberto, I've read your thread on the circuitous ordering process you must follow in order to avoid high prices and outrageous taxes/duties. You have my sympathy!

Well certainly if you have no choice, then as Flipfire says above, be careful and buy from the most reputable and established seller you can find. I was just trying to give advice to those who do have a choice, and for those who don't, well at least you can go into the transaction with your eyes wide open.

 

That is way to much. Reason being that after I made a very good anlysis of US prices vs. EU prices, I've noticed that in general the EU prices is usually the US prices plus VAT. This was at the time when I got my Clevo. Try researching a bit and you will eventually find a reseller with good prices. The resellers in UK usually have good prices, but also those in Belgium and NEtherlands.

 

Oh I totally agree. I was just recalling that the OP and I are both non-US residents with parents paying for their notebooks. A wire transfer is the only choice in this case. However you're absolutely right in saying that out of all the payment choices it's the one that gives you the least control over your funds if something goes wrong. In fact it gives you no control. If only Xotic accepted international credit cards..

I checked those prices the day I posted. I took 3 random resellers from the Clevo Guide 2.0. 2 from Germany (mySN and Notebook Guru) and one in France (OVERAM) Its true UK resellers are usually pretty good, more or less in line with Germany's if not slightly cheaper. The problem for us continentals is then having to "buy" the pound Sterling in order to buy the notebook. The currency change is responsable for bumping up the price considerably.

 

Anyone in particular?

 

Rather not mention names but my point is, a notebook is a 4 figured asset so buy with knowledge and confidence.