Why do companies do their damnedest to drive away customers? (Hi aria and pixmania!)

[KDH]

After a torturous amount of time with an old Athlon 64 2500+ system(the system is older than my hexus profile, which is saying something), I finally, FINALLY scraped together the money to buy a decent gaming/multimedia system (I'm a student and I need a car, so spending money on PC bits is generally last on my mind!)

Bought most of the system (i3, mini itx, bitfenix prodigy, ssd etc) off ocuk as I've always found them pretty good. Not the cheapest, but relatively alright to deal with and very good with shipping (in Ireland, I know DPD UK are a bit pants). Grand, the Corsair PSU turned out to be a piece of junk but aside from that all good.

First hurdle, decided to buy the graphics card off pixmania as it was a full 25% cheaper than OCUK. Turns out to be duff. Spent something like 8-10 e-mails simply trying to get their CS to accept that I need a pick up from Republic of Ireland rather than UK. Halfway through the chain whoever's turn it was to respond decided I was obviously trying to change the delivery address of a product I had yet to receive so I had to start at the beginning. Fine, eventually sorted, I have my UPS pick up scheduled.

Next hurdle, to replace the Corsair junk I wanted a small, quiet and gold rated PSU and only Aria offered one at a decent price. Also needed an SATA cd-rom and a couple of cables and whatnot. Place the order, and as the delivery and billing address is different they ask me to show proof of address. Do that, fine. They accept that, then ask me why the delivery address is different than the billing address. Bit ott I thought, and absolutely none of their business, but tell them regardless (It's a parcel delivery service, I give their address to suppliers and then they deliver the parcel to me).
Hear nothing back, and order is still processing.
Next day, still heard nothing back and order is still processing. Wait all day, and that evening shoot them an e-mail asking if the order had been accepted and 'if not, let me know and cancel the order'. Hear nothing back. Wait another full day, still hear nothing back and order still listed as processing.

Decide to sign up to their forum to ask there, since apparently staff at Aria stare blankly at computer screens and shout "WHAT IS EMAIL MEAN?". Do so, but have to wait for administrators to process the account before I can post. Log on to my e-mail this evening and lo and behold, apparently my registration didn't meet their membership requirements and the account has been permanently banned.

Checked my online banking and payment was taken the instant I ordered (i.e., before they even asked me for proof of identity).

I mean really, I just want to spend money with a minimum of hassle online. Why do companies hate customers so much? Pixmania's problems seem to be language barrier oriented (that and e-mail chains being passed around to whoever happens to be free on the helpdesk), but Aria just screams incompetent *****.

There's a reason I love Amazon. They give you an estimated delivery, they're incredibly reliable, if you ever have any issues with a product purchased they offer essentially a no quibbles return policy. Why do smaller companies think they can provide a lesser service and yet somehow succeed?

[Zak33]

There's a reason I love Amazon. They give you an estimated delivery, they're incredibly reliable, if you ever have any issues with a product purchased they offer essentially a no quibbles return policy. Why do smaller companies think they can provide a lesser service and yet somehow succeed?

surely all the kit you fancied was on Amazon?

[SmileyUK]

Its the big company mentality that seems to creep in. if small businesses treated customers in the way that bigger ones do they would be out of business within a year. Virgin and BT are prime examples of it

[KDH]

surely all the kit you fancied was on Amazon?

Very little, I don't really use third party sellers as they tend to hurt you with shipping charges unfortunately.

Its the big company mentality that seems to creep in. if small businesses treated customers in the way that bigger ones do they would be out of business within a year. Virgin and BT are prime examples of it

I find small companies on the whole tend to be worse than large. Might be different in the UK though.

Update re Aria: after 3 working days they finally contacted me and told me the order was being cancelled because the delivery address was a parcel delivery company. Clowns. I contacted them last night requesting my order to be cancelled as I had no interest in doing business with such an obviously incompetent company and the next day they unfortunately have to cancel my order

I'll be contacting trading standards, it's unacceptable to take the money from my account immediately and to then dick me around for 3 days. Ping the card to make sure the issuer will accept the charge but don't charge the card until the order is being packed for delivery.

As I said, inconpetent clowns. I'm now without my new pc for an extra week because of them.

Yup, don't touch http://www.aria.co.uk with a bargepole.