My Less Than Wonderful Shopping Experience With Scan.co.uk

[ICISAZEL]

Hello all let me describe my most recent interaction with the people at Scan.co.uk.
Now bear in mind that i have been a long time scan customer, since my first order with them was placed way back in October 30th 2001.

Recently i bit the bullet and decided it was time to get my core system updated so that i could get some Battlefield 3 action with a good amount of eye candy inducing options switched on.

so I went for the following :

case: SILVERSTONE TJ08-E (BLACK) :: from scan.co.uk separate order no issues experienced

PSU: Antec True Power New 650 :: from scan.co.uk separate order no issues experienced

Soundcard: CREATIVE XFI Titanium Sound :: from scan.co.uk separate order no issues experienced

Hard Drives: Samsung Spinpoint F3 0.5 TB Primary :: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1 TB :: from scan.co.uk

separate order no issues experienced

New order placed on 2nd November 2011
motherboard: ASUS P67-M PRO

CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K

CPU Cooler: Gelid Tranquillo rev.2 Cooler

Memory: 8 GB CORSAIR DDR3 1333 1.5-9-9-9-24-1T

Graphics Card: MSI GTX 560TI HAWK Twin Frozr 3 1 GB @950

Wireless Card : Edimax N300

This order was placed after a phone call to scan was made, to confirm that delivery would be made on a specified date. In the order notes section when creating the order, i gave 2 points of contact if any issues were to arise with this delivery. One for myself and one for the delivery address.

Issue 1

Despite the delivery address being a business address that operates on a 24-7 basis for most of the year, closing for approximately 3 days in any given year of which the delivery date in question, Friday 4th November between 10:18 and 11:18 am.
The order failed with no one to sign for delivery And a mention of some glass door and the delivery instructions ignored.

A call to Scan was made to arrange a new delivery, i spoke to a gentleman named [MR M].
I explained that the address would need to be changed as i would not be at that location on Monday, which was when the new delivery time had been set for.

A little after our phone conversation i received an email from [MR M] on Friday 4th November at 17:18 confirming that the delivery address for the Monday delivery had been amended. Excellent job done , or so i thought.

On Monday 7th of November at approximately 09:00 am, i received a text message from the couriers at DPD, stating that the delivery was due out between i believe 13:00 and 14:00.
However the delivery address they set was the old address, that i had written email confirmation
had been amended.

Phone call to scan again, i spoke with [MR M] and enquired as to why he had in effect lied to me, the customer, on behalf of scan.co.uk.

This was escalated to a lady who identified herself as Dawn and tried to resolve the issue.
At this point i was offered free delivery on my next order, which i explained due to a running deal i already had, at which point she promised some manner of rebate on my next order, which has not been mentioned again since by scan.co.uk.

They scan.co.uk at this point were unwilling to facilitate the delivery to the address that they ([MR M]) had assured me they would.

So a very frustrated customer (me) made my way back to my work address ( 2.5 hour round trip to pick up my package)

Now having assembled my components, and completed a fresh install of Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit, i noted that my brand new premium graphics card (1GB MSI N560GTX-Ti HAWK) seemed to be performing below that which was stated temperature wise on the scan.co.uk website.

The exact nature of the issue, the card is sold as operating 17oC under that of a reference 1GB N560GTX-Ti. the nvidia website states that this card has a maximum operating temperature of 99oC.so 99 - 17 = 82 oc.

My card however, despite the fans reporting they were spinning at 100% and producing a very noticeable sound were only able to cool the card during active use to approx 90oC.
This temperature was verified within CPUID Hardware Monitor, Msi Afterburner and TechPowerUp GPUZ.

CPU temperature never rose above 60oC as seen in CPUID Hardware Monitor, case cooling issues eliminated by removing side panels to improve ventilation, at no point did this improve the performance of the GPU.

Checked on various forums and Message Boards, to identify the average operating temperatures for a GTX560 TI. I found that even overclocked other people were seeing temperatures at around or below 70 oC under load.

On Saturday November 19th 2011 after much debugging myself, including under clocking my card down to 820 MHz, I saw no improvement so i raised an RMA request with my retailer.
1GB MSI N560GTX-Ti HAWK 202.27 raised as RMA 257359.

on 30th November i received a notification that the RMA had failed, however with no explanation as to what they had done or how they had tested.

I asked them to provide such information to which they responded:

"Further to your email the card was testing on crysis benchmark and heaven benchmark for 2 hours with no problems and the max temperature was 77c."

as you will see within limits but still some way hotter than one may expect for such a premium product, but given the pre applied overclock ok.

so to this i requested what hardware they had used besides s the card and to see some results from these tests that they had run.

The reply i got back from scan was
"We usually test using an i5 2500k and a p67 based motherboard with 4 GB of DDR 3 memory."

As you will see no mention of the actual motherboard, cpu cooler, speed of memory, Hard drive, case or operating system was made.
No other information about how the test was conducted was ever provided and my numerous emails have seemingly been lost in transit.

At this point, as you can imagine i was disgruntled with scan.co.uk, specifically their failings at several points during the shopping process, and their flagrant disregard for helping a long time customer who had over the years contributed to thousands of pounds worth of revenue, via himself and from various others to whom he had recommended scan as a retailer of preference resolve this particular issue.
At no point was i offered a replacement either directly or an alternative to see if this would work for me.

So with this in mind, on December 1st 2011 at approx 09:10 I sent them a letter outlining their responsibilities under Sale of Goods Act 1979. which can be seen below.

LETTER TO SCAN START
Tyrone Montack
1 Address
2 Address
3 Postcode
Phone Number
30 11 2011
Invoice No 00EXXXXXXX
Dear Sir/Madam,

RE: Faulty goods and the Sale of Goods Act 1979 (as amended)

On 03 11 2011 I bought a 1GB MSI N560GTX-Ti HAWK from you for £ 202.27

The problems are as follows;
1. I purchased this component over and above competition in its class that were priced considerably below this one as on the listings that implied that the product would perform considerably better than its peers.

2. The Operating Temperature for this card exceeds what is reasonably acceptable 88 oC under Load in (actual usage ) bearing in mind that this was achieved while the product had its core clock speed lowered in to 820 mHz in an attempt to keep temperature under control

3. The Fan Profile Does Not show any evidence that it scales, the card goes form quiet when idle to 100% load although others have audible sound output at load is above what has been expected.

4. When 2 monitors are connected which is a function of the card the idle temperature rises to over just 50 oC

5. The same Issues were Experienced in Battlefield 3 and Deus Ex Human Revolution Games


The Sale of Goods Act 1979 (as amended) states that when a consumer buys goods from a trader they must be: as described; of a satisfactory quality; and fit for any purpose made known at the time of sale to the seller.

This legislation also states that the seller, not the manufacturer, is legally obliged to sort out a problem if the goods do not meet these requirements.

The Sale of Goods Act 1979 (as amended) says: if goods break within the first six months after purchase then there is a presumption the goods were faulty when sold.

My goods are not fit for purpose or of satisfactory quality and I wish to claim a refund of my goods under the Sale of Goods Act 1979 as amended.

Please respond to my complaint within 7 days from receipt of this letter.

Yours faithfully,
Tyrone Montack

LETTER TO SCAN END

After this it was agreed that i would be refunded, but as a matter of goodwill, as they had found the product to be perfectly fine despite ignoring my numerous attempts to get some manner of proof to their claims and the fact that they had lied to me about a different matter during this whole process before.

At no point was it made clear to me that i would have to foot the bill for the return carriage of this faulty item. Now despite my having paid £ 202.27 i have only been refunded £184.27 minus some £18.

To my mind this amounts to outright theft by scan.co.uk and i will be taking the appropriate action.

I have since taken receipt o an ASUS GTX 560TI Direct CUII 1 GB @830 from amazon.co.uk
even though the asking price was considerably less than i paid for the previous card at approx £165 delivered, as in the end i wanted a new graphics card. this card was slotted into exactly the same machine and without changing any settings is running at just under 70oC and at 50 % fan speed under load.

The facts speak for themselves i have readouts and other actual evidence to hand to back up my claims. scan.co.uk never made any attempt to offer me the same for this card that they stated was fit for purpose and has now seemingly been put back on sale on their website.

What this has done is

A. damage the image of MSI products, specifically graphics cards to myself and anyone who will ever ask me.
and

B. damage the reputation of scan.co.uk as a retailer whom i will no longer recommend.
in almost 10 years shopping with scan.co.uk, i have had to sent things back under 5 times. If it works as intended there is no need to.
However when a product is most certainly not as described as in this instance, scan.co.uk it seems do not like taking these back. so i can no longer recommend them as a retailer of choice.

Thanks for your Time

[mike306dt]

Hey mate,

Unfortunate that you feel this way, however in my experience when you chop and change delivery addresses things can and do go wrong. It may well be that scan changed the address but that change didn't occur at the dpd end of things.

As for the temperature of the graphics card - it doesn't matter what speed they run their test bench at. The speed of the cpu/ hard drive / cpu cooler and operating system is pretty irrelevant. You don't buy a graphics card with a claim of 17 degrees lower temperature with them giving a low down of what system they have tested it in. If I purchased the gfx card you did I wouldn't be demanding to know what system their 17 degrees lower temp was achieved in.

Every system is different in terms of cooling capacity. My desktop has an i5 760 which runs at max of 61 degrees under full load. I have a HAF932, my friend has a bog standard beige box. his cpu at the same speed runs closer to 80 degrees.

Claims with temperature are often taken with a pinch of salt by most people. The reviews I have found give a mixed bag of opinions on its temperature.

You sent a card back as faulty, which it technically isn't. Your best course of action would have been to send it back under your DSR rights which would have meant no charge incurred for yourself. As it is, you sent back a card stating it was faulty, which unfortunately their testing has proved essentially that it wasnt.

I would imagine that for that reason, you will not see your £18 back. Scan are not obliged to return your postage for the card even if you DSR it, they do however have to return the initial carriage cost (This doesn't apply as you sent it back as faulty) if you sent it back under DSR. It certainly isn't theft as you have stated.

Every rma I've had with scan has been dealt with perfectly. They rma'd a psu for me that they had no obligation to do so as it was past the original warranty period where they are responsible. Thanks to corsairs excellent customer service and scans effort they replaced the psu for me.

Your post is confusing with regards to when you first started shopping with them as you state 2011 in both.... however I will say this much, I have used them since 2000 (initially my mothers account) and still use them to this day. They are polite, helpful and more than fair. Something you rarely find in any retailer these days.

[ICISAZEL]

Since my first order with them was placed way back in October 30th 2001,

I see where you are coming from, however the description states that something will do x and it does not there is no note this will vary depending on x or y. (obvious but not stated)
i have a card of the same class that performs like it says on the tin. this one did not i see how you can say that its i guess not faulty in the general sense. However a CARD RUNNING 88 Oc with fans spinning at 100 % is broken no two ways about that. in the context of how it was sold its faulty..

[Jasp]

However a CARD RUNNING 88 Oc with fans spinning at 100 % is broken no two ways about that. in the context of how it was sold its faulty..

Why? the old 480s used to run at the best part of 100c and that was considered normal, you have to remember your putting pretty powerful components in a tiny case with 1 fan, you can't expect to get the same results as someone using a larger case with more fans. Also your argument is it should run 17c cooler, have you tried a reference card in you system to see if that's the case. Yes other GPUs with different fans might run better in your case but each setup is different.

I do however believe scan are at fault for the delivery address and you should be compensated for the 2.5hr round trip you have had to do.

[ICISAZEL]

i now how exactly the same class of card inside exactly the same case with no other changes apart from the card itself..

I now have an asus GTX560TI 1GB running at 830 Mhz and this card after hours of use hits 72 oC max with fans spinning at 51 % in the same case that the MSI GTX560 hawk 1GB @ 820 Mhz from scan hit 89 oC with fans spinning at 100% ...

i understand that temps will vary etc but although small my case does have good airflow 1 * 180 mm intake 2 * 120 mm exhaust .. id say if airlflow was an issue other things would also be hot .. this was not the case. I have been building computers for years now. so i know about how important airflow etc is..

[rabbid]

is it possible the cooler wasnt seated properly on the msi card running hot?

[ICISAZEL]

that's the most likely scenario, however its not within my remit to be reseating the heat sink on a brand new card, especially as this would possibly void the warranty and muddy to the RMA procedure

[rabbid]

yeah thats true, best to get a disclaimer in writing that you have been permitted to do it, just to cover yourself in case its not that or there are subsequent issues. moot point now though as its been returned anyway.