Do you shop at OcUK?

[davidcrofter]

I looked recently at buying a cheap offer they had on a Graphic Card but when I added on the shipping (over £8 for the cheapest option) the "bargain" became a lot less attractive - so looks like they like to make a big mark up on more than just their goods they also do so with the shipping options.
To be honest I feel a lot of the people on the OCUK forums must follow them blindly as a simple search on google would show the majority of their prices to be vastly over inflated ... must be the whole trust issue I guess!!

[Blitzen]

I use them occasionally, mainly for RAM and the odd bargains. The reason I do not use them often is because there are not competitively priced for most items.


Most of the things I've had to RMA were done directly by manufacturer in my experience (HD, PSU, sound card etc.). Which manufacturer has referred back to the retailers in your experience so that I can make a little note for myself?

Personally, I would actually prefer if e-tailers dealt with all RMAs (assuming they are decent). Sadly, most (all?) e-tailers I've used take the easy way out by asking me to go through the manufacturer once the failure occurs after the first month. It's fine if the manufacturer are efficient, but it varies a lot.

Well i have only ever put in 2 RMA requests in about 9 years.

First One:
OCUK. They sold me a graphic card (X850XT) about 4 years ago that even the manufacturer told me and them it had an inherent fault. OCUK did nothing although it was only 5 weeks old. I gave up and vowed never to spend alot of money with them.

Second One:
Scan - BOught a iewsonic monitor. It had 5 dead pixels in the middle of screen. Scan told me it was within specification and the impression i got was that as far as they were concerned that was that. I couldve use DSR but i declined as i wasnt paying shipping for a sub-standard unit.
However.....i called Viewsonic and they agreed it was sub-standard and replaced it with a brand new one within 5 days.

E-Tailer RMA's are on the whole ....very poor. At least the manufacturers seem to care.

[Jay]

The way I see it is if you are going to buy an item from OcUK that to RMA you have to go via OcUK you may as well look on eBay first and get a secondhand one. The RMA on a "new" item to OcUK is not worth the hassle and you save cash on a used eBay item that has no return option.

[TooNice]

Years ago I bought (and had to RMA) some stuff from Dabs - the experience was so bad that I have never shopped from them again. They were also very uncompetitive - they might be better now.

Funny isn't it how a bad reputation or a bad experience takes a long long time to shrug off - you would think these companies would learn....

I used Dabs years ago (~a decade actually). They had free shipping at the time, and were sometime quite competitive. When I called up their returns department though (after a long queues) I was basically told to deal with the manufacturer themselves. What really put me off though, was one of their websites redesign. I am not sure if anyone remember the version I am speaking of, but it was so bad that it went from one of the first site I would browse, to one that I would stay away for a long time. Other than the one time I used it as an example of 'poorly designed website' on a course. The fact that they added a shipping charge around then did not help their causes (it really makes the difference - I use Amazon, Play and Scan quite frequently because the free shipping make them so much more competitive).

Ironically, the two companies that gave me some of the worst experience in the past are also the ones I've used the most in the last 12 months. Ebuyer annoyed me at first because it took ages for the e-notes to be replied, and Citylink, back then, had the habit of ninja carding in my area (in a way, I blame it more on Citylink than Ebuyer, but it was still frustrating that a simple order took so many back and forth, and forced me so many days indoor). Scan outdid the rest in terms of personal bad experience (that must've been late 2002 or sometime in 2003) and is the only PC e-tailers to make it on my personal 'buyer beware' list. Long story short, the whole ordeal (RMA gone very poorly) costed me over £20 out of my pocket, tons of time on the phone at my cost (with the odd waiting for 20min only to be cut off) over a span of 1.5 months, and I was not even offered the option of a replacement in the end (the way I interpreted it, was that they were not even willing to shell out the cost of shipping for a replacement). If it were not for the endless praise they received from Hexites a couple years later, I probably never would've given them a second shot. So I'll cautiously state that at least some companies do learn.

[timread]

I stopped using OcUK back in 2004 after I ordered an Abit NF7-S v2.0 and received a *used* v1.1 board. To be fair to them, they handled the RMA quickly and I had no further problems.

Oh, almost forgot - one of the reasons I don't use them any more is their over-zealous protection of the 'brand' by doing things like getting themselves removed from Hexus Trust, patrolling their forums and wiping out any traces of dissent - that's not reputable or responsible behaviour, and they won't get any more orders from me because of it.

These days I stick with Scan as long as they have the stock of what I'm looking for. I've had good experiences from them every time, including good RMA handling on occasion.

[Main]

E-Tailer RMA's are on the whole ....very poor. At least the manufacturers seem to care.

Yeah that is rather annoying. My E-Tailer RMA average time is ~2 weeks, whilst the only time I've dealt with a manufacturer direct - LG, my monitor transformer, extrernal brick randomly died - it took 2 emails and 2 days to get a replacement.

[Blitzen]

Yeah that is rather annoying. My E-Tailer RMA average time is ~2 weeks, whilst the only time I've dealt with a manufacturer direct - LG, my monitor transformer, extrernal brick randomly died - it took 2 emails and 2 days to get a replacement.

I agree.
From the best to the worst.....Whether its Scan, Ebuyer, OCUK, or Dabs (and many others), they all seem too keen to put you off and keep your cash. The manufacturers at least treat you as a customer.

I dont enjoy buying from any on line shop now as this seems to be te norm rather than the exception.

[Agent]

Just argue your point if this happens - the retailer is liable under UK law

[Saracen]

....

Oh, almost forgot - one of the reasons I don't use them any more is their over-zealous protection of the 'brand' by doing things like getting themselves removed from Hexus Trust, patrolling their forums and wiping out any traces of dissent - that's not reputable or responsible behaviour, and they won't get any more orders from me because of it.

...

As with many things, there's more than one way of looking at that.

In relation to Hexus trust, there's a 'complex' history between Hexus and OcUK. I have no idea why OcUK wanted out of Hexus trust, assuming that they did, but if so, it could be no more than that a lot of people that dislike OcUK for one reason or another end up at Hexus, and therefore take the opportunity to disparage OcUK. Therefore, they may feel it's not a true or fair picture. What the truth of that is, personally, I neither know nor care. But they may have their reasons, and they could be legitimate ones.

In any event, it's up to them if they don't want to participate. It's up to customers or poitential customers to decide what, if anything, to read into that.

As for wiping out traces of dissent on their forums, there's more than one way of looking at that, too. Their forums, back in my days at OcUK, were NOT supposed to be support forums. I assume that that's still the case now. It was part of the rules that shop matters were not to be brought up on the forums as that's not what they were there for. Yet, despite being part of the rules, many people moaned about this and that on the forums, and then moaned when it got deleted.

We can argue whether such matters should be discussed on the forums or not, but it's a commercial decision for any retailer about how they handle complaints. And there WILL be complaints. I don't care who the retailer is, or how good they are, there will be complaints. Some will be justified. And some won't.

There are good reasons why some complaints aren't really ideally dealt with on forums. There are good reasons for doing it, and good reasons for not doing it. Personally, I approve of the Scan approach - keep everything out in the open. The vast bulk of the time, it works. But either approach is a legitimate commercial decision. And let's face it - OcUK is a business, and as a business it's primary objective is to make profits, and it seems to have been pretty successful at doing that.

As a business, OcUK has a whole series of legal responsibilities, but dealing with shop issues or complaints on their forums is certainly not one of them. If they chose not to do so, that's their right. And given that, and that use of the forums is contingent on following the rules (as it is here), users really have a simple choice - abide by the rules or don't use the forums. And, of course, if they're really upset about the inability to complain about the shop on the forums, don't use the shop either. Use one that does deal with matters more openly - like Scan or BigPockets. But it's not really fair to moan about not being able to discuss shop matters on the forums when that isn't what the forums are for, and it is (or at least, was) clearly against the rules.

Finally, "reputable and responsible"? Well, you have to look past what you, as a member, might see on their forums and try to imagine what may have led to the rules being what they are. There have been occasions on OcUK where members have gone out of their way to try to create trouble on the forums. Rules like not discussing business on there are generally there for a reason, and in a lot of situations, that reason is past experience. I don't have any reason to be fond of OcUK, but I can't agree that it isn't either reputable or reasonable. It isn't the way I'd do it, but it is the way a good many businesses operate, and I can't see that them not discussing problems in their forums is either non-reputable or irresponsible. It's simply their decision, and their right, both as a business and a forum operator.

And at the end of the day, they can make their decision to do it that way, knowing full well that some people will react by not giving them any more business, and indeed, it seems you have. But perhaps they feel that's a price worth paying to operate the way they want.

Remember, not everything you see on a forum is as it seems, and there's often more to a decision than meets the eye. Decisions that may seem to members to be arbitrary and strange sometimes have good reasons behind them. What may seem "over-zealous" to you may have a perfectly valid but non-public reason behind it. That's true on OcUK and it's true here. And as a member of the mod team here, and an ex-Mod on OcUK (as indeed is the owner of Hexus and a few others here), I'm in a better position than most to know.

[Agent]

The OCUK and trust issue was recently covered here.

They were removed at the site owners decision, not because of any request.

[Blitzen]

The OCUK and trust issue was recently covered here.

They were removed at the site owners decision, not because of any request.

They removed themselves because they are a poor excuse for a retailer. If they treated people in the correct way then the bad reviews would not have surfaced.

They reap what they sow.

As a business, OcUK has a whole series of legal responsibilities, but dealing with shop issues or complaints on their forums is certainly not one of them. If they chose not to do so, that's their right.

Because the truth hurts.
(Sorry Saracen...i remember a conversation we had a while ago but its the truth).

[Agent]

They removed themselves because they are a poor excuse for a retailer. If they treated people in the correct way then the bad reviews would not have surfaced.

huh?
OCUK did not request removal - read the link I gave
To date, no company has requested removal.

[DR]

HEXUS.trust is a way for you, the reader to be able to judge a retailer based on honest feedback from real customers.

As stated before we made the decision (with no input or request from OcUK) to remove them from our system.

[moogle]

still doesn't make them anything better than a poor retailer

[Saracen]

......

Because the truth hurts.
(Sorry Saracen...i remember a conversation we had a while ago but its the truth).

It's an opinion, but there's lots of people that do still shop there, so presumably they don't agree with that 'truth'.

[rufeo]

i've only personally shopped there once. it was earlier this year when they had a crazy free shipping offer that didn't even last 24hrs! got my raptor from there as it was cheaper than everywhere else. normally it would have been more expensive with the shipping, but without it i thought i'd take the risk (also got a sd card at the same time). drive was DOA, rma'ed it to western digital instead instead of faffing around with ocuk.

tbh though when i emailed ocuk they were quite prompt with responses. but since loads of people have complained about their rmas with ocuk i didn't take the risk.... if i ever find another 'bargain' there and it had a good manufacturers customer service, i'd buy from them again....