Jul
2
Written by:
Dean Harrison
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Brian’s comment on my blog was almost prophetic. The first notebook arrived from PCMall and within a few hours of finishing the setup I realised that the combination of right-shift and “i” or “o” did not work. All other key combinations seemed to work fine. Cursing Brian a little for bringing on this jinx (kidding) I contacted PCMall to find out what to do next. I was comforted when Ilan (PCMall) told me he didn’t know the procedure because he had not experienced a problem with any of their past HP Compaq 
sales. He promised to let me know what needed to be done. After some calls to HP and Compaq, we determined that the machine was D.O.A, and would be replaced. After ordering the first notebook on Monday I took delivery Tuesday night, called PCMall Wednesday to report the fault, and now Thursday I have a brand new replacement PC, in fact I am writing this blog on the new Compaq. Brian raised the issues of both service and stock on-hand in his comments. I can tell you that I am more then satisfied with the service I got from both HP and PCMall. I have to agree with Brian about the stock issue, but for me the R1,000 price difference was simply not warranted. I think my initial reaction in the first blog was more to the comment of “online stores don’t have the overheads retailers have, and so they wouldn’t match the price”. That type of attitude is not going to to them any favours in the current economic climate. I think I would have been more pliable if they had tried to match the difference with other products, for example throwing in a laptop bag and mouse would have won me over. And if I do my math right they would have lost a little less in the margin…