"On a Monday evening, I purchased components to build a new PC from three different online retailers, one of which was ABS, using the same credit card. My situation was that I had moved ten days earlier and had recently changed my address with my bank (the issuer of the card used) among others. One of the other merchants phoned me on Tuesday morning stating that my billing and shipping addresses did not match. I explained that I had recently moved, but had updated my address with the issuing bank. A few hours later, I had an email from this company (not ABS) that my address was verified.

Well, as of that Thursday, my ABS order, a single video card, had not shipped so I called them. They said that my address had not verified (billing and shipping did not match). I explained to them, as I had the other merchant, that I had recently moved. They asked for my old address to help verify and I gave it to them. The lady asked if someone had contacted me and I replied "no." She said she would turn this over to accounting and I should get a verification email in about an hour. No email came.

The next morning, Friday, I check my order status and it's still the same. So I check my bank statement online and I see a charge from ABS from the amount specified in my sales order. I figured the wheels were in motion at this point.

So early Friday evening comes around and my order status from ABS has not changed. By this time, the order from the other two merchants had already been delivered to my door and my ABS order had not even shipped. I called them back.

The lady I talked to (Cynthia this time, I did not get the woman's name with whom I had previously spoken) said that my address had not verified. I explained to her my situation and that I had called yesterday to rectify this. She said there was no record of this and, again, asked for my old address to help the verification process which I duly supplied her ... again. I also wondered why my credit card had been charged, despite having an unverified address. So at this point, they had enough information from me to charge my credit card, but not to send me what I ordered. A shady practice if you ask me.

Not long after that, I got my verification email from them, but it was Friday evening and I didn't expect the parts to ship immediately.

So late Monday evening (one week after my original purchase), I get a ship notice email from them stating (in my FedEx status) that I should have my goods on Friday morning (Thursday was a holiday). Not too bad, I figured. I was home all day on Friday and FedEx never came. I checked my online status for the FedEx package and it said they tried to deliver at 10:30am that Friday morning (almost two weeks after I placed my order).

So I went back to check my emails that were sent to me and that's when I discovered after I had supplied them with my OLD address in order to help verify the charge to my credit card, they CHANGED the shipping address to my OLD address and not the one I used in my order! So FedEx had tried to deliver it alright... to the OLD address which, by virtue of the name 'OLD ADDRESS' is not where I am.

It was the weekend at this point and ABS was closed, so I called FedEx and explained the situation. They said I could pick up the goods from the local center if I supplied the proper documentation to them, which I did, and was able to walk out of there .. finally .. with my order nearly two weeks after placing it (it was only for a single part and NOT a built system) and a full week after I had received parts from the other online merchants over a week ago. Let me tell you that FedEx saved a raving mad phone call to ABS.

Had I not ordered parts with the same credit card at the same time, I might have not found this to be so appalling. But I did, and one of the other merchants verified my address and did so in a MUCH MORE professional, prompt, and courteous manner than did ABS, who *I* had to call to find out what the holdup was.

I would not get *free* parts from ABS in the future and would recommend anyone who values customer service do the same. I find their actions to be completely inexcusible, irresponsible, and not actions taken by a reputable business who values its customers."

"ABS has given me without qualification, the best service i ever got from a computer company. even now, six months after purchase, louis the sales person, Leo and Tony the technicians still were willing to spend enormous amounts of time with me to make sure my system was working the way i wanted it to. any other company would have told me my problems were my fault and put me on my own. they stuck with me and i have a system that will make my business as a management consultant so much easier. they are tops in my book. "

"Because my story reaches maximum characters, I decide to delete it and conclude here. If any customer want to know my story, you can request it (2 pages) from me.

PROS:
cheap price
CONS:
- terrible technical support and customer service, no service mind e.g. ignore my notes and e-mails
- no knowledge-based service e.g. they told me that my problem was because of overheating in the first time. When I called back, they said that's not overheating although I told them the same CPU temp and fan speed.
- no responsibility for wrong things they did e.g. telling me that it's impossible that they did mistakes because senior tech support took care of my system; They sent me wrong CPU with my PC last 3 years; They didn't set up BIOS after mainboard replacement. They wrote in the invoice that my PC worked fine although my BIOS never recognize any HDD !!??!!
- tried to find excuses eventhough it's not reasonable e.g. jumper setting on the mainboard was moved because of shipping process.....!!??!!
- unfair business e.g. I have to pay for shipment eventhough it's their fault; I paid $80 last 3 years for my 40 GB HDD and I have the problems with this HDD. They sent me new 40GB HDD which cost $40+ but they want to charge me for $90+ ($80+shipping) when I need my HDD back to transfer data.

If you don't believe me, please check by yourself at BBB website.(http://www.labbb.org/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=wsbroker1/C%3A/Inetpub/wwwroot/SouthlandReport/default.htm?hCompID=92002302&hAKAID=1&hAddrID=5)

UPDATE:
Dear ABSPC customer services,
I know that I bought my PC almost 3 years but it came with 3-year service and part warantee. It seems like you tried to hold the time until the warantee will be expired which is next 2 weeks.

I've just contact my credit card company and they said your company NEVER contact them and there was NO REASON to decline in my case because my credit limit is very far away from this amount of money. Do you have better excuse than "unknown reason"?

I do understand that you can't transfer or retrieve any data. I put the note on my HDD but you ignored! If you have a "service mind", you will call me to tell me that you couldn't do that for me. I had the backup for my data but I want my HDD back to check that I didn't miss anything important. You can advice your customers to backup the data as you mention (you never advice me though). That's good practice...but...Do you really backup your data every single day for your "home PC"? If your answer is "no", you'll understand why I wanna check my HDD again."

"I purchased a P4 around one and a half year ago from this company. Before venturing with ABS, i did some research regarding their background, and i must say i was quite impressed by the praises get've gotten.

After bringing the computer home from ABS, i proceeded to intall it according to their
" yellow folder " manual. It was very clear and simple. In no time, i installed all my desired softwares.

The only problem that i encountered was that i could not log on to the internet. When i called the technical support, i was directed to a tech in no time!! ( approx. 2 min ).the tech rep guided me through with the diagnosis of the problem. At the beginning i was really frustrated, because i did not expect a brand new computer to have any problem; but after the tech calmed me down and professionally explained that it might be a modem problem, he offered to send me a replacement the next day.

After 2 more days passed, and i received the modem over the mail. I called the tech support again and they guided me through the installation uneventfully.

Everything has worked good every since.

Keep up the good work ABS, and praise to your Tech Support dept.

Regards,

Very satisfied customer.

"

"Update: 11/23/04
ABS has now provided the full refund that I originally requested, so I will raise my review to “Somewhat Satisfied”, since it did take a while.

About being past the 30-day return window: not to my knowledge.
Of course, it may differ depending on when one begins counting down the 30-day period- when the customer takes delivery (as I counted it), or from the date the system leaves the factory.
Regardless, neither Casey nor anyone else at any time made an issue of the date on which I had requested an RMA#, so the point really is moot.

I do have thoughts/opinions about how ABS handles customer care, but I’ll leave those aside and state the facts as my final say in the matter:

With every company, no matter how good, there’ll always be instances of displeased customers.
When that happens with ABS, it may take a lot of effort on the customer’s part, but they can be counted on to do the right thing in the end."

"Bought a computer. Works fine except one piece of software, MS Streets and Trips with the purchased bundle (MS Works Suite)won't open. Uninstalling, reinstalling, tried both drives, and tried loading it on 3 other computers and still couldn't open it. The installation process tried to Abort at least 3 times because some of the files are missing. Called tech support twice and was on hold 35-40 minutes each time. E-mailed problem starting July 7, still have no resolution because tech support says it's not the software, then told me to send software to them. After no response for weeks, e-mailed again and the response was 'what was the RMA number?' Nowhere was I given a number. They said they couldn't track the package I sent to them without that number. After several weeks back and forth again, they sent out another bundle of the software. Same problem with that one piece of software. DOESN'T WORK!!! After weeks waiting for a response to the current e-mail, I'm told I have a computer problem, call tech support!!!!! All I want is software that works and the batch they are selling is bad. Customer support doesn't exist. I won't buy from them again.
Update: As soon as my complaint appeared on this site, Tony in Tech Support was assigned to this problem. He was very professional, diligent, responsive to my frustrations, and excellent at troubleshooting the problem. He got the bugs in the software figured out and helped me install it so it works now. ABS should use Tony as a model of customer service support for ALL of their people handling customer problems. He deserves recognition for his skills and is a real asset to this company at the present time. I hope to receive the same level of service with future issues."

"This was my 6th PC. I followed magazine reviews on this Co. for 1 year because their product was always rated high, but there was little or nothing regarding service & support. Finally, a review came out that bothe had been greatly improved. So because GW was in difficulty, I took a chance on ABS high end machine. From they day it came out of the box, it's been a horror. The installed apps were in Spanish and very old. There was left over installation folders on the Root directory that nobody knew what they were, but said to delete them. The Product Key pasted on the PC is not the correct one, 5 seperate apps give me a different key but they insist that theirs is correct and I couldn't Activate the system. The told me to reformat and reinstall and all would be fine, ABS systems don't require activation. I was advised to buy a second HD and re-install to that so I wouldn't lose my data, but they couldn't provide any jumper settings or which drives in my system were primary or slave. They told me never to upgrade the drivers until they test them, but I bought the system so that the hardware would be out of the box, not modified for ABS. I paid for 4 years of Tech support that ABs hires. the phone stacking system automatically disconnects you after 2 "Please Hold" recordings. Their support tech told me that what I was reading to him from my computer, could not be correct, I must not be reading it correctly.
A little more and I am going to small claims court as this has been down more than up. The software and hardware's origin is suspect by the lack of answers supplied.
I will probably spend another $2,000 plus as soon as I can get something running and buy a system elsewhere and use the "High-End" ABS as a file server for back-up or a boat anchor.
This review is on a Win98 SE 4 yr old GW.
Mike Mc"

"Overall satisfaction is Very Good, but some of the device drivers were outdated. One of the case fan's was not connected, and the protective plastic was left on the plexiglass window, this may have been intentional but should have been mentioned; I had to open the case as soon as I brought the machine home."

"Having purchased a computer, then a monitor from ABS I was truly elated by the fact that when I had question either about the purchases or the product once delivered I was able to get through to a customer service representative who was pleasant and helpful and if need be forwarded me to someone with more applicable knowledge to my query. I never had to wait more than 3-5 minutes and the responses were timely, helpful and turned out to be accurate. In addition I had a request regarding some office administrative items used by ABS and Maria Gonzalez, was more than helpful and provided all the information regarding the product which I needed. Thanks ABS for your products and the consistent good service I received which I'm sure is a reflection of the quality people you hire and the positive training they receive. Sincerely, Rose "

"I like to say that i have called tech support once since i have purchase a laptop. And ARMANDO J. in tech support help me out. He kick ass. "

"My first sign that this is a shady company was the first phone call I made to the company. Just by talking to the person I got free shipping and a reduction in price. So, the company charges people different amounts for the same product.

I ordered the computer on a Wednesday and without rush ordering I got the box on Monday. So far I am impressed. Hopefully they didn't cut too many corners....

Well, the comp was an AMD 64 3500+ 939 pin, 2 gigs of ram, an NVidea 6800GT, and 2 160 GB hard drives in raid 0. How fast was it out of the box? My 2 year old Gateway laptop is faster. I am not joking. The computer wouldn't connect to the internet, so it was not possible for me to download anything to fix this problem.

Reinstalled Win XP and things started to work. I couldn't get the system to 'see' the video card. And lots of other problems, but I could download some drivers and clean things up a bit, key wording here is 'a bit'.

So I call the ABS technical assistance line. Guess what I was told by 'Carmen'? "I am not a tech, I don't fix problems." Then she stoped talking. I had to ask her to please have someone to at least call be back who might care. I am not joking here, the technical rep for a company named 'Always Better Service' told me, "I don't fix problems."

They have a 30 day return policy, I doubt that anything will go smooth here, but I will be returning this box.

All ABS had to do was to do a little QC and there would have been no problems. I spend $2,480.46 on a box only and they didn't do even basic QC to see if the system worked.

I can't recommend this company to anyone.

Update:
These 2 problems of the video card not being installed correctly and the OS not being installed correctly have been fixed in spite of the less than helpful 3rd party customer support. I have more problems with the software that was not installed correctly.

I didn't return the box because these -people- would have charged me 15% plus shipping to return their defective computer. So I decided that I would rather spend hours on the phone with rude techs trying to get my comp fixed.

I stand by my statement that I can't recommend this company to anyone. I have had this opinion reinforced with every dealing I have had with this company."

"I ordered a G2 in mid-august and had nothing but problems. It was sent out for repair the beginning of September due to a faulty motherboard or CPU or both I really don’t know. I received the laptop today and I turn it on and everything boots up great, I thought I was in the clear. I started to install the windows updates and I went to restart my notebook after the installation through it was dead. This is the SAME EXCAT PROBLEM the computer was sent out for to begin with. To make matters worse i believe my computer was in worse shape when i recieved it from repairs. My cd tray became a lot more unstable, before the tray would not give from side to side and now i can move the tray a good inch left to right. My space bar started to miss keystrokes. I would hit the space bar dead in the center and for some reason it would not pick up the keystroke. And last but not least my harddrive started to make werid noises when i was booting up. It was makling a i guess whinning sound that i never heard of before, it sounded like maybe the harddrive was loose but im not sure. I find this all to be unexceptable. I mean I get my laptop back and i come to realize now i have all these other, small yet very annoying problems in addition to my computer still being one big paper weight. While I was on the phone a supervisor to get my laptop fixed the first time, he assured me that they have a very comprehensive burn-in policy on repairs to make sure everything that needed to be repair or fix was working correctly. While I guess someone didn’t do their job. I don’t know what to do, my notebook is now past the return date and I don’t want to get stuck with a laptop that cannot boot up. When I called ABS I got NO WHERE i was tranfered to "4" different desks and no one was any help. They were experts in saying "Tell the next person excatly what you told me." I cant believe ABS treats their customers like this. I left 3 email and posted on the forums and no one has even answered any of them. I am now calling ABS AGAIN because i was tranfered to the third party tech support! I took a chance buying from a company like ABS but now i know better. I have never been treated this badly."

"I was very happy with ABS' web site. It is well organized and easy to use. I especially like the mechanisms they use to allow easy configuration for customization of standard PC models, with very good info on options and feedback to customer on how changes affect cost. I was happy with the order & shipping experience- very good customer feedback. I was not happy with the number fo failures of the computer but I was happy with the way ABS dealt with them. When the system would not boot, apparently from a SATA hard disk failure, they quickly supplied a replacement disk and helped me through restoration. When the failure repeated, they replaces the whole computer with a modified hard disk system (dual disks, no SATA) and I have had no problems since except for an Ethernet access failure where they gave me a add-in board to replace the onboard capabilities.

Overall I have been happy to very happy with ABS and I would buy from them again. (I don't buy often, but I am loyal when treated well.) The main discomfort I have is that, on reflection, I think all the failures I have had were due to software rather than hardware and no one at ABS understood the software well enough to correct the problem without replacing hardware. I don't look at this as much of a reflection on ABS since it pretty well knwon that most current software is loaded with poorly documented problems and no PC vendor gives acceptable support with software problems. Almost no one seems to understand the real inner workings of Win XP- it does what it wants when it wants! Drivers from other vendors have to follow along and many are changed about as often as MS issues changes for the OS's. Anyhow, even though I think ABS could have possibly corrected my problems directly with better software knowledge, I think they are probably above average in dealing with such problems from other accounts I hear and read. Almost no PC vendor supplies truly good, full-knowledge support. ABS does a good job of projecting that they care about customer experience, and that it is very possible (though not real easy) to talk directly to support people who have a pretty good idea of how ot handle things, even if it is just replace the HW quickly. That is a very good start in today's strange PC market, and I have been very happy with them.

Overall I would give ABS high ratings"

"well, i've been doing alot of shopping for a notebook, almost ordered a compaq, but on reading pcgamer and other magazines, i found i could get alot more bang for the buck at one of the lesser known brands.
well, i came to resellerratings to check them out, actually, compaq was rated awful, no postings in 6 months though. ibuypower is only rated so-so as is cyberpower, and i can't afford a vodoo or alienware. yeah, i had about $2000 dollars, and wanted the most bang for my dollars.
well, based on resellerratings i bought an ABSPC notebook, it came in right at the 2 grand figure and is totally packed, even a 7200 rpm hardrive.
they say it will be shipped this friday october 1st, i will keep this updated as time goes on.



I recieved the computer on friday the 1st of october(5 days before they said it would arrive), in fact i'm writing this from the computer. In general I am very satisfied with the 2 grand spent, it plays battlefield vietnam at 70 frames per second, and connects to the net very well, except on wireless. There's a problem because in this apartment complex there are like 15 networks it picks up, and linksys says there's a problem with service pack 2 and wireless, I hope they fix it soon.
Only other thing is the microphone doesn't work, I will be calling them on that, otherwise the tech support was good with the wireless problem on there side, we got it to see the router okay.
The only other thing is that there was no user manual, at this spending point I shouldn't have to go to uniwill.com to download it."

"I paid 1400 for my comp last year. At the time ABS was changing its warranty from 3 to 1 year. Sales rep. Eddie Maldonado said they would honor the 3 year warranty since I had contacted them a few days before the warranty would take effect, although I would not pay in full until a couple of days after then. I was thankful for that.

The computer arrived, and the invoice said 1 year warranty. I called EM several times about this with him insisting that the invoice he sent me lists a 3 year warranty and that my account was noted to show the correct warranty.

I told him I wanted something in writing. I had to threaten to send the comp. back before he aggreed to honor my request. Later, I got a faxed invoice with a handwritten note in the middle of it, "3 year warranty on complete system" dated 4/16/03 and signed by Rosemary Castro. I cant say that I felt comfortable with how I found ABS doing business. I did not trust the company, but I had read mostly good things about the company so I kept the computer.

Since then I have had some problems with the computer, that I felt were not even worth dealing with their inconsistent tech reps. The one thing that did happen every now and then, that other people had complained about on this site, is that my comp would just restart on its own while I was in the middle of a document. The wireless keyboard and mouse died after less than a year. I just dealt with it on my own However, recently an annoying GRINDING started coming from the hard drive and on 9/1 the comp. POOFED! I have not been able to turn it on since! Of course, for this I HAD to call for tech support!

I tried to get tech support, according to them, I my warranty expired. I called this company a few times, was on hold forever before I finally got on the phone with Maria Gonzalez. She told me to fax a copy of the handwritten note signed by Ms. Castro.

I tried the next day when I got to work. The fax just rang. I left a message for Ms. Gonzales saying that I needed to get this situation settled soon as I just started my last semester of grad school, and really needed the use of my computer. I got no feedback.

On 9/3 I got Ms Gonzales on the phone. I reminded her of the nature of our conversation. She said, "Did we receive your fax?" I told her about my experience trying to fax the document. She told me to try again. I trie, and had the same problem.

I called back, and spoke with a customer rep. named Al. I asked to speak with Ms. Rosemary Castro, the woman who had signed the invoice. He told me that I would have to speak with Ms.Gonzales, but he would try to help me with whatever problem I was having. He said he would check on fax machine and stayed online while I tried to fax the invoice. It went through. He said there was no paper in the fax machine, and that was why I was having a problem. He had the fax in his hand, and said that he would give it to Maria Gonzales, and things should be ok. This was late Friday while I was at work. This meant that I could not get this situated before Monday.

Last week, I went to classes instead of coming home to call ABS. Currently, I am using the ABS monitor with my 97 IBM which, surprisingly has not let me down although it is need of some repairs. Tonight, I skipped my class so that I can come home and call tech support. I am here writing this instead of getting help because of course, according to them, I had a 1 YEAR WARRANTY!

I have this expensive computer that is just sitting in the middle of my office. I have left home, cell, and work number for Ms. Gonzales. I have yet to have her return a call since having first spoken to her on 9/1. This last call, I told her I would contact consumer advocacy groups and look into filing a small claims case against them. I will talk to a lawyer at my job tomorrow about that.

They have handled this very poorly, and I find that the attempt to not even give me a written document of my warranty was something that was at the least suspicious; at the worse dishonorable! If they had said in the beginning that there would only be a one year warranty, I would have bought a computer from a local place where I can take it in for repairs, instead for relying on the honor of a company that is on the other side of the country!

I am sure I should take the computer into a local place and have them look at it, pay for it, then bill ABS. But, I just don't have the money to even start that process, and I should not have to. They should honor their warranty. The sad thing is that maybe it is something small, but unfortunately small or not does not help me when I have no money to find out, and I really need my computer which has both my professional work, as well as my school work on it. "