"On February 27, 2003 I purchased a computer case, CD rom and motherboard. On April the 18th the computer died and I had to send it back for repair, they had it for two weeks and charged my credit card 60.00 for what I don't know.
On September 11th it died again and I sent it back. They received it on the 17th and they had it for over a month. When it came back the cooling fan and heat sink were loose inside the case tumbling around, and the computer was dead so I sent it back to them on October 31st, they received it on November the 6th. Then they had it for almost a month. This time I asked for credit toward a different computer. I had had no response from them so I wrote a complaint to the BBB in Las Vegas on Jan. 5th. I got a reply back from the BBB that a credit had be given to me in Dec. BUT the credit has never been credited to my card. As far as I'm concerned, this is fraud.
"

"*Five plus weeks ago (12/24/03), I placed an order with Computer Surplus Outlet (CSO) for several "in-stock items"...
CSO Response: Immediately charge my credit card.

* Three weeks ago, I email CSO to find out where my order is...
CSO Response: A partial order is shipped after another 2 days.

*Two weeks ago, I send another email requesting the status of the back ordered item (128M PC2100) that is supposed to have been in stock since the beginning...
CSO Response: None.

*One week ago, I call to check status...
CSO Response: Promise that it will ship it out 2-day air on Monday.

*Two days ago, I again call to... that’s right, check the status.
CSO Response: Promise it will ship first thing, the next day, saying I will have tracking number in the AM.

* Jan 29,2004 AM, 5 weeks and 2 days later, I'm feeling like an idiot for listening to the bs and deciding whether or not to join the extensive list of "satisfied customers" at the Better Business Bureau of Southern Nevada, http://www.vegasbbb.org/commonreport.html?compid=51362

* Jan 29,2004 PM, Decided to call and cancel memory…
CSO Response: Says order has shipped and puts me on hold to get tracking information. [After 10 minutes on hold I hang up].

* Jan 29,2004 PM #2, Called back to cancel order...
CSO Response: Says I can’t cancel the order because it has shipped. I will have to refuse the delivery to start the refund process.

I checked the tracking number; it comes up as not having been scanned. In other words he just obtained the number.

Jan 30, 2004, Item shipped FedEx ground. Picked up 4 hours after my last call to them on 29 Jan.

A couple notes…
The memory has been listed as being in stock on their web site for this entire time. At best thats deceitful... maybe even illegal. You make the call.

Remember, all this was over a single memory stick. What extremes will they go to keep you from canceling costly items?

On behalf of Computer Surplus Outlet, their customer service person was very polite and convincing each time he lied to me (practice makes perfect!).
"

"Placed an order for their special on ram and their "free" McAfee anti virus. Received both about a week later, slower than expected and slower than it should be, but, not totally out of line. Ram did not work in any computer I tried it in. Virus software was not even a full version, it was some demo cdrom which was useless. This is fine, but, don't advertise it as a free product, advertise it as a free demo."

"Ordered RAM on Nov. 18, 2003. After waiting a week without receiving any tracking information several calls finally got the shipment off. Package was received more than two weeks after ordering.

Haven't installed the RAM, yet, so I don't know if it actually works. The price, though, was very good."

"This company does not show actual charges until AFTER they have charged your credit card. Should have checked their rating before visiting site.

Beware"

"am very satisfied with dealing with this company.have never had a problem buying or receiving anything from them. they are reasonably priced with decent shipping charges,and quick to send anything I have ever bought. I would recommend them to anyone and everyone."

"This is actually the 4th time I've ordered from them this year with the last just recently. The reason I'm mentioning all four is to illustrate how they have declined just this year.

The merchandise I get is exactly what I saw and read, so I'm not displeased about anything I've gotten from them. In fact, I would have given them a good rating overall except I have to echo the common theme: they can't handle the load they create for themselves and try to act like they are surprised about it. My first two orders was about 4-5 days average to ship and then several days to receive. So 8-10 week days isn't too bad to receive after ordering. But then a big promotion (I'm on their mailing list) and I think I'll pick up some little things here and there. Nine days before they shipped it, I had to email because it was accepted forever. Told bear with us, we're overwhelmed. Ok, not the answer I wanted to hear but they at least responded. Next order is placed on Oct 25th, Monday rolls around and my credit card is billed on the 27th (that Monday). Status of accepted again, email but this tie it takes a while to respond. Hmm, same reason, bigger demand then thought (if it hurts why keep doing it). Tell me that it will be shipped on Tuesday due to high demand. I email them how displeased I am once again, now it will be shipped Monday in November (heard same thing last time and it was). No shipment this time, so I email around the 4th, nothing. So I send them an email to either ship it or cancel it (they've had my money since the 27th and it's now the 5th. It will be shipped soon, I repeat to cancel or ship now. Too many emails, they only need one about this. Call credit card company to dispute charges, suddenly it ships that next day. Now, somehow it got lost and went from Nevada to New Jersey (I'm in Ohio) and then back again, so I finally got it today on the 17th (was scheduled for the 12th). So the bottomline is I'm not happy and may not order from them again. But what I have gotten is as expected and it's been what I ordered each time. I just can't recommend them if you need something within a week and also aren't bothered by them getting your money for a month without anything to show for a month.
Buyer beware the sloth of online ordering and CSO, please get more people to handle your stuff or you're going to get buried under the weight of cancellations."

"I have ordered from this place in the past. Usually it takes 48 hours for them to ship. This is reasonable, since they have to process the order then package and ship it. However, I feel that 2 weeks is unsatisfactory. All I have received from them when I contacted them was an email fro a person named Terri. Terri claimed they were delayed because of some tremendous response to some sale and their low prices. That is a laugh. Their prices borderline retail prices. This is my last order they will get. I have already contacted my bank concerning the transaction. Very poor customer support. I would be out of business very quickly if I operated like them."

"I ordered some memory. It happened to be not compatible. I returned it within a week.

They received the memory, they tested the memory, but I am still waiting for the money to be credited to me. I have no news for 3 months!

I e-mail them once a week, but even though I tried about every e-mail address I know at the company, I get no reply. Even though Outlook tells me they are recieving the mail.

PS: I got a response. They told me they did the payment. Let's see...

Nov: I got my last statement, the money was returned."

"ordered some free stuff as well as a pci video card that was cheap. shipping took a very long time. order was approved, but did not ship for another week or so. overall good experience."

"I have had only 1 purchasing experience so far that involved their _Free_Item_ (a free keyboard)promotions along with buying some cheap, hard to find parts, namely a $6 PCI v.90 software modem and some cheap speakers for an old workstation that was to become someone's home computer. I have had only good experiences: True, they took 8 days to ship my products, but I received them all in good working order.

In short, they may take time to ship, but they have delivered. Their customer support in person is not bad. And don't try to free-load off them for free items and you won't get burned... ;P"

"My experience is similar to many others'. I ordered a SODIMM RAM on Oct 14. It wasn't cheap ($35 compared to ~$30 elsewhere), but I had a coupon code that would give a free notebook cable lock, so I thought it was worth it. My credit card was charged right away. It has been almost 3 weeks, but the order still hasn't been shipped. Besides the order confirmation email, I haven't heard from them again.

They really need to change the way they handle orders and customers. First, they should charge credit cards only when the producst are shipped. Second, if there are delays, they need to explain to the customers what's going on. This is the second time I have ordered from them. The first time went okay, and that's why I ordered from them again. Now, I am not sure I will do business with them one more time. They think they can make more money by cheating their customers. They are dead wrong. I am sure other much more honest retailers (e.g. Newegg) are making a lot more money, because their customers keep returning.

***********
Jan 2004 UPDATE: I emailed them in Dec 2003 asking them what's going on, and got a reply within 24 hours saying they would ship it the following Monday. It never happened. So, I emailed them again last week, which was more than 3 months (yes, 3 months!) after the order was placed. They said they no longer had the RAM that I wanted, and would cancel the order for me. Today, I got the money back. That was by far the worst online order experience I've ever had!"

"This feedback may be a duplicate of others. I like many other people ordered a few items from them from a link on one of the 'Super Deal' type sites. I ordered a $1 item and used coupon codes to get two other items for free. Shortly afterwards I got the following response:

Due to an overwhelming response of a recent freebie, USB 2.0 Controller Card promotion,
supplies have become exhausted and will not be available in the near future. Orders
placed with coupon code “freeusb” have been voided and not charged. You must replace
your order for any other item that was on the original coupon order. CSO is sorry for
this inconvenience and is taking steps to make sure that our shopping cart will not
accept orders when products become unavailable.


The problem is that this is a lie. I know many other people who placed this same order. Everyone ordering the $1 item received the rejection email. Everyone so far who ordered more expensive items, even if they ordered after me, actually had their orders approved. I have no problem being told that my order was rejected due to the super deal it caused but do not lie to me and allow other people to get the deal if they ordered more expensive items."

"Ordered their free HDD cooler, and used a coupon for a free USB 2.0 card. got the order confirmation email. Then got the following email the next day:

"Due to an overwhelming response of a recent freebie, USB 2.0 Controller Card promotion,
supplies have become exhausted and will not be available in the near future. Orders placed with coupon code “freeusb” have been voided and not charged. You must replace your order for any other item that was on the original coupon order. CSO is sorry for this inconvenience and is taking steps to make sure that our shopping cart will not accept orders when products become unavailable.


Parker Webster
CSO
http://www.computersurplusoutlet.com"

Turns out People that ordered their promotional items AFTER me got their free stuff, the difference? they bought something else in their order (other than the $.99 item I bought). NOWHERE in the description of the promotion did they say anything about having to purchase a certain anount worth of other items, to get the free USB card. Now it seems they are honoring it only for people who made an additional purchase. This would be fine if they where up-front about it. but true to their form they had to be sneaky. I don't like dishonesty, way to win customers CSO!

Go here > http://www.slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4683&perpage=15&pagenumber=5 to see how I know about this.
"

"CSO cancelled my order, voided it right out with no way to reorder. They would not make good on a promotion with a raincheck, etc. but their system DID take my information... avoid buying from them if you want your stuff."