"I pre-ordered a Core 2 Duo E6600 processor from Monarch on July 27. It said on the site that it would probably be shipped by August 14th. I then got an email saying it would be by August 21st. I was a little concerned, but given how weird this Core 2 Duo release has been, I just figured there was no way around it.

My processor shipped earlier than I expected, it left on August 9th. It came today, but for some reason Monarch put down that someone has to be physically at the residence to recieve the package, so they couldn't leave it at the apartment office. That's pretty much impossible at the time they deliver. Now I have to take a two hour trip to pick it up. I really wish they wouldn't have gone out of their way to put that on the shipping label, but that's my only complaint with Monarch.

Other than that, they responded to my email quickly and kept me informed of changes. "

"Ordered a mobo combo on July 27. The part wasn't available anymore, and there was an extended period I wasn't contacted about this. After emailing to cancel my order, I was personally contacted by Monarch to attempt to find a solution to the problem. We worked things out, and they are expediting my order. I believe they are turning around their current practices to get back to the level of quality they have had in the past, after the effort they went through to get my order fixed."

"This was an RMA crosship. They have received the return but I still have not been credited for the return. The required me to wait 30 business days before contacting them. I have contacted them 4 times now and they have failed to credit me. It has been approximately 40 business days."

"I placed an order for all the componenets for a barebones system on 7/22/06. All of the parts were listed as "In Stock" on the webpage. It took 3 business days for them to approve my credit card, even though I had taken the precaution of calling my card provider (American Express) and filing my shipping address with them so as to avoid any delays in the approval process.

The card was approved and after waiting 7 more business days and not seeing a change in the status of my order according to their online status checker, I called to find out that the order was waiting for the (2) 1 GB RAM pieces that I ordered. After a quick 5 minute investigation, I found that they had a different part consisting of (2) 1 GB RAM DIMMS packaged together (instead of separately) that was "In Stock". I called back, asked about this other part, and was told, "Oh yeah, it looks like it would be faster if we sent you that instead." At that point I was upgraded to 2 day shipping and was told by the rep that he would try to get the package shipped that day. This didn't happen. I continued to call back each day asking if the package had shipped and each time was told that it should be shipping that day. It wasn't until the 12th business day that I finally got an email with a FedEx tracking number.

It doesn't end there. I got another email saying that not all of my order had shipped. The case for the system was out of stock. I called back intending to cancel the case portion of the order and just purchase that from someone else. I was told that they could upgrade the case for me and have it to me no later than Friday (8/11/06). I hesitantly agreed to this and the next day (today 8/10/06) figured I should probably call back to see if they were true to their word. I found out that the case did not ship, and that it would be getting to me by Monday (8/14/06). When I heard this I told the rep to cancel that part of my order. He told me he can't do that over the phone, and that I have to send an email instead. So I just finished doing that but have this funny feeling that no one will see that email, and that I will still end up getting a case at some point next week, along with being charged the full cost on my American Express.

The bottom line here is: NEVER buy anything from Monarch Computer."

"Heed the other reviews here. Prices might seem cheaper, but totally not worth the hassle you'll go through for stuff you ordered.

Originally placed an order for a motherboard and CPU due to prices being a good amount cheaper than other places I found. Paid extra for faster shipping because it was only about $2 more, so figured why not? Realized after placing order that the PSU I was buying was at a good price on their site, so emailed them asking if they could add it to the order, then read their terms and conditions and realized they said they couldn't. Those emails were sent within an hour of placing the order, a week ago. Never got replies, and they state their customer service will return an email within 24 hours. Sent a few more emails to see what was going on, filled out order status check forms on their site, called, nothing from any of these.

Got an email last night saying that they shipped out my CPU and PSU, which I said not to add to the order, and never authorized them to charge my credit card. And it also said my motherboard was on backorder. Nowhere on the site was this stated that it would be on backorder, in fact it says its still in stock on the site.

Going to try and contact them again and cancel my order and just get it from Newegg like I should have originally.

Bottom line:
Don't bother, prices may seem right, but they aren't worth the trouble you'll go through. Also pretty upset about the fact that they charged me again without letting me know."

"Customer service? It doesn't appear to exist. Sales appears to work cause they sure billed my credit card fast.

I've called & emailed but nobody picks up the phone and nobody responds to email. As I write this my order status is still up in the air. 19 days from clicking order to nothing.

Appears to be a backorder (you don't know until you order the system that things are backordered).

Basically:

Outdated ordering/invoice system
Lack of customer service dept, unable to reach via phone or email.
No product after 20 days."

"Ordered on June 12th, I cancelled the order on June 13th, and they still charged my card on June 14th(which is still some what understandable) It is now August 8th 2006 and still no refund. I've had several conversations with people at Monarch and they say I'll have my refund in 7 business days, but still nothing. Don't order from this company if you might possibly cancel your order"

"Where to start?:
After careful consideration, I spent $3800 on a Monarch Empro Custom Workstation...hoping for stability and processing power. This was a test run to see if we would be using Monarch to upgrade our fleet of systems as we are a graphic design company.

Things seemed fine with the purchasing process.
It did take quite a while to arrive. (nearly 6 weeks). However, upon arrival, the system's CD-Rom drive did not work properly and we were not able to load any software into the computer until Monarch quickly sent a replacement drive. After this, things worked fine for about 2 months. With thousands of dollars worth of design jobs loaded into this 'rock solid' workstation, it crashed. About an hour and a half of very good tech support (call or email Dave if you have problems, he was GREAT!) determined that the motherboard was bad and Monarch sent a replacement very quickly. Monarch sent with the replacement an onsite-tech (which we paid extra for from the beginning, just in case this happened). The tech arrived, swapped out the motherboard, but determined that the new one was bad right out of the box. When I called Monarch to report this, they said that this was not possible because they tested the board before sending it out. But, based on the tech's recommendation, they sent out yet another motherboard...and a new tech. This tech arrived, swapped out the motherboard, and things seemed ok. Until he booted up the system. The tech left the job and never returned. Monarch apologized for his lackluster performance and worked to get the previous tech in. This tech was able to fix the problem very quickly. He got us back up and running. However, I will be backing up the system daily rather than weekly as I do not know what will happen next. This entire process took nearly 3 weeks.
I did have some trouble contacting Monarch by phone, but Dave assured me that they have worked out the new phone system and the internal communication problem. When I do get through, the people are generally nice. Although, I did have 2 techs each tell me contradicting statements about certain properties of the system. Email seems to work well though, so I will use that before calling.
Monarch has great pricing and some good products. This experience has been frustrating, but Dave did all he could to make things better. Thanks, Dave. "

"Regardless of whether or not Monarch actually puts any actual parts together, or even gets your order out of pre-processing, they will charge you the full amount and then hold onto that amount for 30 days minimum.

In my case, they waited until I called to complain almost 6 weeks after I'd cancled the order (that had never even gotten to a build stage) before even agreeing to refund the $3500 purchase price."

"I was able to preorder my Conroe E6600 on site this past weekend on site. The sales people at Monarch were extremely helpful and even worked with me to get a price break so that they could beat a price on a preorder I made with another company. They really wanted to make me a happy customer. I didn't expect them to have the processor or motherboard I wanted just because of demand. The motherboard was in stock though and I walked out of the store with it. Very good experience. Now I just have to wait for my Conroe."

"

**UPDATE to my rating of Monarch below**

It has become clear to me what the management at Monarch Systems is doing. This company is operating in a kind of a "Pyramid Scheme". It looks like they have no cash flow or operating capital so they pay for orders placed previously with the funds from more recent customer orders.

What I am saying is that I suspect that when you order from them and they receive the funds from the creditcard companies, they then use these funds to buy the parts to fulfill orders placed weeks or months ago. They show almost everything they sell as being "in stock" on their website, when in reality they probably don't even order your parts until they have received the payment for your order or more recent orders from other folks! This is like kiting a check or using the float on a transaction. It is probably illegal as well.

Beware that if you order something that shows as being in stock, you will likely wait at least 10 days to more than a month to get your product. Because they don't have it yet. And if you need a refund, you will wait 30 days, not because it takes that long to process, but because they do not have the money to pay you back until another sucker orders from them.

And I suspect that at least 50% of the the "Satified" reviews are being written by company employees, or maybe even by this Sterling character himself. Because, in a pyramid scheme, you must keep getting more new customers to keep this whole house of cards from collapsing into itself. This is some devious stuff and you have been warned!

JN Porter

Below is my original review.


I bought an item online from Monarch 9 days ago. My card was charged immediately. After 3 days without any word of when my item would ship, I sent an email to enquire about the order status. Then I waited 24 hours and sent another email. I waited another 24 hours and still no response from Monarch. I decided to read some customer reviews to find out whether this was unusual behavior by this company. I guess I should have read the reviews BEFORE ORDERING!

What I found on resellerratings.com, here and other places was very disturbing. There are literally dozens of victimized customers of this company and some poor souls say they never did get what they paid for! Monarch's modus operandi seems to be to get your money and then put you off as long as they can or just ignore you completely. It also seems that they must write 5 star reviews about themselves to up their ratings because there are very few mid-range ratings. They either suck (and they do, believe me!) or they are the greatest online store in the universe. There's really something fishy about most of the glowing praise-type reviews.

How pitiful is it that they won't do a thing to try to improve their horrible customer service but they will use shills to falsely inflate their customer ratings? These folks do not care about you or your order or your satisfaction, etc. All they care about is getting your money, after which they either completely ignore you as in my case or send you used, broken computer parts as new.

It looks like I'm going to have to dispute this payment as I don't think I will ever receive my item. You have been warned if you read these reviews! "

"Bought an SD card with their "standard FedEx ground shipping". Item did not get shipped as promised. After days of prompting, they tell me that it was shipped USPS. No tracking number. Item never arrived. Monarch site lists item shipped FedEx overnight. Says one thing and does another. Very disappointed."

"I ordered an Athlon64 X2 4600+ the day of AMD's price drops. Ordering the CPU was easy and the price was fantastic. I ordered the CPU 7/24 and it arrived 8/1 - a little longer than I like. In conclusion, I only have the concerns: (1) Monarch charges your CC before shipping; (2) Monarch's timeline for processing & shipping seemed long, and; (3) the order process tracking did not seem to update - thus leaving me nervous that my package was in limbo. Nevertheless, I received the correct product within a reasonable period of time."

"I purchased Monday afternoon (July 24, 2006) via FedEx 2-day. The CPU (AMD Athlon X2 3800+) was in stock. They had the best price on PriceGrabber.com. Monarch shipped Tuesday the 25th. It arrived Thursday the 27th, as expected. The CPU works great."

"I ordered a motherboard from Monarch and declined the extended warranty, opting to deal with the manufacturer directly if the motherboard were to break. The board never worked. It was DOA.

Nobody picks up the phone at their parts department. I know because I've been calling all week only to occasionally get an answering machine, only to leave messages that are not returned.

I attempted to resolve the matter via e-mail. Expecting the good customer service that I’ve come to know from Monarch over my years of business with them, I was surprised to receive a snide remark in the form of a screenshot of a dialog box I had seen when I waived the extended warranty cost. I KNOW what I waived. I waived any further warranty assistance from Monarch. I did NOT however, agree to receiving merchandise that does not work. Had I agreed to that, I would’ve shopped on eBay.

This board had to have worked at some point in order to leave the Asus plant. Somewhere in transit, the board was damaged to the point of no longer being operational. Monarch’s Terms and Conditions explicitly state “Loss or damage that occurs during shipping by a carrier selected by Monarch Computer Systems is Monarch Computer Systems' responsibility.” Contrary to these terms, Monarch is refusing to abide by them.


**08/10/06 Update: It has been a week since I spoke with a Matt from Monarch who said he'd have a replacement board shipped out along with a return label for the defective. I have not seen or heard anything to back up this claim I received from him over the phone.**"