"Monarch is great. Fast shipping, fast processing, great packaging. Highly recommended. Make sure all your CC information is correct before ordering, otherwise it might take a while for you to receive your package"

"Ordered a 165 opteron oem w/ coupon...best price on the web, only took 2 days to process and ship. Great competitive prices, and shipping is very fair. Got the stepping I was hoping for so couldn't really be happier. Would reccomend."

"Put in an order for:

OCZ PowerStream
ThermalTake Bigwater 745
ThermalTake Coolant
AMD X2 3800+
DFI LanPart Ultra-D

My credit card was charged soon after. Check the online order status, and it stated my order is in the warehouse for processing. The status never changed for an entire day, and I got a little anxious because I placed the order very early Monday morning. Called Monarch and they stated that they don't have the TT BigWater 745 in stock and will ship in 4-6 days, which was contrary to what the website indicated, 2-3 days. The rep I spoke to stated that this was the cause for the delay. I immediately cancelled the TT BigWater 745 from my order to, hopefully, expedite my order.

I, then, noticed that my order status dropped and stated that my order had to be released by the credit department before shipping. At this point, I knew that my order will not ship this week. I made numerous calls to speed up the process. Come Wednesday, spoke with a female rep that my order should ship tonight have I will have it by Friday. Checked order status early Thursday morning and my order hadn't shipped. Called Monarch again and they upgraded my shipping to overnight and assured me that it will ship tonight.

Fortunately, my order did arrive next day, which was Friday. And that's my story. Will I order from Monarch again? No. Because when a customer puts down hundreds to thousands of dollars, they expect to know exactly their delivery date, barring any delays from UPS, FedEx, etc. Monarch provided no assurance of where my order was and when it would ship. The last thing customers want is "in limbo" status. What's the point of having 2nd day delivery when it ships 2 weeks from now?

Charging a customers credit card before an order ships is not ethical.

I wanted to save a couple bucks and didn't order from Newegg.com. A mistake on my part that I will not remake in the future. My last 5 gaming systems were ordered from newegg.com, and they deserved my money. Newegg.com - order it today with 2nd day delivery and you WILL have it in two days.

It's not that I dislike Monarch since I did shop at their store when I was still living in Atlanta. On the other hand, the online experience with Monarch is subpar. FYI, I ordered the TT Bigwater 745 at another etailer and received it next day and paid UPS ground."

"This was the worst shopping experience I had in the last 2 years, I am not kidding.

It took them literally four (!) days to just get an item ready to ship that they had in stock.

Every time I called there as a different excuse as to why it wasn't being shipped, and most of the support reps where rather unfriendly."

"My first order was received sometime around
8/9/2005. When I received the system ( adversary gaming system ) it was not packaged properly and the cd that was placed on the outside of the Thermalrock Eclpse case was damaged. rma'd in 11/05. When I received the system back from them the case was destroyed and dirty. I lost count on how many times I sent the system back and communicated with their incompetent tech support. This final system that I received from them and I mean final was a rebuild from them that was packaged properly. Now here comes the "BUT", the motherboard has an NForce 3 chipset..... the tech installed nforce 4 drivers. Tech support supervisor stated " well he just probably saw those on the website and downloaded them. I had to do minor adjustment to the wires because I had no place to plug in the graphics card which required a dedicated power line. The power supply has two dedicated lines in which one should have been left for the card itself. I did not get into detail because it would take too long. All of the systems that I received before this one was damaged on way or another. just about every case was damaged because when I complained about the system you can see that the tech placed it on a work bench or floor because the outside was scratched and scuffed. There is no way that I will send this system back to Monarch...46 complaints from the Better Business Bureau in the past 36 months. I feel stupid...I should have checked before ordering. This last time I chose a system over the return of my money because I did not trust them to return my money. It does not take a month to refund a customers money. Common practice with organizations.....make interest off of your money then they return it. I was also told that the techs new I had constant problems with my system...so do You think that they would go out of the way to see it was built properly..NO!!!...People should take note, they are not members of the better business bureau enough said. Filing complaints with the federal trade commission is only the begining. Buy from this company at your own risk!!!! To top it off they made claims against fedex for improper shipping when it was there improper packaging that caused the damage. I have photos to prove
same.

Update

I had to exchange the memory that came with the system because it was not waorking properly, ( OCZ PLAT REV 2 ). I upgraded to the 2 Gigabyte modules ($214.72). The original price of the Plat rev 2 were $210.72. Simple math reveals that my american express card should have only been charged $4.00. That was back on 4/20/2006. I sent the other modules back to them and they received them on 4/28/2006 at 10:02 am. I contacted Monarch in May 2006 to see when my credit card would be credited. They told me it will take 5 to ten business days from 4/28/06. It is now AUGUST 27, 2006 AND THEY ONLY CREDITED MY ACOUNT 43.96 on 7/11/06. Where is the other $166.76 that they owe me. THIS IS A CRIMINAL ACT IT IS CONSIDERED A LARCENY OF MONEY. I have already filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and they said they are investigating Monarch Computer. My original complaint with the trade commission did not include this incident, but it will now. After I filed the complaint about them destroying my other systems they pull this and refuse to credit my card with the correct amount. Monarch Computer seems as if they keep money from orders and make interest off of it. They always charge your card immediately and sometimes without the item actually in stock. My credit card company is going to credit my account and go after monarch computer themselves ( THANK GOD!!!!!!!) Now I have to make another complaint with the federal trade commission regarding their possible illegal activities. There are far too many complaints againts this company and they are still in business."

"I work for a company with a developer base of ~200 local developers and one of my responsibilities is to purchase additional hardware for development workstations. (We're an all linux shop) We've been using Monarch Computer as the sole supplier for our hardware for at least 4 years now and I'm very pleased with the level of service and the response time for all purchase requests Monarch handles for us.

We routinely order workstations in sets of 30 and from the time I place the order until the time we receive the machines completely assembled and ready to go takes about 4 weeks (including freight time).

I've had very few DOA machines due to shipping and when there is a problem, both initially and throughout the course of the 3 year warranty Monarch has always been very prompt about replacing the dead parts.

However, the thing I value most from them is their recommendations for hardware configuration and the flexibility they have shown to help test and identify particular hardware components that may not mesh well with our linux distribution. I'm also pleased to say they've always been very willing to honor particular hardware requests from us for particular parts I find annoying to work with.

In fact, I've been so pleased with their assembly that I recently shopped with them for my next personal system."

"This has got to be the worst retailer I have ever dealt with. Placed order on the 17th with 3 day shipping. Called on Thursday and was told it got a free shipping upgrade and I would have it by Friday. It is now Tuesday of the following week and it still has not shipped. Items shown in stock. They do not respond to emails. BAD BAD BAD company IMO will never order from again."

"My first time ordering from Monarch. My order was for a motherboard, CPU, and video card. It took 4 days to process my order which I'd consider fairly slow.

One of the items was backordered and may have held up my order further because it wasn't until 13 days after my original order date that the in-stock items finally shipped. The backordered item shipped 19 days after the order date.

I'm a little disappointed in the extremely slow processing/shipping times. However, the prices are nearly unbeatable, selection is great, and the items arrived with no further issues. If it wasn't for the extremely competitive pricing, I'd probably have looked at another merchant."

"Bought 2GB of RAM there and price was good after rebate."

"I plan to update this review as my order is processed, so other buyers can see the progress as it happens:

I placed an order on Wednesday 17th May 2006 for over $1300 dollars worth of computer parts. All were stated as being in stock except a graphics card that was a 'Special Order usually ships 4-6 days'.

Once the order was placed, I checked the status online. It stated that my order was in the 'Review Process', and that I should allow 24 hours for this step.

48 hours later, the status had not changed, so I emailed them (no reply), and called them. I got through fairly promptly (took only 2 attempts), and was told that as I was spending so much (>$1000 dollars perhaps?), a manager needed to approve my order. That should happen that day (Friday). They also stated that the in-stock items sould be shipped first, and the graphics card shipped later.

By the end of Friday, nothing had changed, the status was still the same, and my credit card had not been charged.

They do not work at the weekends, and my status was still the same on Monday morning, but my credit card had been charged the full amount.

I called again, and was told that everything seemed OK, and my order would ship that day.

Tuesday, my status is STILL in review. I call, and am told that the shipment was put on hold because they could not validate my email address. I was assured it would ship that day, and they upgraded my shipment type to 2 day because of the delay. At 7pm my shipment was picked up and I got a tracking number.

My order arrived within the 2 days (due to the upgrade to shipping), and everything seemed to be packaged nicely. I was a little surprised to see the Hard Disk was just a drive in a bag, no box, no manual, no cables, etc.

My back order Graphics Card has been shipped already, so everything so far so good with that.

Overall, the lack of updates to my online status for over 6 days was very annoying, causing me to wonder whether I would ever see my PC parts. However, after working with Monarch over the phone, everything arrived on the 6th working day after placing order (other than back order item of course)"

"Great prices and selection as always. Everything arrived in excellent condition as expected."

"I would never purchase from Monarch again. ordered a Processor from them and they had a problem with address not matching credit card. Have made several orders in the past with the same info and ship to address. So cancelled the next day. They still charged my credit-debit card and refuse to give me back my funds. Was not told this and did not account for that amount in bank account, and are getting lots of overdrafty fees because of this. It has been 13 days, and they have not returned my money back to my bank account.
Would not recommend them to my dog!
"

"I received the order in 3-4 days contrary to what I had been reading about this vendor on various web sites. I would definately purchase from Monarch again."

"I bought a video card from Monarch at a fantastic price, at least $40 cheaper than everyone else. Processing time before order shipped was 3 days, but I was in no rush and for the price I couldn't complain. I'll definitely order from Monarch again."

"Initial communication was very good. They are working with new shipping software so that was a little rough, but I got all the information I needed."