"I purchased an AMD barebones system from Monarch. I ordered the system Oct 3rd, it shipped Oct 11th, and I received it Oct 13th. There were some parts missing from my order, but after some back and forth with customer service, I received what didn't ship the first time around. I was quite impressed with how hard they tried to make sure I was satisfied with everything, after their initial flub. The system itself was assembled quite nicely - I especially admire the careful and tidy wiring job they did (this was on an Antec P180 case, which can be tricky b/c of its nonstandard layout). I'm pretty happy with it. Many thanks to Sterling who went to great lengths to make sure the initial problems with my order were resolved!"

"Placed an order for a very cheap logitech mouse. I made an error on the CVV2 error on my credit card. Immediately, I get an email about it. I then received another email, maybe just in case that I didn't receive my first email. Mouse came 3 days later. Fast response time, good customer service, and cheap prices. I highly recommend Monarch Computers!"

"I ordered a custom system from Monarch's website. It took almost 4 weeks to recieve my order, more than I expected, but I hoped that it would be worth the wait for the extra care they claim to put into building a system.
When I finally got my order, nothing seemed amiss at first. It was double-boxed with no visible damage to the packinging. When I looked inside the computer tower, I found that the hard drive had fallen out of place and was stuck at a diagonal between the slots. I tried to remove it and set it right but it was jammed in there so tight, it wouldn't budge.
Monarch's tech support told me that this was a common issue that happens when boxes are mishandled in shipping. I felt that I had the choice to either fix the problem myself, or send the tower back and possibly wait another 3-4 weeks for repair, so I kept trying until I was able to get the drive loose.
I wondered if the jolt it must have received "in shipping" had been strong enough to damage the drive. Well the system worked fine for about a week, then suddenly I started getting Windows stop errors and hearing strange noises coming from the drive. I called Monarch again and was granted an RMA for the hard drive.
When I got the replacement, the packaging was really poor. Just a bit of bubble wrap around the drive and not really enough to absorb shocks. I swapped it out and tried to boot the system. Uh-oh, BIOS wasn't recognizing the new drive. I reseated the connections, tried again, no change. I tried to install Windows and got another stop error.
A call to tech support got me such gems of wisdom as "Did you try updating your drivers?" and "What kind of hard drive do you have exactly, I'm not familiar with this one." I was told to try a variety of tests, most of which would require having a working system (which I clearly didn't have) to download a file and/or burn a cd-rom. I really just wanted them to fix my computer as promised under warranty. They said no problem, return it to us and we'll take care of it.
I boxed it back up and drove into town that same day to drop it off with Fed-ex. I live less than 2 hours away from Monarch so I expected it would arrive there on Monday. Well by the following Friday I hadn't heard anything from them so I called to get an estimate of how long it was going to take. The rep. said very casually that my RMA hadn't been received yet. I freaked out, fearing that it had been lost in shipping. Then I was told that the package actually had been delivered and was not yet received into their computer system, and they needed just a little bit of patience from me until they had a chance to look at the system.
Patience?! Nearly six weeks had passed since the day I placed the order, it was all paid for, and I still didn't have a working system. I was asked to call back early the next week after they had time to get it checked in. I said, why don't you give me a call instead...which was met with some mumbling about me emailing them my phone number. Well I hope I wasn't too pushy, but I just had to suggest that he take a pen and a piece of paper and write it down, because until I got my computer back, I wouldn't have access to email. Did I get a phone call? No.
I called back the following Tuesday to find out what was going on. Same story, it was still sitting in the warehouse waiting to be checked in. At that point I lost that last little bit of patience and demanded to know exactly when it had been delivered. It had been dropped off by Fedex on Monday the week prior, just as I suspected. So over a week later they still couldn't get the box checked in?! Now this guy, unlike the others, really sounded concerned about the problem. He promised me that he would personally go get my package and find out what was going on, and gave me his name so I could check back with him.
This was the first real sign of hope I had gotten from these people, and he was true to his word. He got things moving and gave me calls back to let me know what was going on, and did his best to take care of the issue to my satisfaction.
It turned out that in addition to a faulty hard drive, there was also a compatibility issue with the memory. This took some more time to iron out and Monarch offered to upgrade my RAM to slightly better for no additional charge because I had been inconvenienced.
In all it took 8 and a half weeks from the day I ordered the system, until it was returned to me in working order. Monarch took care of the repair issue, but they did not do so in a timely manner. With the exception of the one person who helped me, my overall experience with Monarch was negative. They seem to be very inefficient in the way they process orders. Mistakes do happen, but caring communication can go a long way to minimizing upset, and this came a little too late. I would not order from this company again. "

"I will never purchase from Monarch again. I had to wait over a month for my order to arrive and put up with unanswered emails from them.

I emailed Monarch at least three times, (once a week), asking how long I should wait for my order to arrive and they only responded once, and the answer wasn`t even related to my question. I found their support to be very frustrating to work with and the lack of communication on their part to be totally unprofessional.

I felt like they didn`t care for me at all which in my books means they don`t value their customers. I`m taking my business elsewhere."

"I was in the market for the ATI x850 AGP version and Monarch had a great deal on the Visiontek Xtasy x850 XT Platinum Edition for $350 and a $50 mail in rebate from the manufacturer.
I placed my order on the 4th of October from their website which is really easy to use and navigate.They ran into a problem with my credit card issuer for which they sent me an email notification the very same day. Once I had matters sorted out with the issuing bank and emailed them back, boom - my order entered production.
It was mailed out on the 5th and reached me on the 7th via Fedex 2 day shipping. This after I had chosen saver shipping and encountered a billing issue!! Awesomely quick turnaround. The card worked great out of the box, I'm a happy camper and such a smooth and pleasant experience to boot. I'm very satisfied and while, earlier I always shopped with newegg,Monarch has really impressed me and I will defintely be back for all my future tech upgrade driven purchases. An all round excellent online tech shopping experience. 5 out of 5!!!!"

"I purchased an Asus SLI Premium motherboard AMD X2 3800+ combo, a PCI-E graphics card and a PSU. The order was processed and shipped in a timely manner. The PSU was faulty and killed the MB as well. I had to RMA those, and received good service in making the exchange. One doesn't know the quatity of the company he is dealing with until something goes wrong. Monarch computers did what would be expected and did it as quickly as they could."

"I know their ratings aren't very good right now but I had no issues with my order. It came on time and couldn't be beat price-wise. I'm satisfied."

"Ordered a 2 GB kit of RAM from Monarch. Order processing, shipment and receipt of the memory was just fine, and the price was good. However, there was an issue with the memory causing my system to be unstable. This is where it gets complicated.

I tried their e-mail support and actually did receive a response from someone. Doing the standard test rigamarole, we communicated back and forth for a day. Then I stopped hearing from them. Ultimately I tried their online form for an RMA request. This led to someone else calling me. After being on the phone for 40 minutes, they finall granted an RMA and would credit me back my money.

To top it all off, I get an e-mail this afternoon as a response to the one I sent to their support line saying that they wouldn't be able to refund my money but give me a store credit. I'm going to respond and say that the other technician said a refund back to my card would be coming. Apparently the right hand there doesn't know what the left is doing.

And naturally, after I placed the order, I looked a little more deeply at their return policy on memory and it's quite Draconian. Based on this and my experience in trying to get this problem resolved, I won't be ordering from them again. I'm going to be monitoring my credit card very closely to see if the credit gets applied."

"The lowest price on the net and very fast shipping. This is the second time that I've purchase from Monarch and I appreciate the fast shipping and process."

"I purchased a complete system including a DVD-RW. It arrived on time, perfectly packed. It was perfect. I had some serious problems with my XP Pro unrelated to anything having to do with Monarch and while their tech was trying to help me via phone we realized the 7-in-1 Floppy was not functional. I had not had any reason to check it but the tech immediately wrote the info to request an RMA to have the drive fixed [he was helping me on a Saturday afternoon]. An RMA was issued and Monarch sent out a knowledgeable person who installed the new drive that had been sent to me. He also reinstalled my OS and all was working again. I had further problems [again not due to Monarch] and the technical support I received via e-mail was outstanding. I cannot say enough good things about this company and their support. "

"Very fast service. Item was well packaged and complete. Very professional company. This was my first experience with Monarch and I am now a return customer. #1. Thank You."

"Awesome! Got my order faster than I expected. And I liked that there was a rebate offer with it too."

"I purchased a New, OEM AMD 64 3000+ processor from Monarch and received a processor that had previously been installed and used. It even had thermal grease still on it!! It took at least 6-7 frustrating emails to correct the problem to my preference. The support staff was also very lacking, they would send me 2-line responses answering none of my questions. I've also noticed that they tend to "lose" support email that they dont want to answer. Overall, very bad experiences (even to this date) and must recommend the other more reliable and trustworthy e-tailers that actually want to work for your business.

edit: last email awaiting reply
Once again, I commend your committment to service but what still remains is a very sour taste in my mouth. I understand that you are trying to rectify the situation but this has been an ongoing issue everytime I place an order from Monarch. As far as my reseller ratings post, I am not so easily moved by simply a line of communication. The only way to receive customer service it seems, is to personally warn Monarch over and over again that I will not tolerate such actions and respond appropriately. Now given the fact that I have posted this review for an order on 3/15, it truly disheartens me that it is now ( 7 months after the fact, and only when I had placed another problematic order, in order to use my 'store credit' that could not be refunded to me because Monarch decided to send me a used processor as NEW-OEM ? Does this make any sense at all ? ) Monarch attempts to provide me with the customer service I had been searching for all along. If I am to cover up for Monarch's mistakes, that is in essence poor customer service and by far the worst I have experienced. I feel that customer service is golden when your competitors have the same or much lower prices with free 2nd day fedex. I will be patient on posting another review for this current order as there is a line of communication open as you have stated. I cannot knowingly change my previous review at this moment, as the fact still stands this order was 7 months ago and now Monarch thinks they have wronged me after I post a negative review. That, makes a customer seem insignificant in the business realm of Monarch.

Now I get a response from Monarch claiming they have done no wrong, and an apology was not even given. Monarch is truly disorganized when I am more accurate on the information than they are. Here is a sample email within the company, What is this customer talking about? I don't see any credit due to him. Please help!, Chrissy, Accounts Receivable. Now the thing to make note here is the fact that it took multiple emails and 3 days for them to even ask this question within the company. Monarch's business practices are truly lacking, even to this date despite claims otherwise. Feel free to express your opinions, once you do, Monarch will try to win you back with empty words and promises. Take them with a grain of salt and ask yourself, should I even be having these problems and is all this worth my time ? Why is it that problems have to arise initially for extra customer service steps in ? Would this happen with the more reputable etailer? Probably not. No matter how hard they try to sweet talk you, how would they possibly compensate for my lost time? A free t-shirt ... I think not, I will take my business elsewhere."

"I finally got my PC from Monarch Computer Systems on Friday of last week and I've had a few days to try and break it. The truth is that they did a really nice job putting it together and testing it prior to shipping. Even the cabling inside the case is a work of art (though I had to undo most of it to plug in the case fans, and it doesn't look quite as good now). They gave me a great price on all the parts, plus a 3 year parts and labor warranty. They even shipped it overnight at no cost to me based on the delay, and the packaging could probably survive a 30 story drop.

If you want hardware fast, I'd recommend NewEgg. If you can wait 35 days but want to be sure your hardware will work the first time, Monarch does live up to their ~9 reseller rating in my experience.

One thing: my case fans were accidentally plugged into each other, not the power supply. You will want to give your purchase a good technical once over just in case."

"Ordered on Saturday but found wrong item ordered. Requested a change to the correct one and received email on Monday stating the item was changed. CC was charged Monday but it was not shipped until Wednesday evening - not exactly "ship in 1-2 business day." Emailed them on Wednesday PM and got reply it was going to be shipped. Order shipped via FedEx Express Saver and arrived on Friday. Price is very competitive and customer service is responsive. Slightly disappointed on shipping time."