"I purchased a system in the store 10/26/06. I was promised a "free rush" on the system since I was picking it up. Tomorrow will be 3 weeks on a 9-10 promise with no end in sight. I've sent repeated e-mails to them and only got a quick response to 1 over a week ago that they were heving trouble getting some of the parts. I'm now going to cancel the order and dispute the charge with my credit card company since they will not return my emails. "

"This company is the worst. I placed an order for a custom PC on October 10th. I'm writing this review on November 15th and their website is showing the system as still be in Stage 3 Board Test Stage. It's been here for over a week! There are 7 total stages! At this rate I'll be lucky to get the PC THIS YEAR!"

"It's been one month since I ordered. My order status is still listed as being in transit to warehouse, according to their website order status. Phone call inquiries claim various parts are backordered -- first the cpu, then the motherboard, both of which were listed as in stock when I ordered. One email status inquiry was answered, the rest ignored. I asked on the phone what motherboards were actually in stock so I could change my order to something they could actually ship -- they insisted that I just take my chances with the online ordering form again. The cpu and motherboard I ordered are still listed as in stock on the ordering page.

The wait to talk to a human on the phone is consistently 10 minutes and the human is invariably polite.

I'm inclined to suspect that they're innocent of malice, but I must nevertheless cancel my order and order from elsewhere because the owner of the PC I'm borrowing during this period is getting ancy for return of his spare rig."

"I ordered 2 computer systems from them, with a promised shipping time of 12-18 business days. After a month of not hearing anything from them, I tried multiple times to contact them. They did not reply to any emails. I was on hold for more than 30 minutes on at least 4 occassions to try to talk to them, but could not get a live person. I finally got through on their sales line, but all he would do is transfer me to the endless hold. They charged my credit card on the day I ordered, and I am now working with my bank to get my money back since they will not respond to any requests to cancel the order."

"I wanted to like this company - and had high hopes when I finally selected this vendor. Immediately I began to get nervous as I received cryptic messages from sales about my order. Once I finally got through to sales, the problem was that they seemingly had not priced things correctly and wanted to increase my charges, particularly shipping in order to be sure my order arrived safely. This was just to ship a monitor offered as a standard option from their configurator.

That was "resolved" by them shipping in a different much slower method.

I was told many times during ordering, and in the sales confirmation shippment would be 15-21 business days time. (However they charge one's credit card at the time of order.) Periodically, I check the online status - it is almost immediately at Stage 3 (burn-in) that sounds great. However, at business day 21 it is still at stage 3 so I try to contact this ocmpany.

I send e-mails, use their web-forms for contact, etc. to try to find some real status information. I never hear from anyone about anything regarding status.

By business day 26+, the status has been down-graded to stage 2 (production planning) without contact or explanation. This motivates a call - many options on their phone service tempt you to select the "order status" option but that routes you to an endless call hold where no one ever answers. I was on hold for hours before hanging up, never to speak to a real-live person.

In summation: questionable business practices, very late, no communication, difficult to reach - you have been warned and use this company at your own risk."

"I purchased a new computer from Monarch Computer (http://www.monarchcomputer.com) for $5000. First the length of time it took to receive the computer was unusually long, but I was willing to put up with that for getting the parts I wanted in my custom PC. However, when it arrived, the 7-in-1 floppy/card reader never worked. It would give me an error whenever I tried to read a CF card (I checked the card in other computers and even my HDTV - it worked everywhere else). I posted a request for tech support in their forums and never received a response. I finally got a response after repeated emails and Tech Support figured that the 7-in-1 device was defective and sent me a new one. I received the new one and still had the same error after I installed it. After 20 minutes on hold I finally got a person on the phone and we worked out that my new $5000 computer has no working USB ports at all. Then I was disconnected. I called back and finally hung up after waiting for 41 minutes on hold with no response. I tried email again, but my emails were suddenly blocked as SPAM by Monarch's Barracuda software on their email server. I sent the same email from a different email address (wow! - it wasn't blocked as SPAM) and have never received a reply.

I am furious with the lack of response and what I suspect is the intentional blocking of my emails to tech support. $5000 for a computer with no working USB ports and a nonfunctional 7-in-1 card reader seems like a pretty crappy deal to me. The only thing I can think of doing is having the little shop down the street fix it for me (at additional cost to me). They've helped me before with older computers - I never thought I'd need a fix for a brand new PC, though. I'm just glad I didn't purchase an extended service agreement!"

"I ordered a mother board combo on 8-26-06, it shipped on 9-14-06 (stated three to five days shipping on the web sight). I authorized a ram substitution to speed shipping because I was told the ram I ordered was out of stock, even though it was listed in the configuration utility on the web sight. Well they sent ram that I did not agree to in my mother board combo.

I returned the ram, and it was received on 9-28-06. I was told it would take up to 30 days to receive my refund. It is now 11-12-06 and I have not received any money. I simply could never do business with this company again.
"

"its bin over 18 days no change in progress. i want an answer now. I called got putt on hold for 20 min.
so i hang up because i have other things to do. New phone system so what before you would have to wait 2 days ina row for them to pick up.

****@****"

"This is the worst company I have EVER dealt with.
On October 9th I placed an order for the TV Wonder USB 2.0, I never received another word from them, so on around October 23rd after not getting any replies to email through customer support, I tried calling.. I waited on the phone for more than 40 minutes before someone answered. I was informed that my product would be shipping by October 30th.. between November 2nd and november 9th i sent 4 emails and got no reply, I then sat on the phone for 59 minutes, no answer.. so I sent one last email, and got a reply that my product was never in stock and I would be refunded. I asked them to call me, and they did not reply. I went to the forum to voice a complaint and every complaint got deleted and I was threatened for removal if i posted anything negative. This company is a mess.

**FOLLOW UP** Well here i am into the new year, having given up on monarch to refund my money, I filed a complaint with the BBB a couple months ago.. but any hope of getting my money back is lost due to the fact i used my bank card.. this was complete fraud."

"Worst company ever! Red Alert! Don't do business with! They have been ignoring my emails and they never answer the phone. They have my money, but I have no products. I have contacted a lawyer to see about a class action lawsuit since these people are so bad. Again, Stay Away!!!!!"

"Very disappointed. I ordered 2 barebone systems from Monarch in the last 2 years and the service had been good.

Based on that I placed another order with them on 10/27/06. They called and had me add the shipping address at AMEX and I haven't heard from them since. The don't answer their phones or reply to my emails.

I will never order from them again, and I hope they read this site."

"Monarch is slow to fill orders, ignorant of refused deliveries and horrible about crediting and shipping orders from store credit.

I ordered an AM2 CPU by mistake and knew from experience that refusing shipment was the best way to handle it. This was around 9/25/06. I let quite a few days and weeks to go buy and received no acknowledgement of the return. I finally called them around 10/15/06 to find out what was up. They knew nothing. Apparently, they toss all returns into a bin and take their sweet time to sort them out. This was what *they* told me! It took my contact 2 days to find the return and then they would only offer me store credit (another strike against them).

I sat on the credit for two weeks and finally decided on a few hard drives to finish up with Monarch. This was 5 business days ago.
Since then, they have not fullfilled the order and I have received "only" 3 identical e-mails
from them with this content:

"Your RMA credit is currently being applied to your order. Any credit available to you will
be refunded back to you."

All e-mails are identical. These people are definitely asleep at the switch. Their phone hours are limited to 10AM(!) to 6PM EST (another strike).

I would like to give Monarch the benefit of the doubt, but compared to such standard bearers as Newegg, ZipZoomFly, MWave and others, they are truly awful. I cannot, in good conscience, recommend Monarch at all. I will never deal with them again."

"I had ordered many things in the past from Monarch, and even though I had saw that thier rating had gone down a lot in the last 6 months or so, I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt, and placed an order on a great deal for an OCZ power supply. There was a small problem with my email which was straightened out, and I can see their point of view about the problem. What I can't understand is that it took 6 emails back and forth to fix the problem, when it should have been handeled by a 20 second phone call, but it was specifically stated in the emails that this issue could not be resolved over the phone. How are you suppose to fix a problem with email USING email? It makes no sense at all. Anyway, that problem was resolved, and I can understand the reason for it occuring, just not the way to resolve it.

About a week later the power supply ships. I open the box, and the power supply is simply in the FedEx box, bubble wrapped, not in the OCZ original packaging, no manual, no power cord, basically I was sent an open box item. I know that Monarch does component testing, so maybe they tested the power supply before shipping it, but they could have at least put it back in the original box with all its pieces. I don't really know. The item description certainly did not state that it was an open box item, and it didn't state that Monarch was going to test it either, since that usually is an extra charge. I really can not recommend them based on this last transaction. I don't know what has happened lately to this once great store."

"Monarch computer had a really good deal on the OCZ Gamexstream 700 watt. There were no problems and I had a smooth transaction."

"Buyers beware! Don't buy from this company unless you are sure you won't have to cancel your order--they do not refund your money in a timely fashion, or, as in our case, not at all! Placed an order for $658 on 9/5/06. Had to cancel the order on 9/13/06 (prior to shipping) because the equip was needed asap at an out-of-town work site and Monarch is unable to ship to an address other than billing. On a followup call to Monarch, a recording advised that a refund could take up to 30 business days (for a cancelled order?!?) We should have received our refund by Oct 26 - if you count from the date of cancellation. It is now Nov 9, and after 2 emails regarding the refund (not answered) and 2 calls to cust serv (promised to refer to "credit manager" for asap refund), we do not have our money. This seems to be their SOP - there are numerous dissatisfied ratings on this site for the same reason."