"I purchased some Logitech speakers from Monarch Computer. They were shipped promptly and came in excellent condition. This was my second purchase from Monarch and I'll continue to do business with them."

"I’ll never shop at Monarch again because of their poor problem resolution, incompetent order status tracking, substandard packing for shipping and build quality errors. Plus it took them 10 business days longer to build the system then the original estimate.

I was so wary of them that when it became apparent my Mobo was bad, I chose to buy one locally for $90 and install it myself rather than go through the return process and give them an opportunity to let them screw things up further.

PROBLEM RESOLUTION: D

It took 6 days for them to respond to my email about who pays for shipping on a RMA. Their response failed to answer all my questions, it took a follow up to do that.

Before placing an order, I posted to the forum a memory question. Their answer was prompt, but told me to buy a different brand motherboard without saying why (Gee, if it’s crap, why offer it for sale?). My follow up question went unanswered.

Posted request for NVIDIA SATA/RAID driver for W2k (I didn’t buy an OS, they sent me the XP drivers).
They never responded.

On the plus side, I posted request about Mobo problems, they responded promptly, telling me how to get a RMA number.


ORDER STATUS TRACKING: F

My order was shown as shipped weeks before it actually did. They knew the status was wrong, but never corrected it.


SHIPPING: D

Monarch has info about how to pack a Case for shipping, as well as FedEx’s requirements. (I forget if it’s on their site or in the info they sent me with the order.) Their own packaging failed to meet these requirements, specifically the number of inches between the outer box and inner box.

The paperwork for my system (an AMD Tower) included an owners manual for a Pentium notebook.

BUILD QUALITY: B

The DVD player’s sound output was not hooked up to the sound card.

4/14/05 - MONARCH'S RESPONSE

On 4/1 Monarch posted a message here inviting me to call or email them. I emailed that day. They never responded. Their post obviously was meant to convey their concern for a dissatisfied customer. Their actions speak louder than words. Consider yourself warned.
"

"I bought a custom desktop from Monarch last month and am very unhappy with the purchase. It took me a month to get the machine. Simple build requests were not followed. I purchased an extra fan for the case which wasn't installed. I spent all day in the case. Had to move drives, constant problems with the MB and BIOS, can't get a 2nd DVD installed. Windows crashed. Not what I expect from a new computer. Tech support difficult to get and not very helpful. Said my 430W antec PS was insufficient,?! Won't allow a refund, will repair "if something is wrong with the hardware". I don't agree with these positive reviews. This place may be inexpensive, but I won't buy from them ever again."

"Excellent. Everything went as advertised. Really consider Monarch if you are in the market for a new PC."

"Very happy purchasing from Monarch. It was my first time and it won't be the last. Bought a video card and a great price. Fast shipping and great communication."

"Very satisfied with pricing and service. Backorder ETA was accurate, shipping was upgraded for free. Total cost was significantly less than other similar competing online sites. My order didn't originally qualify for the combo with free software because of the backordered item, but I emailed sales later with little expectations. Monarch replied in 10 minutes, the free software was added to my order! "

"Competitive prices with a good selection of computer equipment, coupled with great service and quick delivery."

"This was my first time ordering from Monarch Computer Systems very fast shipping, excellent prices will buy from them again "

"Good job with the processing. Even though there were some minor problems with the credit card, Monarch did a good job in processing the order and shipped it out immeadiatly. Monarch has pretty awesome prices on their products and I'll be seeing myself buying from them again. The best thing to Monarch is that they resolve the conflict on their own without the hassling of customer. Good Job!! "

"Really happy with their service. They sent the items in 2 day delivery (from 7 day) because they had screwed up matching my billing address to shipping address. that was really nice of them. box came with a return stamp in case i had to rma it without any shipping charges. good experience overall."

"My first order with Monarch was somewhat less than I expected but a personal call from their Customer Satisfaction Dept. cleared up the issue with my order to my satisfaction and I would order from their site again based on this sterling level of support. "

"Monarch gives me the best of both worlds: the components *I* want at a competitive price, and they assemble and test the system to make I don't have any hassles. "

"In the past 3 years we've purchased well over a hundred custom workstations from Monarch. From our perspective, the relationship has been far more than satisfactory. Chris, on the sales team, has always been willing to act as point of contact for any issues we've bumped into, and has bent over backward to ensure we hit deadlines on more than one occasion. We value the ability to design the workstations to meet our specific needs, whether it's a picky X windows driver under Linux, or a memory requirement for a development environment. Monarch's thorough QA process has kept hardware issues on arrival to a minimum. On the rare occasion that we've had to engage their hardware support staff, they have been courteous and responsive to our needs.

Jason
Orbitz.com
"

"I have both purchasing experience and customer support experience with Monarch. I placed my original custom system order (AMD socket 939 system, 1 GB RAM, SATA drive, case & PSU) on 8/3/04. The system didn't ship until 8/24, beyond the original range of dates that was expected. To Monarch's credit, they did update shipping at their cost and did adjust the shipping so it would be held at the local FedEx depot.

Once I received the system, I began to experience odd blue screens under XP. I did a bit of troubleshooting and Monarch helped in determined that the RAM or system board was bad. I suggested they send my replacement RAM but Monarch requested that I return the system. It was after the intial 30-day period so I had to send it at my cost.

UPS delivered the system to them on 3/2/3005 and it was shipped back out to me on 3/17. A small problem in that I was out of town and had asked them to contact me before shipping the system back. The system basically sat on my front porch for a day until I returned home.

It turns out that Monarch replaced the RAM modules with identical part numbers. I ran the MEMTEST overnight and this time there are no problems. They also included a new front door for the case (the original had broken off and I didn't bother sending it to them and didn't even tell them it was broken).

Overall, a very good experience. I only wish that Monarch was more upfront about their system build backlog and that they had held up the return of my system to me until I had been contacted."

"I had a very positive first time buying experience with this merchant. I purchased a power supply for a spectacular price and it arrived quickly and in perfect condition. They even ugraded the shipping for free. I was very impressed. "