Punishment for early shipment????

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The part you ordered has been pulled from our website by our distributor as it is going to be several months until we get these in stock. We are not going to be able to fulfill your backorder request. I do apologize about this, your credit card has not been charged and your order will be cancelled.



Thank You,

Dan

CostCentral/PC Superstore Sales Team

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Just got this in my email... if it truely is still classified as "back ordered", why cancel the order? hmm i think someone got :slapass: :nono: :slapass: for letting those x6800 slip!

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Originally Posted by Weedsqueezer

Just got this in my email... if it truely is still classified as "back ordered", why cancel the order? hmm i think someone got :slapass: :nono: :slapass: for letting those x6800 slip!

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Same message here. And it was listed as "in stock" when I ordered my 6600. And for several days afterwards.

I cancelled my pre-order myself. Whoever gets them in ready stock wins, I'm not committing anything up front.

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Originally Posted by Mako88

I cancelled my pre-order myself. Whoever gets them in ready stock wins, I'm not committing anything up front.

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Most places don't charge your card until it ships. Nothing ever showed up on my order.

Cost Central probably placed a very large stocking order the instant they had SKU setup info from Ingram. Then they accepted end user pre-orders at aggressive prices.

Ingram is probably now telling them that they're only going to get a small fraction of what they originally ordered since they're a "small fish in a big pond".

Now Cost Central is cancelling all the end user pre-orders since it'll take months for them to be fullfilled.

I'm sure Ingram and the other disti's aren't going to let Cost Central get a lion's share of the initial stock and let the big guys like Fry's/Outpost, Newegg, Amazon and Buy.com go dry.

I'm sure Intel is also making sure disti's are strategically allocating the first wave of stock.

Many places that were taking pre-orders are no longer doing so and the cpu's are no longer listed on their web sites.

Tankguys posted,
"Intel has asked the distributors to stop listing them - and we retailers can't even order them anymore, until the "official" date."

I dont think it had anything to do with them selling a couple of x6800's.

hmm

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Originally Posted by Weedsqueezer

Just got this in my email... if it truely is still classified as "back ordered", why cancel the order? hmm i think someone got :slapass: :nono: :slapass: for letting those x6800 slip!

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only in america! :toast:

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Originally Posted by Plaicd

Many places that were taking pre-orders are no longer doing so and the cpu's are no longer listed on their web sites.

Tankguys posted,
"Intel has asked the distributors to stop listing them - and we retailers can't even order them anymore, until the "official" date."

I dont think it had anything to do with them selling a couple of x6800's.

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liek the old saying. "when one makes the mistake, everyone is in trouble"

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Originally Posted by noktekniq

liek the old saying. "when one makes the mistake, everyone is in trouble"

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As I see it Intel is only hurting themself by doing this.

Someone who was willing to purchase one of thier cpu's is now being to told the item they wanted wont be available for several months.

Maybe that person dosent want to wait or cant wait several months and will now buy a different brand of cpu.

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Originally Posted by Plaicd

As I see it Intel is only hurting themself by doing this.

Someone who was willing to purchase one of thier cpu's is now being to told the item they wanted wont be available for several months.

Maybe that person dosent want to wait or cant wait several months and will now buy a different brand of cpu.

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Intel's not saying this. It's Cost Central.

Maybe that person should shop for a better reseller.

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Originally Posted by davefr

Intel's not saying this. It's Cost Central.

Maybe that person should shop for a better reseller.

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The damage is potentially already done, blame the reseller all you want.

Ok here's my new theory..prolly wrong but here's a stab...cost central put them up on their site for 350 each I know I ordered 2 and the shipping woulda been free. I think they figured "Heck, lets tell them we can't get anymore and cancel their order so that when we do have them on our site, they'll be 400 each." LOL

Any company trying to make money isn't going to say..we canceled your order cuz it'll be a couple months till we get um. no, they would say, our distribution chain is logged with orders and will be some time before we can fill your order. would you like to cancel your order? For keeping your order with us through these technical difficulties...help yourself to our complimentary bin of woodcrest and x6800 cpu's... ok, I can dream

all i can say this best not been some ploy to get my CC # :rolleyes::)

I wouldn't worry about it Weedsqueezer, these guys fulfilled my order - I was one of the ones who got the x6800 from them. Lucky me =) I thought I was going to get ripped, but I had $1300 to blow....

lmao, tis funneh to me because its all YOUR fault! ;)

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Originally Posted by clip

lmao, tis funneh to me because its all YOUR fault! ;)

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It is so nice to see a fellow XS member get some joy from a nother fellow member's bad luck....

I see that you are new to XS, that is not how we work around here:slap:

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Originally Posted by clip

lmao, tis funneh to me because its all YOUR fault! ;)

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Don't be an Ass man :slap: :slap: :slapass: :slapass:

I ain't worried about it I promise you, it's all good. I wasn't expecting shipment from a place like that either but here's to tryin! ;)

My guess, if anyone cares (:D) is that it could be Intel's urging, or just to reduce the headaches the pre-orders cause.

I mean seriously, NOBODY can give us retailers any ETA at all. So when customers ask, we've got nothing to tell you guys. These pre-orders are, to be quite honest, a royal P.I.T.A.

Consider this: If all my current pre-order customers decide they don't want to wait anymore, and they cancel thier orders, I'm out more than $2,000 in credit card processing fees :eek: That makes it very risky business... especially since it's easy for people to lose patience when we can't even tell them anything usefull :D

sorry guys, I can be a bit off-the-cuff sometimes. j/k :stick:

Yeah BLT took down their preorders aswell. I never thought about the CC processing fees thats pretty risky bussiness. So is the date still the 23rd or is it now the 27th?

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Originally Posted by foch3 -USA-

Yeah BLT took down their preorders aswell. I never thought about the CC processing fees thats pretty risky bussiness. So is the date still the 23rd or is it now the 27th?

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It is the 27th.

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Originally Posted by TankGuys

My guess, if anyone cares (:D) is that it could be Intel's urging, or just to reduce the headaches the pre-orders cause.

I mean seriously, NOBODY can give us retailers any ETA at all. So when customers ask, we've got nothing to tell you guys. These pre-orders are, to be quite honest, a royal P.I.T.A.

Consider this: If all my current pre-order customers decide they don't want to wait anymore, and they cancel thier orders, I'm out more than $2,000 in credit card processing fees :eek: That makes it very risky business... especially since it's easy for people to lose patience when we can't even tell them anything usefull :D

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Hey,

Good contact like this is why I'm going to order my Asus P5W-DH from you guys as soon as I'm ready to buy (which is very soon) :D. It's very refreshing to see a more open, communicative business.


EDIT: I assume http://www.tankguys.biz/deluxe-socke...dy-p-1675.html is the retail box with the Wifi antenna/etc.?

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Originally Posted by TankGuys

Consider this: If all my current pre-order customers decide they don't want to wait anymore, and they cancel thier orders, I'm out more than $2,000 in credit card processing fees :eek: That makes it very risky business... especially since it's easy for people to lose patience when we can't even tell them anything usefull :D

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I don't mean to be a jerk but it sounds like you're sitting on $80,000 (based on 2.2-2.4% discount rate + transaction fee) or so waiting to be able to order from your supplier. It seems like you guys get great reviews here so I'm wondering why you've charged your customers so early for a product you won't be able to deliver for at least a few more weeks. If your supplier will sell to you net 30 you could earn $750 on back-to-back 30 day CDs on $80k while they could be paying 18%+ interest on their CCs.

Also, if you refund the money through your merchant account your transaction fees are refunded to you so you shouldn't be out anything, at least with merchant accounts I have had experience with. This is also Paypal's policy with their merchant services accounts.

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Originally Posted by slykens

I don't mean to be a jerk but it sounds like you're sitting on $80,000 (based on 2.2-2.4% discount rate + transaction fee) or so waiting to be able to order from your supplier. It seems like you guys get great reviews here so I'm wondering why you've charged your customers so early for a product you won't be able to deliver for at least a few more weeks. If your supplier will sell to you net 30 you could earn $750 on back-to-back 30 day CDs on $80k while they could be paying 18%+ interest on their CCs.

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There are two reasons we bill early (though we do give people the option of waiting, most chose to pay right away).

1 - If we don't capture the credit card funds within 24 hours, and instead capture them later, using the same authorization, we get hit for nearly twice the discount fees. Since that's far more than our profit margin, we lose a lot of money. We learned this the hard way with X2 pre-orders last year :(

2 - We don't store CC info, for security reasons. So if we don't bill at the time of order, we then have to contact each and every single pre-order customer, and get thier card information, to manually run it again. This in and of itself is a monumental task, but add to that the fact that it sometimes takes 3-4 calls to finally reach someone, people complain when thier shipment is delayed when we can't reach them to pay, etc. etc. It's a gigantic logistical nightmare, and customers hate it since it takes forever to actually get the parts shipped out once they arrive.

And yes, I hate the fact that some people may get hit with interest. Though, I'd hope most people wouldn't buy the chip if they can't pay it off anyway, but some will. It's just a necessary evil I suppose. Both customer and merchant are floating together in the U.S.S. Risk right now I guess :D

Oh, and we don't re-invest any of that pre-order money. While it would make nice financial sense, I'm not going to risk locking up customer's money in the event we get mass cancellations - that money needs to be readily available in our checking account. So there really isn't any financial gain on our end for sitting on the money.

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Originally Posted by slykens

Also, if you refund the money through your merchant account your transaction fees are refunded to you so you shouldn't be out anything, at least with merchant accounts I have had experience with. This is also Paypal's policy with their merchant services accounts.

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I wish :( I don't know if it's a new thing or what, but now we get charged the discount fees for each and every transaction that runs through the Visa/MC clearing houses. So I get charged for the initial billing, and then again for the refund. So for each cancelled pre-order, we lose about $17.00. No fun!

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Originally Posted by TankGuys

There are two reasons we bill early (though we do give people the option of waiting, most chose to pay right away).

1 - If we don't capture the credit card funds within 24 hours, and instead capture them later, using the same authorization, we get hit for nearly twice the discount fees. Since that's far more than our profit margin, we lose a lot of money. We learned this the hard way with X2 pre-orders last year :(

2 - We don't store CC info, for security reasons. So if we don't bill at the time of order, we then have to contact each and every single pre-order customer, and get thier card information, to manually run it again. This in and of itself is a monumental task, but add to that the fact that it sometimes takes 3-4 calls to finally reach someone, people complain when thier shipment is delayed when we can't reach them to pay, etc. etc. It's a gigantic logistical nightmare, and customers hate it since it takes forever to actually get the parts shipped out once they arrive.

And yes, I hate the fact that some people may get hit with interest. Though, I'd hope most people wouldn't buy the chip if they can't pay it off anyway, but some will. It's just a necessary evil I suppose. Both customer and merchant are floating together in the U.S.S. Risk right now I guess :D

Oh, and we don't re-invest any of that pre-order money. While it would make nice financial sense, I'm not going to risk locking up customer's money in the event we get mass cancellations - that money needs to be readily available in our checking account. So there really isn't any financial gain on our end for sitting on the money.



I wish :( I don't know if it's a new thing or what, but now we get charged the discount fees for each and every transaction that runs through the Visa/MC clearing houses. So I get charged for the initial billing, and then again for the refund. So for each cancelled pre-order, we lose about $17.00. No fun!

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Never did I ever imagine small businesses could loose much money on cancelled purchases.

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Originally Posted by Plaicd

Many places that were taking pre-orders are no longer doing so and the cpu's are no longer listed on their web sites.

Tankguys posted,
"Intel has asked the distributors to stop listing them - and we retailers can't even order them anymore, until the "official" date."

I dont think it had anything to do with them selling a couple of x6800's.

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Damn! So does this mean no more TankGuys pre-orders??? It's still there on their website...

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Originally Posted by TankGuys

I wish :( I don't know if it's a new thing or what, but now we get charged the discount fees for each and every transaction that runs through the Visa/MC clearing houses. So I get charged for the initial billing, and then again for the refund. So for each cancelled pre-order, we lose about $17.00. No fun!

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Sounds like a bank problem. I'd be searching for other options.

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Originally Posted by ewitte

Sounds like a bank problem. I'd be searching for other options.

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Actually, I'm not sure if it's our merchant account, or if it's Visa/MC. In any case, if it is our merchant account, there are enough benefits in going with them to outweight this problem. This issue doesn't come up very often, so it's not a general problem.



As for pre-orders, we are still taking them. We have more chips on order than pre-orders still right now, so assuming those existing orders get filled, we're fine :)

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Originally Posted by GoldenTiger=

Is http://www.tankguys.biz/deluxe-socke...dy-p-1675.html the retail box with the Wifi antenna/etc.?

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Thanks :).

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Originally Posted by TankGuys

Actually, I'm not sure if it's our merchant account, or if it's Visa/MC. In any case, if it is our merchant account, there are enough benefits in going with them to outweight this problem. This issue doesn't come up very often, so it's not a general problem.



As for pre-orders, we are still taking them. We have more chips on order than pre-orders still right now, so assuming those existing orders get filled, we're fine :)

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I Love how you charge 90$ to ship from USA to UK! What a joke! thats like 50GBP!

postage doesnt cost that much, so your profiting on that too?

TankGuy is pretty amateur and liar, in the pre-order are not any money loses ...!

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Originally Posted by OBR

TankGuy is pretty amateur and liar, in the pre-order are not any money loses ...!

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Unless you have something to back it up, your post comes across as a random thread crap. Lets not discourage retailers from participating in the forums by taking pot shots at them. We could use more partipation from people in every part of the production, marketing, distribution and retail sectors of the PC parts industry. If I remember correctly, Tankguys was a handy guy to have around when the Opteron rumors were flying around.

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Originally Posted by gundamit

Unless you have something to back it up, your post comes across as a random thread crap. Lets not discourage retailers from participating in the forums by taking pot shots at them. We could use more partipation from people in every part of the production, marketing, distribution and retail sectors the PC parts industry. If I remember correctly, Tankguys was a handy guy to have around when the Opteron rumors were flying around.

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Not only that : he has been very helpful on the Conroe preorder "hype" as well. I can personally say from my contacts at the local shops that indeed (for Belgium) no information AT ALL is available from the major suppliers (like Ingram) at this time, just as Tankguys is saying. Even pricing is a big balloon for the shops right now. Shops here are just copying preorder prices from each other and noone really knows what they'll end up paying themselves to the suppliers. This is getting hilarious in my opinion.
Don't forget that there's a currency conversion issue and a VAT issue on top of it all here in Europe as well.

I would'nt expect to pay no more than $20 to the UK, i RMA'd some ram back to the states inc. insurance for £7.00 which is about $18.

And considering the states are much cheaper than rip off britain i think if probably costs the retailer less than $12.

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Originally Posted by Pandamonia

I Love how you charge 90$ to ship from USA to UK! What a joke! thats like 50GBP!

postage doesnt cost that much, so your profiting on that too?

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Go to FedEx.com. Do a rate quote for shipping a 4 pound box from the US, zip code 49236, with dimensions 8x8x6, with a value of $250.00, to London.

What do you see? (Note: USPS rates come in lower on an estimate, and our site puts on a $5 surcharge to compensate for the increased fraud.)

http://www.tankguys.biz/images/rate.gif

That's a general estimate for a processor. I'm making tons of money on that?

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Originally Posted by OBR

TankGuy is pretty amateur and liar, in the pre-order are not any money loses ...!

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This statement, of course, comes after your careful review of our accounting, extensive experience running a PC parts business, and a complete understanding of the pre-order process and credit card processing, right? If so, we all appreciate your valuable and expert opinion, I'm sure.

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Originally Posted by TankGuys

Go to FedEx.com. Do a rate quote for shipping a 4 pound box from the US, zip code 49236, with dimensions 8x8x6, with a value of $250.00, to London.

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I hope thats more than just a CPU :stick: BTW ordered E6600 from your site. I don't have a problem hanging in a month or so (even two) until you get the shipment.

I also ordered 4GB of memory a few days ago so you must be getting a lot of business from here ;)

I've gotta say that so far TankGuys looks like the best online retailer I've ever done business with. I submitted my pre-order for E6600 the day they started accepting them and have gotten 4 automated e-mails and two detailed mailers about the Conroe pre-order situation.

Donnie posted a link to TankGuys on hardforum before they started accepting pre-orders and I jabbed them about it because I couldn't get a place in line for this new CPU. I'm glad I kept up with the thread and placed my pre-order when TankGuys started accepting them because I feel like I am dealing with a very honest service oriented retailer that wants to build up customer loyalty.

I'll post the latest mailer that Ben @ TankGuys sent out if you like. Sorry this sounded like a commercial! I honestly have no affiliation with TankGuys whatsoever. I'm just another guy holding his breath until his C2D arrives at his doorstep and I'm glad I have someone providing me with an oxygen mask in the form of e-mail updates and forum posts! :)

-JWM

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Originally Posted by TankGuys

Go to FedEx.com. Do a rate quote for shipping a 4 pound box from the US, zip code 49236, with dimensions 8x8x6, with a value of $250.00, to London.

What do you see? (Note: USPS rates come in lower on an estimate, and our site puts on a $5 surcharge to compensate for the increased fraud.)

http://www.tankguys.biz/images/rate.gif

That's a general estimate for a processor. I'm making tons of money on that?



This statement, of course, comes after your careful review of our accounting, extensive experience running a PC parts business, and a complete understanding of the pre-order process and credit card processing, right? If so, we all appreciate your valuable and expert opinion, I'm sure.

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thats odd cus i bought 4 FX-60's from a guy in the USA shipped via priority mail for 44$ all shipped together.

also if you ship alot then you get trade price shipping and you dont pay the average cost to ship. if you open an account you get discounted costs and credit too.

a boxed cpu weighs around 1 pound

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Originally Posted by Pandamonia

thats odd cus i bought 4 FX-60's from a guy in the USA shipped via priority mail for 44$ all shipped together.

also if you ship alot then you get trade price shipping and you dont pay the average cost to ship. if you open an account you get discounted costs and credit too.

a boxed cpu weighs around 1 pound

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Keep in mind fedex is usually priced WAY higher than USPS especially for international. It probably is half the price for priority. I'm not sure about the 4lbs thing.

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Originally Posted by ewitte

Keep in mind fedex is usually priced WAY higher than USPS especially for international. It probably is half the price for priority. I'm not sure about the 4lbs thing.

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Often, a well packaged retail boxed CPU comes in at 3 or so pounds. Even if you drop the weight to 1 or 2 pounds, it doesn't make much different at all in the rates. It's the size that usually matters most.

And yes, we do get a discount from FedEx for frequent shipping - but our site quotes THOSE prices, not list. Our price on our site is padded like $0.75 to pay for boxes and shipping materials, otherwise it's list price. We make absolutely no money on FedEx shipping.

USPS is a little different... as mentioned, we pad that by like $5, because it's more work for us (no USPS pickup, so we have to drive those packages out to the post office each day) and there is more fraud with USPS shipments, so we have to compensate for that a bit.

In any case, we do not make any significant money at all on shipping.

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It's very refreshing to see a more open, communicative business.

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Amen, I agree. I sent him a private message on his website a week or so ago. He answered it in full detail and even gave me recommendations, etc. Crazy enough, the recommendations were to NOT buy as much as I planned and would save me money.

When's the last time a retail owner had that much communication with his customer base through the internet?

So often you get a canned response, I plan on buying through Tankguys. I'm still debating on pre-order or waiting until I'm at QuakeCon in Dallas on the 3rd of August to check them out and ask the chip and video card reps a few questions before I drop $2000+ on a new system.

Thanks Ben (TankGuys) , you're a class act.

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Originally Posted by JWMc

I've gotta say that so far TankGuys looks like the best online retailer I've ever done business with. I submitted my pre-order for E6600 the day they started accepting them and have gotten 4 automated e-mails and two detailed mailers about the Conroe pre-order situation.

Donnie posted a link to TankGuys on hardforum before they started accepting pre-orders and I jabbed them about it because I couldn't get a place in line for this new CPU. I'm glad I kept up with the thread and placed my pre-order when TankGuys started accepting them because I feel like I am dealing with a very honest service oriented retailer that wants to build up customer loyalty.

I'll post the latest mailer that Ben @ TankGuys sent out if you like. Sorry this sounded like a commercial! I honestly have no affiliation with TankGuys whatsoever. I'm just another guy holding his breath until his C2D arrives at his doorstep and I'm glad I have someone providing me with an oxygen mask in the form of e-mail updates and forum posts! :)

-JWM

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I think I remember that, and I think I was the one who looked and saw that Tankguys was taking orders. Those bashing Tankguys obviously have no experience with them. Tankguys is a quality retailer to deal with, period. I mean, who the hell has a 10.00 resellerratings with more than 10 or even 50 ratings?

Tankguys.com appears to be a very nice place to do my shopping.

I've been skipping newegg because I get charged tax.
Zipzoomfly is taking too long to ship and 2nd day shipping is no longer free.

I really wish I had know about Xtremesystems and Tankguys.com earlier since I'm sure I would have gotten most of I my stuff there instead of the usual places. Oh well, maybe nextr round!:toast:

And about FedEx shipping or UPS, they charge a lot for international shipping, but it is the safest way to ship.

USPS is the cheapest, but not so safe (I've been lucky though)

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Originally Posted by bdrex28

Amen, I agree. I sent him a private message on his website a week or so ago. He answered it in full detail and even gave me recommendations, etc. Crazy enough, the recommendations were to NOT buy as much as I planned and would save me money.

When's the last time a retail owner had that much communication with his customer base through the internet?

So often you get a canned response, I plan on buying through Tankguys. I'm still debating on pre-order or waiting until I'm at QuakeCon in Dallas on the 3rd of August to check them out and ask the chip and video card reps a few questions before I drop $2000+ on a new system.

Thanks Ben (TankGuys) , you're a class act.

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Do you really think you're gonna get anything out of them that isn't widely known by now?

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Zipzoomfly is taking too long to ship and 2nd day shipping is no longer free.

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I used to get ALOT from zipzoomfly , but without that 2nd day it kind of sucks.

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Originally Posted by Freez

Do you really think you're gonna get anything out of them that isn't widely known by now?

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Information direct from a retailer about the status of my order is always welcome, whether I already know the reasons or not. For me, the point is that they care to keep me informed, not that they have super duper top secret intel confidential information.

Think of it as the equivalent of good customer service you might get by going to a brick and mortar store.