FrozenCPU Shuts Its Doors

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Dekoth-E- said:
Ok Guys so here is the deal. I went to FrozenCPU this morning
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Dekoth-E.. you are the FREAKING MAN!!!!!!!!!! Thanks for keeping your promise of [H] boots on the ground.. a video was even more than I could have asked for!! Also thank your wife & kid for having to endure your visit there!!
 
Insula Gilliganis said:
Dekoth-E.. you are the FREAKING MAN!!!!!!!!!! Thanks for keeping your promise of [H] boots on the ground.. a video was even more than I could have asked for!! Also thank your wife & kid for having to endure your visit there!!
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Thanks hah, I decided to video it so there could be no question of did I actually show up or did I try to cherry pick photos. I actually planned to go myself but the wife wanted to come. So I made it easy on myself and had her do the filming while I poked around.
 
You should have your wife get out in front of the building in a bikini so we have some proof of authenticity
 
I remember buying, I think one of my old PAL8045's from them. Or maybe a fan or two. Swung by to pick it up too. Always thought it was pretty cool to have a national shop right in my back yard.

Unfortunately in Rochester and against the likes of bigger etailers these days, I'm not surprised this happened.
 
Orthello said:
Jeez its censorville over at ocn .. 2 threads possibly deleted re FCPU , atleast the main thread, they just locked another . Mods are out of control - or running scared of something.
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Thats why I finally said fuck it and left that cesspool
 
Guarana [BAWLS];1041422260 said:
I used to work a FCPU. Way back in the day.

Honestly that office looks like Mark would usually keep it, a fucking disaster.

As for addiction? Entirely likely. Not telling those stories in public.

Mark going off on a rampage and firing everyone? I wouldn't put that past him either.

He was a shitty boss when I worked there. Somehow I doubt he's changed dramatically since I left.
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well.....great... just great.....
 
felt said:
Holy shit now we're talking about photoshopping snow!?
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That's what you call a snow job. :D
I guess you could say that their assets were frozen. :p

In all seriousness, this is really sad, though.
Hopefully they get it together soon.
 
Those pictures are crazy. Did he have a party with some rager "friends", and let them all party at the business and just trash it all in a coke binge? Sad. :(
 
Legal troubles over fines, taxes, or employee harassment, etc forcing him to lock everything down? Or is this merely a complete revamp of his business moving to bigger and better pastures? I guess we will find out soon...
 
DejaWiz said:
Legal troubles over fines, taxes, or employee harassment, etc forcing him to lock everything down? Or is this merely a complete revamp of his business moving to bigger and better pastures? I guess we will find out soon...
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If you see the pictures of computers trashed, beer bottles, general trash everywhere...no way in hell it is the latter.
 
The guy needs to focus on getting sober and cleaning up his life, and not even worry about running a business right now.
 
wrigleyvillain said:
…once all pending orders ship, of course.
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Yeah - I got tired of waiting and went to amazon to buy the parts I'm waiting on from my FCPU order (amazon surprisingly had the exact same parts I bought from FCPU, for almost $10 less as well).

Amazon's selection is actually starting to get much better.
 
Insula Gilliganis said:
Would be nice if Kyle would give out a little more info on his contact with Mark Friga especially since no one else seems to be able to contact the guy. Why has Mark decided to relay that FrozenCPU is still in business through Kyle instead of posting this on his website, FB and Twitter pages? Is what Kyle posted a quote from Mark or just Kyle's summation of what Mark told him.
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I reached out to Mark Friga through the same email address that I have used to contact him for years. He wrote me back on that email account.

No, I did not quote the entire email, but here you go, all to the point.

On Feb 10, 2015, at 3:52 PM, Kyle Bennett <[email protected]> wrote:

Subject: Closing

Is this true? Can you give me an official statement to share with the world true or not?

http://www.overclock.net/t/1540656/insider-frozencpu-shuts-its-doors

____________________
Kyle Bennett
Editor-in-Chief
HardOCP.com
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Mark's reply:

Absolutely not

We had an employee walkout and we are re staffing as we are running a skeleton crew.

Please bare with us while we ramp back up to 100% employee capacity

Sent from my iPhone
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People in the community are saying that FrozenCPU is out of business, so I asked the owner about it and reported it.
 
Mark is full of crap. That vid posted by Dekoth-E- plus all the other issues says otherwise.

Mark needs to come clean. One thing for sure is that FCPU wont get another penny from me.
 
Wizard220 said:
Mark is full of crap. That vid posted by Dekoth-E- plus all the other issues says otherwise.
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It's possible that the employees vandalized the place on their way out the door, and Mark decided to close up shop while he cleans up and hires new employees. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt until information surfaces that shows otherwise. Personally, I love FrozenCPU's site. Their layout is fantastic, and they've always been helpful and quick to ship. I'm hoping that this whole thing blows over or gets fixed. Whatever happens, I hope FrozenCPU survives.

That being said, employee walkouts are rare. Very rare. You have to be a very, VERY bad manager/owner for all of your employees to simultaneously quit.
 
TeeJayHoward said:
It's possible that the employees vandalized the place on their way out the door, and Mark decided to close up shop while he cleans up and hires new employees. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt until information surfaces that shows otherwise. Personally, I love FrozenCPU's site. Their layout is fantastic, and they've always been helpful and quick to ship. I'm hoping that this whole thing blows over or gets fixed. Whatever happens, I hope FrozenCPU survives.

That being said, employee walkouts are rare. Very rare. You have to be a very, VERY bad manager/owner for all of your employees to simultaneously quit.
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Then Mark should make a official statement on the website and stop accepting orders and taking peoples money.

And no I do not believe for one minute that the employee(s) did all that damage/mess. Possible yes but more than likely no.
 
Wizard220 said:
And no I do not believe for one minute that the employee(s) did all that damage/mess. Possible yes but more than likely no.
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I don't see why not. How is one version of the story any more convincing that the other - especially considering all we know is a bunch of random hearsay posted by an anonymous person with an obvious axe to grind.

In fact, I find it much more plausible that some problem employees walked out and did some damage on their way out the door, than I do that a successful business owner who has kept his business running for 14+ years suddenly flipped his lid and flushed his livelihood down the toilet.

Hell, I'm a manager in the car business, and I once caught half a dozen of our employees smoking a bong on company property during business hours. I fired them on the spot, of course, and they proceed to key a dozen new cars and smash two windows on their way out the door.

Don't get me wrong - I'm one of the people still waiting on a "rush order" I made two days ago that hasn't moved, so I know something is "up"....but I think the propensity of everyone to pile on and assume the worst of somebody is damaging this guy/business more than he probably deserves.

Sure, I think he could be handling the PR end of this better - but I've spent over $3k with him over the years, and this is the first time he's let me down. I'm willing to give him some time to set things right.
 
Because there would have likely been a police report, officer response, etc, if a bunch of employees were rioting.
 
And just for shits and giggles I even tried the fax number ( 585.218.0125 ) and same response. Incorrect code or number aka disconnected.

And TwistedAegis is correct. If employees where trashing the place then the popo would have been called and I am seeing nothing in that regard, no word or anything.
 
Sounds like someone better stop taking new orders and issue some refunds or there will be a police report filed.
 
Wonder how and what his merchant account provider is doing/thinking right now. I can only imagine the charge backs that's happening now.
 
Having previous worked for a company with an owner/boss that was a serious drug/alchohol as well suspected sex addict and underage girl pimp, these have the utmost classic signs of catostrophic manager meltdown with employee's jumping ship
 
mnpctech said:
2014 was record sales year for Mnpctech. We survive by creating our own products that appeal to PC hardware trends, instead of solely focusing on retail other manufacturer products. I also give back to the community with DIY guides and video logs whenever time allows me..
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I don't know about anyone else but your builds have inspired me to think outside the box. I think the pc you built for frozencpu was epic, and your video on hardline bending gave me the courage to give bending a try, plus the fact that you share were to get parts cheaper shows you have integrity. Please keep up the good, it's appreciated.


Menace:cool:
 
Arct1c0n said:
Having previous worked for a company with an owner/boss that was a serious drug/alchohol as well suspected sex addict and underage girl pimp, these have the utmost classic signs of catostrophic manager meltdown with employee's jumping ship
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I'm not even going to ask where you worked... But I'm glad you're out of there! :eek:
 
jbltecnicspro said:
I'm not even going to ask where you worked... But I'm glad you're out of there! :eek:
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My former IT was a vendor also for drink dispensing systems that tracked alcohol sales and POS systems in bars and restaurants. When the owner will go onsite, he would steal hundreds of dollars worth of high end booze and the throw huge parties at his house with the drinks and drugs to get young college girls wasted and then.... Well, guess. And he was in his late 60s during all this.

One night he broke into the shop after we had the police ban him from returning to property, he ripped out all the drives in our and customers servers, trashed his office, pissed on some computers and then took a spray can and spray painted "666" "Satan was here" and "Fuck all you assholes" all over the place. He was also had been lying to customers about orders and contracts for months and didn't answer his phone for weeks at a time or return phone calls.

Mark seems to be in the same court from my experience so I am not real confident Frozen is gonna recover from this as my place didn't after I left.

I was so glad when I managed to find a new job and leave before that ship went down
 
Wizard220 said:
Mark is full of crap. That vid posted by Dekoth-E- plus all the other issues says otherwise.

Mark needs to come clean. One thing for sure is that FCPU wont get another penny from me.
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Mark is and has always been a liar. I've got an email conversation from him from about 5 years ago that would shed a lot of light into his character when he backed out of a promised discount after he conned me into to changing a re-seller rating.

None of this comes as a surprise, I hope those that have outstanding orders end up getting their money back.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
Honestly I'm disappointed, I was hoping what Mark told Kyle was true. I'm also struggling for work right now so I was going to offer to help if the "skeleton crew" claim was true. Unfortunately as shown when i got there it was empty. Even with a skeleton crew I would of expected a half dozen people to be there setting up to ship packages.
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have you ever tried to get a crew of skeletons to do work? just are lazy and just lay around in a pile.


I tried to dig up a crew from a local grave yard, that was a waste of time as none of the bone heads helped me with my project.
 
Exavior said:
have you ever tried to get a crew of skeletons to do work? just are lazy and just lay around in a pile.


I tried to dig up a crew from a local grave yard, that was a waste of time as none of the bone heads helped me with my project.
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Conjuration is a valid form of magic
 
WebFusion2 said:
I don't see why not. How is one version of the story any more convincing that the other - especially considering all we know is a bunch of random hearsay posted by an anonymous person with an obvious axe to grind.

In fact, I find it much more plausible that some problem employees walked out and did some damage on their way out the door, than I do that a successful business owner who has kept his business running for 14+ years suddenly flipped his lid and flushed his livelihood down the toilet.

Hell, I'm a manager in the car business, and I once caught half a dozen of our employees smoking a bong on company property during business hours. I fired them on the spot, of course, and they proceed to key a dozen new cars and smash two windows on their way out the door.

Don't get me wrong - I'm one of the people still waiting on a "rush order" I made two days ago that hasn't moved, so I know something is "up"....but I think the propensity of everyone to pile on and assume the worst of somebody is damaging this guy/business more than he probably deserves.

Sure, I think he could be handling the PR end of this better - but I've spent over $3k with him over the years, and this is the first time he's let me down. I'm willing to give him some time to set things right.
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Oh, I don't believe mark any farther than I can throw his ass.

Yes, FCPU bent over backwards to make customers happy, always has. That much was true.

To anyone who wasn't a customer, Mark was an abusive, arrogant asshole who was miserable to work for, with, and around.

Kyle even had issues with Mark in the past, and Mark spent plenty of time bitching about him for it.
 
Arct1c0n said:
Having previous worked for a company with an owner/boss that was a serious drug/alchohol as well suspected sex addict and underage girl pimp, these have the utmost classic signs of catostrophic manager meltdown with employee's jumping ship
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While I can't say this is what happened.

80% of that happening at FCPU would not surprise me.
 
I think the real tragedy pf this whole situation is how quickly people who had no REAL idea what was going on piled on to all the negativity and drama.

Does it look like Frozen CPU is in fact going out of business? Sure - at this point it does (at least my order hasn't moved in a week), but I wish people would think sometimes stop and think about the difference between actual "facts" and what are actually unsubstantiated "rumors".

We've been shown a bunch of pictures of damage in the building with explanations of what they represent from people who claim to know what happened - but how can anyone be sure. What if I made a new account on those forums and offerred up and equally plausible scenario, claiming it to be real (such as a fight broke out, or the exiting staff did it and sabotaged the system(s), locking Mark out, or any other number of stories that could be concocted)?

My point being that anyone can put a spin on certain things these days, and as long as they come with just the right mount of dirty laundry added, people dive right in.

Will we ever know how much more damage has been caused by people screaming from the roof "files a chargeback! call the neighboring businesses!, dispute your order with paypal!" from day one may have caused more of the damage? What if the business only needed a day or so to "re-organize" and get back on their feet, but all the people piling on and throwing shit their way under the guise of "protecting the customers" caused even more damage and pushed them over the brink?

The thing is - not a single customer's money is/was in jeopardy. I don't know of a single credit card in existence that doesn't offer fraud protection any more, and you have AT LEAST 45 days to file a dispute with a credit card company. Hell, PayPal now gives you 180 DAYS of "purchase protection", so you can get your $$$ back from them up to 6 months after the fact.

Should people have been warned they might want to wait to order to see how it all plays out before placing an order? Of course - but all the other "advice" that was given before even a couple of days had passed probably did an enormous amount of damage.

Now, this might seem as if I'm defending the owner, but I'm not. When whatever problem occurred this week went down, the responsible thing would have been to post a notice on his site, and immediately suspend future orders until it was sorted. How he has gone about this is unprofessional and wrong. Frankly, it leads me to believe he's been incapacitated in some way, and he has no one else to handle the business for him in the interim.

Having said that - I always prefer to make up my own mind about these things based on my own experience, which up until this week had been 9 full years of (at least) semi-annual orders totaling over $3k, all of which (again, until this last order) had arrived in a timely fashion without a single issue.

As a customer in a niche hobby, that's all I really care about - and while others were following and encouraging the "feeding frenzy" with an almost gleeful tone of "I told you so", all I could think about is that we're about to lose yet another among the HANDFUL of good retailers that served that hobby - and (IMHO) the best one at that - which is another blow to an already vastly shrunken marketplace for the niche manufacturers (EK, Bitspower, swifttech, etc.).

Does he deserve all of this? Maybe so....but I wish there had been as many people hoping for the best as there has been (seemingly) rooting for the worst (and I'm actually referring to some of those other forums, the worst of which was linked in here somewhere).

A little sappy on my part, I suppose....but even those people who've had a bad experience with this company in the past are short-sighted in hoping for their demise.

LESS competition is never a good thing. I wonder what's going to happen once there is only one place to get all the parts we need for a build. It's one thing for a business owner to say "no, we're not going to raise prices"...but once there's no one left to compete with, who's going to stop them?
 
WebFusion2 said:
The thing is - not a single customer's money is/was in jeopardy. I don't know of a single credit card in existence that doesn't offer fraud protection any more, and you have AT LEAST 45 days to file a dispute with a credit card company. Hell, PayPal now gives you 180 DAYS of "purchase protection", so you can get your $$$ back from them up to 6 months after the fact.
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Have you ever heard of these things, called bank transfer or debit cards, which offer none of the features you just described ? Sure, if you paid via credit card or paypal, you are fine (probably). Otherwise, whoops.
 
I placed a rush order on Feb. 10th, credit card charged and order moved to "packing stage" within 2 hours. Never got a shipping notice later in the day like I used to expect from them. Was wondering what was going on and I must say I am very disappointed. Thankfully, my order wasn't very big, only $60, but I'd really like to get the stuff for my new build. I hope they bounce back and my order ships, I will give them some more time.
 
faugusztin said:
Have you ever heard of these things, called bank transfer or debit cards, which offer none of the features you just described ? Sure, if you paid via credit card or paypal, you are fine (probably). Otherwise, whoops.
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Honestly, in this day and age if you shop online using a payment method that doesn't carry any kind of fraud protection with it, and you get burned, then that's on you.

Most reputable banks ever offer debit cards with fraud protection (in the US, all visa debit cards provide that ). If someone's bank doesn't offer it, they need to change banks.

As for buying online with a bank transfer....frankly, that's seems like financial Russian Roulette to me.
 
WebFusion2 said:
Honestly, in this day and age if you shop online using a payment method that doesn't carry any kind of fraud protection with it, and you get burned, then that's on you.

Most reputable banks ever offer debit cards with fraud protection (in the US, all visa debit cards provide that ). If someone's bank doesn't offer it, they need to change banks.

As for buying online with a bank transfer....frankly, that's seems like financial Russian Roulette to me.
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Couldn't agree with you more.
 
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