Monarchcomputer using customers money as a float, anyone have recent experince

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yeah it really is starting to piss me off. Honestly, I would never try to start a "conspiracy." I'm just a 16 year old kid who bought some hardware from monarch and ended up getting fucked up the ass, excuse my french, by one of their reps.

As you saw in my post, I loved buying from them. I'm going to call the owner on his cell (yes i have his number) to tell him what has happened because this is absolute crap.
 
Forgot to mention that for some reason I have no posting capabilities over at RR forums. Email has been dispatched...the RR forums seriously needs some mods, can't find anyone over there to help me out :)

I did register over at OC and sent a PM to Silversinksam, as he can go a long ways to clearing this up.
 
jcll2002 said:
I'm going to call the owner on his cell (yes i have his number) to tell him what has happened because this is absolute crap.
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You should call him now...it's 12:04 his time. My bet is he isn't sleeping, he is probably just posting on one of the many forums he is registered at, using one of his many aliases. :eek: :D

O.K. that was wrong, but I could resist. Has anyone EVER heard of this kind of crap happening? Seriously, could someone imagine the CEO of newegg doing this?
 
Monarch had a contest here in the forums a few weeks back about designing a hornet. Best designed for each price class wins a geek goody bag.

Needless to say, I won.

The Monarch rep contacted me and asked me to do him a personal favor.. and I accepted. He asked me to post in a thread and explain how Monarch is turning themselves around and how I've had positive transactions and shit like that.

Did I do it?

Yup.

Did I get shit added to my goody bag?

Yup.

Would I buy from them?

Nope.

Edit: Any company that asks me to lie for them will never get my business. But I'll do it for more goodies!
 
Posted this in another forum on my recent attempt at purchasing a Opte 165:

Just spoke to Monarch, after 30 minutes on hold (strike 1), and the story is that the opte 165 and 170 chips are out of stock, although not listed as such (strike 2) and may be in on 10 November. They should ship shortly thereafter. I sent two emails to Monarch asking about the status of my order and never received a response (Strike 3). You're out Monarch.

I am not in a hurry for this chip, just leisurely starting a second build but this type of service turns people off big time, especially when you have Newegg, Performance PC and Xoxide, among many others, out there competing against you. I cancelled the order and will take a shot with Newegg. They WERE shipping some great stepping and hopefully they still are. The Egg's return policy is better anyways.

Just thought I'd let you all know what the story is, especially the guy that has been waiting since 23 October with no response from Monarch. We'll see how the cancellation goes. I gave Monarch a shot which was a mistake. Great price and shipping but not worth the $15 I saved off the Newegg price.
 
hardwarephreak said:
You should call him now...it's 12:04 his time. My bet is he isn't sleeping, he is probably just posting on one of the many forums he is registered at, using one of his many aliases. :eek: :D

O.K. that was wrong, but I could resist. Has anyone EVER heard of this kind of crap happening? Seriously, could someone imagine the CEO of newegg doing this?
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its not the ceo/exec of monarch who is doing this, its just one of their reps. Though Ive had great experiences with them before, unless they really pull some shit for me, i will never EVER buy from them again. unless ofcourse like i said before they do some great stuff for me.
 
khanable said:
Monarch had a contest here in the forums a few weeks back about designing a hornet. Best designed for each price class wins a geek goody bag.

Needless to say, I won.

The Monarch rep contacted me and asked me to do him a personal favor.. and I accepted. He asked me to post in a thread and explain how Monarch is turning themselves around and how I've had positive transactions and shit like that.

Did I do it?

Yup.

Did I get shit added to my goody bag?

Yup.

Would I buy from them?

Nope.

Edit: Any company that asks me to lie for them will never get my business. But I'll do it for more goodies!
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Wow. Just freaking amazing. Thank you for the post, it is some back story that not many people would see otherwise. I still couldn't help but laugh though when I read your post :D
 
jcll2002 said:
its not the ceo/exec of monarch who is doing this, its just one of their reps.
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How do you know this?

I dont get this though. If I employed a rep like that...they would be fired. And look, I have fired/let go many people before, and it isn't fun. I don't care if it is my best sales guy, you do something unethical, something that tarnishes the image that I, along with their co-workers bust their butts to maintain, and you can say goodbye.

If it is a member of his staff and not he himself, could he find out who it is? Most certainly, and it would be very easy to do.

Regardless of that though, his employees are a direct reflection of his business and it's policies and management. And in turn that is a direct reflection on him as the business chief executive officer. Did you read the entire post over at OC? The parts where the official monarch rep gets involved are painful to read, and someone even posted that almost all the responses he gave were canned. I just can't, at this point, see why I should give anyone affiliated with Monarch the benefit of the doubt.

EDIT. Yeah, what kind of stuff did you get?
 
I have been having some back and forth discussions with Silversinksam over at OC. Took a couple screen caps of what I am seeing as far as the dates go and sent them his way. He sent me a screen cap of what he is seeing. Since he is a mod, and I am just a lowly forum member it must be something on my end (guessing the time zone crap). There was a discrepancy in the time (which Silversinksam has now fixed), but it still had Areyoukiddinme posting 20min after jcll2002.

If you read the thread over at OC, Silversinksam didn't take any crap from monarch so he has my respect :D
 
hardwarephreak said:
Reseller ratings had this notice up not to long ago:
9/27/2006: We have detected and removed 37 fabricated "Very Satisfied" reviews for this store which were submitted between 9/8 and 9/23. The party responsible for submitting those reviews is unknown. This note will disappear after 30 days.

The Monarch Rep has walked out at OCFourms.

.
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Just a few things I will mention, the Monarch Rep left OCForums and then came back when more problems surfaced, I helped one member owed $2196.69 that had a return number provided by Monarch, but for whatever reason, Monarch held his $2196.96 for well over three weeks.
I finally stepped in and hounded Monarch for a week and they finally returned his money, but mind you this member also initiated a credit card chargeback, it's possible Monarch just didn't contest the chargeback when the bank investigated, this is why he possibly got his money when he did.

Monarch seems to have a pension for making some customers initiate charge-backs if they want to ever see their hard earned money again.

When the Monarch Rep came back to OCForum, we banned him and all aliases he had, he sings a nice song and dance, but he was more trouble than he was worth because he didn't answer the tough questions presented to him, instead he side-stepped the questions of how and why some customers that had legitimate issues with money owed to them, some for weeks, some for much longer where just not getting refunded, he made more excuses than anything else, he just didn't want to explain anything, he did however manage to blame ex employees and pass lots of blame, then he started talking about everything but the issues, he even started talking about God. So since he was mostly innefectual we got tired of his song and dances and we just threw him out. We figured, this is how they treat some of their customers, why not treat them in kind.
The Monarch rep claimed he helped 32 Forum members with Monarch related issues, by our count he only helped roughly less than 10. But here's the rub, let's say for a moment the Monarch Rep stated the truth and he did help 32 people, I'LL TELL YOU RIGHT NOW, THIRTY TWO ISSUES IS TO MANY.

I've handled vendor issues for OCForum for many years and NEVER have I seen 32 issues all in a short time from any vendor. So if he did help 32 people, that would mean that Monarch probably has major issues and the scope is larger than any of us realize.

What Monarch should do, is rectify the issues that they have in house to get their reputation back.
Monarch has been sending me e-mails all this week telling me he is deeply saddened by MY lack of decency and other BS. Then he goes on and on babbling about OCForums leadership being the way it is.

These people at Monarch are delusional, I'm helping members with legitimate issues with Monarch and Monarch has the balls to tell me I have no decency.
The fact is, Monarch is seriously going downhill fast, my decency has no correlation to them treating some customers like dirt. If I'm a indecent staff member for trying to help people wronged by Monarch, then so be it, I'm indecent.
Monarch should look at their own decency and just look at Resellerratings.com, LAST TIME I LOOKED, THEIR SIX MONTH RATING WAS 4.76

All one has to do is read the VERY UNSATISFIED evals to see just how decent Monarch has been in the last 6 months.

Silversinksam
OCForum Staff



PS, Another Forum member contacted me that he is owed a refund from Monarch just a day ago, Go figure.....
 
Silversink, thanks for posting here. Your sentiments are echoed by A LOT of people, which is why I started this thread. I have experienced this treatment from monarch personally to the tune of over $5000. It got resolved, but it took over a month. I could go on, but my story mirrors countless others already posted, so it would be somewhat redundant.

Until I saw the thread and what went on over at OC, and what is continuing to go on over at RR, I didn't think to start this thread here at the [H]. When it was mentioned that the [H] had dropped Monarch from their list of advertisers, I have to be honest, I didn't even notice, as I did my best to just ignore them. We don't know what happened (why they got pulled), and maybe we won't ever know, but it just keeps getting worse for them (Monarch). If I had any spare time (I work waaaayyy too much) I would investigate this further, but at this point I just want to get as many peoples personal experiences out in the open. That way people can make as informed a purchasing decision as possible. I mean $2196.69...there are a lot of people that can't afford to have that kind of cash in credit card limbo for over a month. Luckily, my personal experience didn't pinch me, but it did leave a really bad taste in my mouth.
 
hardwarephreak said:
Silversink, thanks for posting here. Your sentiments are echoed by A LOT of people, which is why I started this thread.

Luckily, my personal experience didn't pinch me, but it did leave a really bad taste in my mouth.
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Took the words out of my mouth

@ some other poster-

You're right. I don't KNOW that it is one of the execs, but knowing them all (or most of em) I really don't think they would do that. Why isn't the guy fired? Maybe they don't know about what is going on which i strongly intend to do this Friday (yeah yeah i have school). Frankly, I'm 16 and even I know that something smells funny over here. I haven't directly tasted it for myself, but i can smell it coming.

Thanks SSS, I really appreciate once again your kindness and your effort to set things straight.
 
Wonder if there's other hardware sites still carrying the Monarch
ad banner.
 
And I know, because I used to work there, this isn't speculation. I'm not saying anything bad against them because I'm disgruntled or anything, it's more as a public service.

I would advise against placing an online order, the website saying In Stock doesn't necessarily mean they have the item. I owuldn't even trust a phone call to check stock. The phone staff has been trimmed back, and they're known to be, how shall we say, deceptive.

I'd have no problem buying in store, as you get your item right away.

What went wrong? A number of things I'm sure though most of my ideas are just thoughts tossed around by the lowly employees.

I honestly liked the people I worked with there, but they had serious problems. I don't want to say anything too specific publically about what I did which would identify me (at least until Monarch's doors are closed).
 
Ju-No said:
And I know, because I used to work there, this isn't speculation. I'm not saying anything bad against them because I'm disgruntled or anything, it's more as a public service.

I would advise against placing an online order, the website saying In Stock doesn't necessarily mean they have the item. I owuldn't even trust a phone call to check stock. The phone staff has been trimmed back, and they're known to be, how shall we say, deceptive.

I'd have no problem buying in store, as you get your item right away.

What went wrong? A number of things I'm sure though most of my ideas are just thoughts tossed around by the lowly employees.

I honestly liked the people I worked with there, but they had serious problems. I don't want to say anything too specific publically about what I did which would identify me (at least until Monarch's doors are closed).
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In no way am I trying to discredit what you've just said. For all I know you could be speaking the truth and honestly it wouldn't surprise me in the least. However I find it curious that you just joined today and this is your first and only post.
 
I was a little bored at my new job and decided to do a google search for "Monarch Computer Sucks" and came across this post. I know MCS used to advertise on HardOCP, so I wanted to see what people were saying.

I thought I would drop a line and say from an insider's perspective that the allegations made in the thread were true.

If you have questions as to my validitity, I'll answer them as best I can (without revealing who I am publically). It might seem strange, but if Monarch's owner is a little nuts. A nice guy, but a little crazy. In PM form I don't mind, but I don't want anyone there who made read these forums upset at me. In your professional life it's best not to burn any bridges, as the saying goes.
 
I agree..it's never wise to burn bridges, especially if you are working in the same industry. There is a great deal of information that various people wish they could disclose, but can't at the present time. I have a feeling once things come to a close, more people will come forward. I appreciate your posting...yours along with others such as khanable and silversink are doing a lot in terms of making people aware of problems that they either didn't know about or didn't want to think was possible.

(That was a fun post to type on the good ole sidekick....gotta love thumb typing)
 
Ju-No said:
I was a little bored at my new job and decided to do a google search for "Monarch Computer Sucks" and came across this post. I know MCS used to advertise on HardOCP, so I wanted to see what people were saying.

I thought I would drop a line and say from an insider's perspective that the allegations made in the thread were true.

If you have questions as to my validitity, I'll answer them as best I can (without revealing who I am publically). It might seem strange, but if Monarch's owner is a little nuts. A nice guy, but a little crazy. In PM form I don't mind, but I don't want anyone there who made read these forums upset at me. In your professional life it's best not to burn any bridges, as the saying goes.
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You're standing on a pretty rickety bridge with a can of gas and a lit match
 
30 days to return money to your CC is BS.

i have had B&M stores do it on the spot with the same swip machine they used to take my money with so i am sure these online joints could do it faster... but they rather keep you cash and make some interest off it.
 
3xch4ng3 said:
You're standing on a pretty rickety bridge with a can of gas and a lit match
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I don't know how I'm suppossed to prove I used to work there.


I remember when they changed it to 30 days in the Terms and Conditions so the phone staff would have a little bit more time to brush people off about not getting refunds. The only refunds that really get issued are when people talk to Sterling and raise enough hell.

How desperate are they to hang on to funds? When Core 2 Duo's were put online for pre-order they made the pre-orders non-refundable. Man did that ever piss people off.
 
I ordered a OEM 939 Opteron 165 about 3 weeks ago. I've gotten no status updates or anything. I guess I might as well wait to see if they do eventually ship because it would take about year to get a refund I've heard. I emailed them a couple times with no response. The status of the order page has been just weird. When I ordered it said only one left, then it said "hot item" ships in 5 days, last it said "usually ships in 7 days," now the item page isn't even up. I just hope I get it and but definitely this experience has put me off forever. At the time the only reason I didn't order from newegg was because they were out of stock, I regret this a few days later and even right now they are in stock there.
 
Abyss of Borg said:
I ordered a OEM 939 Opteron 165 about 3 weeks ago. I've gotten no status updates or anything. I guess I might as well wait to see if they do eventually ship because it would take about year to get a refund I've heard. I emailed them a couple times with no response. The status of the order page has been just weird. When I ordered it said only one left, then it said "hot item" ships in 5 days, last it said "usually ships in 7 days," now the item page isn't even up. I just hope I get it and but definitely this experience has put me off forever. At the time the only reason I didn't order from newegg was because they were out of stock, I regret this a few days later and even right now they are in stock there.
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I would seriously doubt ANY place that states they have AMD processors instock (especially AM2). There are such severe allocation issues (mostly due to Dell is what everyone in the channel is assuming). I'm not saying it's impossible, just call first.
 
I had this happen to me in February 05. I had ordered a motherboard with my MasterCard and entered my work address as the ship to, the CC company had the address on file. I get an email from Monarch sayng they can't verify the shipping address and they will be cancelling the order, I ordered from Newegg instead. It took 5 weeks and many, many angry phone calls to finally get my money back from them.
 
Monarch is getting stranger and stranger. Check out RR fourm, the rep over their is getting a little bizarre and they are resorting to acting like they have legal power with stuff. Seems like they are in intimidation and bully mode now but I don't believe Monarch has any legs to stand on now.
 
I used to purchase alot of items from Monarch at the local store and would have to wait 1+hrs to pick up a part. I remember one time ordering a couple of standard parts and watched the WHOLE Mission Impossible 2 movie on dvd that they had playing at the store before the parts came out of the warehouse....Everytime I picked up parts at the local store, it would take at least 30 minutes before the parts came out. I don't buy local anymore.

Now I know this is about online ordering so I decided to buy a keyboard from Monarch since ZipZoom was out of stock on that keyboard. I ordered it on 10/31/2006 and it showed it as in stock at the time. I called three days to check on the order status and it still says in warehouse for processing. I finally called again yesterday and they told me that it was out of stock and they haven't had any luck getting more in stock. They have not notified me once of any changes whatsoever or it being out of stock....

I cancelled my order yesterday 11/09/2006. I could not handle this BS anymore. I am thinking of calling my CC right away just so I can get my money back ASAP....We will see how long this will take.....
 
Well I just got an email back and it says they no longer have 939 CPUs and telling me I'll have to cancel. I sure hope I can get refunded. I'm kinda pissed that it took them 3 weeks to email me and tell me they no longer had them.
 
Abyss of Borg said:
Well I just got an email back and it says they no longer have 939 CPUs and telling me I'll have to cancel. I sure hope I can get refunded. I'm kinda pissed that it took them 3 weeks to email me and tell me they no longer had them.
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My guess is that you won't see your money for another 3-4 weeks. Which would put the total length of time that they have "used" your money at almost two months...if standard projections hold true ;) .
 
yeah thats exactly what this company needs. regular prices, half decent stock, and just a big loan. if monarch starts chargning 1-5% ill betcha they wont lose to many people.

i have delt with monarch once and i loved it.
 
MrWizard6600 said:
yeah thats exactly what this company needs. regular prices, half decent stock, and just a big loan. if monarch starts chargning 1-5% ill betcha they wont lose to many people.

i have delt with monarch once and i loved it.
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Charging that low of a margin (1-5%) probably was a part of the problem...you have to sell A TON of stuff at that margin to pay the bills. On the other hand, some of the other online retailers charge that low, and you have to be competitive to stay in business. I have been told that low prices are often subsidized by the manufacturers in the form of backend advertising dollars. Also some stuff is grey market items (resellers import items that are sold @ a lower cost in asia for example where people aren't expected to pay what the average U.S. customer will)
 
I used to work for a company, Central computers, when they accquired OCZ technologies, I worked with Ryan Peterson, CEO of OCZ, personally. I have seen the same tactics by a failing business. Inability to keep stock and get orders out, Taking forever to issue refunds (as a CSR this pissed me off to no end, because I got the nasty ass calls).

I mean, shit, I know that when the money went in from the previous days orders, I would go get a Cashiers check to give to UPS for a COD totalling 60K, this was every day, razor thin margins.


I have and always have had the utmost respect for Ryan, and am happy that he has been sucessful. I just didn't feel to highly for the other two owners, and left under not so nice terms. I wish I still had my pics or the RMA pile in the floor (20' x 10' x 5' tall) of everything from cheapie cases to $400 CPU's.

Monarch seems to be doing the same thing, and frankly, I doubt they will ever come back from it.
 
And it just keeps getting better and better, check out some of the latest reports on RR.

There have been at least 7 complaints since Veterans Day. :eek:
 
Personnally, seeing them dive that fast mean we would see him RIP shortly. No business can survive while using those kind of tactics since word of mouth is the most powerful advertisement we have on the internet.
 
jcll2002 said:
i feel bad. i really do.
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It's hard to feel bad for a company that had 12 bad reviews since 11/9. And were talking all 'very dissatisfied' reviews, with warnings to "stay away from this company".

I was looking over those reviews, and I had to wonder about all of the steps that Monarch Management has supposedly taken to ensure that this won't continue to happen. But it still does, which means you can draw only two logical conclusions:

1. They have implemented the changes, yet the total mismanagement of the company still results in poor customer service (people are STILL complaining about not being able to get through to anyone on the phone, or get responses to their emails.)

or

2. Monarch management are just a bunch of liars. Which is a pretty blunt statement, but when someone tells you they have done something, yet every shred of evidence says otherwise...

The owner of Monarch is still insisting that nothing is wrong and that everything is fine, all the while people are still getting screwed...

OK I just had a moment of clarity...everyone remember as we were rolling into Baghdad, and the Iraqi Information Minister was having press conferences saying "I triple guarantee you, there are no American soldiers in Baghdad" (actual quote), and then you changed the channel and you could see tanks in the streets of Baghdad :D ...it is almost amazing the similairites between that guy and the owner of Monarch who seems to be in the same amazing level of denial.

"I triple guarantee you, there are no problems here, please place your order with confidence" :rolleyes:
 
nah, i called the owner(his brother at least). he knows that things aren't doing so well.

I only say i feel bad because

1) i've "known" the upper management of the company for a few months and have grown to like them

2) I had good experiences but I too just recently had problems with them with credit. I did RMAs through them. They would always overnight packages and never had me pay shipping. The only thing is it took me 1.5 months to get a credit on one of my RMAs. I have another RMA i just recently shipped out the 28th of october. I sitll havent gotten a credit on that.

Long story short, I am starting to notice a difference in the company.

I asked him if I could get deals on the p5b deluxe, and e6400 but he interestingly said that they cant sell them to me because they are focusing more on just the systems, not on parts. (only a select few components they stopped selling through parts).
 
jcll2002 said:
1) i've "known" the upper management of the company for a few months and have grown to like them
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Well, people can be likeable, and bad at business at the same time. I have let go people I liked personally, yet they just couldn't perform in terms of their job.

I just have to call someone's ethics into question when they mismanage other peoples money. He probably didn't intend for things to get so out of control, but it appears that temptation got the better of them, and they bit off more than they could chew. It's not like they have a monopoly on this kind of thing, it has happened before, and on a much, much larger scale (poor ethics, bad judgement).

Enron, Worldcom just to name a few. People went to jail for what happened there.
 
well I feel very bad about them too, I sell high end computer hardware in mexico (we get the oldest and cheaper stuff via local retailers).

I bougth them for almost two years until they stopped taking international credit cards about 7 months ago. I bougth 8000-9000 in computer parts to them and never ever had any problem, to bad bussines didn´t worked out for them. :(
 
Ordered a 165. 1.5 weeks later, no chip and no response. canceled the order and guess what, no refund yet.
 
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