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

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Interesting thread. Definitely worrying that they've sunk to such lows. I just wanted to say one thing though. The reason I do no business with Monarch whatsoever and have not done so for probably over a year now is due to a really bad experience my dad had with them a while ago now. Around the time the Venice first came out, he decided it was time to upgrade to Athlon 64 -- especially with all the good hype going around the Venice like how cool it ran and all (in fact, he'd decided he wanted to try playing around a little with overclocking for once.) So he orders I think a board and CPU both at once on Monarch. Several weeks later, he realizes something is up because still nothing has arrived and even allowing for major shipping issues it's obvious that something is wrong. So he tries to get in contact with them. They just give him the runaround and he never finds an exactly straight answer for maybe another week. Finally someone manages to get through them and finds out that they apparently had no stock of Venice chips even though they said they did before and they'd been delaying all this time while waiting for the chips apparently (geez, I guess a little forewarning is asking too much?) So they convince him that they are sending one very soon and he gives up for a bit longer. Well, a week or so later a box FINALLY arrives that says Monarch Computer on it. He opens it up, and lo and behold, a shiny new Newcastle (939 variety.) He just decided to give up the fight right then and there and to this day his CPU runs just barely cool enough with no overclocking. They also gave him this big runaround about the cooling saying that they can't support the use of third party heatsinks and while they would sell them they would not install them, then when it arrives we found the third party heatsink installed (ok, that's probably a good thing since it saved him the trouble, but, quite frankly part of his heat problems might have been related to the low quality heatsink compound poorly applied when they did this since my dad didn't bother to check. Just seems to me if they are going to make such a big deal about it then do it anyway, they could at least do it right the first time.)

Hold on, I have a point believe it or not. What I'm getting to here is that they've had issues like what have been described earlier for quite a while. They seem to have stepped up this particular kind of problem more, but, considering how it existed even that long ago I'm inclined to wonder if there might be a possibility that they aren't really so much worse off then before. Anyway, just throwing it out there. From what I'm reading on here, it seems there's no way they don't have troubles, I'm just wondering if maybe they've had issues for quite a while and this practice is nothing new on their part. Either way, they converted me to a newegg buff after that whole experience. When I order a CPU on Newegg, they send me what I ordered and no later than within a week of the order even allowing for the shipping companies deciding to hold onto things for a few days sometimes to ensure that I get what I paid for (eg the cheap service, lol.) I've built whole systems for people using online bought parts, and I can't afford a little stunt like what Monarch pulled on my dad.

BTW, do chargebacks cause a lot of inconvenience -- maybe even costing the company that you had to do this with a fair bit of money? I was just thinking, what if a bunch of people order some dirt cheap item -- say a fan filter or something -- and then refund it before it fully processes? If they refuse to refund your money within a reasonable time and you have to use chargebacks to get it back, $1 here and there doesn't mean much, but, a bunch of $1s adds up in a hurry -- especially if it's costing them extra. No, I'm not trying to get them overthrown or something, just if nothing else it might get their attention back to reality where it belongs.
 
Tolyngee said:
I ordered it on-line, and was surprised to see my CC's # pop-up on my cell phone... Wonder what they want? It was their fraud dept. wanting to be certain I had indeed placed this order ($1,900 if I rem right) with Monarch. I kinda brushed it off, didn't ask them any questions, and just told them "yes, I did." They just wanted to be certain.
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Just to start off, I've never dealt with Monarch so I'm fairly unbiased, although after reading this thread that has changed a bit.

CC fraud departments flag large purchases, or purchases that would be out of the ordinary for that particular customer. I.E. You live in the US and you start getting multiple charges in Canada, or something of the like. Or maybe you're a guy who all of the sudden racked up $700 at Victoria's Secret...

I got a call from my credit union the first time I charged over 500$ at one time because it wasn't the "norm" for me.

I don't believe (once again I'm not positive) that it had anything to do with Monarch.
 
I never bought anything from them because I thought that thier web site was poorly constructed. I feel that web sites that put alot of detail into thier own web site can usually be trusted or at least trusted once. That and word of mouth is how I base if i'll do buisness. Before people highly regarded monarch. When they did that really dumb aprils fools joke on the H web site I was completey turned off to them all together.
 
Monarch is getting out of the parts business all together, whether or not that means, they will eventually get out the of the business remains to be seen. If things continue the way they have been going, it's only a matter of time.

I also saw over on RR forums that they no longer offered up a system to Maximum PC. Which is kind of odd, considering that is the aspect of the computer industry they would be focusing on.
 
i ordered a barebones system from them over a year ago and a few other orders for parts and things around the same time and had been impressed by how fast they had shipped it out and havent had any issues with the computer so far

but i ordered a mobo combo from them 2 weeks ago and havent heard a word from them.. considering they claim for their combos to have "all inventory in stock" i just dont see why it would take them 2 weeks when they claim to "ship in "3-5 days" and after reading all this and not having gotten any e-mail from them when i asked what the status on it was about mid week last week i'm wondering if i should just try to cancel my order :(

any idea if its too soon to call the credit card company to try to get them to hurry up the process of refunding the money?
 
I saw this starting back in december/jan timeframe around when the Opty 146's got popular monarch had problems with inventory/shipping and refunds for un-fulfillable orders and wildly fluxtuating prices. where things would vary $80+ in one day for no apparent reason.

The 30 days to refund is really a BS move and dangerous. I recently lost $120 bux to an online retailer who insisted it took them 30 days to do a refund...guess what by day 40 their doors were closed and they forwarded their phones to an entirely new company.

Also the person who posted about thezeb.com I've always wondered what happened to them I bought a ton of CDT gear from them years back.
 
ExcaliberPC did the same thing when it went under. Fire sales all around. Some people got theirs, some didn't.
 
The problem with Monarch is that a bunch of idiots work for them lol. My stepdad has gone to their main office here in GA many times and he said that everyone there is extremely clueless. He also said that it's like they got too big too fast and don't know what to do now hence the poor customer service. They will get you the product just don't expect much as far as time and customer service goes lol.
 
elphyne said:
i ordered a barebones system from them over a year ago and a few other orders for parts and things around the same time and had been impressed by how fast they had shipped it out and havent had any issues with the computer so far

but i ordered a mobo combo from them 2 weeks ago and havent heard a word from them.. considering they claim for their combos to have "all inventory in stock" i just dont see why it would take them 2 weeks when they claim to "ship in "3-5 days" and after reading all this and not having gotten any e-mail from them when i asked what the status on it was about mid week last week i'm wondering if i should just try to cancel my order :(

any idea if its too soon to call the credit card company to try to get them to hurry up the process of refunding the money?
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I would call the credit card company, tell them your story and start the charge back process.
 
jesuscakes said:
The problem with Monarch is that a bunch of idiots work for them lol. My stepdad has gone to their main office here in GA many times and he said that everyone there is extremely clueless. He also said that it's like they got too big too fast and don't know what to do now hence the poor customer service. They will get you the product just don't expect much as far as time and customer service goes lol.
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Could be. The thing is, usually when this kind of thing goes so far, the only thing that can save them is an acquisition from a big company that can step in and fix them it seems like. And I'm not sure anyone has shown any kind of interest either.

Unfortunately either way right now the customers are being screwed over. Even if it should somehow be fixed later (which I have my doubts about) that's going to hurt their image for a long time now.
 
i suppose i ll add in my 2 cents:

i made a $20 purchase with monarch recently. The items i ordered were advertised as having free shipping, but when added to your cart online, a shipping charge appeared. i decided to call to advise them of this problem, and they sent me a credit card authorization via email. i completed the purchase order with my cc #, and sent it back.

after about a week and a half, my card had not been charged. I sent an email asking for an update. the next day my card was charged, but i got no response to my inquiry. i sent another email detailing the order of events and how my card was charged after i reminded them that i had placed an order 2 weeks ago, but i still had no shipping info. i then got an automated email a day later stating my order was sent us postal service with no way to track the package.

i got my shipment maybe a week after that. for the record, i had placed an order with newegg a day after my monarch order and had my package in 2 or 3 days. i had planned on ordering an OEM opteron 165 and the swiftech heatsink + some thermal paste when they were on clearance, but there was no way i was making a $200 order after the way my $20 order was handled... i havent looked at monarch's site since then.
 
I just wanted to add that I never like monarchs web layout, but I did greatly appreciate their CS and general way the dealt with a customer. I had a foxconn motherboard that died I bought there and the CSR helped me dig out when I bought it and got me a pdf of the receipt since I lost all records of it. They were very helpful when I was incompetent. That was a while ago though.

Recently I purchased a dual core opteron they said was in stock, Then they said out of stock then they did not want to cancel now I am waiting for a refund. I knew it might be an issue before hand, but I wanted to give them a chance as I used to love them. Ah well.
 
khuyakuya said:
eh a highly regarded company for sure but less highly regarded as of late than it once was. one of my biggest complaints of newegg, which is a recent thing, is the individual item shipping charges. i remember back when they had a total shipping charge. but now they do it individually and im telling you, on a lot of the things they ship, they are NOT paying nearly as much to ups to ship those products as they are charging to ship them. for example i just bought two usb flash drives. together they were incredibly light and took up VERY little space. i paid ten dollars for shipping, five dollars a piece. lets say i had bought six of those drives. i know for sure it wouldve costed much less than ten, probably 8 to ship the drives, when i end up paying 30. its like the egg is charging people who buy the less expensive products to make up for them offering free shipping on the high value products. they really should cease this per product shipping scheme.
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Another thing newegg has done recently is not display warranty information on products they sell. That is so they can try and sell you the extended warranty. It is very frustrating and I think I may quit buying from them as well. The situation is poor all around I think ZZF said they shipped my order 4 days before they actually shipped it for example.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148140

Look at that hard drive what is the warranty? Is it 5 years like seagates often are? Is it 90 days? Is the consumer going to be screwed? Who knows.
 
sxotty said:
I just wanted to add that I never like monarchs web layout, but I did greatly appreciate their CS and general way the dealt with a customer. I had a foxconn motherboard that died I bought there and the CSR helped me dig out when I bought it and got me a pdf of the receipt since I lost all records of it. They were very helpful when I was incompetent. That was a while ago though.

Recently I purchased a dual core opteron they said was in stock, Then they said out of stock then they did not want to cancel now I am waiting for a refund. I knew it might be an issue before hand, but I wanted to give them a chance as I used to love them. Ah well.
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Did you leave the refund up to Monarch's accounting dept or did you go through your credit card company. It would be nice if you could post back your experiences if you are letting Monarch handle the refund. Of course if you are and you originally submitted for a refund a week ago and still haven't heard anything then you may want to make the call to the CC company.

ZZF has screwed up some rather high dollar purchases from me (mostly orders over $5000 (SCA hard drives), and they always tell me that they needed to verify the order details before they ship, but no one ever calls or emails, then the orders sit for days). I used to order with the knowledge that I would need to call the following day to make sure the orders shipped. Now it has changed to avoid them for anything I need in a week, and if I can get the stuff elsewhere for under $50 more, I just do that
 
How disturbing. During the opterown craze, I bought a 146 + Mobo
Shipped 1 week later but didn't bother me much. Cussed them out for dropping the price drop of $40 before shipping (like 3 days after my order) got credit for a Zalman.

6 months later Asrot board blew, wanted RMA. Assrot said talk to seller, Monarch said talk to assrot. Trashed the board bought a used one here for $40 I <3 you guys lol

They sound horrible now...
 
Still waiting on refund.... since Date of cancellation 8/18/2006 lol :D My moneys in limbo somwhere with monarch/amex
 
Jasonx82 said:
Still waiting on refund.... since Date of cancellation 8/18/2006 lol :D My moneys in limbo somwhere with monarch/amex
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I had a dispute with them and had used an AMEX. It's funny, when I talked to Amex about it originally, I asked the guy if I had to talk to anyone from Monarch again (did not want to at all). They said nope, and you will be getting a written copy of everything that we send/receive from them. Saw a few pieces of paperwork about it and then one day the credit shows up on my accout. (9 weeks after the initial request)
 
so called monarch up bout my combo order, they told me the mobo i wanted was out of stock.. said they should be getting more in soon or i could get a different mobo :rolleyes: i asked them to cancel and they asked if i wanted to just have the processor shipped.. i turned it down, they told me i had to send an e-mail to cancel the order, so i hung up, sent the e-mail, and called the credit card company just to make sure someone gets my refund back. called monarch back later and they said that they received the e-mail bout cancelation and that it should have the money refunded in a couple of days. whether the credit card company had already set things in motion to speed up the refund process or not, i dunno.. but we'll see if i manage to get my refund in the next few days or not. if they had at least informed me that items were out of stock and there was a delay i might be more understanding, but hearing nothing from them and not getting any replies to e-mail doesnt make me wanna give them more of a chance :mad:
 
Honestly i feel really bad for monarch.. Even though they become shit they were once good. I hope they get there act together.. :(
 
im getting fuxored. They owe me $500. Ive called and emailed them so many times. Is there any way I can get help without dealing with my CC company?
 
Since you're close with the upper management by your own admission, how about giving them a call? If the upper management can't get it done, then the only alternative is to go to the CC.
 
^^imma give him another call and i will go to the CC company if he cant help out. I find it absolutely rediculous that he has either been

1) unwilling to help me out
2) cant help me out which is impossible because he is the brother of the owner...
3) is avoiding my problem due to much bigger problems his company as a whole is having.
 
What i would do is call your CC co. first. File a dispute. Then call them. Because I F'n guarantee they are not going to do anything for you. Then as a parting note on the phone you could say "well I knew you weren't going to help me out, so I called the CC co before I called you and filed a dispute. Man and I continually gave you guys chance after chance too" Then say thanks and hang up.

You could also end it with "you are going to have a hard time pulling this shit on your bankruptcy lawyer, as they like to get paid with the quick fast." - :D
 
Charging back transactions is REALLY easy. The credit card company is on your side, and the merchant has literally no recourse. It will go extremely smoothly. Just do it.
 
I would like to add, I have never done business with Monarch since I dont live in the states and I feel for all parties involved as its shit to lose money and its shit to have a business go under. I have read this whole thread and the links to some other websites and for the most part things are civil, well in this forum at least :)

But I am appalled at some other website's, their admins and mods who added more fuel to the fire. They should of acted with more constraint and level headedness instead of making the situation in that thread worse, you are after all Admins and Mods who are looked upto and in a position of influence.

If I was the Monarch CSR in that forum I would be glad that I got banned for the simple fact that the admins were makin a total hash of it, well that thread anyway, I dont know about the whole forum as I have never been there, but atleast the Monarch CSR couldnt continue argueing against not just members but also admins and mods which in my personal opinion should never of happened in the first place. Admins and Mods have a duty to keep the forums clear of crap yet they induced alot of it.

I think lesson's can be learned for both Monarch and OCForums as I personally think that however much Monarch is at fault, OCForums Admins/mods were reckless and showboating.

1 particular admin/mod springs to mind.

It should of been dealt with the same way as the mods and admins here have dealt with it. They have not got involved unless it is to delete posts from crappers, thats the way it should of been dealt with...

Also one of them says that a company has 32 customer problems is too much, you name any company that has had under 32 customer problems in said companys entire trading time ? EVERY COMPANY has customer problems and they go way past the 32 number, so its foolish to say that 32 problems is more than enough, as it isnt feasible to keep every customer happy all of the time. Admittedly 32 is more than any company would like but it is very unrealistic to think that every company who trades in the computer business will only have X amount of customer related problems in their lifetime.

Now what I have said above is my own personal opinion, It isnt meant to insult or offend anyone, it is just my observation of the situation and as such I have nothing against both Monarch and OCForums, but I will also say that if it is true that Monarch are indeed using customers cash to float the company whilst knowing their would be zero chance of the customer getting their order or if they are using the cash and knowing it will take a couple of months for the customer to get their items or a refund then that is WRONG and should'nt be happening in any circumstances.

I have faith that Monarch doesnt want problems like this to happen as it can only end up with the loss of the company in the longrun, so I feel that they are trying to do things right but just are not able to do so for whatever reason and internet gossip isnt going to help them any.

I [size=-1]Sincerely hope that Monarch gets out of the hole that it is in just now, as from what I gather from previous posts/threads Monarch was an excellent company at one time.
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Thats my tuppence
 
EVIL-SCOTSMAN said:
Also one of them says that a company has 32 customer problems is too much, you name any company that has had under 32 customer problems in said companys entire trading time ? EVERY COMPANY has customer problems and they go way past the 32 number, so its foolish to say that 32 problems is more than enough, as it isnt feasible to keep every customer happy all of the time. Admittedly 32 is more than any company would like but it is very unrealistic to think that every company who trades in the computer business will only have X amount of customer related problems in their lifetime.
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true, but...

32 problems in a very short period of time is a bad sign.
 
The OCForums admin had quite a few problems that he was trying to resolve for his members. I think he just got sick and tired of the Monarch rep posting one thing (i.e. just PM or email me and I'll take care of things) and doing another (i.e. not doing a damn thing, and just repeating the whole "were making improvements" mantra)

Look if you were running a forum, and you let a rep from a company come in a advertise to your readership, to essentially make money from a highly targeted audience, and you authorized him to be there. Then he turns around and starts to bend your readership over and does nothing even when you step in...sorry, you are WAY too lenient.
 
Their is Monarch reps on these boards and I dont see Kyle or whoever else giving them a hardtime in public.

Regardless, thats my opinion and it isnt meant to flame anyone, its just a observation that I made and what I think, as mentioned by me above, my post wasnt meant to offend anyone and I dont think it has, but I just think that instead of Admins and mods argueing in public with a company rep, It should of been taken to pm and the thread locked, but still open it to post updates on when and if the dude got his cash back. As the actual rep was willing to help people, he even posted that if anyone has problems then for ppl to pm him and he will do his hardest to try and resolve them.

To me that seems fair enough, he doesnt own the company I dont think, so he can only do so much but at least he was willing to try and help people and for that thread to turn into a shitfest with admins and mods I personally think thats despicable.

As I say, thats my personal opinion however wrong it maybe, but it just boils down to the fact that admins of forums should know better than to argue with company reps in public, especially if the rep was invited to that website or the company pays for advertising on such website which I dont know if it does or not, a PM and a locking would of been a lot better IMHO
 
As for the whole 32 customers thing, I'm kind of wondering just how short this period of time was? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Monarch since I think they are up to some very shady practices (and remember, 32 people you see on forums = far more off the forums or on other forums you don't visit) just they do a lot of business in a short period of time, so 32 may actually be a small number if you're talking about too lon of a period of time.

Personally, I think they're about to go out of business, and the only capacity I will miss them at all in is the fact that it's always bad to decrease the amount of competition in a market.

sxotty said:
Another thing newegg has done recently is not display warranty information on products they sell. That is so they can try and sell you the extended warranty. It is very frustrating and I think I may quit buying from them as well.
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Well, they still seem to be the fastest, cheapest, and most reliable of all the places I've bought from over the years. They've also been pretty good about returns and such and I haven't had to dispute any RMA requests so far. I do find it annoying that they've removed waranty information -- I hadn't even noticed they did it until you mentioned that, but it does seem a bit dirty. All I can think of is to follow the manufacturer link when in doubt I suppose. Kind of a pain to have to do that, but you probably don't have to look up the waranty on everything I guess (for example, who checks the waranty on a soundcard?) Overall, I'm still much more satisfied with Newegg than the others though. Lol, they even screwed up and sent me a flash drive I ordered with the cheapest possible shipping options so quickly that it arrived early the next day (yeah, UPS screwed up too since I swear that it's normally their policy to hold an item at a sorting center to make sure you don't get it too quickly if you use the cheapest, lol.)
 
hardwarephreak said:
The OCForums admin had quite a few problems that he was trying to resolve for his members. I think he just got sick and tired of the Monarch rep posting one thing (i.e. just PM or email me and I'll take care of things) and doing another (i.e. not doing a damn thing, and just repeating the whole "were making improvements" mantra)

Look if you were running a forum, and you let a rep from a company come in a advertise to your readership, to essentially make money from a highly targeted audience, and you authorized him to be there. Then he turns around and starts to bend your readership over and does nothing even when you step in...sorry, you are WAY too lenient.
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yeah SSS @ OCF has been trying to help me. (but im a minor, so he cant apparently)
 
EVIL-SCOTSMAN said:
To me that seems fair enough, he doesnt own the company I dont think, so he can only do so much but at least he was willing to try and help people and for that thread to turn into a shitfest with admins and mods I personally think thats despicable.
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Monarch Rep has been banned here as well I believe. The Monarch Rep that posted over in OCForums was in fact the owner of the company...There is talk of him going back and forth with the Rep/GA400 about several customers.

Did you read the reps responses...canned. And they were the same responses given on several forums.

Check this out, can't say I am too shocked by this:

http://www.resellerratings.com/forum/showthread.php?t=75350&page=10
I wish I had found these posts a few months ago.

I went to Monarch to buy a custom computer. I chose the "Breva 2" with a core 2, and SLI, just as they had suggested.

43 days later and multiple phone calls (always on hold 30 min+) I received my new "MCS Breva 2 Custom Dktop w/SLI".
I opened the box and take a look inside, I see 2 7900gtx GPUs but I don't see the SLI bridge, I also don't see the ordered PSU, or Sound Card.
Hmm, they must have forgotten it. So I called back and Matt told me "np, we'll send the parts, just plug in the bridge and it'll work".
So I look up some details about my new system and find out that the Intel 975x MOB doesn't support SLI. I called Matt back and he puts me on hold for 15 min, comes back and says, "Ohh that system doesn't support SLI".
I mention that I selected exactly what they suggested on their website for the "MCS Breva 2 Custom Dktop w/SLI" and that they have a step for checking the compatibility of a system in there process, he says "I donno how that happened".
So I talk to Matt again and ask him if I send it in will he fix it, and he says "our RMA system is down". I call him every day for a week and he continues with the "RMA is down" excuse.
I finally get fed up and tell him to take it back and give me my money back, he says "there's no way I'm getting my money back", and he told me if I sent it to them "they would not receive it".
I tried talking to Nikki because she was one of the people who seemed like she would help me but she is no longer employed by monarch (after I talked to her not 30 days ago).

I contacted my cc company and have a claim of fraud against them pending.

I don't know if their going bankrupt or what but at this time I don't trust them at all.
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Scary to think that resellers may actually get low enough to try to cheat such a system. But I guess it wouldn't be too surprising.

Zoogle said:
So it seems the moral of the story (at least ATM) is that you want to make sure you want to buy it before laying down the dough, lest you want a long refund period. Note, if you're with a nice credit card company, you can ask them to flat-out negate the charge to your card if a refund is taking a long time. Fire up those credit disputes and let your credit card company do the dirty fighting for you.
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The moral is don't trust them period. A lot of people are complaining about never receiving an item at all and having to eventually cancel it just because it won't ship (whether due to not being in stock or just due to idiocy, depending on the product.) Even those that do sometimes take forever to get shipped. Not to mention those cases where they did want an item, waited around for it and realized after a while something was up, so checked only to find out that it was canceled against their will without even informing them. Either way, it may not be a question of being sure you want it ahead of time or something because you may still not get it even if you are sure that you wanted it and you may still have to do a chargeback in the end.
 
jcll2002 said:
^^imma give him another call and i will go to the CC company if he cant help out. I find it absolutely rediculous that he has either been

1) unwilling to help me out
2) cant help me out which is impossible because he is the brother of the owner...
3) is avoiding my problem due to much bigger problems his company as a whole is having.
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Any update on this?
 
EVIL-SCOTSMAN said:
Their is Monarch reps on these boards and I dont see Kyle or whoever else giving them a hardtime in public.
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Exactly. I got the same feeling about OCForums as you after reading through all that stuff.

I didn't order from Monarch myself because their website is junk. I think I may have ordered something way back in the day, can't recall, but like I said, their site is junk. Retailers should take a lesson from sites like NewEgg or Tiger. Real easy to find what you are looking for and to narrow selections down by just about any property.
 
Thanks for the link Lethal, but for those of you too unmotivated to click a link :D I have included it here. I still recommend everyone to go over to Reseller Ratings and check the entire thread over there.

Let me tell you a sad but true story about Monarch...

In February of this year i had a motherboard that died on me. It was an ASUS A8N SLI-Deluxe motherboard. So i call Monarch tech support. I worked for Dell tech support for several years and i am an assistant network administrator now for a large financial firm, so i'm no novice to computers or their problems. So i'm speaking with the tech and i tell him everything that i've done and that since the motherboard starting dying, my video cards and been hitting temperatures as high as 238 degrees. I agreed with the tech that we should replace the motherboard first and see if that rectifies the issue with the temperature on the video cards.

So the tech sets up and on-site visit and mails the part to me. The part arrived in 2 days but i didn't hear from a tech for another 3. By the time i heard from the tech i was tired of waiting and had replaced the motherboard myself. Well, that didn't rectify the issue of the video cards hitting excessive temperatures so i called Monarch back to let them know that both of my video cards (NVIDIA 6800 GTX's) were still overheating. I was speaking with a different tech this time but i told him of everything that had been done previously and he agreed to send me new video cards. He sets up an on-site service and mails the parts to me as well.

So, i receive the new video cards and i open up the box and there are 2 NVIDIA 7400 video cards in the box. I was like "WTF is this crap?!" So i call Monarch and ask them why they sent me these cards instead of identical cards? (The 7400 cards are a major downgrade from the 6800's by the way) The tech tells me that NVIDIA is no longer making the 6000 series cards and that Monarch has none of my cards in stock and had to replace them with "comparable" cards. This is where everything starts to go downhill. I explain to the tech that a 7400 card is not comparable to the 6800 cards and that this needs to be resolved. He tells me that it is a comparable card and refers me to BFI's technical support (the card manufacturer).

I decide to jump through their hopes just so they couldn't say that i didn't listen and follow their tech's instructions in case something goes wrong. So i call BFI tech support and i tell the tech everything that has happened so far and when i tell him what the Monarch tech said about the 7400 being a comparable card he actually starting laughing. No a chuckle, not a haha, i mean a full room shaking belly laugh that by the time he stopped laughing he had me laughing just because he was laughing so hard! So we start comparing video cards. We compared my old 6800 card to the new 7000 series cards and he determines that the 7900 OTC's would be a comparable card. I thanked him for his time, and i also got his name and number before i disconnected the call.

So i try to call Monarch about this video card issue. After 2 days of TRYING to speak with a tech i finally reach one. I explain the issue with him and tells me that the BFI tech should never have told me what he did about the cards not being comparable or that there was an issue with the 7400 series cards and SLI. He says that he'll speak with a manager and call me back within the next day or 2.Meanwhile my computer will only function with 1 video card in it and i'm really getting upset (putting it very nicely) that i can't play WoW and attend raids with my guild. I agree to his calling me back and go on about my day. Well, 4 days later i still had not heard back from the tech OR the supposed manager so i call Monarch AGAIN. This day i called Monarch a total of 7 times, got put on hold 7 times, got disconnected 5 times. I was livid. For the next week i tried getting a hold of a manager in their "tech" department and amazingly enough, EVERY time i called and asked for a manager, i was told that they were either in a meeting or out to lunch!

Finally i get in touch with a manager and i was so mad i was physically shaking from my anger. I explained to him everything that i had been through over the course of 3 weeks and the issue with the video cards. He looks through my call records and sees how many times i've called in and he tells me that i will receive the 2x 7900 OTC video cards by tomorrow morning (this being 4 in the afternoon already). He didn't lie, sure enough i had those cards at 7:30 am. He had also set this up as an on-site call as well and the technician called later on that day to set up an appointment. By this time i had replaced all the components in my system and told him to come on out and pick up all the pieces, good and bad.

So the tech shows up the following day at dinner time. I gave him the 3 boxes of parts, 1 motherboard, 2 NVIDIA 6800 video cards, and 2 7400 NVIDIA video cards. He writes down my system information and fills out his form and asks me to sign it, which i did. Then he left. My wife and son were present and watched as all this took place so we're all thinking that FINALLY my computer is fixed and i won't have anymore problems.....WRONG!

About 2 months later i get a call from a Monarch tech asking me where are the old parts are and i tell him that the tech came out and picked them up and advised him to look up the company and the tech who did the call and hung up. Now, having worked for Dell tech support i know how things are SUPPOSED to work and i also know that the tech has to validate his repair with a signature from the customer in order for the tech AND the tech's company to get paid (at least they do for Dell). Time goes by and i didn't hear from Monarch again so i'm thinking everything is cool. I should have known better.

I got married in June and my wife and i went to the Dominican Republic for our honeymoon. When i arrived home and went to turn my computer on it wouldn't do anything at all. I could see the green light on the motherboard but not even the fans move when i hit the on button. So i call Monarch again , this is on Monday the 17th of July and speak with a technician about the power supply. He tells me that he'll set-up an on-site service and send the power supply to me. So 2 days past and it's now Wednesday the 19th so i call and ask where my power supply is and the tech says that they had to switch companies in the Nashville area because that company (don't know the name of the company) wasn't returning the parts to Monarch and that now they need my credit card information so they can charge me for the parts that were never returned from the past 3 on-sites PLUS charge me for the power supply before they will send it out. I was getting more upset with every passing second the tech was speaking. So i ask the tech how much those 3 on-site parts were going to be and i was told (and later confirmed) $2,109.00! PLUS another like $98.00 for a new power supply. I told him that there was no way in hell that they were going to charge me for those 3 on-site calls and asked to speak with a manager.

I was transfered to a manager named Tracy. She told me about this change in the companies and she apologized for the trouble but she said that she looked in my log and she see where they TRIED to charge those parts to the credit card i used when i purchased the computer (which was no longer active THANKFULLY!) She gave me the same spill as the tech about needing to charge me for those prior on-site parts and i told her no. I told her that the technician had come out and picked up the parts and that my wife and son watched him do it and that i wouldn't pay for their failure to properly enforce their contract with a subcontracted company. I tell her that she may charge my credit card for the power supply and i understood that the charge would be reimbursed once the old part is received and i started to give her my credit card information. After she gets all the information she tells me that they're going to charge those on-site visits to the card as well as the power supply. I told her that if she charged me for those parts i would call the credit card company and stop payment on that AND then contact my attorney for possible legal action. Well, mentioning LEGAL action was the wrong thing to say! She said something to the affect of "Sir, since you have mentioned legal action may be an option against Monarch, i have to refer this matter to the legal department for resolution." Now, remember that this was on Wednesday the 19th.

By Saturday the 22nd i had a letter from a Monarch attorney stating that since i failed to return the 3 on-site parts totaling $2,109.00 and repaired my own computer, instead of letting "a trained and certified Monarch technician" do the repairs, i violated Monarch's Terms and Conditions and my warranty was hereby canceled. BOOM! I had purchased a 3 year ON-SITE parts and labor warranty and it was even 15 months old and now it's canceled!

So, i type up a response to the Monarch attorney letting him know that the parts were given to the contracted Monarch employee at the time of the repairs. I printed out a copy of the terms and agreement (kept a copy for myself) and asked him to point out WHERE in the Terms and Agreement that it states a customer can not repair his own system? Also, if a customer "repairing" their own system violates those Terms and Agreement, why do Monarch technicians as the customer if THEY (the customer) want a technician to come out and do the repairs OR does the customer want to do the repairs themselves? I sent the letter out certified mail and contacted my attorney.

After 2 months of no reply from Monarch, i contacted the Georgia Better Business Bureau and filed a complaint against Monarch. The BBB said to give them 8 weeks to try and resolve the issue. So, at 8 weeks i call the BBB and they said that they had contacted Monarch on several occasions and they never responded to the complaint.

So i fired off another letter to them telling them that they had 10 business days to respond to this letter and correct the canceled warranty or litigation would follow. I got the receipt back in the mail, waited 12 business days just to be sure, then i had my attorney file a complaint against Monarch, which is still pending.

So all of you out there who want to buy from Monarch, the best thing i can tell you
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hardwarephreak said:
Thanks for the link Lethal, but for those of you too unmotivated to click a link :D I have included it here. I still recommend everyone to go over to Reseller Ratings and check the entire thread over there.
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Wow !!! what a soap opera !! Thank the tech gods I have never bought anything from them ever !! I am amazed at the troubles that poor man has been forced to go through.I truly
hope he gets justice and his money back as well as damages.That one story above,has destroyed them forever in my eyes....
 
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