Rumor Has It

Posted before they actually closed their doors by me today:
Guys I prepaid PC Club in Salem for 6 copies of Vista Ultimate Business OEM $839 bucks! I did that a week ago Wednesday . . .they said they did not have the software there but it would arrive last Wednesday . . .come last Wednesday it never did. . .so they called another PC Club to have it sent . . .never arrived . . .read about the stores closing on NVNews today while eating breakfast . . .went straight to PC Club and had them refund the money back to my card . . .now need to check to make sure it went back . . .

The guys said they just got bought out and they are not closing . . .hmmm


I later checked their site after store hours and found they are DOA . . .I hope when they run their mechant account batch my refund goes back to my card . . .
 
SmokeRngs said:
I was also able to get copies of Quake Wars for a couple people through those purchases as at the time they were offering the game for free with a purchase of a Q6600 Retail.
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I think I got my copy of Supreme Commander from Club IT for a CPU purchase.

RussianHAXOR said:
Monarch deserved it though, ClubIt doesnt... they're good, cheap and fast. Nobody has complained about them and their reseller ratings is very good. Unlike the fall of monarch.
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Monarch used to be good, until the last 6-12 months. They had a 9+ Reseller Ratings.

I used to read a web site called FuckedCompany.com back in the heyday of failing dot-coms. Maybe we should do our own... a list of FuckedResellers. :p I've got NexFan.com to start off the list. Anyone else have any internet computer reseller they want to nominate?

kush said:
BTW, I can't be the only one that had NO idea that PC Club and ClubIT were one in the same can I?
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I'm sure there were others, but I'm not one of them.

BTW, did you know that Newegg and ChiefValue were the same? Add Rosewill to it, plus I think they had another one.

Directron and Axiontech is the same (used to not be).

eWiz (now NewBiiz) is Super Talent is MA Labs.

Any others?

khansolo said:
Hmm, I DID receive my rebate from them last week.
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Me too, for the Abit PCI-E wireless card. Haven't had a chance to deposit it yet... cost more in gas money than it's worth, LOL.

pxc said:
Unless it's a check written directly from PC Club/Club IT there should be no problem with it.
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Unfortunately it is a company check.

ssratt said:
Well THIS SUCKS!!
Now I guess it is time to see how long Newegg will last us all, does anyone know what their status BUSINESS wise happens to be??
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Eh, Newegg should be fine, especially with them making a killing off computer cases and PSUs from people who will ONLY buy from them.
 
Can’t say I’m happy for all the employees that are out of a job ( same thing happened to me when Jeff closed 20 stores over night ) but I’m still laughing. Having PC Club be my home, literally, for years and overnight getting kicked to the curb I feel relieved. The daily battle with HQ to fix everything they did wrong and see them repeat the same mistakes time and time again, finally finishing off the company. Very sad the condition of the company when Jackson wasn’t running the day to day business. I wonder if Jeff was still losing money for the past 2 years?

And I just like to say that you can have a successful brick and motor computer store. Yeah it’s hard but the two major issues are inventory and customer service. You can’t sell what you don’t have and you can’t keep good customers without good employees. Shame they never figured this out.

RIP Jackson’s dream.
 
Funny thing . . .I bought a Monarch Hornet Pro configured as a server a few months before Monarch went belly up . . .and that rig took a crap on meh . . .mobo kept killing ram . . .ended up having to scrap the damn thing . . .last time it died was on the night of a suprise Bday party my wife thru for me . . .my friends and I ended up spending all night doing a complete new server build . . .I was up configuring the ghetto emergency server until 5 AM . . .
 
Well this sucks, I worked for PC Club before they closed up shop here. I already heard the rumors then last year, but I always thought they were BS. I was hoping they would open up shop here again and I could get one of my favorite jobs back again.
 
Zap said:
Eh, Newegg should be fine, especially with them making a killing off computer cases and PSUs from people who will ONLY buy from them.
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Yeah, if they can't turn a profit with $1.9 Billion in revenue after this many years in business, something would be seriously wrong. :p
 
Anyone know of other sites that guarantee G0 quads? I know tank guys does, but their price is a bit high.
 
I've worked for PC Club for 2 years. It was by far the best job I've had. Great people, great customers (even though most people in Utah are CHEAP!), great prices. I didn't have a bad experience like some of the other ex-employees had, perhaps because my manager and my co-workers are all guys that I could call really good friends. We're all going to have a PC Club lan party soon to get everyone back together. Our store in Utah was great and most of our regular customers loved just hanging out and talking computers. In my opinion that was the best store in the company. Too bad management screwed their employees over today. I found out about the same time they did (I started working somewhere else a few months ago; same area of my major). At any rate, the company had some great ideas...I hope someday someone will reinvent the good things.

Just FYI, if you have orders pending or have questions about rebates, etc. check out www.pcclub.com or www.clubit.com and call the number they have listed. I hope they don't screw you guys, but with the newest owner (who bought the company just to go bankrupt? something fishy there) who knows.

Anyway, PC Club sad to see you go. Back to ordering online...

Thanks Hard, keep up the good work!
 
Ditto...

jmike314 said:
So....basically, we all got screwed.

2 years ago, the owner/founder (Jackson Lan) passed away after a long battle with cancer. Now it seems his dream passed with him. He had an outlook for PCC that never would have ended in this manner.

His brother took over the company, and shortly thereafter ~15 store were abruptly closed citing reasons of ineffectiveness. Of course many of these stores had yet to be open for 2-3 years. Those stores were in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, etc.

Roughly about a month ago, maybe a little more - the current president, the vice-president, and a couple of regional mgrs were 'separated' from the company. Then came a massive reorganization in which HQ was restructured from the top down. It seemed as if the company was consolidating and preparing an effort to return to the old days of focusing on the 'brick and mortar' business that it was founded on. In the weeks following, cost cutting measures were implemented and more staff rearranged and removed...including the heads of accounting and HR. Still, we were all reassured that this was being done for the good of the company.

Then come the inventory issues. All stores in the company are running short of product and the distribution center has no inventory on hand. We are told this is because new purchase accounts are being established and the lull is only temporary. District managers are plainly telling store manager's as recent as yesterday that inventory problems should be taken care of soon and that we may just have to deal with it for a couple of more weeks. In the mean time, customers continues to ask if we're going out of business - resellers are openly pissed about not being able to get product.

Then there's today. And all of you already know what happened. Senior management disappeared and were unreachable by the company attorney during the 'meeting of doom'. We closed the store, made final deposits, got our stuff, and left.

If you talk to the people who have been with PCC for a while, they'll tell you that the current state of PCC was not always like this and it in no way resembles the founders original dream.
PCC was good to me, and I worked my ass off for them while I was there. We had a good store. We had loyal customers. We had solid employees. And we continually posted a profit.

Loyal employees deserved better and this should have gone down much differently.

May 28th would have been 6 years for me. I'll miss my store, the people I worked with, and those I interacted with daily.
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General Crespin said:
All you people have it good. Up here in Michigan we have NOTHING! (Except for one Fry's over in Detroit? I just saw one the other day, can't remember where I was though.) (And Best Buy/Circuit City don't count!)
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Pfft, you're still far better off than we are in Puerto Rico... :eek:

The first CompUSA opened here about 4.5 years ago, 'till then we had absolutely no major PC/electronics store... It was all boutique stores w/obnoxiously high prices and small inventories (even when it came to entertainment gear, not just PC stuff) and places like Sears; well, and Costco I guess (the one saving grace).

Ironically when CompUSA opened a ton of the smaller PC stores closed within a year or two... They opened a 2nd one, then two/three years later CompUSA itself was closing, heh... It literally closed within a month of a Best Buy and a Circuity City opening up stores here too, though the CompUSA here eventually re-opened...

I've no clue why they re-opened them in Texas, FL, and PR (from what I read on the news)... Probably amongst the best selling locations?

It's pretty amusing how much prices fluctuate here between all three stores compared to the US store prices too... One will have really similar pricing on say cameras, the other one will have really similar pricing on LCDs... Best Buy seems to have the highest prices on everything though, other than CDs/movies. :p

I'm sure all three stores make a killing down here though, compared to many of their other locations. One of the reasons it took so long for Best Buy to get a store down here was building permits, they just couldn't get a large enough locale where they wanted it apparently. Circuit City only opened a small-ish locale in the major metropolitan area of PR branded 'The City', their larger store is elsewhere.

I'd kill for something like a Fry's... I still order most of my stuff from Newegg, even w/the high shipping costs I still get a better price on anything the size/weigh of a mobo or smaller.
 
This is really too bad. I ordered a few things from ClubIT and they were always good experiences. I liked that I could always check prices between them, Newegg and ZZF and usually find what I wanted at a good price. Hope prices don't rise at other stores due to a drop in competition... :(
 
Zap said:
I used to read a web site called FuckedCompany.com back in the heyday of failing dot-coms. Maybe we should do our own... a list of FuckedResellers. :p I've got NexFan.com to start off the list. Anyone else have any internet computer reseller they want to nominate?
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Yep, I nominate Case-Mod.com. No issues at all with them a few years ago. When I bought something a few months ago though, I never got any shipment notice, no tracking number, and no responses to my e-mails. Eventually did get the stuff I paid for though.

Their Reseller Ratings have tanked the past year. Used to be 8+, now it's down to around 4.
 
I shopped at the Vegas PC Club for years off and on, especially when I was living in Death Valley and would make bi-weekly trips into Vegas for shopping. Interesting to note that the CompUSA in Vegas and the PC Club are right next to each other, or because they're both dead in the water now, I guess it's more accurate to say they were. I mean literally, like the buildings were only separated by like 40 feet of pavement with parking in between.

Aside from having some techs with too much attitude (think they know everything at 19 years old), or being out of stock, I never really had issues with the place and I knew I could always find a decent price on something, at least most of the time.

But now that we have a Fry's here in Las Vegas, any "computer" hardware specific retailers are basically dead or dying fast. Circuit City, Best Buy, those kinds of places don't make big revenue streams off their computer sections but do have a great deal of space devoted to them. Fry's, at least here in Vegas, is the source for computer hardware nowadays, and the competition is hurting for it.

Could I ever walk into a Circuit City or Best Buy and walk out with a Q6600 and Gigabyte mobo so I can build my own monster PC? Hell no... and that's why Fry's wins. They fill a niche here that used to be taken care of by Computer City (bought out by CompUSA around what, 1998 or so?), then a lot of the "Mom & Pop" shops that have dried up and disappeared, then CompUSA (now toast, with just the online presence backed by Tiger Direct), and now PC Club not only online but the B&M outlets too.

Damned shame I suppose, I hate to see people put out of work, but what can we do. There's more people than jobs on this planet, and it's just getting worse... sometimes population control doesn't seem like such a bad idea. At least in some respects, there'd be "enough to go around..." I guess. Bleh, I'm going way off-topic now.

I hope the workers of the two now defunct companies look back on their employment with some pride and find something they can move into soon...
 
Will the Philly Area ever get a FRY's .... there is no Computer store here at all
 
Well im sorry for all who lost their jobs. I really started to like Club-IT

I had good dealings with them as well.
 
DarthBeavis said:
Posted before they actually closed their doors by me today:
Guys I prepaid PC Club in Salem for 6 copies of Vista Ultimate Business OEM $839 bucks! I did that a week ago Wednesday . . .they said they did not have the software there but it would arrive last Wednesday . . .come last Wednesday it never did. . .so they called another PC Club to have it sent . . .never arrived . . .read about the stores closing on NVNews today while eating breakfast . . .went straight to PC Club and had them refund the money back to my card . . .now need to check to make sure it went back . . .

The guys said they just got bought out and they are not closing . . .hmmm


I later checked their site after store hours and found they are DOA . . .I hope when they run their mechant account batch my refund goes back to my card . . .
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Same thing happen to me with Monarch... i had ordered a dual core Opteron 185 and a 300GB HDD...right b4 anyone knew Monarch was floating and about to go out of business

well i had to file a dispute with my CC company to get my money back.

Stick with NEW EGG at all times.....STICK WITH NEW EGG FOR ALL ONLINE ORDERS
 
TeleFragger said:
and the local mom and pop shops are 65% markup!!!!!!

so I bought from
newegg
clibit
zipzoomfly.com
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yeah i have no choice here in Philly but to order online... i beleive there is a Microcenter near Villanova College.... but the cost of gas and PA taxes is higher than just ordering it

I stick with NEWEGG... they only screwed me a few times with messed up orders... but they always resolved it
 
POPEGOLD said:
Will the Philly Area ever get a FRY's .... there is no Computer store here at all
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TeleFragger said:
and the local mom and pop shops are 65% markup!!!!!!

so I bought from
newegg
clibit
zipzoomfly.com
Click to expand...

That's weird. I'd think the mom and pop shops would be the way to go up there because D&H is based out of Hershey so that means next-day just-in-time inventory for virtually any PC component they'd want to turn around and sell.
 
Zap said:
I think I got my copy of Supreme Commander from Club IT for a CPU purchase.



Monarch used to be good, until the last 6-12 months. They had a 9+ Reseller Ratings.

I used to read a web site called FuckedCompany.com back in the heyday of failing dot-coms. Maybe we should do our own... a list of FuckedResellers. :p I've got NexFan.com to start off the list. Anyone else have any internet computer reseller they want to nominate?



I'm sure there were others, but I'm not one of them.

BTW, did you know that Newegg and ChiefValue were the same? Add Rosewill to it, plus I think they had another one.

Directron and Axiontech is the same (used to not be).

eWiz (now NewBiiz) is Super Talent is MA Labs.

Any others?



Me too, for the Abit PCI-E wireless card. Haven't had a chance to deposit it yet... cost more in gas money than it's worth, LOL.



Unfortunately it is a company check.



Eh, Newegg should be fine, especially with them making a killing off computer cases and PSUs from people who will ONLY buy from them.
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LOL!! Newegg will be fine because they sell cases and psu's...haha

No, Newegg will be fine because that's not the only thing they sell and not just computer parts.
 
I remember about 17 years ago when I was working on a service contract that involved old Zenith Z-248 PC's and the Alps P2000 printers (government, obviously), we used to get our parts from the local Heath/Zenith store.

I went there on a Monday Morning to pick up some ZCM-1490 monitor parts, and when I got there the entire store staff, including the manager, was standing outside the store. I thought it was a fire-drill until I saw the door. It had been bolted closed with big heavy bars across it.

I asked the manager what was up, he said "I have no friggin' idea". I came in this morning and found it like this.

Heath/Zenith had sent some one in over the sunday and closed the store. Done. Gone. Every employee was escorted by security later to go in and get their personal belongings.

Even the manager, who was given NO advanced notice!
 
Newegg just opened neweggmall.com, so they're either they're desperate or doing very well. I'm going with the latter.
 
GJSNeptune said:
Newegg just opened neweggmall.com, so they're either they're desperate or doing very well. I'm going with the latter.
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I would assume they are doing well as a company generally will not expand a whole lot if they are doing badly. It would make more sense from a business standpoint to consolidate, not expand.

Newegg is doing very well and will continue too.
 
Good job PC Club! Way to go out the Monarch way! Keeping everyone in the dark until that faithful morning of "Hey, we're out of business!"

At least have the guts to tell your employees so they can look for another job.
 
3xch4ng3 said:
Good job PC Club! Way to go out the Monarch way! Keeping everyone in the dark until that faithful morning of "Hey, we're out of business!"

At least have the guts to tell your employees so they can look for another job.
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PC Club never had any honor to it's employees. I worked there for 2 years and it wouldn't surprise me one bit. I would assume that Andrew Lin and his faithful all got their management cash out of the company before it circled the bowl. Jackson Lan was a good man and his company deserved better than what it got. This is exactly what they did to the Arizona stores when they closed them.

From production issues and supply chain problems, always feeling overworked and under appreciated. That was the PC Club way, in my experience.

No tears for the company, but I understand how all the current employees feel.
 
bigdogchris said:
There's something fucking wrong with this country when a company like ClubIT goes out of business. Wis we could find out why.
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It's not "the country's" fault. Stop blaming arbitrary entities for humanity's problems, fuckwit.

3xch4ng3 said:
Good job PC Club! Way to go out the Monarch way! Keeping everyone in the dark until that faithful morning of "Hey, we're out of business!"

At least have the guts to tell your employees so they can look for another job.
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To be honest, like I said earlier, it's quite a feat to keep the occurrence of bankruptcy so quiet until the last moment. PCClub/ClubIT does deserve a round of applause. Panic achieves nothing.
 
M4rk said:
It's not "the country's" fault. Stop blaming arbitrary entities for humanity's problems, fuckwit.


To be honest, like I said earlier, it's quite a feat to keep the occurrence of bankruptcy so quiet until the last moment. PCClub/ClubIT does deserve a round of applause. Panic achieves nothing.
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BS about panic . . .I have over 800 bucks I might loose because of their tight lips . . .
 
TheRevSchultz said:
PC Club never had any honor to it's employees. I worked there for 2 years and it wouldn't surprise me one bit. I would assume that Andrew Lin and his faithful all got their management cash out of the company before it circled the bowl. Jackson Lan was a good man and his company deserved better than what it got. This is exactly what they did to the Arizona stores when they closed them.

From production issues and supply chain problems, always feeling overworked and under appreciated. That was the PC Club way, in my experience.

No tears for the company, but I understand how all the current employees feel.
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I worked there for about a year too. I still had close friends who worked there. I called one of them up yesterday and asked him what happened. He said that they called in a meeting (phone meeting) for all employees about the "future of pcclub". Basicly they said that they are to close the doors at normal closing time and never come back. They spent the day calling all of the customers who had pending orders and tech support orders and told them that if they didn't come in to get their stuff today, they would have to file a claim for it.

Pcclub really had no respect for their employees. That trickeled down to the customer too. It was really just a numbers game, even more so after they sold to the new owner. Any bit of customer service was lost when they fired most of the district managers. It was the salesmen who made it worth the trip there and made up for pcclub's core numbers mentality.

If I didn't have friends who lost jobs, and didn't get a sweet employee discount still, I wouldn't even flinch at the news.
 
My girlfriend and I actually worked at PC Club from 2003 to 2005 in Modesto and Stockton, CA. We kept in touch with some of the managers and employees over the years and when I saw this yesterday while studying for finals (RSS Feed came up) I showed my girlfriend. She called one of the stores we knew people at (not revealing what store for reasons that will be obvious later) and spoke to the assistant manager there - he was still there giving people back machines that were there for tech work.

He gave us some insight into what was really going on. In addition to the restructuring a month ago, there was another restructuring about a week ago. They cut out some regional managers and shifted stores to remaining managers - our old regional manager was given 5 more stores for a total of about 17 stores (A ton for one regional manager, given that there aren't that many stores in Northern California/Nevada). As far as any of them knew, it was just part of a plan to revitalize PC Club. Our Regional Manager had NO idea what was really in the works.

Everyone found out yesterday morning - everyone. Granted, the smart people saw it coming, but no one really knew it was over until yesterday in the morning. Everything was turned over to the bankruptcy lawyer at 8am - literally EVERYTHING. All their inventory is impounded, they were told not to call people who had computers in the tech shop.
Managers were asked to turn over their keys directly to the bankruptcy lawyer and were told to call any employees that weren't working at that time and then leave immediately. The manager we spoke to did all of this but leave. He stuck behind to give people a chance to get their computers from the tech shop. We called around 5pm and he was still there waiting for people.

We spent a few minutes talking and he said that what really started the whole thing was that the Lan family - Jackson Lan's family - just decided they didn't want to put money into the company anymore and let it die. That pretty much sums up how PC Club operated at it's core - after you gave them your money, they stopped caring. The ONLY good people at that company were store employees, everyone else was rotten. I watched a few good people work their way up the chain and slowly become shoddy figures that I lost all respect for. A real shame for all the store employees, but that company had it coming.
 
Flyingcrazy said:
LOL!! Newegg will be fine because they sell cases and psu's...haha

No, Newegg will be fine because that's not the only thing they sell and not just computer parts.
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No, you missed the point, which was that Newegg typically (but not always) charges more than others for cases and PSUs. Look up a case/PSU at Newegg for instance, then look up pricing at Provantage.com (or some other places). I'd say 90% of the time you can beat Newegg's case/PSU pricing (shipping included) at another vendor, and I'm not talking about just cruising Pricewatch either.
 
TheRevSchultz said:
PC Club never had any honor to it's employees. I worked there for 2 years and it wouldn't surprise me one bit. I would assume that Andrew Lin and his faithful all got their management cash out of the company before it circled the bowl. Jackson Lan was a good man and his company deserved better than what it got. This is exactly what they did to the Arizona stores when they closed them.

From production issues and supply chain problems, always feeling overworked and under appreciated. That was the PC Club way, in my experience.

No tears for the company, but I understand how all the current employees feel.
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That sounds exactly like a mom and pop repair shop I worked for in the 1990s. And look where they are now, OUT OF BUSINESS TOO! HAHAHAHA
 
Actually it's not funny because of sales tax. As much as I want Fry's and Newegg stores in Ohio, I don't wanna pay 6.75%!
 
PC Club had quite a few good employees in the company, but unfortunately not all were one in the same.

I personally have worked for PC Club for almost 5 years and I'm sad it had to end this way and I had to lose my job like the many others, yesterday, but like what others posted who have worked for PC Club, it was coming.

Good thing that people left when they could, but for others who stuck around for the love of the customers definitely didn't deserve to have it end this way.

BUT it's life and this type of thing happens all of the time. Do I blame the company? If I did, then I should have done the "smart" thing and left a long time ago too.

I just mark this as a big part of my history. I met a lot of good people, employees and customers, in the last 5 years and I've developed lasting relationships with all of them.

If any of you know who I am (think Industry store and more recently Montclair store), know how much I loved working there and my main focus was helping customers get what they needed and providing valuable customer service, but I guess that just wasn't enough, right?

Then there are those who were just there to be there to collect a paycheck, they didn't care and since there were too many of those "types" of people there, that is pretty much what brought on PC Club's fate, amongst other things.

I personally think we should thank the Accounting lady who is taking care of payroll. From what I heard she was busting her ass off making sure that we all get our last paychecks. Granted, that hasn't come in yet, but from the last email we've received before they shut down the email server, we should be getting it by the end of the week.

I'm not mad or disgruntled, I thank PC Club for giving me the great opportunity to meet so many different people that have proved to be valuable in my life. I am just so very sad, but we must move on.

I wish luck to all of those who lost their job yesterday. Keep your heads up and soon something will come your way.

This will be my two cents on the subject. Thank you for reading this.
 
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