SNT Systems

[theseeker]

I am curious to hear from those who have ordered Aqua Computer products from SNT systems. I would like to know the good, the bad and the ugly. Thanks in advance.

 

[CAD OC'er]

Something has happened to SNT and Dan (the owner) hasn't been returning emails. AFAIK Dan is MIA.... for now anyway. So I you want A-C gear quicker it's best to order from Sharka. Any minute now Top Nurse will pop in and direct you to Wes @ sharka.
after you've paid her prize money....

 

[Top Nurse]

Something has happened to SNT and Dan (the owner) hasn't been returning emails. AFAIK Dan is MIA.... for now anyway. So I you want A-C gear quicker it's best to order from Sharka. Any minute now Top Nurse will pop in and direct you to Wes @ sharka.
after you've paid her prize money....

I already forwarded a PM to Sharka last night. And I think they have already conversed by telephone. This gal is on top of things.

 

[Top Nurse]

I have never ordered anything from SNT. I just recently found out that SNT Systems = Sick n Twisted Systems so I'm not sure what to expect out of company named like that. My experiences were that at first Dan was very personable and seemed quite helpful. I was just about ready to place a $1200 order with him when I found him difficult to get a hold of and found a lot of other people with similar issues. The worst one I heard was from the guy who waited over 6 months to get his order! So I decided to find someone else to order my A-C gear or just forget the whole thing. It seemed to me that if I would have placed that order I would have been told that my stuff was on backorder with A-C and someone else who had "paid" earlier would have gotten their stuff. I felt like I didn't want to be the proverbial low man on the totem pole getting shit all over.

 

[J-Mag]

I dunno, I think both sources are of equal responsiveness.

Bottom line is I want an evo 1800. I have tried to get an ETA out of both sources.

I have emailed sharka about 5 times. On the third one I actually got a responce, but he pointed me towards an evo 240 or 360. Still no word on how much or when I could get an evo 1800.

With SNT, Dan emailed me back after 2 emails. With the status that it is an SPO item and he won't be placing an order till about the end of the month (may). This was about 1.5 weeks ago.

I think it is just difficult to get AC stuff cause the distribution channel here sucks for their equipment.

 

[theseeker]

I dunno, I think both sources are of equal responsiveness.

Bottom line is I want an evo 1800. I have tried to get an ETA out of both sources.

I have emailed sharka about 5 times. On the third one I actually got a responce, but he pointed me towards an evo 240 or 360. Still no word on how much or when I could get an evo 1800.

With SNT, Dan emailed me back after 2 emails. With the status that it is an SPO item and he won't be placing an order till about the end of the month (may). This was about 1.5 weeks ago.

I think it is just difficult to get AC stuff cause the distribution channel here sucks for their equipment.

If you want the EVO 1800 you can get it from the AC Austrian distributor. I talked to them last week they have it in stock, shipping is the only issue.

 

[BellaCroix]

...snip... I have emailed sharka about 5 times. On the third one I actually got a responce, but he pointed me towards an evo 240 or 360. Still no word on how much or when I could get an evo 1800.

With SNT, Dan emailed me back after 2 emails. With the status that it is an SPO item and he won't be placing an order till about the end of the month (may). This was about 1.5 weeks ago.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience with the guys (or girls) from Sharka. I sent them one single e-mail about some special order items I was looking to aquire. I sent the e-mail Saturday night and didn't expect to hear back from them until mid-week the following week (may I set expectations a little low) but they e-mailed back top of the morning the following Monday.

Now, I'll grant you that the reply did not have the "meat and potatos" I was hoping for but it was still a good reply with much usable information.

Even before I heard about problems people were having from SNT I'd decided to order from Sharka (at least what I'm able to order from them, they still don't have the complete AC parts selection).

 

[Vlad335]

I dunno, I think both sources are of equal responsiveness.

Bottom line is I want an evo 1800. I have tried to get an ETA out of both sources.

I have emailed sharka about 5 times. On the third one I actually got a responce, but he pointed me towards an evo 240 or 360. Still no word on how much or when I could get an evo 1800.

With SNT, Dan emailed me back after 2 emails. With the status that it is an SPO item and he won't be placing an order till about the end of the month (may). This was about 1.5 weeks ago.

I think it is just difficult to get AC stuff cause the distribution channel here sucks for their equipment.

I am surprised. I have emailed Sharka on a dozen occaisions and received a response everytime, usually that evening.
You could also try to call Sharka @ (714) 375-0275. Wes is usually there in the afternoons I am told.

 

[Aviddigi]

OMFG this will never go away, why does everyone think its so hard to get a hold of. Posting about SNT, is not going to help. Go to AC berlin GO to AC itself and setup a bank transfer. It has been made out that this stuff takes 3-4weeks to get and you have to do this and wait for customs blah blah blah. Even it-trade has someone online almost all the time that can help you and once you work out shipping you dont save a huge amount buying from any US dealer (period) . I have waisted so much money LOL on AC parts, the best place to get any good thing is from the source. Thank You

Also i have never waited more than 4 days for parts to arrive 5 pounds-30 pounds worth of equip.

 

[CAD OC'er]

I am surprised. I have emailed Sharka on a dozen occaisions and received a response everytime, usually that evening.
You could also try to call Sharka @ (714) 375-0275. Wes is usually there in the afternoons I am told.

hey vlad,
did you ever receive your barbs from SNT?

 

[theseeker]

OMFG this will never go away, why does everyone think its so hard to get a hold of. Posting about SNT, is not going to help. Go to AC berlin GO to AC itself and setup a bank transfer. It has been made out that this stuff takes 3-4weeks to get and you have to do this and wait for customs blah blah blah. Even it-trade has someone online almost all the time that can help you and once you work out shipping you dont save a huge amount buying from any US dealer (period) . I have waisted so much money LOL on AC parts, the best place to get any good thing is from the source. Thank You

Also i have never waited more than 4 days for parts to arrive 5 pounds-30 pounds worth of equip.

Are you referring to the Austrian Distributor?

 

[Vlad335]

hey vlad,
did you ever receive your barbs from SNT?

Yeah. Got em today. Dan answered my emails too. but... He had this shit in stock and i must say everything was flawless with this order.

However, it sucks that some peeps are waiting for major orders that were paid for ahead of time. One guy states a 1200.00 order placed and nothing received! ( I don't know who it is, maybe you?) It sucks as I said because there are paying customers who are in the dark. Why can't he post in his own forum?

Dan!

 

[Top Nurse]

If you send e-mail to sales@sharkcorp.com you should get a timely answer. If you send it to sales@sharkacomputers.com it might take a while to get to them. Now why this is I don't know and I have mentioned it to Wes several times, but it appears that there is no way to get rid of that other e-mail address off their info page. Believe me they have tried...I think the only way it is going to come off is to shut the whole site down.

The problem currently with special non-stock orders with Sharka, like any other small business, is that they only have limited resources. That means they are devoting 100% of their time to get A-C goods up on the website that they have in stock or intend to stock on an on-going basis. Putting up 200 items on a site is no easy feat and if you don't believe me then try it youself. During all this upset they also have a very prosperous business to run as they have about $100,000 in inventory of other watercooling stuff that they need to service and sell. Stuff comes to them on pallets and goes out in small boxes as they usually are shipping 30-50 packages a day.

When all this nonsense came down I made it easy for anyone to buy from Franz at IT-Trade. He even went to the trouble of putting up a link that shows current stock of his warehouse in Austria. He can chat via ICQ and M$ Messenger if you want to gab a while. But the big solution to this mess was to have a distributor in the USA that operated under generally accepted accounting and business practices. Currently that distributor is Sharka Corp and they have put in almost $10,000 USD in inventory. Perhaps it isn't everything you guys want, but there has never been any real inventory here before of this magnitude. I think the current shipment will be here Friday or Monday as it got delayed due to a holiday in Germany (during holidays no commercial vehicles are even allowed on the roads!).

Another shipment will be coming in about 2-3 weeks from now and you will be able to get what you want by special order if it is something they don't want to carry in stock as a standard item. And since I mentioned this same thing 3 weeks ago why didn't you guys call Wes like I suggested and your special items would be getting delivered next week. The people who did do as I suggested are getting their Silver Twinplex's and other stuff delivered next week.

If that is not good enough then I suggest you call Franz at IT-Trade or e-mail him and get what you want right now. If you are buying $500-1,000 it probably makes sense as they charge 4% fees on top of their prices for export orders. Shipping on my $1,200 order was going to run about $120 and their was a separate charge of $90 if I wanted to pay by credit card, which I could have negated by doing a wire transfer through my bank. You can also buy from A-C Berlin, but they charge VAT and you will never get it back from the German government once you pay. There is also Dream PC that I posted about a week or two ago up in Canada.

So today you have a lot of options to get A-C equipment. You just have to decide what you want to do. I love talking to Franz at IT-Trade and chat with him a few times a week, but I place my orders through Sharka because I want a local source of supply and I demand service. No service = no buy IMHO. So there you have it and it's your choice....

BTW, there are no gals at Sharka. There is Wes Toyofuku the owner and he has 2 employees named Richard and John. Contrary to popular belief I have absolutely nothing to do with Sharka other than being a good customer of theirs and I want them to live long and prosper so I can keep getting the stuff I want.

So what does this have to do with SNT? Absolutely zero! I'm just trying to give all of you options just like Aviddigi has suggested.

 

[thewhiteguy]

The only problem that matters is that Aqua Computing stuff is a rip off.

 

[Top Nurse]

Are you referring to the Austrian Distributor?

IT-Trade is the Austrian distributor of A-C components and generally exports all goods outside the EU for Aqua Computer.. A-C Berlin is a retailer of Aqua Computer products that A-C states is not involved with their manufacturing business. However, it appears that there is some collusion between these two companies so who owns what is open to interpretation. Aqua Computer also sells direct through their web shop.

Both SNT and Sharka buy from IT-Trade as wholesale customers.

 

[R1ckCa1n]

The only problem that matters is that Aqua Computing stuff is a rip off.

Don't be bitter you can't afford the best looking watercooling gear available.

 

[theseeker]

Don't be bitter you can't afford the best looking watercooling gear available.

NO SHIT! Kudos for you! Read my qoute!

The best revenge is living well!

If you can afford it, you will buy it. Once you taste the good stuff, nothing
else comes close.

 

[Aviddigi]

Aquacomputing ( wrong name anyway ) is a rip off of who and what? Man gets some facts dont just post the diarrhea thats floating around in your mind.

 

[topcat989]

Just read this thread. Judge for yourself. Read the whole thread before judging, though.....

also this post here should shed some light on the issue....

 

[Aviddigi]

Thats to much to read, if those people are worried about their moneyhttp://www1.ifccfbi.gov/index.asp

 

[R1ckCa1n]

Just read this thread. Judge for yourself. Read the whole thread before judging, though.....

also this post here should shed some light on the issue....

How does that equate to a rip off? What I read was someone trying to justify why orders were not being placed. It's not like it was his first order nor did he know what to expect when ordering from IT-Trade. Plain and simple.

 

[CAD OC'er]

Yeah. Got em today. Dan answered my emails too. but... He had this shit in stock and i must say everything was flawless with this order.

However, it sucks that some peeps are waiting for major orders that were paid for ahead of time. One guy states a 1200.00 order placed and nothing received! ( I don't know who it is, maybe you?) It sucks as I said because there are paying customers who are in the dark. Why can't he post in his own forum?

Dan!

I only ordered what he had in stock according to his site, but he hasn't replied to anything since lastweek Friday, and no I would never spend 1,200 @ snt.

 

[Top Nurse]

Thats to much to read, if those people are worried about their moneyhttp://www1.ifccfbi.gov/index.asp

Hey thanks for the link! I never knew those guys existed.

edit: Just read some stuff on that site. If people had read that info I doubt that anyone would have been willing to give SNT any money to fund his overseas transactions. And especially no one would have been willing to give money via PayPal for orders on the come. I never use PayPal because it IS NOT the same as using a credit card, which is probably the reason SNT doesn't take credit cards. If people had paid by credit card there wouldn't be any of these issues going on at all...they just would have filed a fraud report with their CC company and they would have had their money credited back to their account. There is no way to get money back paid via PayPal unless the vendor wants to make the refund.

 

[Top Nurse]

I only ordered what he had in stock according to his site, but he hasn't replied to anything since lastweek Friday, and no I would never spend 1,200 @ snt.

I have chatted with a few people lately that haven't had any problems with ordering stuff from SNT. BUT they only ordered what he had in stock! The people who are unhappy campers appear to be the people who were enticed into paying upfront for goods or services that were never delivered apparently. Unfortunately that appears to be some major $$.

 

[topcat989]

How does that equate to a rip off? What I read was someone trying to justify why orders were not being placed. It's not like it was his first order nor did he know what to expect when ordering from IT-Trade. Plain and simple.

i think you had someone else's quote in mind with this reply. I don't understand how it relates to my post?

 

[BellaCroix]

Hey thanks for the link! I never knew those guys existed.

edit: Just read some stuff on that site. If people had read that info I doubt that anyone would have been willing to give SNT any money to fund his overseas transactions. And especially no one would have been willing to give money via PayPal for orders on the come. I never use PayPal because it IS NOT the same as using a credit card, which is probably the reason SNT doesn't take credit cards. If people had paid by credit card there wouldn't be any of these issues going on at all...they just would have filed a fraud report with their CC company and they would have had their money credited back to their account. There is no way to get money back paid via PayPal unless the vendor wants to make the refund.

Yeah, maybe that's why he doesn't take credit cards... or it could also be that it seems SNT is a "mom and pop" business trying it's hardest to keep costs down (maybe at the expense of customer service it seems). They're apparently placing limited orders to not stock many parts on a warehouse shelf and move inventory almost as fast as it comes in.

When's the last time you made a payment with a Visa/MC at Sam's Club? They don't take them!

I'm not trying to defend Dan's business practices or the management of his company. I'm not saying there's something VERY wrong with not sending regular updates to people waiting for $1200+ of merchandise (or $12 for that matter). I'm not arguing that it showed poor judgement to not have an automated mail-answering system to say "I'm sorry, SNT systems is currently closed due to overseas business, we will respond to your inquiry immediately upon our return".

What I am saying is that it's entirely possible that Dan does not accept cedit card payments because he does not want to invest the money in an account to accept credit card transactions when he does not need to. Lets say he spent the money on that account (which is a fairly large chunk of change for a small business), the first thing he's going to need to do is raise the prices to his customers to offset that expense. Of course, the minute he does that you'll all bitch that he's jacked the prices, he's ripping you off, you can get it cheaper from Bob's House of PC Parts or something.

Also, if he's going to have that rotating expense he needs to justify it by income. He'll need to do a lot more business all through credit cards to make it worth his while. While a lot of people would love to have AC or Innovatek kit in their PCs most cannot afford it.

Between my brother and I, we sell about $5K of merchandise on eBay every year, I don't accept credit cards and I'm not waiting for your check to clear my bank. If you want to buy from me you're sending me a money order, cashier's check, or PayPal. That doesn't mean I'm trying to defraud you or rip you off... just that I'm not making enough money and don't have enough demand to start accepting credit card payments directly.

 

[Top Nurse]

I agree about the costs associated with having a merchant credit card account. Now I am not privy to SNT's books so I can only tell you what he told me and that is he was placing $10,000 orders to IT-Trade. So if that was the case he would have been doing more than enough money to justify a merchant account. But who knows what they were doing because the only noticeable thing is the symptoms we are seeing that they have been avoiding people they owe money to and can't deliver the goods that are in fact deliverable if you have the money. That is evidenced by the stuff sitting over at LAX right now going through customs that Dan said A-C had no ETA for.

The worst part IMHO was blaming the problems on foreign companies by saying they couldn't deliver when the real problem was SNT didn't have the money to buy what they needed to buy. The same money that they were given up front by trusting customers. Now since I am in a position to know what wholesale prices are I can tell you that they must have done something with a whole bunch of money not to have been able to buy what they needed out of the retail income they were getting.

BTW, I didn't know about automated e-mail responses to customer service requests. When was that going on?

 

[Vlad335]

What I am saying is that it's entirely possible that Dan does not accept cedit card payments because he does not want to invest the money in an account to accept credit card transactions when he does not need to. Lets say he spent the money on that account (which is a fairly large chunk of change for a small business), the first thing he's going to need to do is raise the prices to his customers to offset that expense. Of course, the minute he does that you'll all bitch that he's jacked the prices, he's ripping you off, you can get it cheaper from Bob's House of PC Parts or something.

It amazes me how many people try to rationalize this type of business practice. So Dan is using Paypay to cut down on customer cost? Last I checked, Sharka prices are lower and they do accept credit cards. Case in point...

Aquatube.
http://snt-systems.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=26&products_id=38 $69.50
http://sharkacomputers.com/aqcoaqwaresi.html $64.95

Come on dude... I can go on and on. Every single price for AC gear that Sharka charges is lower than SNT for what Sharka/SNT have on their respective websites.

Also, if he's going to have that rotating expense he needs to justify it by income. He'll need to do a lot more business all through credit cards to make it worth his while. While a lot of people would love to have AC or Innovatek kit in their PCs most cannot afford it.

CAPITAL!!!! I am reminded of the story of Theodore Wiatt or Ted as he is known. This gentleman is currently the CEO of Gateway computers. He started his business with a 10,000 dollar loan from his Grandmother back in 1984. He got the funding for his vision and the rest is history. Dan was in the catbird seat. He should have took a chance and went for it.

Boils down to this.... Dan had the tiger by the tail and he simply couldnt hold on. ( A quote from an esteemed member of this forum)

 

[BellaCroix]

Like I said, I'm not trying to justify what's happened... I'm also not trying to rationalize why it's happened or make excuses for it. I've less vested interest in SNT than Top Nurse does in Sharka (having never purchased form SNT personally although I'm considering a small purchase from them of parts Sharka does not currently offer).

My point was toward the suggestion that there is some sort of fraud being conducted by Dan.

fraud (frôd) A deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain.

While there may be a signifigant argument that SNT may have practiced poor business practices, strategy, planning etc (not pointing any fingers), none of us know what has happened which has led to any complications. Unless someone on this forum is drinking buddies with Dan and was there when he was laughing while buying the entire bar a round that he was spending someone's money intended for a Evo120 or something, we don't know if it's fraud and it's not fair to accuse him of that.

SNT has encountered some problems and it, temporarily, may not be wise to purchase from them until the issues have been resolved. That's all that needs to be said. We don't need to start defaming a business and accusing them of fraud or misrepresentation.

BTW: A Paypal trasaction is just as easy to retract if you contact your credit card company, the process of claiming "fraud" involving a merchant transaction vs a PayPal one is exactly the same. Visa doesn't give two poops if it was PayPal or Bob's House of Discount Parts. Plus, the idea that you cannot file a claim of fraud directly with PayPal is completely incorrect, check the FAQ on the PayPal website and there are several links regarding fraudulent transactions, unauthorized transactions, security, insurance, etc.

 

[Top Nurse]

I just want to make it perfectly clear that I wasn't intending to say that anyone was commiting any criminal act in any way shape or form. It's just that I was referred to a FBI website and when I went there and read some of the stuff on the site I just mentioned various avenues that the FBI suggested if there was a problem with a vendor. They said to avoid paying by PayPal and to use a CC whenever possible so that if needed they would be able to initiate a fraud or severe dissagreement type report on non-delivery of goods.

 

[topcat989]

........My point was toward the suggestion that there is some sort of fraud being conducted by Dan..

I dont believe "deliberate" fraud is an issue at all with SNT/Dan. I do think that poor business practices and decisions could lead to a situation where some people are out of money with no goods to show for it