I have only ordered from Silicon Valley Compucycle (svc.com) a couple times. The last order had several problems with delays, inaccuracies, late notices and a defective unsealed part. After emails and talking with customer service I don’t think they are making an effort to prevent the problem from happening again or compensate the customer to gain their trust, so I will not be ordering from them anymore, nor can I recommend them.

I needed a couple of fans to finish a quiet PC project that I was building for someone before the weekend. I saw that svc.com had the fans in stock, and because they are not that far from me, the order, if shipped that day, should have gotten to me the next day.

So I placed the order Monday morning and I added to the order a VGA heat sink kit that I might use. All items were listed as in stock. I gave them my email and phone number.
I received an email right away for confirmation of the order along with a link to check the status. I checked the order and all items still listed in stock.

The next morning (Tuesday) I received another email that said the order is currently being processed, and that most orders will be shipped within 1-2 days.

Tuesday evening no package and no email notice. I checked the status online and still everything in stock and no problems listed. The confirmation email said 1-2 days, so I guessed it would ship the next day.

Wednesday evening still and no package. Check the order online and still no problems listed. I send an email asking if there is any problem with the order. I start looking online to see if there are any complaints about svc.com shipping. I see a few complaints of orders taking a long time to ship.

Thursday morning I keep checking email for replies but receive none and by 10:45 I have to leave the PC for the day. The status still shows all items in stock and no problems.

Thursday evening still no package. I received an email that said my order was on hold and waiting for my reply because the heat sink kit was back ordered and they wanted to know if I want to have the in stock items shipped, or wait for the backordered item to be in stock. ?? I checked the order status online again and still it said all items in stock. I checked the SVC web site and it also said the heat sinks were in stock. Looks like the site cannot be trusted when it says an item is in stock. And they don’t tell you when they expect the item to be in stock, so how long would I have to wait? A few days? A week? Months?
They did apologize in the email about the lack of notification and said the system should have notified me.
So the item I did not really need is holding up the order and now I won’t get the fans until after the weekend. Most other online venders I have ordered from do not hold the order and ship what they have in stock. If they have a policy that holds the order until you reply when something is not in stock, then they should give you an option when placing the order to ship all in stock items, or wait for backorders.
So I send an email and say, “Please remove unavailable items and ship the order.
I am disappointed that I was not notified about the order being placed on hold.â€

Regarding the fan issue, you may want to tell them that you refuse to pay for shipping as you were sent the wrong item (it was open, therefore not new like you ordered). If that doesn't work you can always dispute it with your credit card company, they usually work well with you to resolve a problem and itty-bitty tech companies tend to cower in the wake of their wrath.

Thanks for the suggestions. When I talked to the customer service supervisor, I did tell him that the fan was not in its normal sealed plastic wrapper, but I got no comment. He then told me how to request an RMA and that when I got the RMA UPS would pick up the fan to be shipped back. At that time I assumed that he was saying that they would pay for the shipping, but I was wrong.
I suppose disputing the charges with my credit card company could be the next step. I would rather have SVC show me that they care about the customers, but that probably is not possible.

Go the credit card route.... one call from MasterCard will resolve the issue. These places rely on credit cards to do their business. MasterCard will remove the charges to you, and charge SVC instead. I've had to go that route several times. Fast, painless.....it works.

Your experience has been somewhat similar but also somewhat different from my experiences with SVC. I've placed perhaps 10 hours with them, and never had a problem. On my most recent order, one of the fans (in a sealed retail bag) had a wire severed from the motor.

I called SVC, and was told they'd issue an RMA and include a prepaid UPS label (after I explained that I didn't want to pay $5 return shipping on a $5 fan). The RMA did take quite awhile to go through and I ended up contacting them twice before getting the RMA, and even then, the return shipping label wasn't included. But after I contacted them again, I got the prepaid return shipping label, so it all worked out in the end, and I got the new fan fairly quickly.

Now, I have RMA'ed with SVC.com once before and didn't experience these problems, so maybe their RMA department is just undergoing some difficulties. But my suggestion to you based on my recent experience would be to just call them up again or reply to the email and gently remind them that you're missing the prepaid shipping label.

SVC.com disappointing ?

Wait till you try endpcnoise.com !!!

This is their reply to me a while back :

"Upon careful review, the security department made the decision to
cancel your order. We are not interested in your business at this
time. Your card was not charged--please find another retailer to get
your products from.

Thank you,
Becca Gregory
Cool Tech PC
DBA Endpcnoise.com"

There's obviously more to the story than just this one email. Where you trying to order a bunch of Thermaltake stuff from them? Why don't you fill in the details a bit.

Yes, I've never seen a online reseller say they didn't want someone's business without prior correspondence (usually indecent).

On a note related to the OP, I made a purchase from SVC and had no problems aside from the 1200rpm SlipStream I bought chirping intermittently. Looks like Scythe is going to take care of me though, as I'm past the 30days for returns to SVC.

Interesting stories.

The svc.com wearhouse is just down the road from where I live, and the several times ive been there they were pleasent to deal with, although one time I had to wait what I thought was a long time for somebody to get off the phone and come bring me my fans.

Never had any issues with the stuff I bought there.

There isn't any. It was just a simple online order placement worth about US$110 followed by an e-mail confirmation of the order and then that e-mail.

I've bought tons of stuff from Performance PCs, Sidewinder, Petra's Tech Shop as well as other online retailers worldwide and I'm sure they can attest to my financial credibility.

Hello elpibe10,

When you tried to order from endpcnoise.com did you list "out of this world" as your shipping address? If so I am not sure which carrier ships to that location.

Is that a joke ? Of course I didn't do that. LOL ...

I believe it was a joke, sort of. But I think there was a serious point there. If you live in a place that SVC does not sell to, then you would get refused a sale. Also, if you have a bad credit history or a history of challenging credit charges, the order might be declined.

I think most of you missed my point.

I have no qualms about my order being rejected but my initial post was actually pointing towards the hostility of the message.

Even if you don't want someone else's business, do you have to sound that harsh ?

I didn't, that's why I asked for the back story. I figured that someone in the retails sales business wouldn't be that nasty without some sort of good reason.

I've already mentioned earlier that it was just an uneventful online order placement followed by an e-mail confirmation of the order from them followed by that nasty e-mail.

I am aware that ENDPCNOISE.COM is a sponsor of SPCR (see that ad on top ?) but don't you think that some sort of neutrality be practiced because I get the feeling that you guys are trying to gun me down.

Chill dude. I didn't say anything bad about you. You replied to my original question, I had no reason to disbelieve you, and as far as I was concerned, the matter was closed. I'm not trying to gun you down, nor do I have an opinion about endpcnoise.com's customer service, as I don't remember ever purchasing anything from them.

For those of you who would like to really feel what is is like to be gunned down by a multitude of irate forum members, go to the Battlefront section of the ArsTechnica site and post something negative about Vista. By contrast SPCR is a great bastion of civil discourse.