[Moorghyn]

I am sure that many of you, at one time or another, have had the same difficulty I have had finding a decent place to buy Macintosh compatible products. A place with good service, reasonable shipping prices, some variety, and prices at least close to what our Wintel bretheren pay for their peripherals and accessories. In my search I found the company Macs4all.com (an authorized XLR8 dealer, so I figured they're probably all right). Their website has no information about the company what-so-ever: no return policy info, no shipping info, no history, no "who we are", just a decent list and description of products and an 800 number. A bit sketchy on the surface, so I decided to call them. They were extremely friendly, sociable, and semi-professional. Against the better judgement that I did not possess at the time, I decided to place an order. What ensued was pretty miserable, and I am still trying to get my money back from them.

In brief, here is what occurred:

I ordered two items from macs4all.com and only received one. No big deal, mistakes happen. However, it was absolutely impossible to discover the status of the second item.

They told me that the only communication they had with their "warehouse" was through email, except in emergencies. The Customer Serive rep, named Mike, refused to call them, saying he would rather let them focus on their work. I suggested it might be more efficient for him and them if they simply gave me a tracking number, since then I would stop calling and emailing. His response, which I heard a dozen times was, "Is there anything else I can help you with today?" As if he had helped me at all up to that point.

Keep in mind that all I was asking for was a tracking number for the second item. I didn't care if it wasn't going to arrive for another week, I just wanted to know what was going on with the order. They could not even confirm that the item had been shipped or processed.

The real clincher to this story is that both Mike, and another guy (who was really nice most of the time, so I won't mention his name), actually suggested that "sometimes FedEx leaves the packages and strangers just walk away with them." "Do you live in a bad neighborhood?" They asked. Worse than all this, they told me that if that was the case neither FedEx nor Macs4all.com would be responsible, and I would be out my $200.

I am still dealing with this mess, but the bottom line is, do not order from this company. There are plenty of other Internet Macintosh product dealers that offer better prices and service that doesn't border on criminal. I am not affiliated with any other company in any way, I am simply hoping to help fellow Mac Users avoid the mistakes I made.

Peace.

[flatcatch]

This story sounds familiar to a problem I had with Buy.com - who also seem unable to communicate with their shipping warehouses. My story and how I resolved it:

I placed an order for an "in stock" item and paid for 2nd day delivery... 5 days later it had not shipped while all the while saying "in stock" - it then changed to backordered on day 6. Since I needed it right away I did the "cancel" thing on their web site. Three days later it was still "processing the cancel request". I emailed and called to cancel and was told shipping was handled through some third party warehouse who they had no way to contact. I finally asked the phone rep up front "Is there any way I can cancel this item?" and got a "No" answer. They wanted me so sit and wait for the item to arrive some unknown day in the future.

Anyway, their "inability" to contact the warehouse magically was worked around within 12 hours of me sending an email explaining how they made it impossible to cancel an backordered item and said I would refuse shipment should it ever arrive and would immediately contest any credit card charges should they bill me.

Good luck.