A spot of critisism

Right, so I have to just say, my feelings towards Custom PC have changed rather negatively over the last 15 months, and this is why:

At the end of 2009, Custom PC ran a competition for a Dream PC. I'm not sure many of you recall, but the prize draw I think was going to be in the January.

January came and went and I had forgotten that I'd even entered. March had just about gone, and I received an e-mail, congratulating me that I had won the prize. Naturally, I was ecstatic, a little mental but who wouldn't be?

Anyway, the 3 big boxes arrived, with all the various bits and pieces and it was like Christmas again unpacking everything. However, I quickly realised that there were no cables, in any of the boxes, for anything. And it came with Windows Vista, not Windows 7 as promoted. What it did come with was a printed out piece of A4 with a serial key to unlock the free Windows 7 upgrade promotion that expired on February 28.... ummm... but it's now early April already... am I missing something besides the cables?

Apparently, there were "staff changes" at the prize sponsors offices, and the draw only took place some 2 months when it was supposed to.

Custom PC did send me new cables to replace the one ones that were missing, however, no one was prepared to budge on the Windows 7. The powers that be at Custom PC however weren't going to budge on the Windows 7. What shocked me more were the prize sponsors who's attitude was that it wasn't their problem, and this attitude carried on to with a few other problems that i encountered...

3 months later, the one SSD drive's boot sector packed up and became nothing more than a very expensive paper weight after ignored e-mails and phones calls were never returned. 2 months after that, the 1 graphics card also packed up, again, ignored emails and phone calls.

Now, I must just stress, I haven't changed the voltage on anything, so haven't over-clocked anything. I've religiously changed the water out every 6 months, cleaned it, dusted it, the typical geeky OCD behaviour.

After some very careful thinking and a bit of research, I think the value of the prize was very misleading. There was no way, even at the time of publication of the issue, was the prize even worth £3000. The components were average at best, not to forget that there were bits missing. The prize sponsors severely misrepresented themselves and consequently Custom PC.

So, if I had one piece of advice, pick you prize sponsors very carefully, and hold them to account!

Ok, now I feel a bit better

/rant

PS, its also evident in my Folding contribution ending rather abruptly because the machine just couldn't cope

 

Don't mean to criticise but it's spelled criticism.

 

ungrateful dude, very ungrateful.

 

I can see where he's coming from though, if your going to give someone a prize like that then if it does break, then it should be the same as any other product.

 

yet it has took him over a year to post about his problems?

 

Must be hard winning over £200 worth of kit and not having it remain flawless after ~12months

If you dont want it...

 

I posted this back in July, before posting this, I had spent almost 6 months trying to contact the prize sponsor, but their attitude was to blatantly honest, appalling. They've done nothing but try and pass the buck on to everyone else, and everyone else has told me the prize sponsor is responsible even CPC. The issue is not that I dont want it, the issue has been having something that actually works, and it hasnt just been one thing, it has been a multitude of failures.

 

Ungrateful? It has been an oversized doorstop for the last 6 months

 

Just to clarrify, we have been in contact with AlchemyFire several times over the last few years to try and resolve the issues he experienced with his prize. However, because the sponsor of the prize (Target Components) has lost all interest in providing any support there's not a lot we can do beyond putting him in touch with the company.

As a good will gesture, we did however buy AlchemyFire a replacement HDMI cable and power brick for the monitor.

However, Target Components gave away the prize, not Custom PC, and we're unable to provide technical support or a warranty. Therefore, we're closing this thread.