Andrew + Japan = Awesome

My laptop has been playing up for the last few months, I reformatted it before I left Sanda, but that hasn’t helped. It is nearing the end of it’s life as a useful piece of equipment. Two weeks ago I tallied up the money I had, and decided I could afford one despite still being owed money from Nova, so I took the plunge and ordered a new computer.

I’ve always said that my next computer wouldn’t be a laptop. I’m sick of all the crap that comes along with owning one. They get slow and decrepit a lot faster than a desktop, and aside from a RAM upgrade, can’t be given a boost in their final days to prolong their life. Add to that the fact that my computer stays on a single desk and doesn’t move, and a desktop was the obvious choice.

I shopped around for a while, and found a place in Tokyo that would send me a PC with no Operating System and an English keyboard (That was the important part). So I went ahead and ordered from them, all up it came to just under $1000 NZD including a 19 inch widescreen monitor. The computer arrived last Monday.

Monday night I set it all up, turned it on, and the screen started flickering. I thought it might have been a driver issue, so I persevered with a screen that kept freezing and installed windows and updated all the drivers. Unfortunately the screen was still misbehaving, so I took it to Jason’s and tried it with his computer. The same problem occurred.

The next day I emailed the company and asked them how to get a new monitor. They told me to send it back, so I did, and I made sure to tick the "Pay for postage on delivery" box. Perhaps that is why since then the company has been the biggest pack of lying, stalling, sleazy operators I’ve ever dealt with.

I sent the monitor back using Yamato transport, they said they delivered it on the 1st, yet when I called the company on the 2nd, they tried to tell me that they hadn’t received it yet. By this point it was the weekend, and english support is closed after the weekend. So I got one of my boss’s to call the company over the weekend and find out where my monitor was. Turns out they did receive it, but didn’t feel like telling me.

I waited a reasonable amount of time, and still hadn’t heard anything this morning. It’s a pretty straight forward problem, the new monitor I paid for didn’t work, they just have to send me a new one. So this morning I sent them a nasty email basically saying that their service sucks, and that if I didn’t have a tracking number by Wednesday, I’ll go to the shop down the road and buy a new monitor, at which point I’ll want a refund for theirs.

Lo and behold, when I got home tonight there was an email waiting for me. Full of excuses of course. Turns out the monitor I ordered is now out of stock, but they are expecting new stock to arrive tonight. So they’ll send me one tomorrow, and it should arrive on Thursday. That’s all a little convenient, and some communication would have gone a long way to alleviate the situation. Regardless, they’ve said I should have my new monitor by Thursday, we’ll see if they actually deliver one, and if it works this time.