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ServicePlug / PC Buyer Club

This is the story of my dealings with ServicePlug, Inc (aka PC Buyer Club). I found these guys through PriceWatch.com as I was looking for the lowest price on a CDRW drive. My order went well, and was shipped in a timely manner, but after I received the product, I began having problems.

The day I installed the drive, it was working just fine. I burned a CD with it any didn't encounter any problems. The next day, however, the drive wasn't working at all. It was as though it wasn't getting any power, even though I tested the power connection coming from my power supply and sure enough, it was getting power. I contacted ServicePlug, and they authorized the return of the drive and gave me an RMA number. When I shipped the drive back to them, I included a detailed description of my problem--that the drive works sometimes and not others, probably due to an intermittent power problem. I explained that my BIOS won't recognize the drive, and the eject button won't work even when the drive is getting power.

Several days later, I checked the status of the drive on their website, and it said they had tested the drive, found no problems, and shipped it back. Apparently all they did was plug it into a computer, burned a CD, then removed it and sent it back to me. If they had paid attention to my description of the problem, they would have found that indeed, the drive does work sometimes, but not all the time.

The following day, the same drive arrived back at my house via UPS. I decided to give it another try and put it back in my computer, but it didn't work. I then tried it in a friend's computer, and it worked once, so I borrowed a power supply and put it and the drive back into my computer, and the drive still wouldn't work. Even when I swapped power cables between my hard drive and the CDRW drive, the CDRW drive still wouldn't work.

I emailed ServicePlug once again, informing them of their mistake in sending the drive back, and requesting another RMA number. Here is the email response I received:

From: rma (rma@pcbuyerclub.com)
To: Dennis Udink
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 10:10 AM
Subject: Re: RMA Request - Invoice #S2011159506

it is not the OPTORITE CDRW problem

your system or OS(windows) problem

uninstall OS(windows) and reinstall OS(windows)

thank you

Notwithstanding the problems with capitalization, punctuation, grammar, etc., it is still obvious that the person who responded to my email is not very smart. Anybody who knows much about computers also knows that any CD drive will, at the very least, eject the tray when power is supplied to the drive and the eject button is pushed. You don't even need an operating system installed, or even a computer, to figure this out--all that's needed is a power supply and a CD drive. I responded with this email:

From: Dennis Udink
To: rma
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 11:09 AM
Subject: Re: RMA Request - Invoice #S2011159506

Will you please explain to me how an operating system can prevent a CDRW drive from receiving power? How can an OS prevent the BIOS from detecting a CDRW drive? It is quite obvious that you know nothing about computers, as there is no way an OS can affect the way a BIOS detects a drive.

If you can explain to me how Windows is preventing the BIOS from detecting this drive, I will gladly try again to remedy the problem on my end. Otherwise, I expect a full refund for my purchase. If you continue to provide resistance against the refund of my purchase, I will seek the help of an attorney and we'll settle this in small claims court.

Thanks,

Dennis

Later that day, I received another return authorization, but no explanation of their initial denial of my return. I checked their website to track my order, and it said they were going to charge me a 15% restocking fee for returning a non-defective item. Once again packaged the drive back up and shipped it to them. Included with the package was a letter demanding that they refund my shipping for at least one of the returns, because the second return was caused by their own incompetency. I also demanded that they explain their reasoning, in detail, as to how the item was not defective, otherwise I was going to dispute the charges with my credit card company and get a FULL refund.

About two weeks later, I did actually receive a full refund, but they didn't reimburse me for shipping. So after all of this, I had spent a lot of time, and I had paid to ship the drive back to them twice, and received nothing but a headache from them. I would definitely NOT RECOMMEND purchasing anything from PCBuyerClub.com, DBA ServicePlug, Inc. They may be ok to purchase from if the product you receive actually works, but if you need to return something, you can expect a big hassle. Though if they still claim that the CDRW drive I returned was not defective, they must have shipped it out again to another unsuspecting customer, who had to deal with the same load of crap in order to return the item.