Case-Mod.com Store review

I ordered 3 coolermaster stacker 4-in-3 modules from Case-Mod.com because they had the lowest price at froogle.com and they had a good rating at resellerratings.com. I suppose I should have checked the views more carefully since there are many negative reviews and there seems to be a common thread to them. As well, it is clear that in most cases Case-Mod.com thinks that the problem is with the customer, rather with them. I would suggest that after reading this that you go to resellerratings.com and look at the reviews. You will see others such as thegoldenstrand Apr-11-2006 very dissatisfied, zgamer Dec-13-2005 very dissatisfied and had the same issue I have had with Case-Mod.com. One thing that makes it easy to see the relevant reviews is to sort the reviews by low reviews, here is a link to make it easy for you: http://www.resellerratings.com/seller2314-p1-s2-d1.html#reviews. Read the reviews, but also look at the comments made by Case-Mod.com and see if this is a company you want to do business with. Also, in one of the responses it lists the business hours of 11am to 5pm PST, and that the response times are based on "business days". A real Internet business knows that customers need service on the nights and weekends, which is one of the advantages to most Internet businesses. This gives a good indication that this is not a real business, not even a real Internet business, but instead is a part-time hobby for the owner.

I ordered the modules on March 18. When I placed the order, it was not listed that the items were out of stock. Case-Mod sent me an email March 21 saying they were not in stock, but should be in stock by the end of the month. I replied to their email, asking for a discount, since the company should do something when it is claimed that the item is in stock when you order it, but in reality it is not in stock. They did not reply to my email. I sent them another email April 2, asking for an order status. I did not get a reply. A good company would respond to a customer's email message. I made a negative review on resellerratings.com around April 4. I got a reply from case-mod.com asking me why I gave them a bad review. They said they got my two earlier emails, but didn't reply because they didn't have any news. They said I was already using a discount coupon, and couldn't get a price break. They claimed that they said the modules were out of stock when I ordered initially. Other reviews show that others have had the same exact issue with placing an order, only to find that the item is out of stock. They said they were getting some in and would be shipping in a few days and would send a tracking number.

They asked me to change my review. I told them I would fix any factual errors if they found any. They agreed all the facts were correct, but still wanted me to change the review. In other words the facts were not important, just how they were rated as Case-Mod is not interested in attempting to correct the problems and providing good service. I did not change the review since the facts were not in dispute.

I checked back with them a few days later and found out that they had cancelled my order without letting me know. I changed my review to say no comment for everything. I contacted them by phone and they agreed to send the order. Quite clearly Case-Mod was acting unethically in demanding that my review be changed in order to get what I ordered. My order was shipped, but it did not contain a free bonus item that they initially said they were shipping, which is false advertising. I am now updating my review with the complete story. I will include all email correspondence with them at my site www.weasel.com. It is also unprofessional of Case-Mod to cancel an order without informing the customer, as well as not being accurate in stating whether an item is in stock or not.

Case-Mod.com has replied on resellerratings.com to my review with the following.

Their text is in red text.

4/17/06 1:26 AM He is one of those persons who only post on resellerratings when there are negative experiences (take a look at his 2 postings). It seems, he goes into an internet purchase with a pre-determined negative expectation. C'mon, he actually updates his website with 'weasel of the month.' Nice life.

It is amusing that he thinks that he knows everything about me, unfortunately he is incorrect and it is not relevant to the case at hand. Instead of addressing the issue of poor customer service, he instead resorts to a personal attack against me, which is completely unprofessional.

I joined resellerratings.com in 1999. I posted two reviews, both positive, for amazon.com and another company in 1999. There are only records of two recent postings of mine on resellerratings.com. They claim they don't remove old reviews, but there is no sign of my early postings. I don't know where they may have gone, and resellerratings.com claims to have no knowledge of them.

Attacking me isn't very professional. You should stick to the facts.

It is clear that Case-Mod does not like customers providing accurate feedback and making that information available to others.

All are welcome to view the emails we sent to him (listed on his website) and come to their own conclusions. Notice the professional and complete emails we have written to him.

It is true that all the emails are listed on my web site, but it is a matter of judgement as to whether the messages are complete and professional. I would not say that it is complete to not inform a customer that the order is being canceled. I also don't think that it is professional to claim that it is completely the fault of the manufacturer for a company to be out of stock. It is also not professional to try to force a customer to change their rating and review.

The truth is this: the price was too good for him to go anywhere else! Even after his order was cancelled, he had his wife call us. She literally *begged* us to re-issue the order because she and her husband had been looking for days and couldn't find the items anywhere else for less.

My wife did call, because I was busy at work, and didn't want to make a long non-work related phone call. Why would someone have to beg a company to do what they should do? While the price is the cheapest, there is a cost associated with dealing with a company like this and it is best to pay more and get much better customer service, instead of abuse and insults.

It is quite interesting that Case-Mod canceled the order, because of the review, then once the review was removed would agree to ship the order. This makes it clear that Case-Mod was attempting to force a change of the review, too bad Case-Mod did not think about the fact that the review could be replaced after the order was shipped.

I ordered the coolermaster stacker case from Directron.com March 18 (same day as Case-Mod.com). It was shipped in a timely fashion, and arrived March 23. I have lots of hard drives and I needed the 4-in-3 modules to assemble my case. I had to wait until April 14 for the 4-in-3 modules were delivered.

Surely he could have purchased them elsewhere if he was so dissatisfied with our service? After all, he does have "20 years experience buying and selling on the internet." (as he wrote in an email) C'mon, buying and selling on the internet since 1986? (His website looks like it is from 1986.)

It is interesting in Case-mod.com's reply that they didn't dispute any of the facts that I mentioned. They didn't dispute pressuring me to change my initial review. They decided to attack me and my internet experience and my web site instead. This is known as an ad hominem attack. How is it relevant what my web site looks like?

I could point out the ability to search for products on Case-Mod is seriously broken and if you try to search for "coolermaster" on their site it only returns one item, but if you search for "cooler master" it lists other products. A good web site would be setup so that either search would find the products, such as froogle.com There are other negative comments which could be made in regards to Case-Mod's web site, but that is not the issue, the problem is with Case-Mod's lack of customer service and failure to properly mark that items are out of stock.

I have 697 emails from 1997 showing purchases. I have another 133 just from Amazon starting in 1999. I have archived emails showing me buying and selling stuff as far back as 1986 on the Internet. If you look at my computer rebate experience, you will see my experience with 121 different companies just dealing with rebates. It is true that my website looks simple. It is so it will render everywhere, including on cell-phones. My domain was registered in 1996, I suspect long before case-mod.com.

Here are all the emails between them and me:

Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 10:43:00


To: turbo
From: "Case-Mod.com Sales Team" <sales@case-mod.com>

Case-Mod.com
------------------------------------------------------
Order Number: 27063
Date Ordered: Saturday 18 March, 2006

Products
------------------------------------------------------
3 x Cooler Master STB-3T4-E1 Stacker 3 to 4 Module (91-STB-3T4-E1) = $46.50
------------------------------------------------------
Sub-Total: $46.50
CA TAX 8.25%: $3.84
FedEx Live Rates (Home Delivery (2 Days)): $7.52
Discount Coupons:88afec: $1.16
Total: $56.69

Notice that the order confirmation does not mention that the item is out of stock, which means the message is not complete nor professional.

Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 16:55:23 -0800


To: turbo
From: "Case-Mod.com Sales Team" <sales@case-mod.com>

Case-Mod.com
------------------------------------------------------
Order Number: 27063
Date Ordered: Saturday 18 March, 2006

Your order has been updated to the following status: Processing

The comments for your order are:
Hello Turbo,

We expect these 3 to 4 Modules to come in by the end of the month. Thank you
for your patience and cooperation.

-Case-Mod Support



Please reply to this email if you have any questions.

It is only after several days that the order status is changed. The status was changed to processing, which is not correct as the item is backordered.

Date: 3/21/2006

From: Turbo

If I recall correctly, they were listed as in stock when I ordered them.
Do I get a discount on shipping or something, since they will be shipping late?

        thanks,
        turbo

Date: 4/5/2006

From: Turbo

Where is my shipment?
Can I get a tracking number?

        thanks,
        turbo

Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 13:25:00 -0700


From: "Case-Mod.com Sales" <sales@case-mod.com>
To: turbo

Turbo,

Your email was received; it was never ignored.  As we emailed to you on 3/21,
the STB-3T4 modules were out of stock with an ETA of the end of the month.
We received your order on a Saturday. We contacted Cooler Master on Monday
for the most accurate ETA on the item and received their response to our
inquiry on Tuesday morning. We then emailed you on that Tuesday and shared
this information and the current ETA with you. We did not receive any
cancellation notice from you at that time or since then.

Ok, so the message was not "ignored", Case-Mod was just unprofessional and failed to respond to two messages, so that it just looks to the customer like it is ignored.

We received a partial shipment on Monday afternoon, 4/3/06, which was the
first business day in April. We were unable to fulfill all backorders with
the quantity received in this shipment. That same day, we were notified by
Cooler Master that our remaining quantity would be received in our warehouse
sometime later in the week.

Yesterday afternoon, we have received the remaining shipment of 3 to 4
modules. Our warehouse team has been fulfilling all backorders for the
STB-3T4 modules and your order is expected to ship today.

Please understand that we try our best to keep our customers informed when
there are any backorders or stock issues with orders. Since the STB-3T4 was
expected before the end of this week, we did not send out another email to
all customers with backorders on this item. If there would have been a
significant delay (example, ETA of May), then we most certainly would have
sent another email to all our customers.

We assume that you may have noticed that nearly all retailers in the USA had
this item listed as out of stock since the time you placed the order. In
fact, many retailers still do not have this item in stock.

With regards to your resellerrating.com post, please understand that the
item was listed with a backorder status on the product description page
since early March. You can still see now the current ETA lists 4/10/06:


http://www.case-mod.com/store/cooler-master-stb3t4e1-stacker-module-p-1523.html


"This product will be in stock on Saturday 10 April, 2006."

The regular price is $19.95 and you received a discounted price of just
$15.50 for purchasing through froogle.com; this is by far the lowest price
on the Internet even today. Moreover, you were able to use a coupon code for
an additional savings on the purchase price.

Because of the 2 discounts already applied, we are unable to give any
additional discounts on this current order.

Resellerratings.com is a great tool for consumers and we appreciate your
posting on there. Please do understand that a 0 rating is pretty harsh, and
should only be used for companies that commit fraud or other illegal acts.

A zero rating is "Very Dissatisfied". I am very dissatisfied that the item was not in stock and it was not mentioned on the web page or the initial email message. I am very dissatisfied that my order was canceled without any notification because I gave an accurate rating and bad review on resellerrating.com. I am very dissatisfied with your customer service and your personal attacks. Sounds like an accurate rating to me.

We have tried our best to give you honest and timely updates as much as
possible. Some would consider that good service. After all, since stock
control is in the hands of the manufacturer, all we can do is try our best
to update and inform our customers through email and through the product
description page as quickly as possible when changes in stock occur. We
understand that you may have been frustrated with the order at the time of
your posting, but would appreciate that you consider the comments posted and
more importantly the rating given. After all, we have not been dishonest and
we have not attempted to cheat you in any way; you have always had the
option to cancel the order for a refund since the order was placed.

I ordered on Saturday and did not get notified that the item was out of stock until Tuesday, to me that means the first message was not honest and the second message was not timely.

It is quite interesting that you want to blame the manufacturer for your lack of stock and that you say that your stock control in not in your own hands. This implies that you do not stock items and instead place an order when you get an order.

Most people place an order because they want the item, not so they can just cancel the order later.


We have tried to call you earlier today at <your home phone> but were unable to
reach anyone. We wanted talk to you about this matter over the phone and
also share with you a coupon code 5a064b, that you can use on a future order
with us.

If you have any other concerns, please feel free to email us or give us a
call at 408-437-1833.

Later today, we will be sending you an order update by email and you should
receive a FedEx tracking number in a separate email.

--
Case-Mod.com Customer Care

http://www.Case-Mod.com


Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 20:51:38 +0000

From: turbo
To: "Case-Mod.com Sales" <sales@case-mod.com>

I am at work now, which is why you cannot reach me by phone.
I ordered a coolermaster stacker case and the 4-in-3 module on the
same day (the case was from directicon). I have now had the case
sitting around for 2 weeks, and I have not moved my computer into
it, because I am waiting on the additional 4-in-3 modules.

I ordered from you because you had the lowest price AND
it seemed from your web page that the 4-in-3 modules were in stock.
I had no idea they weren't until you sent me an email saying they were
backordered. I don't have that email in front of me, but I seem to
recall you saying they would be in stock on 3/24 or 3/26 or so.

I was not expecting the order to be delayed so long, which is why I asked
for a discount to compensate me. I didn't get a reply from that email.

I emailed 2 days ago asking about the order status, and I didn't get a
reply either, until today, when it seems you read my reseller rating review.

I have been buying and selling stuff on the internet for over 20 years.
I worked at the first e-commerce company from 1985-1995.

I appreciate you not having the modules in stock, but I had no clue they
weren't in stock when I ordered them. If I go to officedepot.com and order
something that isn't in stock, they say something like out of stock in
red type, and make it very obvious. If I order from amazon.com they
say in stock or out of stock, and give an expected stock and shipping date.
Your site did none of those things when I was placing my order.

Perhaps you should consider my perspective when reading my
comments on resellerrating.com. I checked my order today and
it didn't list when the items would be in stock, nor did it list a ship date
nor did it list a tracking number. When I check order status from
amazon.com or other mainstream sellers, it lists expected ship date.

If I said anything factually incorrect in my comments on resellerrating.com,
just let me know, and I will fix it. If there is nothing factually incorrect,
I guess you might only object to my opinions.

    Turbo

Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 14:47:08 -0700


From: "Case-Mod.com Sales" <sales@case-mod.com>
To: turbo

Hello,

Thanks for the response.

The exact email was:

Hello Turbo,

We expect these 3 to 4 Modules to come in by the end of the month. Thank you
for your patience and cooperation.

-Case-Mod Support


We all are avid internet buyers and sellers. As we mentioned to you in the
last email, since early March, the stock date was listed on the website in
red type near the 'add to cart' button on the product's description page;
perhaps you may have overlooked it. Though the item was not in stock, we did
allow for customers to still complete orders for it. We assumed all
customers noticed the stock date before completing the purchase. For those
who may have missed it, we sent emails within 24-48 hours to individual
customer with the most up to date ETA; you also received this email on the
2nd business day you completed the purchase. Again, some would consider this
good, individual service.

Factually, your statements are correct. We only have an objection to your 0
ratings.  We are also internet consumers and buyers here and we use
resellerratings.com as a tool to make purchases. A 0 rating would be left
for a company that actively tries to cheat, defraud, and cause trouble with
consumers perhaps using bait and switch techniques or other illegal
practices. You would agree that we have not done any such type of acts.
Again, we have honestly kept you updated as much as possible and you have
always had the option to cancel if you had wished.

We didn't reply to your email from Wednesday until today, because there was
no information to update you on. All we could have told you was, "We should
have it later this week," which is not saying much at all. We chose to wait
until we received the parts in our warehouse to notify you that the items
would ship within the next 24 hours.

Since you have 10+ years in the business and more than 2 decades buying and
selling on the internet, we would hope that you would be one to understand
the efforts that we have made in an attempt to notify all our customers
including you.

With all this said, we again ask for you to reconsider the rating and update
the post accordingly.

Let us know how you plan to proceed.

--
Case-Mod.com Customer Care

http://www.Case-Mod.com


Date: 4/11/2006

From: Turbo

I have been waiting for my order. I logged in today to your system, and I see
my order has been cancelled. I never cancelled the order.
I would like to get the coolermaster 4-in-3 modules, as I ordered.
I expect them in a very timely fashion.

You said they would be shipped on friday, and I would be getting a tracking number.
I was never sent a tracking number.

        thanks,
        Turbo

Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 11:02:59 -0700


From: "Case-Mod.com Sales" <sales@case-mod.com>
To: turbo


Turbo,

Since you weren't happy with the transaction, we had cancelled the order and
issued a refund. You may purchase them from somewhere else.

--
Case-Mod.com Customer Care

http://www.Case-Mod.com


Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 12:17:01 -0700


To: turbo
From: "Case-Mod.com Sales Team" <sales@case-mod.com>


Case-Mod.com
------------------------------------------------------
Order Number: 27063
Date Ordered: Saturday 18 March, 2006

Your order has been updated to the following status: Processing

Please reply to this email if you have any questions.

Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 16:32:51 -0700


To: turbo
From: "Case-Mod.com Sales Team" <sales@case-mod.com>


Case-Mod.com
------------------------------------------------------
Order Number: 27063
Date Ordered: Saturday 18 March, 2006

Your order has been updated to the following status: Shipped


If a tracking number is available it will be emailed to you soon.

Please reply to this email if you have any questions.

So Case-Mod, welcome to WEASEL OF THE MONTH

If you have comments or suggestions, Email me at turbo-www@weasel.com

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