the sirius cybernetics corporation

Britain’s biggest pc component supplier goes tits up within a month..

From a customer service point of view aria.co.uk have gone from hero to zero in the space of a month. Surely not, your thinking, they usually get the stuff to you next day and the prices are always good. And up until February the third this year you would be correct.

Then they upgrade their computer system over the weekend. You gotta love the irony of it, britains biggest pc component supplier updates its systems and the whole thing goes horribly wrong.

My recent experiences

I need a few things for some customers, who require repairs or upgrades -

• A heatsink and fan for an overheating machine with a faulty cpu fan.
• A graphics card for a customer wanting to try 3D gaming.
• A audio card for a customer who has aquired 5.1 speakers but has onboard sound.

All simple, bread and butter stuff. I place the order at 3pm on Wednesday 07.02.07, well before their cut off time for same day processing. Friday comes and still no delivery, however I now need a real beefy cooler for an Athlon 64 5200 x2 socket A processor so I ring sales and ask their advice and politely enquire were my previous order is.

I am recommended a scythe infinity and informed that orders had been running a day behind and all is well. I pay for a Saturday delivery in order to get the latest upgrade customer turned around in a reasonable time frame.

Saturday 12.15pm, no delivery so I ring citylink and ask where my parcel is. They tap on the keyboard and explain in a very matter of fact way that the parcel arrived with them over night but the driver couldn’t find it that morning and suggest I take it up with aria!

Monday morning, the super cooler arrives but still no sign of the original order. I ring aria but the linerings three times and goes dead, oh well another day won’t hur.

Tuesday 3pm and no delivery. To the bat phone! I listen to all the sales hype whilst on hold for two hours. At 5.07pm the line goes dead.

Wednesday and Thursday I send emails then ring and wait on hold for upto an hour and a half, but I am assured that my call is valued and will be answered. I discover via my online billing that I am paying 6p a minute (well you have to do something if your on hold don’t you). I decide to try again tommorrow.

Friday morning I hold for an hour and decide that the hold music and sales talk isn’t worth £3.60 an hour (my god, I must have spent £15.00 on hold so far). Friday afternoon I recieve calls from my customers as to where their machines are and ring aria out of desperation. After an hour and forty mins I get through! I told that their systems had gone haywire and their email server is broken so they are using google mail. I am advised to cancel the order and place a new order which will be processed as usual. I was still polite when I was told a refund takes upto ten days, mostly because I was to stunned at the explanation to respond.

I replace my order immediately and add on next day AM delivery at £9.00 + VAT (my failed saturday delivery was £10.00 + VAT).

Saturday nothing, Monday nothing, Wednesday nothing. I flip out and do a rant on their forum and get told that they don’t like that sort of thing. I ring them and get through after about 50 minutes, the guy tells me that he has found my order and will take it down to the wharehouse later.

Thursday nothing, Friday the frickin thing arrives! I email aria and tell them I want the next day AM delivery charge refunded as well. They tell me that the £9.00 only gets you an AM delivery, could be any day and no time limit on processing but that it would be a morning delivery, no you can’t have refund even if you do find the wording of the carriage option misleading!

Today 07.03.07

I have emailed aria.co.uk daily regarding my refund of the order and failed Saturday delivery, but still no response and more importantly no refund. I am ringing trading standards this afternoon to see if they can kick a response out of them.

Am I being unresonable? Are my expectations too high? What are your thoughts and experiences of aria.co.uk? Come on people light my fire!