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Company Review: iBuyPower
A few weeks ago a my brother decided to buy a computer outside of the normal place that he would go through. He did some research around the internet and found a company called iBuyPower. I have never heard of this company before. Come to find out they use refurbished parts and sell the computers at a to high a price.
Here is my story with the company:
Three weeks ago my brother bought a computer from iBuyPower and he did a rapid delivery method. Which meant he would get the computer shipped within 24 hours and have it within a week. When he received the computer he hooked it up and everything by himself and I had to install the Operating System. Everything installed correctly, it was after install that we started having blue screen and crashing problems. Almost immediately after installing the OS, Windows 7, the blue screens started happening. First it crashed on install of the anti-virus I put on. I figured the file was corrupted to I reinstalled a different anti-virus program, it took. The next thing that happened was I was doing the OS updates and the monitor went black, I figured the video drivers were out of date, so I updated them. Then it blue screened, so un-installed the drivers. Then I put Google Chrome on because IE8 was crashing the computer, it was working fine for awhile there.
After about a day of my brother having more crashes and then finally not booting up at all. I came back over to take a look at it and when I turned it on it did one long beep continuously. I did some research on what error codes mean, this one in particular meant CPU failure. I ended up calling the company and going through some troubleshooting. Long story short we ended up sending it back for repair.
After shipping it back, the company itself had the system for about 24 hours before they shipped out again. When my brother received his "newly refurbished" computer, he plugged it in. He had me come over, again, to set up his OS... again. This time everything installed properly, we didn't have any major issues. Except for a USB driver problem that blue screened us and crashed his computer. This was easily corrected by uninstalling the driver. We had no more issues after this....until after I left. He started installing all of his software and games. Then the issues started happening, AGAIN. It crashed a few different times on him. Then he turned it off and went to work. In the morning he went to turn it on and low and behold it was doing the exact same thing it was doing the last time, the continuous long beep with no BIOS or video. Nothing was showing up. I ended coming back over to call the company again, come to find out all they did was disable the temperature sensor. They didn't check the CPU or the motherboard, they didn't put it through any diagnostic what-so-ever.
In talking to the technician, is where I got the best customer service ever...... not really.
Here's how that went:
I called the company on behalf of my brother to do some troubleshooting with them to figure out what was going on. I was connected to a technician and I was explaining to him what was going on. He was telling me to do things that weren't possible to do, like press the restart button and wait for the Logo screen to pop up. I explained to him before he had me go and attempt to do this that I wasn't able to see the logo screen because the computer wasn't booting up. He kept trying to get me to restart the computer and do what he asked me to do. I informed him 3 different times that what he was asking was impossible and then I explained to him that I am a technician and I work on computer for a living. What happened next completely shocked me, he put me on hold and transferred me to someone else, without telling me he was doing so.
I ended up getting transferred to the Customer Service department.
He did this because I said something early on in our conversation that we wanted to find out what the procedure would be to get a refund. While I was talking to the customer service person I gradually started to get angry. I first informed him that I was transferred without my knowledge to someone that wasn't going to be able to help me fix the issue. Then the person I was talking to kept telling me to calm down and to call him back when I have calmed down. Instead of trying to fix the issue or help me fix the issue, he kept telling me to calm down and let the technician help me. I told him that was exactly what I was doing until he transferred me to Customer service. By the end of my conversation with them, I was so livid with the company. I asked to talk to a supervisor and come to find out the guy I was talking to was also the acting supervisor for the day. Then to top it off instead of trying to calm me down and help me fix the problem, he stuck me on hold. Just hung up on me basically, that told me that he didn't and wasn't going to do anything to make this any better. For me the customer or for their company. I informed them that I was going to be writing up this review, he told me to go ahead and that he didn't care what I did.
All in all, after everything was said and done. My brother ended up calling the company back and he is shipping it to them AGAIN. They said they were going to build him a whole new computer this time, we'll see how this one goes.
It was reviewed through many different companies, CNET had a few not so positive customer reviews.
I for one being a computer person, would NEVER go through this with a company after the reshipment of the "second" computer. I would have gotten my refund and went through another company, at least then I would know I wouldn't get shoddy customer service and I would be able to get reliable tech support. But that is just me. I can go through a computer components company and be able to buy all the products I need for a fraction of the price and have it all be new product. As the saying goes, don't make other people's problems become yours, this is especially true in electronics of any sort.
The moral of this story, please be careful of where you buy your computers. Just because the company sells cool product doesn't mean they are the best company. Do your research and find out as a whole how the company runs and operates. Or use a consultant to find out what they think. Either way don't just settle, know what your getting into.
Comments
I just spent a few months scouting out custom gaming pc companies, and settled on Digital Storm.
They cost more than Cyberpower/Ibuypower, but they build rock solid systems and test them before sending it to you.
My new PC worked flawlessly out of the box, and it was shipped by truck from California to Massachusetts.
My $2000 uber gaming pc would have cost $1500 from Cyberpower/Ibuypower, but.....My PC works
That is very awesome. I just wish more research was done in the beginning. He probably would have been saved a whole lot of hassle. I will keep this company in mind and do some research on it.
I'm a computer technician and I am always looking for referrals like this. Thanks a million!
If you work in the field then I would have just built him one. He likely would have gotten a better price to the performance you would have given him, and its very rare for me to ever get a part DOA from Newegg.
Sometimes I see some "good deals" coming out of ibuypower, but I don't know anyone who's had one. Makes sense that their customer support is terrible though, don't know too many companies with stellar support.
cyberpower/buyxgear are garabe in my book. i bought a PC form them and it came with a dented powersupply, crushed pin CPU and the dvd drive lens ground down my windows install disk. had one of their techs on the phone for support and he sucked, put me on hold forever. they even had a local come out to diagnose the exact issue. took me 3 months to get my money back
I actually told him I would before he did this. He wanted to go through a company and get the benefits of a "warranty" even when I informed him that he can get his products registered in case something happens. I actually built him a computer earleir on and it has been the most reliable system he has had. He ended up giving that one to my kids after he went and bought this other one.
Come to find out as of this last Friday, his computer still had not been worked on and they have had it back for a week. I told him to get a refund and just let me build it, he is considering it. Needless to say he won't be "depending" on anyone but me from now on. At least he knows that if I mess it up or he has any problems with it I can actually fix it and teach him how in the process, instead of relying on someone else.
But you can't "make" someone do what you want. Live and learn I guess!
The getting the money back, is exactly what we are worried about! I can't stand shoddy customer service and shoddy technicians that "think" they know what they are doing. Some of them are a little to cocky for their own good. You don't want to make the computer user feel any more out of the loop then they already do, at least I don't.
That is exactly how some of these tech support people work, which in the long run makes a person either look for someone else to do the work and void their warranty and be out the money they put in for the warranty or have someone like me write up a really stinking review on them to make sure nobody else will go through them.
I put my review on here becasue I see ads for iBuyPower on here every now and then and really don't want people to get the wrong impression that they are a good company to invest in. They aren't!
Ask your brother what power supply he got. iBuyPower will sell some really awful ones if you don't pay the $100 or so to upgrade to a good one. That lets them advertise a lower base price, and a lot of people don't seem to realize that you're not actually supposed to get an unnamed "Standard" power supply.
A few years ago I was looking for a custom made computer , I went to I think it was resellers.com and Ibuy power got terrible reviews from actual customers, I ended up by buying from a company called Vigor- who subsequently burned down but the computer is good.
Honestly, this review could have been written for about 95% of the PC manufacturers out there, including some of the big name brands. Unfortunately, it's a very common story.
The only good thing about buying a computer pre-built, is that you have one phone number to call no matter what goes wrong with the computer. For people who aren't technical enough to do their own troubleshooting, that's a huge insurance policy. I can't fault the troubleshooting guy for walking down his troubleshooting checklist, because there are some (most?) not-so-bright people that call those lines, and many times it does turn out to be something stupid like "Forgot to plug in the power cord" or "Computer turns on fine, but forgot to turn on monitor". But, that's part of the price you have to pay for not being able or willing to do it yourself. The last thing you want to do as a help desk guy is be the one to authorize an RMA for a machine where someone was pushing the power button to turn it on, but forgot to flip the master power switch on the back of the power supply.
I'm not saying that their hardware is great or that this story isn't true, or even trying to defend some of the practices they use on the phone (like putting someone on hold for several minutes "to calm down" if they start to sound agitated, or randomly transferring them to a different person), but if you are one of those people who needs to use a box builder for the extra assurance of tech support, you are going to have to play their game, and unfortunately, it's made to cater to the lowest common denominator.
I do hope this guy gets his machine working, or his money back.
Sorry to hear that you are having such a bad time with that company. This is why I decided to build my computer and I do not regret it. I keep trying to tell my friend that I would build a PC for him if he wants a new computer but he keeps looking at ibuypower and cyberpower computers. Cyberpower use to be good, I bought my first gaming PC about 4-5 years ago from them and it still works great. But it seems that their quality has gone down hill since then.
I hope the next PC that they are building for your brother turns out better.
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Yeah man if you're going to go Custom I would definitely go with Digital Storm. They have awesome customer service, and their rigs are build rock solid. You get free overclocking and an automatic 3 year warranty. However, other then that I would just build it myself, yet since I don't have experience with liquid cooling and high overclocking I bought mine from them instead. I also did a lot of research before buying, and Ibuypower and Cyberpower were no go's for me because all you hear are horror stories about them lol.
Both CyberPower PC and iBuyPower have the same business model: you can buy cheap junk parts for a cheap junk price, or you can pay more to get something better. If you buy a BioStar H61 motherboard, an XtremeGear power supply, a GeForce GTX 590, and a case with only one fan, then you're probably going to end up as one of the horror stories--and it will be your own fault. At the other end, CyberPower PC also offers NZXT Hale90 and Corsair AX series power supplies, some very nice Gigabyte and Asus P67 motherboards, and some very good cases with tons of airflow. Those parts will give you a lot better reliability--and also cost a lot more.
Different OEMs have different business models. A lot of Dell or Hewlett Packard models, for example, take the approach of, we're not going to give you a very good power supply, motherboard, or case, but we won't offer high power parts, either, so they'll probably be fine for the low power parts in the computer. Puget Systems takes the stance of, we won't sell mediocre parts at all, so if you get something from them, you'll have to get nice parts--and pay quite a bit to get them. AVA Direct or NCIX will let you pick whatever you want and they'll assemble it for you, but they'll also give you nearly as much freedom to screw up your build as New Egg does.
I had a very similiar experience with Cyberpower as well. Id lump them together with Ibuypower and say dont go to either company.
I was VERY close to buying a computer form ibuypower.com, but thanks to people like you who write reviews I did my research and heard alot of horror stories like this. These companies are always tempting for people like me who are intimidated by the thought of building thier own PC, but its not worth it to risk $1k+.
Anyways thanks for sharing hopefully you'll save some people alot of frusturation.
I decided to go with iBuypower a few years ago. I wouldn't go with them again. It took them over a month to ship, and they wouldn't let me cancel the order. The power supply looked like it was forced in or something. It was hanging crooked and the back part of the case where the PSU screws in was bent and dented. The PC wouldn't turn on sometimes because parts were loose (had to make sure everything was in place a few times before it worked properly).
Aside from that, it has lasted me about 3-4 years before I had to replace parts. I ended up having to replace PSU, heatsink/fan, and both case fans, all at around the same time. This is the first time I've had parts crap out around the same time. It's probably coincidence, but I was pretty annoyed when it happened.
Places like Ibuypower and Cyberpoewr aren't necessarily to be avoided at all cost, it's just that you have to realize what they really are. Though they may market themselves to be, they are not places that give you the same customizability as building a PC at home, with none of the risks or hassle. Instead, they're a place that offers some of that customizability with all of the risks and hassles.
You have to know just as much as you would if you were building, so that you can avoid Quizzical's horror-story scenario, and they aren't going to give you any useful hints to help. Then, after you've picked the parts, you basically pay a little more for the same machine, in exchange for having them assemble it, only don't expect them to take the same care with your machine as you would.
I once had a situation where I used them and had a good experience. It was for an old friend's little sister, who lived 1,000 miles away after I moved from NH to NC, and who wanted a gaming machine. I couldn't build her machine very easily, living to far away, and she had NO interest in trying herself, so I remotely walked her through picking the right parts on Ibuypower, with the understanding on her part that this was a less flexible, more expensive option. That was roughly two years ago, and the machine still runs great (It has an Athlon II X3 paired with a Radeon HD 4850 -should have done the 4770 instead- and the standard 4GB RAM and 500GB HDD).
Would I consider it under any other kind of circumstance? Not personally. Still, you can do just fine with them.
Yeah I agree. I bought an IBuypower PC through Newegg about 2 years ago. It was a great deal and way below the individual component cost. After about a year or so my powersupply actually blew up. I hadn't tinkered with the system at all... One day it just made a super loud POP (I think it was a capacitor). I went and replaced it but it had also damaged my VideoCard. Luckilly that seemed to be the extent of the damage.. and the replacement PS has been running smooth and cool with no issues since.
Even with the PS and VC replacement it was probably still a good deal, but in the future I will be more careful about the PS.
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I bought an Ibuypower PC through Newegg and it works great and is a beast gaming rig. I didn't realize all their stuff was refurbished :-/ I hope reading this post doesn't jinx my PC! I've never had a problem buying anything from Newegg and trust their CS due to past dealing and have always been happy with things bought through them.
An iBuyPower computer that you buy through New Egg is pretty much guaranteed to have a rather bad power supply, and that will lead to unreliability.
I will say this I have 2 Ibuypower comps in my house. One the wife uses never had a problem out of it. It was the standard gaming pc I got though newegg. It is a great comp.
So I decided ok I will let these guys make me one. I chose the hard drives, and all that let them custom build it. I get it in, and it will not stay powered up. After 2 RMA's I finally got to talk to someboy who spoke english, well a mix of english and something else. Turns out the mother board they put in it did not support above 6 meg. Duhhh I told them I needed 8. Well they should have know that and told me up front. Well I payed them about 100 more changed out the vid card, and the mother board and have not had any problems out of it since.
I will say if you got issues with them there customer support is bad bad bad. good luck on getting to talk to somebody who can help you.
i bought a cyberpower from newegg which i heard are the same ppl from ibuypower and indeed i need to upgrade both PSU and video card.... (and it was suppossed to be a gaming rig) but yes i can play Rift on ultra
and i havent had any problem at all...
well the only problem i have is sometimes when i plug my head phones to the 3mm front jack the pc reboots..... (i happens only at night and sometimes only) but its annoying....
oh wow thats a whole other type of horror story right there : ^^
I have never had an issue with a generic power supply or name brand they both work the same and have the same life expectancy. The only problem I have every had when building a computer is the motherboard, a ciriut frying or a bad board all around. I once had a memoey stick catch on fire because the motherboard kept shorting out and I didn't know it. But nothing to do with any power supplies. I hear them going out is a common occurance, but I have been using the same generic power supply, 450w for the last 4 yrs and have had NO issues!
With the headphone jack going out on you. It sound like an internal connection issue, a short circuit probably. Be careful with it, one day your computer may not reboot.
I will keep in mind Cyberpower as an unreliable company, especially since they are about the same as iBuyPower. Also just beacuse you buy a computer through a third party ie: Newegg, doesn't mean it's better than buying from the company directly, it all ends up going to the same end company. You would think though that if you buy directly FROM the company you get better reliability then buying through a thrid party. Because after all you are going to the company directly and wanting exactly what you are paying for without any mix ups or problems.
But that is just me....
I'm going to say this once and once only.
NEVER buy an unbranded power supply for your PC. Even if it is branded by a well known company CHECK for reviews. Fail to heed my warning and are playing with dice, my friend.
Here is a perfect example of what you could possible be getting yourself into by not taking proper care and choosing the correct power supply.
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=204
And to the other extreme you could have something like this..
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=189
Now granted they are not rated the same power output or anything like that but it is easy to see a quality unit and a bad one. You can also see how easy it is to be fooled into thinking the cheap unit you are looking at isn't bad.
Another nice example would be the power supply in my friends PC which is rated more than enough for my old 4870x2. We put it into his PC and 3 minutes into a match in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 we could smell a strong electrical burning coming from his power supply.
I seriously can't stress this enough.. you can buy cheap ram.. you can buy a cheap graphics card.. you can buy a cheap processor but for the love of god do NOT skimp on your motherboard or power supply. Those two parts are crucial to keeping the other parts of your computer in working order and the voltages and protections they are required to handle are very delicate.
ALL POWER SUPPLIES ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL, YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!
Anyone who says otherwise you can safely disregard anything else they have to say as far as hardware goes!