Maximum PC

To whom it may concern at MaximumPC,

One of your advertisers, CyberPower Inc., has a really bad track record for customer service and quality. Search google for 'cyberpower review' and you find reviews that are a negative by a strong majority. This stands in contrast to several other pc makers that advertise with you that I looked at reviews for which were all at least neutral if not good.

This warning comes on the tail of a very bad initial experience I had with CyberPower. I purchased a system from them specifically because of their add in MaximumPC. While I just subscribed to your magazine today despite this, the extreme negative expierence makes me more cautious then normal in trying out your advertisers. It hurts your brand and can negatively reflect on your value as an advertising-host if people don't trust your clients.

The negative aspects I encountered, which were all supported by the random selection of review posts that I read on the net, included:
- black color options, including CR-ROM came as black spray-painted, not black plastic, which scratched off in a heart beat from just casual contact. When they offered me a CD-ROM that actaully was black plastic, they had the nerve to charge me $10 more to get what I actually wanted; a real black CD-ROM.
- Hard drive dead on arrival.
- Motherboard sound not working.
- Hard drive differant manufacturer than bill of materials.
- Sales line always picks up by the second ring, but the tech support is
always busy. The only two times I got through to tech support was when I called the sales team so many times that someone finally would route me into their hold-queue. They must have some secret back-door that lets them put people in the queue, because the direct dial is ALWAYS busy.
- All their video cards are OEM version, but you have to dig into all the product info to see that. They don't list that little fact on the main configurator pages. I found their video card not to work in many games for which I had a brand name card using the same chipset.
- Temperate display on the front of case stop working after a few days.
- Even though I had no floppy and no second optical-drive, they still put drive-blanks in place instead of solid blanks to fully close the holes. Why do I need empty drive bay holes? I can just see someone pushing a DVD into the slot only to see it fall in.

Positive side:
- Once I finally got through to their tech support, they were very intelligent and very helpful.
- They have a 30 day money back guarantee, which I quickly excercised. they didn't hassle me at all to give me an RMA.

I know the buyer should beware, but MaximumPC would serve it's subscribers to screen advertisers for having at least good quality and customer service reviews.

Respectfully,
Andrew

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions Andrew, but...

Remember, Maximum PC is for the smartest readers in the world, those who do their homework first.

While I'm sorry to hear you got burned by an advertiser, taking your suggestion to its logical conclusion, Maximum PC would have to turn down even Dell computers from advertising. Dell's resellerratings.com score is abysmal:

http://www.resellerratings.com/seller1867.html

If Maximum PC turned down all its advertisers with sub-par ratings, there'd be no magazine for you to read at all. In this business, you have to take the good companies with the bad. In its defense, Cyberpower did have a few positive reviews admist the ocean of negative ones.

Good luck with your next purchase, and feel free to ask us who we recommend.

Duly noted.
Thanks for your time,
Andrew