To all UK residents: Avoid Aria Computers like the plague

[frogbeastegg]

A bit of friendly advice to prevent others making the same mistake as me, and doing business with this UK based collection of poorly trained chimps. Er, sorry, 'company'.

Last month my desktop died after a lengthy, hard fought battle for life lasting months. I need a replacement. I looked around and decided on Aria Computersw as the source. They had a great website, have been established for years, have a good reputation, were very reasonably priced and had a custom PC building service with tonnes of options. They have their own forum too, and looking around it I found people posting complaints and issuea and getting answers. This I took to be a good sign: not only were problems solved but the posts were left.

So I ordered a custom build PC from them on January 22nd. I'm still waiting. That's poor, but not the reason I'm here. Aria installed a new computer system and it's a wee bit mucked up. So there's been problems and delays, or so they say. I'll let my post on their forum speak for quite a bit here:

Sorry to grumble also, and I have seen the topic about the tech problems, but still .... I ordered a whole new custom build PC on January 22nd, £1,200 worth of great machine.

All the parts were in stock except for the RAM, which needed to be ordered and should have taken ~4 days. 17 days on and here I am. The order has been on processing the entire time. I contacted Lucy on the 29th January, and got a useful reply on 31st January. There was a problem getting my RAM, but it should have been in stock that very day and she would ask someone to phone to confirm this. No one phoned. I sent another PM on 5th February about this, and asking when my PC might be done. So far I'm still waiting for a reply.

I needed this PC fairly quickly; it's a replacement for my now-dead desktop. I can't write without a PC; that I use the PC for many other things is much less important. I'm left borrowing a rubbish old laptop which I cannot work on, and the owner of it is beginning to get fed up. I'm nearly always out at work during the daytime; the person I am asking to stay at home in case of phonecalls or delivery is getting very unhappy.

All I want to know is, how much longer until I get my PC?

Here's where the fun begins.

My post was deleted within the hour. No trace remaining, no reason given.

I was, understandably, not happy. So I sent this PM to 'Lucy', the forum admin and Aria employee.

I have noticed that my civil post enquiring as to when I might except my PC has been deleted. I expect I shall recieve an answer soon?

What's more I began to see other posts referring to the big wait disappearing - entire topics. [correction for fairness: I'm not banned, I had the misfortune to be trying to post in a topic as it was deleted]

Hours later this dribbled into my PM inbox, from Lucy.

Hi,

Please be advised we have removed one or more of your posts from the Aria Forum, in accordance with the Forum Rules and as quoted in my post earlier today.
All your comments and issues have been logged, however, please contact Customer Services if you need any more information.

Thanks,

Lucy

Rules? The rules say nothing at all about politely enquiring as to the whereabouts of your expensive PC. What's more she had left the rants posted by other people about 24 and 48 hour waiting times for a relatively cheap amount of goods. Except even those posts are now gone.

You may guess that my reply to that was a trifle more sternly worded than my prior ones.

That is not an answer. I am now getting very angry, and unless some decent response is given I shall be cancelling this order.

I'm still waiting for a reply.

Sorry, Lucy, you can't delete everything on the internet, and there's other places I can - and will - post too. Every time the question of buying compter parts come up I shall drop Aria's name as one to avoid. And, of course, the good people who see this will spread the word too.

[Blodrast]

what can I say, sucky. There's companies like this all over the place. While it's true that I only heard it second-hand, and I was too lazy to verify it, I heard that one of the local computer companies threatened to sue the ISP/webhost of a board (not its own) on which users were complaining about crappy service and refurbished components sold as new, and other shady practices... The board went down, I guess the owners wanted to avoid the hassle, but that speaks volumes of the company's tactics...

[frogbeastegg]

I heard that one of the local computer companies threatened to sue the ISP/webhost of a board (not its own) on which users were complaining about crappy service and refurbished components sold as new, and other shady practices... The board went down, I guess the owners wanted to avoid the hassle, but that speaks volumes of the company's tactics...

The mind boggles.

Well, in this case after causing a fuss on their forums (deleted yet again) and creating this topic I finally recieved the message I ought to have had in the first place this morning. They are logging my complaint and looking into this, with an eye to resolving it ASAP.

[HughTower]

A brighter note - and I may well be preaching to the converted - if anyone is looking for a company that offers both good value, custom build & fantastic service, then try Novatech.

I just bought a base unit with XP Home, Bullguard, 7600 GT, Intel Core Duo E6300, 1 GB Ram, 250 gb HDD, Realtek 7.1 for £540 incl VAT & incl. next day delivery. Ordered at 3pm Friday, delivered 9am Saturday.

The only downside was for some reason I couldn't buy via the website, so I had to phone instead. I coped.

[BDC]

A brighter note - and I may well be preaching to the converted - if anyone is looking for a company that offers both good value, custom build & fantastic service, then try Novatech.

I just bought a base unit with XP Home, Bullguard, 7600 GT, Intel Core Duo E6300, 1 GB Ram, 250 gb HDD, Realtek 7.1 for £540 incl VAT & incl. next day delivery. Ordered at 3pm Friday, delivered 9am Saturday.

The only downside was for some reason I couldn't buy via the website, so I had to phone instead. I coped.

That's quick.

Reminds me of Crucial. Order some RAM at 1630 on a Friday, it arrived 1100 on Saturday. This was quicker and cheaper than the shop around the corner could do (they were out of stock).

The joys of dealing with companies.

[Dave1984]

That's quick.

Reminds me of Crucial. Order some RAM at 1630 on a Friday, it arrived 1100 on Saturday. This was quicker and cheaper than the shop around the corner could do (they were out of stock).

The joys of dealing with companies.

I can better that ;)
Ordered RAM from Crucial just after midnight, it arrived just after 8am the same day, I was very impressed indeed. Although that was a year ago and they're still sending me hundreds of e-mails.

[BDC]

I can better that ;)
Ordered RAM from Crucial just after midnight, it arrived just after 8am the same day, I was very impressed indeed. Although that was a year ago and they're still sending me hundreds of e-mails.

Impressive.

Must have some ridiculously efficient systems in place at their warehouses. Plus what they sell is rather small, light, and expensive, so ideal combination I guess.

[frogbeastegg]

I can't see a custom build option on Novatech's site ...

Still waiting for mine. To be fair they do seem to have pulled their finger out. For a start there's a little box which informs you of the problems they have been having with their systems the moment you open their homepage. For another they are no longer deleting posts like my original one from their forums. :sigh: Thing is, 3 weeks on and I'm still minus a desktop. I want my PC!

[HughTower]

I can't see a custom build option on Novatech's site ...

Still waiting for mine. To be fair they do seem to have pulled their finger out. For a start there's a little box which informs you of the problems they have been having with their systems the moment you open their homepage. For another they are no longer deleting posts like my original one from their forums. :sigh: Thing is, 3 weeks on and I'm still minus a desktop. I want my PC!

I'm glad you're feeling better about it.

You can upgrade Novatech units when you go through the purchase process.
And you might not be able to get it next day, but their commitment to service is well known.

[frogbeastegg]

Huh. Still waiting. Three days short of a month later and I am still waiting! They said they'd contact me at the start of this week; they haven't. On their forum they are now saying they have nearly caught up with the individual orders, and that system orders are taking longer. Funny, because last week they said they had caught up on all orders.

You know, if I'd kept the money in my ISA account instead of paying off the bill in full the day it was charged to me I'd be around £30 richer, thanks to interest.

Time to go apply the cattleprod, and to throw out words such as "compensation for my appallingly long wait" and "as I'd prefer to have my PC before the technology in it becomes obsolete, I shall be cancelling this order if it doesn't arrive soon.".

Minor problem: I don't know where else I can get this PC from, and I'm not keen on building it myself. I have lousy luck with PCs. If there's anything which can go wrong, it will go wrong, no matter how obscure, how rare, or how impossible.

You can upgrade Novatech units when you go through the purchase process.

Drat. My desires are quite specific and I doubt I'd be able to put together a machine with the parts I want if I have to work from a stock base. I did try that on some sites, and the closest I got was an alienware which cost £800 more than the machine I pieced together on Aria, and had some parts I didn't want instead of the ones I do.

This is what I ordered:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Retail 2x 2.40 4Mb 1066 MHz LGA775 BX805576600
Asus P5W64-WS Pro Socket 775 QUAD CORE READY! / PCI-E 16x / SATA(II) RAID / DDRII / ATX MOTHERBOARD
Sapphire Radeon X1950XTX 512M GDDR4 PCI-E
Coolermaster Wavemaster Black
Sony AW-G170A 18x DVDRW Black DL
Akasa 500W PaxPower ATX2.2 PSU
Creative S/B Audigy SE 7.1 OEM
3½" Black Floppy Drive
Corsair TwinX 2GB XMS2 Dominator DDR2 PC6400 TWIN2X2048-6400C4D
WD 36Gb Raptor SATA 10k/150/16Mb (going to port over the two 160GB HDs from my old machine; this drive is for windows and core programs only)

Total cost on Aria including labour and 1 year warranty: £1,193. The closest system to that I managed to find is a pre-built on Overclockers; it's less good for my purposes and costs a trifle over £1,500.

Yes, that's a beast It will run for ages without needing an upgrade which, after dealing with a dying PC for 4 months, sounds like paradise. I'm not an upgrading frog; I prefer my systems to run for about two years before they begin to look weedy. I need a machine with plenty of muscle for throwing around massive text documents while other programs run in the background; that takes more muscle than you'd think. Stability and smooth performance are key; quietness is a strong consideration. I don't want a geforce 8800, because I don't care about DX10 or Vista presently, and am not likely to for a good year or more from now. I also have a preference for ATI over nvidia thanks to experience with both. The games I play tend to be demanding on RAM and processor, and then on video.

[SwordsMaster]

Ah, you womens. Always complaining

Seriously though, I would recommend building it yourself if your needs are specific. Apart from saving money on assembly, you can also get a better machine for less money if you pick your parts carefully (i mean the parts for the machine).

[frogbeastegg]

Assembly is only £45 total. It'd cost me the same to take a day off work to build it, and being new to PC construction it would take me more than one day.

I don't want to build it myself because I have lousy luck with PCs. Really. Truthfully. Anything which can go wrong will go wrong, and that is with me doing simple jobs and following the instructions to a level which suggests paranoia. I'm cursed. For example, if you give me a board with 4 SATA ports, 3 of which are fine and one of which has a fault which requires a BIOS flash to fix, I will pick the faulty one each and every time. The fault will be so obscure it will take days of net searching to find out about. It will also bring the PC completely to its knees, so it can't boot up far enough to reach the BIOS set up screen, meaning you have to wade in and reset everything with a jumper. It will do this over and over until you use another port or flash the BIOS. Randomly the other ports will cause the same problem. True story, that.

Also I don't really have the inclination. After a long day at work the last thing I want to do is fiddle around trying to build a PC. Ditto for my days off. I want to relax.

[Xiahou]

Definitely sounds like you need to find another place to take your business. If it takes them this long just to build your system, imagine how lousy their support will be if you ever have a problem and need it serviced.

[HughTower]

If you are seriously considering taking your custom elsewhere (& sorry to bang on), I just had a look on Novatech. They sell barebone systems & most of the components you just specified (couldn't see the sound card). I plugged it in & got a total price of £1072.33 (incl delivery). Call them up & ask how much & how long to make it for you. All the systems are component built so they have the production line in place.

That's my 2 pence, & I'll leave you in peace.

[frogbeastegg]

It's beyond belief. Truly it is. I am speechless; no words do justice to the utter craptitude of this company. After making me wait so long they now tell me I need to wait longer because my memory is out of stock. The memory they ordered in specially for me 4 weeks ago. The memory which was delayed by a couple of days for some mysterious reason. The memory they have damned well given to someone else because they left me sitting around twiddling my thumbs. No compensation offered, no nothing except an offer to swap my top end Corsair RAM for something else, something invariably inferior.

I've demanded a full refund and the order cancelled. Now. I'm ordering from Novatech.

[HughTower]

Good luck, & godspeed.

[frogbeastegg]

Everything I can see on novatech's site firmly implies that they will only build the barebones system. I'll have to add all the rest myself when it arrives. I don't really want to be doing that

[HughTower]

Try calling them to ask. Everything I read about them suggests that they will do it.

These posts are the ones that persuaded me to buy through, & there are some hints that they will custom build.

http://www.pprune.org/forums/archive...p/t-34385.html

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/forums/in...9164&forumid=2

Btw, I don't have shares in the company. There's so many companies out there that are complete charlatans, that it's good to find one that seems to be in it for the long term.

[Beirut]

I don't trust the intricacies of a game rig to a big store. I like my local computer dude. He's good, he's open weekends and nights, and I know where he lives.

The only problem is he smokes like a burning diesel tanker. An hour in his house and you have to throw your clothes in the wash when you get home. Even my PC smells of cigarettes after a visit to "the doctor". Gah!

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

That sounds familiar.

[frogbeastegg]

Alas, the local PC shop I loved and used for years went bust. If they still existed I'd have taken my old PC to them months ago, and never bothered with doing my own upgrades and trouble shooting. I always said they would build my next PC for me, when the time finally came to stop upgrading and start from afresh. Great shop; they used to fix tiny problems for free if it was quick, and gave advice over the phone for things to try before you brought the PC in. That's maybe why they went bust ...

Ordered from Novatech today, should be here Tuesday. I'm going to have to stick in the extras myself. Oh well, theoretically a video card, two sticks of RAM, a CD/DVD drive, and my old pair of hard drives should be simple plug and go work. This time I won't be working on a machine with a failing motherboard. :crosses fingers and tells herself over and over that her foul luck will not continue to plague her:

Made some tweaks to the system, made it cheaper but better. No hard drive this time: I'm using the pair from my old system. When assembling the parts for the custom build at Aria I was forced to add a HD, understandably. This time I can leave it out. No sound card; since the card I wanted was out of stock and would delay the order. I'll get one seperately, if the onboard sound isn't good enough. I only use desktop stereo speakers so I don't need anything too grand. I swapped the x1950 XTX for a BFG geforce 8800 GTS 640mb, as it was only £28 more expensive and slightly more powerful to say the least. Slightly cheaper Corsair RAM this time, identical to the dominator stuff in all aspects but the possibility of having fans added; I'll never need that. Dumped the Sony CD/DVD drive - found out it was quite a noisy model. I picked a quiet, good performing Samsung instead.

1 x BB-C2D6PB Barebones Bundles Intel E6600 Core2Duo Heatsink and Fan,
1024mb DDR2 667 Ram, MSI Intel 975X PCI Express Motherboard

1 x BFG-88GTS BFG GeForce 8800GTS 640MB HDCP Enabled Dual DVI PCI
Express (500MHz Core Clock) (1600MHz Memory Clock) (1200MHz Shader clock)

1 x CSR-X642G Corsair XMS6400 2GB DDR2 (2x1GB) 800Mhz Non-ECC

1 x SAM-S182D Samsung Dual Layer 18x DVD+/-R/RW/RAM Black OEM Burner

Postage is cheaper too. £1,019.90, all told in the end. My only disappointment is that they don't offer that Asus motherboard from the Aria build; that was an outstanding board.



Meanwhile Aria haven't bothered to reply to my demand for a refund. This, folks, is why you pay by credit card. We shall merely phone the card company and invoke the customer protection clauses, leaving them with the bill. They'll be after Aria with a big stick for making them lose money, however temporary.

I also found a few reviews like this. I searched for reviews before ordering from Aria; they were overall very good. Now I tried again, and found nothing but complaint after complaint, on this site and others. Seems they have been doing this to people for years.

[x-dANGEr]

It seems it's ending up the better way.. I'm sure a GeForce 8800GTS is more than slightly better! :P

[caravel]

Alas, the local PC shop I loved and used for years went bust.

A regular occurance in parts of the UK I'm afraid to say. The sort of people that run those small places don't tend to be good business people overall, and the uninitiated usually head down to PC World, and have the moron behind the counter stick the memory in for them anyway, whereas the local shop probably would have installed it for you, for next to nothing, and sold you the memory at half the price of PCW. The same thing as the Supermarkets vs local shops scenario. Such is life.

[sapi]

And if the local shops don't get driven out of business by overpriced supermarkets, they lose out to internet shops with a cheaper price.

Considering i only go to the local shop when the computer stuffs up (and won't ever again thanks to an incomplete diagnosis) i see the problem, but when there's a better option it's hard to avoid being practical.

[frogbeastegg]

My Novatech order has dispatched. Huzzah!

Aria still can't be bothered to reply to either of my refund requests. Time to spam then with a few more.

[HughTower]

Delighted to hear it. Am I right in thinking though that they wouldn't put it together for you?

[frogbeastegg]

Got my Novatech system on Tuesday as promised. I did have to put the extras into the barebones system; it took me two evenings. Not that bad, considering I have never done such a massive operation before. It all worked on the first go

Tonight I installed windows, and am doing all that boring stuff. I wanted to test it out with Oblivion, but it's already 11:36PM. Guess that will be tomorrow.

Meanwhile Aria ignored my request for a refund and cancellation; they tried to deliver the system I ordered today. We refused it.

[KukriKhan]

Congratulations on the new baby. May you and (she?) skip joyfully down the highways and byways of the internet and gamedom.

Bummer about Aria. Sounds like you're in for a fight. I'm sure you already know this, but: keep all documentation you have concerning your contact with them. If things turn ugly, you'll need it.

[frogbeastegg]

I've benchmarked it in its raw, untweaked form. It got 8337 in 3d mark 06. Kind of low for the type of machine it is. The CPU test brought it to its knees; I got 0FPS on the first one, 1FPS on the second. That's terrible! In all the other demos I was getting a steady 20FPS, frequently more.

Got one annoying fly in the ointment: it won't turn itself off. As in, I tell it to shut down, it wombles through the shutting down procedures, then presents me with that ancient old screen, "It is now safe to shut down your PC". I have to turn it off by holding the power button for 5 seconds. Gah! Anyone know of a possible fix for this? I like being able to walk away, leaving it to turn itself off.


Kukri, the best news about Aria is that I can ignore them completely. The credit card company is required by law to assume responsibility for the bill, and to take action to get Aria to spit out a refund. If they never refund it won't be me who loses money, it will be the card company. This, understandably, makes them unhappy, so Aria is being chased by a massive rich company demanding money.

[Andres]

The credit card company is required by law to assume responsibility for the bill, and to take action to get Aria to spit out a refund. If they never refund it won't be me who loses money, it will be the card company. This, understandably, makes them unhappy, so Aria is being chased by a massive rich company demanding money.

I never noticed such an evil side in your personality before

Love it