Tom F.

I customised my first tower with Ginger6, recommended to me by a friend.

http://www.ginger6.com/g6-oc660-fx-gtx-660-ti-multimedia-gaming-pc-p-*******.html

(link to the PC)

Firstly, I chose the upgrade from the Standard AMD CPU Cooler (again recommended by a friend for over-clocking use, etc.). When I received the PC the motherboard was not picking up any peripherals or booting up. It was switching on but the red light wasn't flashing or fan wasn't sounding. This was the first fault, the second - they had sent the tower unit itself in blue. I asked for red. A minor problem but a clearly specified choice, on the invoice, nonetheless.

Hats off to them, they took it back, fixed it and sent it back. They even gave me some (cheap $#*!) gamer headphones also, which I do not use (because they are just terrible). Great, everything was in working order. No problems for a while.

Second issue resulted when I wanted to install a fire wire card into a free PCI Express slot... oh boy, was this a nightmare... so, in order to not break my warranty, I would have to purchase a card, send the PC back to Ginger6 (paying both for mailing it to them and them mailing it back to me, AND, on top of that, they wanted to charge me labour costs... so to install a fire wire card of £30, I'd be paying £100. £50 delivery and pick up, £20 labour. Absolute nuts... thankfully managed to bargain with them to just pay the delivery costs. Over the moon, but still... £70 to install a fire wire card... honestly...

So, que issue three... got the PC back... the same problem had occurred with the motherboard. It was not picking up the monitor, the mouse or any other hardware, etc. Immediately got on the phone and arranged a pick up and re-delivery (was no chance in hell I was paying postage this time). Once the PC was in a technicians 'capable' hands he told me the artic cooler I had upgraded to wasn't 'compatible' with the motherboard. Basically what was happening was the cooler was dislodging the motherboard in transit as it was too large. Now, this is fair enough. Only, shouldn't I maybe have been notified of this before even purchasing these components? To save me all the trouble in the very beginning? I guess this piece of information was left out. Somehow.

So... finally, issue four... they replaced the artic cooler with a standard cooler... they put the PC in transit and it was on it's way to me... it even arrived the very next day (a delightful first). Except... it WASN'T my PC. It was addressed to me, but once opened an invoice to someone who lives in Buckingham-Shire (or there abouts) was staring me in the face. I actually, for a second, thought they had given me a brand new PC with a cool new tower case (the case was actually cooler than mine to look at) but the specs were certainly not... 300gb hard drive and 4gb RAM over 2tb hard drive and 8gb RAM? No thanks.
So, I immediately contacted the delivery company, AJG Parcels, hoping my PC might still be in the van (as he had just delivered). They informed me it was the distributing company's fault and that I should take it up with them. Phoned Ginger6, managed to sort out this horrendous mess. PC was picked up and mine was delivered two days after. With a massive hole in the box, I might ad... luckily everything was fine inside... sigh.

This is a hugely summed up version of my ordeal in dealing with this company. The amount of time, stress and money I have invested into this company has not been worth the end product.
I can predict the reply being "we did everything we could" and "we cannot apologise more for any inconvenience", but this simply isn't good enough. I paid for that computer and more, and not just in money. I shouldn't have had to send it back four-five times or go through any of that malarchy. It's a joke. It really is.

I will state that Leah has been very helpful. Although, she could maybe make it sound like she actually does care about a customer's situation though. Sounding monotone consistently does imply a lack of empathy/sympathy. Especially when someone has been through something like this. Just the impression I got.

Lastly, I asked if there was any reimbursement for all I had been put through. Leah said she would send me out some game vouchers (tomb raider and bioshock, or something). Not the biggest fan of tomb raider, but hey, at least it's something.

It had been a week since I had heard any word so I thought I'd call today to see if I was still getting any vouchers. Was told that vouchers would be available when suppliers send out graphics cards (the vouchers come with them apparently). When would suppliers send you graphic's cards, I ask. Can't say, not for a while most likely though.

After hearing that I just told her not to bother. It was the final straw, hearing that. As minor as it was.

So, now, I am selling my Tower and converting to MAC.

Hope this review has been helpful to you. Not saying you should, or should not, buy from Ginger6.

Just my story.

All the best.