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From: rachamp@mbunix.mitre.org (Richard A. Champeaux)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Montgomery Grant - "CUSTOMER BEWARE"
Message-ID: <62434@linus.UUCP>
Date: 4 Aug 89 13:05:50 GMT
Sender: news@linus.UUCP
Reply-To: rachamp@mbunix.mitre.org (Champeaux)
Organization: The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, Mass.
Lines: 74

Some of you might remember my post last March about my dealings with 
Montgomery Grant.  Well, I came across their ad in the September Amiga
World and was outraged by the following statement they made:

"-CUSTOMER BEWARE- Many of our competitors, unable to match our discount
 prices, quality, service & support, are telling our customers that we sell
 used or refurbished merchandise.  They are also saying that our products do
 not come with a COMMODORE AMIGA U.S.A Warranty.  DON'T BE FOOLED!  MONTGOMERY
 GRANT sells only brand new, factory fresh merchandise complete with Commodore 
 USA warranty that can be serviced coast-to-coast thru hundreds of authorized
 Commodore Amiga service centers.  Buy with confidence from an established
 dealer like ourselves with over 21 years of experience. "

Hah!  I'm not one of their competitors, but I'm sure as hell saying that they
shipped me a "used or refurbished" Amiga 2000.

First of all, against my better judgement, I decided to mail order a 2000 
because I was a college student without a car, going to a college in the
middle of farm country.  I'm not aware of any Amiga dealers near my school.
I first started calling the dealers I had dealt with before and kind of
trusted, but since they all told me that they didn't have any 2000s in stock,
I went page by page through my Amiga World looking for a dealer who had one.
The only place I found that actually had one and was asking less than $1700,
was Montgomery Grant.

They're truthfull about one thing, they advertise great prices.  Their ad
listed the Amiga 2000 at only $1399.  Only problem is that's the price with
out shipping.  To ship it UPS ground, they wanted $160, for UPS 2nd Day Air,
they wanted $200.  Since it still came out to be about what everyone else
was selling them for, and since they did have one, I figured sure, what the
hell, and bought one.  By the way, sending it back UPS ground cost me less
than $10, and that was with $1500 dollars worth of insurance.

The computer they sent me was obviously used.  It was shipped with the Amiga
box inside another one, but the Amiga box was beat up and had shipping labels
cut off it.  The serial number on the box didn't match the serial number on
the computer.  The box said it came with Workbench 1.3, but the computer had
1.2.  The bottom of the 2000 was noticably bent, making it rock back and
forth on the table.  The fan was very dirty.  The drive didn't work, it got
RW errors on every disk I tried to boot off of.  Every one of those disks
worked fine in both my 1000, and a friend's 1000.  The mouse that came with it
was obviously used.  The feet were worn, the cable was dirty, the ball was
dirty, and the rollers were dirty.  Worse than that, it was an Amiga 500
mouse.  Amiga 500 mice have much bigger connectors that don't fit through the
hole in the 2000's case.

I called their customer service line, told them that I was not aware that I
would be getting a used and broken computer, and demanded my money
back.  The guy I talked to, who claimed he was an assistant manager of the
customer service department and would soon be the manager, seemed genuinely
surprised that I received a used computer an promised to send my a factory
sealed one.  I eventually agreed, and after sending the first one back, 
received another computer.  This one appeared to be factory sealed and I've
had no problems with it.

Several people sent me mail saying how they had similar problems with 
Montgomery Grant.  One woman, a walk-in customer, said all three of the
1080 monitors she bought from them didn't work and that they all appeared
to be used.  She was able to buck their no refund policy and get her money
back.

After my post, somebody mentioned that Montgomery Grant no longer was an
authorized Commodore Amiga dealer, and that was confirmed by someone from
Commodore (although he was probably not officially representing Commodore).
"How do they get their Amigas?", you might wonder.  Well, after mentioning
the problem I had to a local dealer, he told me that Montgomery Grant had
called them, asking to buy some Amigas.  This dealer said he refused to sell
them any.  He also said he figures that they just go down the list of
authorized dealers, looking for Amigas to buy.

If you ever consider buying from Montgomery Grant, I advise you to carefully
read their statement, but only the part that says "CUSTOMER BEWARE".

Rich Champeaux  (rachamp@mbunix.mitre.org)