Rip-Off Computer Shops

Matt555

Matt555

iMod
Okay so I live in a town where there is this one computer shop (there are others, one of which i worked at for a bit, awesome place friendly helpful, then the council stopped people parking outside so it closed from lack of buisiness as people didnt want to walk from a car park with their PC's) it has astronimical prices...for example a Q-Tec PSU (400W) is £30...WHY?! first of all these are some of the worst PSU's you can get and secondly if someone did want to buy one they could get it for about £15 elsewhere...
Another one is a single i repeat single cathode tube is £19...You can get them for less than £5 and on the net a while back in America they were going for like 99c (about 60p)
Now i know shops are generally more expensive that the web...shops have a site fee to pay to be in that spot trading in town, plus their own tax/council tax and other fees (sales people etc) but they cant be that much more expensive than websites...i've seen places where prices are competitive with the net, sometimes cheaper...
So does else anyone know of any other shops in their town/online where prices are just ridiculous...
 
My only explanation would be that the majority of people are uneducated.

Would your parents/grandparents know what to look for if their PSU died? Unlikely. They may find out what happened, but would then be lured in to the (fascist) markets such as these PC shops, who seem all nice and friendly, but of course, are looking to make a pretty penny ripping off uneducated.

Countless times I've been told that a friend of mine has gone some place and spent X amount on a product, that I've found for half the price online with free postage...it does pay to be a little educated, or know forums like this if you are dealing with the computer industry.
 
I agree with you Waffles, there a plenty of companies out there trying to rip the uninformed off yet seem like they offer great deals and awesome products when the reality is they offer crap products for a terrible price. But with good marketing you can snag a lot of people. You can do a lot better than CompUSA but they're extremely popular for example.
 
hell yea, i've saved my parents a lot of hassle and money with the computer downstairs (its naff but its there for now...until i got to uni and then they use this)

This shop i speak of also has a strange feeling about it, when you walk through the door a beep goes off and within a few seconds of being in there and only a few steps in a voice says "need any help" ...they seem desperate, and then they often say "well ask us, we know what we're talking about" honestly i thought no you dont, if you knew then you would know you're not going to get any buisiness from people who know a little bit with prices like that. you also get a feeling of we're better than you when you walk in, i'd like to see what they know by going in there and asking about a high-end system and see if they just reel off facts they dont understand themselves...

They also charge something like £80 for a 256MB stick of DDR333 RAM...they have all these computers with lights in the window to attract people and i saw some friends from college looking in there the other day, i went over to them and told them to just not bother, its a rip off as you can find stuff on the net cheaper and i dont trust the shop at all...they promptly walked off as they trusted my knowledge and i dont even own/work in a shop...HA!
 
However, if you need something pronto, overnight shipping is rather high. Sometimes it's very good to have a local non-chainstore available. The stores around here don't compete with Newegg, partially because they can't. They're a smaller operation, and probably don't get the volume discounts that the on-line stores do for buying in bulk.
 
Largest overpriced item ive ever noticed was an A to B USB cable in PC World and it was £14.99, I think ibought mine for 30p from a computer fair.
 
yeah, i live in columbus ga, and there are a couple of computer shops here who will rip anyone off if they dont know about computers. I tested them, because i went in there acting like i didnt know anything. they tried to sell me a intel pentium 2 64mb sdram 15 gig hd, floppy cd-rom windows 95 system for $375 3 months ago, they said it was all top of the line new technology. so there are people out to get your money, then the other place i went to tried to sell me a 10 gig laptop hd for $115 .. IBM
 
The biggest rip ive seen recently was at (wait for it!) ~Pc world~!!! they really are the kings of looking nice, selling okish products are about 4 times as much as you can find them online.

They where charging £15 for a 8m X-over cable, ive seen 100m X-over cables online for the same price.... i dont really understand why they cost more than standard cables as all thats different is the way the plugs wired on! :mad:
 
hi guys im new to the forum as you may of noticed(or may not of).

im just sitting back reading some posts but felt i needed to say something here.

im always going to PC world if i need anything but dont think i will anymore after reading i can get the same product if not better cheaper off the net.

what sites do you recommend buying upgrades and such from so i dont become one of those victims of RRP?
 
and (also in the uk) Mircrodirect as they have good prices and they stick to there delivery dates (£5 delivery)
 
Your best vet for high spec hardware @ a GREAT price is to get a computer mag such as PC Gamer as they have a "Big Gear Hunt" page, with the best price that they have found (and where to get it [just incase you didnt think that far ahead])

And even if the hardware ur looking for is 'missing' from there pages, then they have still got a LOAD of shops to check out (in pc gamer its under "price watch")

PC gamer price watch list: (there are more, but i aint gona type them all coz im lazy)

www.aria.co.uk
www.dabs.com
www.komplett.co.uk
www.microdirect.co.uk
www.overclock.co.uk
www.overclockers.co.uk
www.pcindex.co.uk
www.pcworld.co.uk <--- why is this in their list?

also, checkout www.moneysavingexpert.com for the lowest price on goods/services such as broadband etc etc

Ps, PC gamer dont have a intell chip under 'best in class' 'mid range' OR 'budget choice'..... burn in your graves intell
 
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