Conference hydra::amiga_v1

149.0. "Starflite Telemarketing" by TLE::RMEYERS (Randy Meyers) Wed Oct 29 1986 13:46

I bought my system from a mail order house named Starflite
Telemarketing.  With one caveat, I recommend them.

The problems that one usually has with mailorder are (I am mostly
thinking of the New York camera establishments here):

	1.  They don't send you everything normally included
	    with what you bought.

	2.  They make substitutions for what you bought (You
	    thought you were ordering a brand FOO widjet but
	    a brand BAR widjet shows up).

	3.  They charge you very large additional fees for "shipping"
	    and "handling" that are never mentioned when you place
	    the order.  (I have heard of S&H fees that were so high that
	    they completely eat up the difference between the "super
	    low discount" price of the mail order house and the normal
	    price of any local retailer.)

	3.  The mailorder establishment takes your money and runs.
	    (Not a problem with credit card purchases.)

	4.  You are put on "infinite backorder".

When I first called up Starflite (that name doesn't give me warm
fuzzies--sounds like fly-by-night), I was worried about all of these
things, but considering the enormous protection that credit card
purchasing gives you, I decided to take a chance on them.

I called up and asked them for the prices and configurations of
their Amiga systems.  The prices were very good:

First system package:

	Amiga 1000
	Amiga 1080 monitor
	Amiga 1050 256k ram cartridge

Cost:	$1169 + $30 (shipping) = $1199 (total)


Second system package:

	Same as first system package plus external Amiga 3.5 disk
	 drive

Cost:	$1369 + $35 (shipping) = $1404 (total)


I asked the salesman if they had the Amigas in stock.  He said yes.
If I order one, how long will it be before you ship it and how
long before it gets to me?  He asked me where I lived and said they
would ship it tomorrow and it would take 7 - 10 days for the system
to reach me.

"Wonderful!" I said. "I'll take the $1199 package."  We did credit
card protocol, and he asked if I would like to purchase any software.
I ordered Lattice C ($127) and Deluxe Paint ($63).  He thanked me
for my order, and we hung up.  (All the people in this company seem
unusually polite.)

Eleven days later, my system showed up.  My Amiga system was completely
what I ordered without any funny substitutions for the price they told
me.  The only fly in the ointment was the software was backed ordered.

(Sigh.  Ever sit in front of any Amiga without a C compiler or other
software for a week.  Its heartbreaking.  Even the public domain stuff
on Usenet is mostly in source only form.  I have taken to writing
Basic programs and redesigning all my system icons.  I've even had to
go out and by an arcade game and joystick in order to get some use from
my system.)

Back to the main story.  My problem was in my excitement over the
hardware, I didn't check to see if the software was in stock.  I called
Starflite last Wednesday, and they said that they were indeed currently
out of stock of a great deal of software but they were expecting a Friday
shipment from their supplier.  The person I talked to seemed very contrite
and was very courteous through the entire discussion.  Seemed well
organized as well--within 30 seconds of me giving my name he had pulled
my invoice and told me my address and what was in my original order.
(I have never dealt with a place that could do that before.  Usually,
if I call up to check on an order, I will be put on hold for 5 or 10
minutes and maybe, just maybe, they might find some record of my order.)

Monday I called up to see if the software had been shipped yet.
Unfortunately, the woman who answered the phone said she thought
that Lattice C and Deluxe Paint were still out of stock and that
the man who handles this sort of thing wasn't in just then.  She
volunteered to look up my records and find out the situation and asked
me to call back in ten minutes.  I called back, she verified that
my address was correct and that my order information was correct,
and then told me the software had not come in yet.  "Our supplier
told us last Friday," she said, "but he didn't deliver.  He said
we should be getting our stuff in by the end of this week."  Again,
very courteous and very sorry that they had inconvenienced me.
(This is a sharp contrast to the "Leave us alone.  Your stuff will
come in." that I have encountered with other mail order places.)

My recommendation: Starflite seem like very honest people who are
very customer conscious.  They deliver (if in stock) exactly what
you order at the price they advertise plus a very reasonable shipping
fee.  Just verify that what you want is in stock (this is a
recommendation that I make regardless of what firm you are buying
from and what you are buying).

For me, I'll give them until the end of the week to get the software
in.  If its not in by then, I'll see about converting the order to
an order for a second floppy drive (if they have them in stock! :-))

Starflite Telemarketing
1-800-423-7347
P.O. Box 685
Nitro, WV 25143

(Starflite has an ad on page 108 of the November/December Amiga World.)

Right after I typed in the base topic I thought how reasonable it
would be to call up Starflite and convert the backordered software
to an order for another drive.  I just called them up.  Again, they
were very courteous and very prompt.  Found my records within 30
seconds of talking to me and had had canceled the software order
and entered the disk drive order within another minute (I didn't
even need to read them my credit card number again: they had it
from the original order).

They even knocked another $5 off the price of the drive to make
up for a difference in shipping charges.

The drive will be shipped this afternoon.