My Malibal Review thus far.

I found out about Clevo laptops after joining NBR last year and has since been waiting about 5-6months for better pricing and new release. I read through the forum and from most reviews, it seems that Malibal has probably the best customer service.

When the new GTX 675m were released, I immediately wanted to place an order and wrote to Malibal. They were rather busy as expected and I got my reply 2 days after. I like how Malibal answered my questions and was really excited. Placed my order on the 13th but I was concerned because during checkout I was informed of some verification form if I was using a credit card. Do understand that I do not do online shopping on a regular basis and this is actually my 1st time buying a product online and from a foreign country (I am in Canada). After checkout, it showed that my payment status is "authorized" and well common sense told me that everything seems fine enough. Perhaps that weird verification thing was not needed afterall.

Anyways to double check that I send a message to Malibal via NBR as usual to check on my concerns. Apparently authorized did not mean the authorized that I thought it meant. No verification form was send to me though, not in junk or spam folder as well. Malibal was kind enough to give me a link for the form.

Now this is the part which makes me worry. After completing the form, there was no acknowledgement that the form was received, there was no updates on how long it will take to verify or how they plan to do it (call my bank or?). I wrote to Malibal but perhaps it was already late and he was off duty. Like I said before I am not sure if the form was correct, send in correctly, if my order went through. I am extra concern as well because I really want to have the laptop reach me before the 15th of May.

My bank will update my credit card info only after 3 working days so no chance knowing how it went there. After waiting for 5 days, I finally wrote another mail to Malibal on the 18th asking about updates. Again I do understand they are busy, but you need to understand that after spending $2.6k (laptop + taxes + shipping) of my hard savings on a foreign company and having no updates have really frustrated me.

This is my last message to them through NBR:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
My order is IKK4101081201. Any idea if this is being processed? Like how is the verification? I need to know if there is a step I have not completed. It has been 5 days since I ordered this laptop and I am still wondering if I actually did order it. First time in my life whereby I spend money on something and is wondering if I actually bought it, does not make any sense. Nothing seems to have changed in my account at Malibal, everything on my order page has been the same since I order it.

If I did not order it and Malibal is not interested in taking my order, please do let me know so that I can move forward to a different company, thanks.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

I know I sounded unpleasant towards the end but seriously though that was how I felt at that time after spending so much and having left in the dark not knowing what is actually happening.


This was Malibal reply:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Removed - forum rules
------------------------------------------------------------------------


In a ticket I send, which is also asking about the status of my order and about tracking number. This is Malibal reply:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Removed - forum rules
------------------------------------------------------------------------


At the end of it all, I just felt that the CSR people at Malibal has failed to realized that a customer spending over 2.6k on an online ordering method will definitely have some concerns. Now the whole purpose of the CSR team is to heed these concerns and instill confidence in the customer. Am I wrong? I worked in CSR before and trust me the kind of customers I call insane are way different from me (me being the customer this time). Worked for AT&T. It just left me feeling that after the order is completed, I am just another customer. All the waiting and after spending so much, I will at least think that people are more understanding. I did notice that the status was changed to "paid" in my account, but truth being told, I am not sure what "paid" actually means lol since "authorized" was not "authorized". I know this sounds dumb but sometimes certain definitions may vary slightly from individuals to large corporations, same reason we have SOP and protocols to keep everyone on the same page. Imagine if I am older and less knowledgeable about everything, I am sure I will have a ton of other questions, now how will you handle me?

I just feel that not being told about the backorder on the GTX675m cards and being told that I am free to find another reseller shows that I am obviously not very important to them (it is obvious I am free to find another reseller, but being told by the company handling my order is different). When someone tells you that, you know they could care less about you and are not interested in making any sale from you. Now the question is this, am I really such a bad customer that I get this treatment? Believe me when I say I have met really unreasonable crazy customers.

Truth is, I really want this gaming rig to go smoothly and have too much invested in it. Funny thing is, I never said anything about cancelling my order but Malibal actually said "Also, I believe you said to cancel the order in a PM". Its like the decision has been made to cancel my order apparently. I need to iterate that I did not say to cancel my order.

What are you thoughts NBR members? Am I a tough customer? Was I asking too much? Or is this treatment just normal anyways?

BTW I see no reason to cancel my order because of a CSR though, and did not cancel my order unless they did it for me.

 

Sorry for the wall of text critical.

 

You'll have to paraphrase the responses by the company as per the forum rules, private correspondence is not allowed to be publicly posted. Thanks.

 

Just received this:

Your order has been canceled and the payment refunded. It might take up to 48 hours for the funds to show back up on your card. Thank you.
---------------------------------------------------------------
So they have taken the liberty to cancel my order. How nice of them

 

Well. That's pretty bad. Hopefully they work it out for you.

I'm waiting five days now on a pm just to see their unbroken discount.


I'd PM mythological to see their status on the parts you want. They may be a bit more money but you might get it on time

 

*Mythlogic (this is the second thread in a row I've ready today with it misspelled lol). You're right though Mariusbinx, Mythlogic is located in Michigan so I'm sure they do a decent amount of work in Canada. Depending on where the OP is located, perhaps they could even drive down and pick it up.

@ OP: I'd like to see the paraphrased personal correspondence if you wouldn't mind.. Might provide some insight as to why they cancelled your order.

 

Now that's odd. I wouldn't see as how Malibal could do such a thing...

+1 REP, I feel your pain mate.

 

Its weird how I feel. I thought I will be angry, but I am more sad since I have been telling my gf how I find the perfect company, been telling my friends how I found the secret premium Clevo laptops and the best company that deals them. If feels like I am begging Malibal to sell me a laptop, but they just owned me hard.

Maybe I feel betrayed.

 

I'm typing on my phone so it "corrected" my text.

Unbroken discount is supposed to say NBR discount.
Mythological is supposed to be mythlogic

 

+1 on mythlogic. Great manufacturer, i'd purchase from them or XoticPC. Malibal just got totally swamped due to the hold up on ivy bridge. Still upsets me that malibal treated you so badly though :-(.

Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk 2

 

There is a sticky in the forum to all the active resellers on NBR, you may want to check that out and choose for yourself.

I agree, when you spend such a huge chunk of $$, you deserve better treatment.

 

What three complaints? Please list them, so I can investigate.

Let's review, this customer sent us a PM essentially saying: Here is my order number... and then in the next line, said - I don't even know if I placed an order. What am I suppose to say to that? It would be impossible not to know you had placed an order, seeing as how you have an order number. Note: this customer also acknowledged in an email that he had submitted an order and he included his order code in that email, so there is no way that he didn't know he had placed an order.

In this same PM, he also asked if the order had been processed. The status of his order was right on the order page, and it said: Processed. So again, there is no way he couldn't have known the order was processed.

He then goes on to say in his first post, that nothing had changed on the order page, but further down in this same post - admits that he did notice the payment status had changed. Yet another falsehood. Note: he said he wasn't sure what "paid" meant since "authorized" didn't mean "authorized". Actually, authorized did mean authorized... as in the payment was authorized - however, it didn't mean verified. (See Below)

He continues on to say that after submitting the verification form, he never received an acknowledgment that the form was received. However, after clicking the submit button on the verification form, the following message is displayed: "Your submission was successful. We will contact you if there are any issues completing the verification. Thank you." So instead of us not sending him a notification or keeping him informed, he apparently failed to submit the verification form in the first place.

Also, the order page has the estimated build time on it i.e. 5-7 business days. We also sent an order confirmation email which states: "Your notebook should ship within 5-7 business days from the order date. If there are any delays, we will notify you. Once your order ships, you will receive an email containing your tracking information."

This customer contacted us on the 3rd business day (of 5-7) after his order was placed with the PM in his first post, where he "complained" about a bunch of nonsense, and then ended it by saying something to the effect of, let me know if I need to find another company.

And what was the purpose of this thread - anyway - to call us out? Call us out for what? Well, I guess for not making sure he knew he had an order placed, when he already knew he had an order placed. For not sending him a notification that his verification form was received, when he never properly submitted the verification form in the first place. For not notifying him of his order status, when it was posted right on the order page and in an email etc. etc.

 

I think just reading your response above shows what most of us fear most. Again I think I need to iterate again when someone from a foreign country is ordering something online the first time which is rather costly, I am sure people who have life experiences will tell you that you always want to double check. I am just double checking everything to make sure nothing goes wrong. I am asking questions to verify my doubts. If a customer that is paying $2.6k cannot repeat a question just because of concerns, I will think that there is something wrong with society.

None of these has anything to do with humanity, this is my personal experience with you, I may not even say Malibal, but just you in person. We all have dealt with different customer service our lives, they come at different levels even in the same company. How will I know that a status will change from "authorized" to "verified" and to "paid"? Again I need to explain that things you are familiar does not necessarily mean that everyone else is familiar with it.

I do not understand about the "he apparently failed to submit the verification form in the first place". I clicked the link you send me, filled it up, submitted it. Are you saying there is no records of it? Wait so how does this work now? Are you saying your website says there is a verification form, you says so as well, but yet you did not receive one and just proceed anyways? I am confused now. Or are you saying something else that I missed during the checkout process? Not too sure, that is why I wrote to you in the 1st place asking if I missed anything during checkout. Seriously why is it so hard to understand I am just very concern and want to double check each step?

Now, to clarify my intentions. I wrote on the forums simply because I feel that this entire scenario is limited to just me corresponding with you. You may be working for Malibal, but it may not necessarily reflect the whole of Malibal (It is no doubt easy to band people together by being ignorant but we must try to refrain from it). I strongly doubt everyone in Malibal has your same level of customer service. It just so happen your name is Malibal and I do not know your real name, therefore I just wrote "Malibal". Since of this whole scenario only me and you knows what is happening, I was thinking perhaps I should bring this situation to light to the NBR community to see what are their thoughts. Whether if I am on my path to being psychotic or is this a concern everyone else will want met? Which will be to make sure everything went smoothly.

If you feel that I have sucked your life out like a vampire. I feel that you have been too fortunate and have met only nice people your life.

Thank you as well for attacking me as a person. Apparently we are not able to talk about business and solely how to conduct professional business, we find the need to attack another person as an individual and make crude remarks on how they have ruined humanity. You are an eye opener.

 

No namedropping or linking to the incidents of these complains. I'll hold it off.

Btw, I'm pretty sure that everything that is needed has been said in this thread.

Eureka!

 

Banned? Interesting...

 

Yesterday night he posted something talking about how my avatar looked like a devil which is why I cannot be trusted or something. About how I was insinuating lies I think and continued on about how they had 8 years of zero complains in BBB and linking BBB. No idea, was a rather long post but I see no reason to reply since it was seriously pointless to have a childish argument.

Either he deleted it, was forced to delete it, moderator deleted it for him, not sure. He was banned soon after. Moderators even edited his posting above to remove some personal attacks. Its weird.

 

Whoa, banned. Might deter me from ordering for Malibal, idk. Perhaps he was just as frustrated as you were

On the bright side, they did give you a refund.

 

I too have had poor experience with Malibal. Was treated rudely over the phone a few months back because of some questions an concerns, and then was sent a few rude PM's because I mentioned in a thread that Eurocom was their distributor(and it wasnt mentioned in a negative manner, just as a statement of knowledge towards another forum member). Their own actions because of this had me look towards other resellers due to the unprofessionalism. Honestly, the way they have treated me and a few others Im shocked that this hasn't happened earlier.

 

I too am surprised. I wonder if the other Malibal rep(s) were banned as well.. This does not look too good for them. I've seen him post very defensive posts before and wondered why he though it was ok to do so on a public forum lol. When I was purchasing a 8150 I talked with Malibal a little and whomever I was in contact with was very short with me and unfriendly.. I simply moved along though.

I'd like to think that they (the company) simply allowed the wrong people to represent them here on the forum. I'm sure they have many happy customers otherwise they wouldn't still be in business..

 

I've dealt with MALIBAL (the company) numerous times and haven't had any problems so don't know what to say?

 

I closed this thread for the time being to allow for a cooling off period and for a time of reflection. The two parties directly involved have had their say. If either party wants the thread re-opened, they can direct a request to me or any other mod to consider doing so.

Thank you for your understanding.