My Mythlogic experience - went from lukewarm to plain horrible :(

I will try to keep this post as short as possible. I have tons of e-mails and chat transcripts outlining the details, and would be happy to provide any and all information if anyone is interested.

So, I ordered a Mythlogic Dia 1616 (Clevo P650 I believe) in August. I ordered it with a custom Swedish keyboard, and special full laptop paint job.

First of all, I was told a turnaround time of roughly 30 or so business days. I thought that was quite long, but acceptable. However, the full delivery took more than twice as long in the end. Also, I had been promised an EU power supply, but received a US one. I was told that it would be easier if I went out and got a EU power cable myself, and they would reimburse me. They still have not reimbursed me, and this was in November.

As some form of compensation for the late delivery, I was told I'd get a couple of voucher codes for games (Rise of the Tomb Raider and Watch Dogs 2). I got two codes, but only the Tomb Raider one worked. I have asked several times about the Watch Dogs 2 code, but have not received an answer. Again, this was in November.

Right before sending the laptop they notified me that they had noticed that the Swedish keyboard was broken - the backlight was not working. They told me that it would be easier for them (and me, as I would receive my laptop) if they could ship it to me with the broken keyboard, and then ship a new, fully functioning Swedish keyboard separately in a couple of weeks. I informed them that I'd have to pay import taxes on the second shipment, but was reassured that they'd reimburse me the import tax.

I have been e-mailing and calling pretty much weekly since I received the laptop. I have yet to receive an e-mail response, and every time I've called I've been told that it is on a certain person's desk (I won't name him here as I am unsure of whether or not it violates any rules). I've been told this since sometime in November/December. These last couple of weeks when I've tried to call, nobody picks up. It is almost like they are dodging my calls. I still have not received my keyboard, nor have I received any reimbursement or explanation.

All in all, I am super happy with the performance of my laptop, but at the end of the day I was delivered a faulty product. I paid quite a premium for a back-lit Swedish keyboard, and have yet to receive one. Disappointed is putting it mildly, I honestly feel cheated. If Clevo doesn't deliver fully functioning Swedish keyboards, I should have been told this from the get-go. At least then I would have had the option of accepting a refund for the extra cost for the Swedish keyboard, and gone with a US one instead.

I have been holding off on putting this post up, because I've hoped for so long that Mythlogic would step up and make things right. Given the time passed, and the responses (and/or lack thereof) I've received, that seems more and more far-fetched.

Honestly, I don't know what to do at this point. I keep on trying to call them, and sending e-mails, but radio silence is all I get. They still have not delivered the product as promised, nor have they reimbursed my expenses as they said they would.

Any advice or help would be much appreciated!

 

@mythlogic Care to chime in? This seems pretty pitiful.

This is ridiculous OP sorry you had to deal with this.

It may be time for me to make a guide for laptop resellers. It's saddening seeing all these horrific reports (not just from mythlogic) from users when we here know the reps of resellers quite well.

 

Thank you, and I agree.

The funny/sad (depending on how you look at it) thing is that I had read around the forums, and although I had gathered as much as that the communication from Mythlogic may be less than stellar, customers had still been treated with respect and all issues had been solved - usually with a response and an apology here on the forums. I would never for my life have thought that a customer - buying a premium product at a pretty hefty cost, mind you - would be "dodged" and treated the way I've been treated...

 

Eh I always assume the worst case. HID is the leader for track record here, with LPC-Digital, XoticPC, Prostar, and more recently Eurocom all doing well as well.

Malibal, Origin, Mythlogic, Eluktronics, and a few others are less consistent.

 

Hello Everyone,

You're right, it is shameful, bad, and we have no excuse for it what so ever. We messed it all up (to put it in PG terms). We've reached out to the customer and are working to resolve it as expeditiously as possible.

 

And as we all know, even the best have their moments... Common sense (and my own experience running/working for multiple small businesses) dictates someone will fall through the cracks every so often. The best-run companies will put an increasingly-small net over the cracks until they're gone.

It's been interesting to see the 'good list' change over time. When I was buying my P170EM, Eurocom was "don't buy", and it's seemed that way until very recently indeed. Xotic, of whom I'm a happy former customer, has had its rocky points... the general feeling seemed to be that they were trending toward "don't buy" for a while before they cleaned up again.

I think this is very worthwhile. I'd add the names of all the major company reps on NBR for each.

It would be nice to see NBR itself implement a 'scorecard' of sorts - in concept it wouldn't be difficult, as it would only need a tag of some sort to pick from a list of known resellers, and a positive/neutral/negative tag, to sort feedback threads with. If nothing else, it would be neat to watch the scores rise and fall, and the effect of pressure being put on low performers to shape up, and all resellers to respond to issues quickly and publicly.

I encourage you to post some details of how you end up resolving the issue for the customer (if they agree to sharing here) as well.

 

Yep it's changed a lot. Xotic from what i can tell is one of the higher volume resellers so it isn't surprising that they have more than smaller sellers. However, I have no accurate numbers. More like Xotic is indexed first, has the most reviews etc... Which can be affected by marketing campaigns and other factors.

Eurocom was on the bad list for a while, they had an ownership change. Been solid recently. Malibal was good, started doing crazy stuff and got banned even or something from here.

I can't tolerate Mythlogic and OriginPC often charging awful prices and still being awful to customers. HID has had slips sure, but not most of the time. And I haven't heard of them dodging calls. Hell Donald often answers the phone at like 10:30pm. Why is he even there??

Edit: Not sure if Mythlogic charged a terrible price here to be fair.

 

I don't wanna see you back here (with a bad experience) young man, shape up!

 

Yes sir. Working on it sir!

 

Didn't know that - that explains that.

Agreed on the pricing vs. service. You can't market your product as premium, then deliver something of equal quality to those who sell it much cheaper, with awful service to boot. That's a good way to go out of business.

Having personally talked to Donald at 10:30pm PST, and received emails from him marked at 11:30pm PST or later (seriously)... yeah, really. Does he sleep?

I've had late interactions with Xotic staffers on here, too. That kind of thing is definitely above-and-beyond (and a passion for what you do)... we all only ask for a reasonable minimum, even if we enjoy more.

 

@Donald@HIDevolution always tells me at his age sleep is optional . I still always tell him he should do it more lol.

I've also had only positive experiences with @Tanner@XoticPC (who apparently promptly got promoted to Product Manager from CS lol so idk if he should be here anymore). As well as @EurocomTechspert @Prostar Computer @Larry@LPC-Digital @Meaker@Sager @XMG @pat@XOTICPC and @John@OBSIDIAN-PC. They are all very professional and helpful members here.

 

Ditto @pat@XOTICPC - and I think @Meaker@Sager may be the one responsible for putting buying from Sager direct back in the "no problem" category. But now we're at risk of derailing OP's thread, so I'm bailing out until @mythlogic or OP post a resolve.

 

I have had a similar falling out experience too... I will edit this post or create a new to explain what I have been going through. But in my case it went not from lukewarm but from absolutely fantastic service to leaving a bad taste in my mouth a year later. Especially after I defended them and praised them against forum members bashing them.

 

Don't be like me and ruin OP's thread, follow the sticky and create a new thread for your experience.

 

You defended them like you owned the business when I used to bash them

 

It was warranted back then man trust me I was blown away by the support. Things have taken a turn since then and I hate to admit it. Oh well...

 

care to explain? you were pretty happy with them remember when they swapped your single GTX 980 Desktop Class to SLI 2x 980M? What happened next that disappointed j00?

 

Ok, so status update. Right after I posted here on the forums, I received a response to one of my FB-messages to Mythlogic.

They apologized and said yet again that I will receive my Swedish keyboard, as well as reimbursement for the import tax for receiving the shipment, but I am still waiting for final confirmation from them. They have also refunded me the full cost of the keyboard (as a small compensation for the LONG wait, I presume), the power cable, and a game code (I was given the option to receive Steam- or Amazon credits, or cash, and I chose cash).

Hopefully I will receive my working keyboard soon enough, so I can put this whole thing behind me. I appreciate that I finally got some sort of response from Mythlogic, as well as the compensation I had initially been promised. The fact that it took SO long, and that I had to resort to posting a negative review online to get them to respond, leaves a sour aftertaste. However, them finally fixing things somewhat mitigates the bad experience, although I am reluctant to count my chickens just yet until I have the keyboard in hand and installed, and have received the reimbursement for the import tax.

Will keep posting updates as/if things change.

 

Any updates?

 

Last I heard from Mythlogic was March 3rd, around this time of day. So pretty much exactly a week and a half (11 days) ago. Before that it was February 24th, when they said they were awaiting confirmation regarding the keyboard.

March 3rd they wrote me "should have the answer today. Just waiting for the west coast of the U.S. to wake up". They also asked me if I had received my money. I had indeed received the transfer, but for the wrong amount (only 8.90$ short, but still - I had checked conversion rates and there is no way it could have been that off just due to differences in exchange rates ). I was told that the "money people may have just miss typed it as well", and that they would check and reimburse me the right amount (together with the payment for the import tax, I presume).

In any case, that exchange ended on March 3rd, with them writing about the "money people" and then "we'll let you know as soon as we know about the KB today". Unfortunately since then, all I've heard is radio silence.

I wrote them again about 24h ago, and I still have not heard back.

This experience really is a roller coaster. After my initial forum post on here I got my hopes up, and it really felt as if they were picking up the ball. I did get the money transfer without any delay to speak of, although it was a few bucks short... And now, I have yet again been waiting for a few weeks, without any updates or replies to my messages.

 

Well.....that is certainly bad news. Just for shouts and giggles, I looked at their company reps profile. It shows they were online yesterday but their last 2 posts were in this thread and the 3rd and previous posts were from last year.

I'm real big on communication, especially if the customer is having a problem. I have gone to Mythlogic for my last 2 systems because they are a builder as opposed to a reseller. I'm not to happy to see the recent reviews similar to this thread.

I hope the OP has all his concerns resolved sooner than later.

 

Update, again:
What a roller coaster. On March 14th I got a response from Mythlogic, saying that Clevo claims they never produced a Swedish keyboard. Both I and Mythlogic knows this is not true, and I have even been in touch with a Swedish reseller that has the keyboards in stock. I told Mythlogic this, and they said that they would contact the Swedish reseller immediately to order the keyboard from them and have it shipped to me. They told me they would send an e-mail to the Swedish company the same day, which sounded great at the time! I was in Stockholm at the time (until March 21st), and even volunteered to go to the company and pick the keyboard up myself to speed things up.

I have been in contact with the reseller myself, and they claim to not have received anything from Mythlogic at all.

Mythlogic also admitted to have "fat fingered" the wire transfer to me, so they still owe me a part of the refund, and said they would add it to the tab and transfer it back to me. Still haven't heard anything about this, and I am also still waiting for the extra paint they said they would send me to fix some paint-chafing on the laptop screen hinges.

I have written Mythlogic twice after our last contact, and the messages show as "Seen" but I have not heard anything back. At all.

I don't know how to tag the Mythlogic reps here on the forums, but I hope they see this and get things done like yesterday, because this is now beyond frustrating.

 

@mythlogic

 

So, this issue still has not been resolved. I spoke to the Swedish reseller today, and they still have not received any payment from Mythlogic according to them. I have sent several messages to Mythlogic, all "Seen" on Facebook, but without any life signs what so ever. Not even a status update, nothing. Radio silence.

As it stands, Mythlogic still owes me a functioning Swedish back-lit keyboard, the money that was missing from the refund, plus a promised touch-up paint bottle as the custom paint job was damaged when I received the laptop. This has been ongoing since August last year. It is safe to say that the small compensation I have so far received feels insufficient. To say the least...

 

@MrChisel That is not good. I'm surprised since the service and communication used to be good. Well, based on your feedback with no response from the vendor, I'll be removing references to them from my signature and be recommending someone else to my contacts.

 

Ok, so I finally got the keyboard last night. Had to personally contact the Swedish firm, who claimed they hadn't received full payment for the keyboard and shipping. However, they were cool about it and sent it to me as a favour, while I promised to contact Mythlogic and make sure the payment went through.

Mythlogic were quite responsive in messages yesterday, and gave me good instructions and tips on how to swap the keyboard. I am still waiting for the touch-up paint for the scratched hinges, as well as the last refund bit. All in all I am very much looking forward to get this whole ordeal over and done with... After all, I bought the laptop almost a year ago.

The sad thing about this story is that the range of quality in Mythlogic's responses really have been heaven-and-hell. Sometimes they seem really service-minded and helpful, but sometimes all I get is radio silence for extended periods of time and even nonchalant or arrogant answers. I really WANT to be happy with this purchase, and part of me is. The laptop is a BEAST, and the custom paint job is good apart from the chafing around the hinges. The customer service, however, leaves quite a bit of room for improvement.

In the future, I am not sure whether or not I will turn to Mythlogic again, or recommend them to anyone. I would lie if I said that it will never happen, as the customization options with Mythlogic are better than anywhere else I've found (at least among companies that ship to Europe), and again the machines themselves are beasts. But I would be afraid for something like this to happen again... Honestly, even the initial delay of more than double the promised delivery time kind of put me off and was handled poorly, and the rest of the story has just added insult to injury.

Really hoping that the touch-up paint and the rest of the refund will be handled smoothly now...