My Review of Xotic and Malibal

I have been for a long time trying to decide between Malibal and Xotic for my new laptop. I was going to with Malibal because of their great past on this site, but the newer reviews were just terrible and they seemed horribly unprofessional in some of their responses.

I outed Malibal in one of my posts and then realize that I didn't have the full story. So being the level headed person I am, I removed my statements and PM'd Malibal a personal apology.

After some price negotiations and talks with both companies I went with Xotic for the better price (better discounts and free shipping). After putting up my order in the Sager/Clevo forum I got a PM from Malibal within an hour. They said they would beat Xotic's price and give me free shipping which they would not do before I bought from Xotic.

That alone just seemed very dishonest in my opinion. Then I told them they had to drop the price even more and the owner of the site said that they were only making $10 off my purchase and could not go any lower. With my build that was about a 1% profit if he was telling the truth.

To me Malibal is extremely defensive, they do not understand how business should work, and that they are generally a company you should stay the hell away from. The owner of Malibal continued PMing me back and forth never addressing the issues that I brought up, and was extremely defensive.

Then they moved to their own forum which to me just sealed the deal on terribly dumb their business practices are. Their sales are probably at least 50% attributed to this website, now they want their own site to manage all the content so that anything negative will be removed. This is hilarious to me.

Xotic on the other hand has been a great company, they have taken care of everything I needed and I am sure my laptop will arrive safe and sound. I will be sure to update once I receive my laptop.

 

I had thought Malibal was a great company but there have been several people mentioning something negative about them lately. And like you said, they just got up and left these forums, which seems like a horrible move.

I kept waiting for someone from Malibal to straighten everything out but I guess not.

 

Thanks Destx for your kind words, we appreciate your business. Sorry to hear about the problems you have experienced, unfortunately not the only time we have heard it.

BTW, what laptop did you purchase?

 

Yes, yes! post your specs for us

Glad Xotic was able to take care of everything for you.

 

Glad things are finally working out in the end

 

Yes, and I told you in PM how much I appreciated that apology. A rightful and noble apology.

After we had our nice PM exchange, I saw that you placed an order with another company, so I PM'd you and simply asked what the determining factor was in your decision to purchase elsewhere. You said that you would have preferred to purchase from our company, but that the price difference was too great. Well, it turns out - the price difference was not that great, because you had apparently made a mistake on the order by forgetting to select an Operating System and 2 Year Warranty.

Anyway, after you told me the reason for purchasing elsewhere... I said we could have matched or beat their price, but you never asked us to before placing your order (you simply asked us for a quote and we gave you a list of our current deals) so that's why you didn't receive the low price offer before placing your order with the other company.

After we told you that we could have matched or beat their price, you then asked us how low we could go... and that's when we gave you a new quote. The price we quoted was lower than the other company, at which time - I pointed out that the order you had placed did not include an OS and 2 Year Warranty, like the list of specs you had given me in PM. You said you were positive that you had the OS and 2 Year Warranty on your order, however - the price on your order was the exact dollar amount (on the other site) for the specs you PM'd me minus the OS and 2 Year Warranty.

Once I brought this to your attention, you became upset and the conversation soon deteriorated. We offered you a lower price, but you wanted us to throw in a Free OS and 2 Year Warranty on top of that, which would have been another $159 discount - making our price, $209 below the other site. I told you why we couldn't sell that low and you said you didn't believe me, so I explained very clearly why it was true.

You never brought up any issues. I gave you the lowest price by $50 and instead of accepting that you asked for another $159 OFF. When I wouldn't give that to you, you became upset and called me a liar - at which point, I told you the complete truth because I have no reason to lie to you. You can see how honest I am... I say things on the forums that I know will cost me business... but I say them anyway, because it's the truth - and I value the truth more than I value money.

We created our forums a few months back (check the timestamp of the first post) but never got around to opening them to the public. We had planned to have our own forums, while continuing to participate on NBR... just like other companies on here currently do - so I don't know how anyone can think that having our own forums means we're trying to censor people. How does having our own forums prohibit anyone from saying anything about us on NBR or any other site? It doesn't... so the accusation has no merit.

In closing, I just wanted to add that these type of threads are the reason I have decided to remove my company from participating on here. I really love the community and will be very sad to leave, however - lately there has been way too much unnecessary and pointless drama, and it has started to affect the quality of my work - so I feel like I must go. I have enjoyed my time on here very much and wish everyone the best. Yes, even you Destx - you little rascal.

P.S. And one more thing before I go... as I've said many times before and I will say one last time. We have zero complaints with the BBB in 8 years, which is the best record in the industry. We take great care of our customers and will never wrong you. I can't - because I have a conscience.

 

Its funny how you keep bringing up the BBB as proof of your greatness for the last 8 years, yet you have only been BBB acredited sinc 2010. MALIBAL Business Review in Las Vegas, NV - Southern Nevada BBB.

Taking a look at reseller ratings your rating is quite a bit lower than the other resellers here. MALIBAL Reviews - malibal.com Ratings at ResellerRatings

There is several bad reviews over at reseller ratings with most of them being recent which happens to coincide with the recent trend of less than stellar ratings here. One thing is for sure, all of your replies are what can be considered aggressive and you NEVER accept any responsibility for the customers issues most often calling the posters liars. It is doubtful that all the negative posts are fabricated as you like to call them.

 

We have only been a member of BBB's Accreditation Program since 2010, however - anyone could have left a complaint about our company dating all the way back to 2004. Note: The BBB actually arbitrates "complaints" before posting them on your profile, so unless we've actually done something wrong - someone cannot just post a false claim like they can do on every other site.

Also, I encourage everyone to go read the "negative" reviews on resellerratings.com. That last one star review is from someone who returned their laptop for a refund. The laptop had a lot of wear on it... so we told him that, in accordance with our return policy - we had to make deductions - and he said that was fine, but that if the deductions were too much - we could just return the laptop back to him and he'd pay the return shipping. We'll, we sent him pictures of the wear - which even included the ac adapter, and he said to just send the laptop back to him, so we did - and we even paid the return shipping for him.

The one star before that... almost every single claim is false, please read our reply on rr.com... we have all the evidence to back it up.

The one star before that, this was a school district who left us a one star review while they had our $2400 laptop and were 3 weeks overdue on payment... the entire reason they were upset is because we wanted a late fee, but they refused to pay it because they said they weren't responsible for not making payment on time. I'm not kidding. Please read our response on rr.com.

And the last one star review was from a person who we literally did nothing to. He broke his screen on accident, so we replied and told him it wasn't covered under warranty and then he went on rr.com and just started ranting.

See, this is the problem with the internet - anyone can come on here and just say anything... except on sites like the BBB - where they actually require that you provide evidence for your claims.

Nothing is stopping anyone from coming on NBR or rr.com and saying: XYZ is a horrible company! STAY AWAY FROM XYZ! And sadly, people read comments like this and it affects their image of the company in question, even though not a single fact has been presented or even a single, specific claim or charge has been made.

The fact that we have zero complaints with the BBB in 8 years is proof that what I'm saying is true. If we had actually done something wrong to any of these one star customers, then you would see their complaints posted on our BBB profile, but you don't - because we haven't done anything wrong.

Edit: And let me add one last thing... another reason why the BBB is more reliable than rr.com, is because you cannot have complaints removed or changed on bbb.org like you can on rr.com. Once a complaint is posted on your BBB profile, there is no "compensating" the customer in order to try and get them to remove it - like companies do all the time on rr.com. On rr.com, all you have to do is "compensate" the customer and they'll almost always change their one star review to something better. We don't play that game, though.

 

As I see it. It's all up to the consumers, and lately they've NOT been happy with Malibal. No offense, but some might have great experiences and some may not.

In this case, several people have periodically NOT been "treated" well.

jaug1337 out nothing more to needs to be said..

 

Personally, I believe that everyone has to remember that there's two sides to every story. I've seen too much bashing of companies (my experience is with music companies not computer) where the company is made to look horrible only to find out that the story was incredibly skewed/biased/dramatized from the story tellers perspective. I don't know the story but think its important to remember to take everything with a grain of salt before piling on.

 

Once someone gets mad about something, even little issues can be twisted into giant faults.. While we do see good reviews for companies here, you also have to remember that a lot of people come online simply to complain and stir things up. That's just part of the game..

 

I think it's like any problem, when you're happy people usually don't bother posting about it, but when something goes wrong (even the lightest of things) they come and do this whole "OH NO YOU DIDN'T" routine. Some people do get bad experiences, but that's what it's like dealing with this type of stuff. I think for every product I've ever bought there has been that whole THIS WAS THE WORST EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE type post. A great example was when I bought my Vertex 3. I think like the majority of comments you would run across online were of people saying that OCZ was the worst company ever, their SSD's were awful, they fail all the time, BSOD machines of doom etc.. Yet mine has no problems? It's just the way things are.

TL;DR: When people are happy with the product they don't write about it, because they are happy. When people are mad they vent steam in sometimes exaggerated forms.

 

Unrelated to the issues mentioned.

Mr Malibal when I receive the email announcement about the forums. Thunderbird or Gmail flags it as a "scam" and warns me when I click the links.

So I had to come here and confirm you actually have a forum.

I'm sure there is nothing wrong but you guys may want to look into it.

 

Hi Kiol, thanks for the heads up - that's the first time I have heard that... we use mailchimp.com to send out all newsletters/email announcements - so I'll report the issue to them, thanks.

 

It's interesting that they offered you free shipping when just a week ago they told me that they don't when I had asked about discounts. I was purchasing one laptop for myself and also doing the grunt work for two of my friends who were also purchasing sagers (I convinced them to ) so was trying to find any group discount rates considering all 3 were going to be over 1500. I had asked malibal how much shipping would cost which they referred me to their website to estimate shipping but originally couldn't find the link so I just gave them my address asking if they could put it in for me which they wouldn't. He did however email me again telling me the "exact" location on their page and after a few extra minutes I did find it. However when choosing a reseller among the many options sometimes it's the small things that help make the decision. After comparing the price with shipping and all discounts both would offer Xoticpc was cheaper by about 10 bucks only, but if Malibal had gone that extra mile I would have been more inclined to contact them again asking for a price match as I originally wanted to order from them.

So in the end I ended up going with Xotic because they were overall just more friendly in their pm's and went that "extra mile" for me when asking about shipping and the such. Then 10 minutes after I ordered mine, I helped both of my friends order theirs. So now all 3 of us are patiently waiting for our laptops to arrive (got the amd card in all of them so have a little time ).

P.S. Malibal did respond quickly and knowledgeably mind you just felt slightly cold is all.

 

Hi, when customers ask how much shipping is, we refer them to the shipping charges link on our cart page, because the exact cost is determined by the price of the notebook (insurance purposes) so the shipping costs on a $1500 P150EM-SE will not be exactly the same as the shipping costs on a $3000 P150EM-SE, even if they are shipping to the same location - so that's the reason we ask customers to configure the notebook they want and then add it to the cart and then click the shipping charges link to get the exact shipping costs.

P.S. You don't need to create an account for the shipping link to appear on the cart page.

 

That's a great response. I would have loved to have been told that so I would be more informed of the reasoning behind your response instead of just telling me that it depended on where you guys were shipping it to originally. Never mentioned anything about pricing being different dependent on cost of laptop (did tell you it would cost a bit over 1500 ). Tis also a shame when asking about discounts other people were being offered free shipping when I wasn't though. . Thanks for informing me your shipping procedure for pricing, gave me a bit more insight into your reasoning for some of your response.

 

Since I bought my laptop I had no real need to get back on these forums for a while but I checked back to day to just check and see where this went. Who would of thought Malibal would cry foul and make me look like the bad guy.

I am not going to waste my time anymore with the site because its just hearsay. I wrote up a truthful, honest review. Take it or leave it.

Here is my build for those curious

Free Shipping FREE!! Continental (U.S. Lower 48 - UPS Ground Only) Ground Shipping on ALL Sager Laptops (Enter Coupon Code: "SAGERFREESHIP" during order process)
Display 15.6" FHD 16:9 "Matte Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright LED Anti-Glare Screen w/ 95% NTSC Color Gamut (1920x1080) (SKU - S1R303)
Monitor Calibration NO Professional Monitor Color Calibration
Dead Pixel Warranty Standard Dead Pixel Policy
Processor Sager - 3rd Generation Intel® Ivy Bridge Core™ i7-3610QM (2.3GHz - 3.3GHz, 6MB Intel® Smart Cache, 45W Max TDP) (SKU – S2R174)
Thermal Compound - IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
Graphics Video Card nVidia GeForce GTX 670M 1,536MB PCI-Express GDDR5 DX11 with Optimus™ Technology [User Upgradeable] (SKU – S3R517)
External Display Video Adapters No Video Adapter
Ram 8GB - DDR3 1333MHz Dual Channel Memory (2 SODIMMS) - SPECIAL! (SKU - S4P369)
Branding Sager Branding
Exterior Finish Standard Finish
mSATA SSD Drive No mSATA SSD
Primary Hard Drive 750gb 7200rpm (Serial-ATA II 300 - 16MB Cache) (SKU - S5R306)
Optical Drive Bay Combo Dual Layer SuperMulti DVDRW/CDRW Drive w/ Software (When selecting a Hard Drive in the Optical Bay, No Optical Drive is Included) (SKU - S7R455)
Optical Drive Bay Hard Drive Caddy No Extra Optical Bay Hard Drive Caddy
External Hard Drive (Back Up) No Back Up Hard Drive
External USB Optical Drive NO External USB Optical Drive
Memory Card Reader Internal 9-in-1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD/Mini SD/SDHC/SDXC/MS/MS Pro/MS Duo)
Back Up Software No Back Up Software
Bluetooth Bluetooth Included (See “Wireless Network” Section Below)
Wireless Network Sager - Intel® Ultimate-N 6300 - 802.11A/B/G/N Wireless LAN Module (SKU - S8R112)
Wireless Network Accessories No Network Accessory
Camera Built in 2.0 Megapixel Camera
TV Tuner No TV Tuner
Sound Card Sound Blaster Compatible 3D Audio - Included
Case Basic Black Business Case - Included
Battery Smart Li-ion Battery (8-Cell)
Car Adapter No Car Adapter
Spare AC Adapter No Spare AC Adapter
Port Replicator / Dock / Adapters No Dock/Hub/Adapter
Fingerprint Reader Integrated Fingerprint Reader
Headsets No Headset
Keyboard Accessories No External Keyboard
Mouse Accessories No External Mouse
Notebook Cooler No Notebook Cooler
XOTIC PC Redline Boost™ Extreme Performance No Thanks, Please do not Overclock my system (Overclocking will add 3-6 business days to build time)
OS Redline Boost No Operating System Redline Boost
Operating System ~Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit Installed (64&32-Bit CD Included) w/ Drivers & Utilities CD's + Microsoft Office Starter 2010 - Included with OS Purchase
Microsoft Office Software No Office Software
Software Bundle (Not Installed) No Software Bundle
Warranty Sager 2 Year Parts & LIFETIME Ltd Labor Warranty w/ Lifetime 24/7 DOMESTIC Toll Free Customer Support (SKU - S9R206)
White Glove Premium Packaging No thanks, standard double boxed packaging is okay with my order
Outside of U.S. Shipping Coverage No Outside of US Shipping Coverage
Xotic Gear No Xotic PC Gear

 

On BBB website it says "A BBB Accredited Business since 04/08/2010"
Also says the following:
BBB file opened: 04/09/2010
Business started: 11/18/2004
Business started locally: 03/24/2010

Unless my English is really bad, it seems to me that you have been with BBB only since 04/2010, which if you calculate until today 05/2012 is only 2 years 1 month. Not 8 years you have been quoting in almost all your extremely defensive responses. You are giving NBR members misleading information and I think you should rethink your strategy. If I am wrong, please do correct me.

For a company rep that gives misleading information, how accountable can I hold the company for? We make decisions based on the wrong information so can they actually be sued?

 

To clarify, any business can have complaints filed against them via the BBB. Accreditation simply means that the company complies with certain BBB standards when it comes to resolving them. More info about that here.

By the way, if you want to add something to a post you've already made, please use the edit button. Creating multiple posts in a row is a violation of forum rules.

 

Malibal already addressed that in this post at the bottom of page 1.

 

Let's keep this thread reasonably on topic; I've removed a couple posts. Thanks.