Good/Bad merchants?

I'm building my first home-built. I have no experience with on-line component vendors.

Living here in Silicon Valley I've done lots of shopping at Fry's, but believe that pricing for some things (CPU, Graphic cards, DVD/RW, etc) may be more reasonable on-line.

Searching Pricegrabber for a CPU I ran across 'Googlegear'. Does anyone have an opinion of their ethics? Any other favorite or infamous merchants of home-built stuff would be appreciated.

Let ME say that I appreciate Tom's Hardware site!!

Thanks,
Tim

I've used New Egg. Fast service. Ordered my case on Mon had it Wed. From Cal to Fla. Shipping price the best. Also they offer free shipping on a lot of their products.

If you live in Canada... I say go for
www.ncix.com else you get screwed... as for ordering a case online... only if shipping is free... otherwise... you pay an arm and a leg... I mean you can loose the leg but you need both arms to play UT2k3






To err is human... to really screw things up you need a computer!

When purchasing on line price is something to watch carefully. Here's an example.

I was buying a processor upgrade for my Mac. I looked at price comparisons. I found some prices that were lower overall. After looking at shipping costs it became clear that the lower advertised prices had higher shipping costs. In the end, the middle ground price was cheaper by nearly $20.

The other consideration is return. When I received the item it didn't work. I contacted the manufacturer and they agreed to rma. Obviously to RMA you have to pay shipping back. Hence, more cost involved here.

After a couple of days I went to buy something at a local merchant and found I had no money in my account. I investigated and found that the company that sold me the processor had tripple billed my account depeating it and incurring additional costs such as overdraft fees and insufficient funds fees.

So, the processor cost me:

$175 (no taxes and includes shipping).

Then I had to pay shipping back to the manufacturer.

Then I had to pay over $60 directly out of my account due to the bank fees. I got this back finally.

The firm that tripple charged me was Page Computers and they took their sweet time getting me my funds back. I had to go over a week without money for groceries, paying bills, and entertainment.

I still have no processor upgrade even though on my initial order I paid 2nd day to get it to me quickly. So, I paid for shipping for nothing.

Bottom line is that buying on line can be pleasurable and you get what you pay for or it can be downright nasty with companies taking advantage of the fact that they have access to your money.