They Sent me a Broken PC AGAIN - $1500 PC Secret Shopper 3 Part 2

[dogwitch]

1 hour ago, Egon3 said:

Thanks for showing this play-by-play, and I love the name used for the shipping info

it was shown star change the page.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

11 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

I just went through the checkout on Starforge's website, up to the point of submitting payment information.

 

First it asks you for contact information. I used LMG's street address (publicly listed on linusmediagroup.com) and of course a punny name. It says shipping will be calculated at checkout:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Can I just say... Jacques Strappe... I see what you did there. 

[Ultraforce]

So the video has been updated to have a voice-over explain that what was shown during the purchase did have some explanation and that the physical invoice they looked at did not as well as that there was actually a software bug on Starforge's end which lead to them being charged twice but Starforge sent a refund email for them automatically.

[Astra13]

Honestly, As a women into tech I'm kind of upset that all the callers for secret shopper have been female because to me that furthers the stigma about it being a male dominated hobby and regardless of whether or not that is true, I think to help break that stigma the way females presented in the tech place is to change that or at least it's a place to start. I love the concept of this series and it's nothing against LTT or anyone else, I just strongly believe it's something that needs to change. Also side note as someone who loves the creativeness of the intro parodies for secret shopper, I have to say I'm disappointed with how this one was executed. The other times Linus's partners were more involved, but this time not as much and it feels like a normal LTT video.

[ARandomPerson]

Inner children at heart like me are raging at NZXT's "Bubble Wrap."

[overbuilt_gaming]

So, since I watched the original video the only difference in this one is the StarfOrge invoice where they showed the shipping and duties.  Then an email shows up that was dated August 24th explaining that it was double due to an error.  That's fine but why wasn't this included in the original?  

 

The average user would not power on a PC when parts fell out of the case.  They would either call someone (perhaps one of their friends who knows PCs and ask) or call into technical support and inquire.  Even StarfOrge as bad as they are would walk the user through checking the GPU to make sure it's seated properly.  The problem here is StarfOrge knows about this now and is going to give them a white glove RMA treatment because it's on secret shopper. 

 

EDIT:  After watching the video closer the GPU could have come unseated when they removed the packing material, since the lock was busted off.  Assuming that was the lock that was busted off.  The camera didn't zoom in enough to see if that was the case. 

[MarkPol88]

2 hours ago, overbuilt_gaming said:

The problem here is StarfOrge knows about this now and is going to give them a white glove RMA treatment because it's on secret shopper. 

I believe that we are past RMA calls as they already release the original video - that is the whole "secret shopper" shtick

[RabbidEwok]

13 hours ago, UmaruLover said:

I think they're basically entirely in the right here. The PC was "broken" if it outright would not turn on when you got it. If you can fix it by calling support, nothing changes, it still needed fixing.

 

And... Christ, what kind of anklebreaking invoice just says "shipping" for everything? Saying "shipping cost us 300$" after getting a piece of paper with your product that tells you that shipping cost you 300$ isn't exactly uncalled for. I can't blame the writing team for thinking the invoice was a reliable source of information.

 

 

Customs is part of shipping though. They could always ask if something doesn’t seem right. 

[Diabl]

Could someone explain me why NZXT has twice as much memory and storage compared to PC part picker? 

[Distinctly Average]

5 hours ago, overbuilt_gaming said:

So, since I watched the original video the only difference in this one is the StarfOrge invoice where they showed the shipping and duties.  Then an email shows up that was dated August 24th explaining that it was double due to an error.  That's fine but why wasn't this included in the original?  

 

The average user would not power on a PC when parts fell out of the case.  They would either call someone (perhaps one of their friends who knows PCs and ask) or call into technical support and inquire.  Even StarfOrge as bad as they are would walk the user through checking the GPU to make sure it's seated properly.  The problem here is StarfOrge knows about this now and is going to give them a white glove RMA treatment because it's on secret shopper. 

 

EDIT:  After watching the video closer the GPU could have come unseated when they removed the packing material, since the lock was busted off.  Assuming that was the lock that was busted off.  The camera didn't zoom in enough to see if that was the case. 

The average user often does power things on despite something rattling inside. I have seen just that in the past, even in a data centre. You would be amazed how many times it happens.

[Distinctly Average]

1 hour ago, Diabl said:

Could someone explain me why NZXT has twice as much memory and storage compared to PC part picker? 

I personally would never have filled up all memory slots with 8gb sticks, nor would I spec a gaming pc with 32gb ram. It is in most cases pointless for gaming. I would, and this is my preference, not specify such a large boot SSD either wit 1tb being my preference. I would however spec a higher power PSU, again personal preference but the pc part picker one is 50w lower than the spec of the NZXT one. Purely going on specified wattage though is often not how they perform in real life though so this one may be more realistic.

[SkillTim]

Seems to me that the video wasn't ready because there was still some things to work out with Starforge. To their credit they reached out with a refund without any questioning from the buyer.

[Diabl]

2 hours ago, Distinctly Average said:

I personally would never have filled up all memory slots with 8gb sticks, nor would I spec a gaming pc with 32gb ram. It is in most cases pointless for gaming. I would, and this is my preference, not specify such a large boot SSD either wit 1tb being my preference. I would however spec a higher power PSU, again personal preference but the pc part picker one is 50w lower than the spec of the NZXT one. Purely going on specified wattage though is often not how they perform in real life though so this one may be more realistic.

I think the point of this video is not only about "how good this pc for gaming", but also "how much SI charge you in addition to the components price". If all of this about gaming fps, why we have different PC part picker system for each SI and not one "Bang for a buck" pc which costs about 1500$?

[silentdragon95]

So uh, can we talk about the shipping costs for these systems? Is this a North America thing? I just checked a bunch of system integrators here in Germany and I honestly couldn't find any that would charge more than €20 for shipping. Triple-digit shipping costs is something I've only ever encountered when ordering something from another continent (that isn't Asia).

[Holmes108]

20 minutes ago, silentdragon95 said:

So uh, can we talk about the shipping costs for these systems? Is this a North America thing? I just checked a bunch of system integrators here in Germany and I honestly couldn't find any that would charge more than €20 for shipping. Triple-digit shipping costs is something I've only ever encountered when ordering something from another continent (that isn't Asia).

 

I think so. I can't really ship a standard board game within Canada (or even my own province) for much less than $30. It goes up pretty quick with size and weight, if you're not Amazon.

[RabbidEwok]

4 hours ago, Distinctly Average said:

I personally would never have filled up all memory slots with 8gb sticks, nor would I spec a gaming pc with 32gb ram. It is in most cases pointless for gaming. I would, and this is my preference, not specify such a large boot SSD either wit 1tb being my preference. I would however spec a higher power PSU, again personal preference but the pc part picker one is 50w lower than the spec of the NZXT one. Purely going on specified wattage though is often not how they perform in real life though so this one may be more realistic.

It depends on what else you’re doing. If you’re wanting to do other things whilst gaming it’s useful. Also RAM is cheap so why not? 
 

You can still store other things on the boot drive. It’s not special. However dropping from 2TB to one is a bit disingenuous concerning the 2TB is more expensive 

 

[maplepants]

6 hours ago, Distinctly Average said:

I personally would never have filled up all memory slots with 8gb sticks, nor would I spec a gaming pc with 32gb ram. It is in most cases pointless for gaming. I would, and this is my preference, not specify such a large boot SSD either wit 1tb being my preference. I would however spec a higher power PSU, again personal preference but the pc part picker one is 50w lower than the spec of the NZXT one. Purely going on specified wattage though is often not how they perform in real life though so this one may be more realistic.

Depends on how long you want your PC to last of course, but I would put 32GB RAM in a gaming PC (and did).

 

Since the PS3/360 I've been matching my PC upgrades to ~1 year into the new console life cycle. I get an upper mid-range GPU and CPU, and at twice as much RAM as the console with the most RAM. 

 

So I went 2GB > 16GB > 32GB. It's worked out really well. Gaming PC with 16GB lasted my 10 years and I expect my 32GB RAM machine have a similar lifespan.

[Distinctly Average]

28 minutes ago, maplepants said:

Depends on how long you want your PC to last of course, but I would put 32GB RAM in a gaming PC (and did).

 

Since the PS3/360 I've been matching my PC upgrades to ~1 year into the new console life cycle. I get an upper mid-range GPU and CPU, and at twice as much RAM as the console with the most RAM. 

 

So I went 2GB > 16GB > 32GB. It's worked out really well. Gaming PC with 16GB lasted my 10 years and I expect my 32GB RAM machine have a similar lifespan.

But would you fill all four slots with 8gb or two with 16 so from for the future? That was more the point. To me it seems the brand just wanted rid of a load of 8gb sticks while the current price is plummeting. 
 

I have two 32gb sticks in my own machine as I do a lot of image and video editing on it.

[Distinctly Average]

4 hours ago, Diabl said:

I think the point of this video is not only about "how good this pc for gaming", but also "how much SI charge you in addition to the components price". If all of this about gaming fps, why we have different PC part picker system for each SI and not one "Bang for a buck" pc which costs about 1500$?

I think that would be a good option. Have a PC as well species as possible for the 1500 and then see how far behind all the pre-built machines are. Then we can judge whether it is worth us doing the work ourselves or paying for a pre built. With the exception of getting stuff from our staff shop, I have always built my own mainly because there has never been a pre built to the spec I want that was easily available. Or there was but I am impatient and can build with off the shelf parts instead of waiting up to a month for a delivery of a pre built. 

[maplepants]

1 hour ago, Distinctly Average said:

But would you fill all four slots with 8gb or two with 16 so from for the future? That was more the point. To me it seems the brand just wanted rid of a load of 8gb sticks while the current price is plummeting. 
 

I have two 32gb sticks in my own machine as I do a lot of image and video editing on it.

I always get pre-builts so so I'm not picky about it. But I always try to get 2 sticks, and I try to buy what I need up front so that ideally I never need to upgrade my PC until it's time to replace it.

 

For me, my gaming PC is basically just the best console. I hook it up to my TV, play games for 7-10 years and then upgrade the whole thing lock stock and barrel. 

[Stephen Harris]

FWIW, I had seen the original and the only difference I think I can see is at 28:00

 

At 27:57 Linus show shock at "three hundred dollars" and then we switch a shot of the invoice "Ah, while our invoice shows said three hundred dollars for shipping, in their checkout you can see the shipping costs should be ninety nine dollars and the rest is import duties and taxes", along with commentary of a software bug and a refund.  Which takes us to 28:22 where the original carries on.

 

I _think_ that's the only change!

[NemesisPrime_691]

6 hours ago, Stephen Harris said:

FWIW, I had seen the original and the only difference I think I can see is at 28:00

 

At 27:57 Linus show shock at "three hundred dollars" and then we switch a shot of the invoice "Ah, while our invoice shows said three hundred dollars for shipping, in their checkout you can see the shipping costs should be ninety nine dollars and the rest is import duties and taxes", along with commentary of a software bug and a refund.  Which takes us to 28:22 where the original carries on.

 

I _think_ that's the only change!

Appreciate the comparison. But this just got me thinking, the software bug was just caught when LTT dropped the video with the included shipping costs the first time. Does that mean the other customers who have been ordering from out of US (probably Canada specific bug?) have been paying double the import duty and Starforge has been just pocketing the money? Sure, LTT got the refund back, but does Starforge have any data/idea of the people affected by this bug? 

 

Any updates on the affected customers would have been a good addition to the video as well. I hope they clarify this at some point in the future. 

[YamiYukiSenpai]

Waiting for the updated video on Floatplane.  However, I do wish that they kept the OG up w/o monetization.  Would've been easier to scrutinize ourselves & prove to others who just hated on Linus without watching too actually prove it.

[maplepants]

I was impressed by the HP Omen. Looked good, and seemed to be packed quite well. Margins on all of theme were pretty reasonable. I mentioned in an earlier comment that I'm a pre-built buyer and 100€-200€ margin is not bad at all.

 

I also like the style choice of putting the ports all in the back. I never plug anything extra into my gaming PC. Obviously it's not for everyone, but it's probably something other people who treat their PC like a console like.

[Jacob_1999]

On 10/19/2023 at 8:55 PM, Tuckplace12 said:

Any idea why it was made private? I was only half way through but it seemed fine

not sure if you had this answered, but there was a factual error with Starorge shipping cost, the original video has it shown to be $300, it was in fact $99 with Customs added in, the customs were also doubled on accident so they re-shot that part and edited the video