RS and Allied Update #6

[lbr88]

[email protected] last visited 3/12/13. He has not posted since 12/20/12, yet everyone just keeps piling stuff in here. RS might be checking in, but Allied has never bothered to answer a single question, in these forums, as far as I have seen. Yet people keep ordering!

I do not get it at all!

I for one didn't expect a company to deliver such poor service and not ship my order. What worries me the most is the lack of emails to customers I haven't heard nothing from them and had to start looking elsewhere for information. And that they can bother to send a reply on a forum regarding shipping status instead of informing customers directly pisses me of to say the least.

[rasprm3]

I got mine today.

I ordered on January 28th, 2013. It arrived today, March 14th, 2013.

That's 45 days, or 1 month 14 days, or six weeks.

I ordered from Allied. I tried RS first but their site wouldn't let me order. If I had to do it again I ordered from one of the other places mentioned on here. I'm blanking on the names, but they had Pi's listed as in stock and the price was still $43.

I got a little white power square and mini or micro usb cable. So I knew the power amount would be correct. The cable is less than a foot long. Kind of tacky but I guess it's the right amp/etc. I can stick it on an extension cord I guess. I'm sticking the Pi up on a shelf.

After I ordered I studied this forum out better and found this page. They did stick by the six week back order time, although I forget where I read that. On here I think.

I did email them on Sunday, got a reply on Tuesday, and now I've got the Pi on Thursday.

[trawick]

A little model B trivia from the US:

Vendor: Allied
Web Order Number: 2500456xxx
Order date: January 29, 2013
Credit card charge date: March 14, 2013
Arrival date: March 15, 2013

Also, AdaFruit says they are shipping one to me today.

[Oliverfisher]

Hi i ordered a r-pi on Thursday so 14/3/13 and the rs website says 2 weeks any updates about this month

[PuceBaboon]

I'm in Nagano-Ken, Japan, so it was either order through RS, or pay the inflated
prices that local resellers are charging.

Ordered 3rd of March 2013
Arrived 21st March 2013
No shipping notification
Arrived via normal Post Office mail, not DHL
Shipped from Germany

Given the "Will ship in one week" statement on the web page, I'm quite
happy with the shipping time. I would have preferred to see the promised
shipping notification so that I knew something was happening, though.

[glenncook01]

I ordered from RS and got no confirmations, a few days later cancelled and surprise surprise got no refund.

Meantime I bout the RasPi from an ebay seller which arrived in less that 2 days...

Several weeks later no refund from RS, so I simply contacted Paypal who dealt with the issue within a few days.

So rememebr if you do decide to buy from RS then remember to pay usiing PayPal as you have the refund power of Paypal

[daq]

Hello Mike, I'm writeing this post for you as you're probably the last chance for me to get heard.

I ordered my PI at RS back on 31 July 2012. It was successfully shipped on 4 December 2012 and I still got no news about it. I haven't recieved it yet and I suppose neither you nor me may expect it to arrive. Many letters were written to **RaspberryPi at rswww.com**, finally they agreed to ship my item again. I sent them again my address and since that time I got no response from anyone in RS.

8 months passed since the day I ordered Pi. Still no money back, no Pi recieved.

[seany1212]

Ordered 2 pi's on the 5th (March), the date on RS's website stated they would have a shipment in on the 18th at the time of ordering and since it would be next day delivery i was optimistic. afternoon of the 19th roles around with no news of dispatch so decide i'd give them a quick call as checking their website i notice the shipment date has been pushed back to the 21st. Get notified that there was a delay in shipping and they'd have them in by the 21st and i'd have my 2 by the 22nd. Afternoon on the 22nd, again no news, phoned them again, out of stock, next shipment 9th April... :cancelled:

I know it isn't nearly as bad as some of you guys, truthfully i don't know how you could stand such service for so long (8 months and no Pi or refund?!) but the lack of notice and the constant widening of the delivery bracket is enough notice for me to get out early

[kimbrasil]

I gave up having my own PI, endless drama...
Thrust the money in the middle of the * .
This is my ending here, without a real beginning.
"Thanks" RS.

[rasprm3]

Bit of an update on mine. I ordered through Allied.

I got my credit card statement and the numbers were different than the original email.

However, I found this in that email. "*Subtotal is in specified currency and does not include shipping, tax, other handling fees or insurance charges."

The main order was $2-3 more and there was an extra $8 charge that I'm assuming was shipping. So it was really almost $60 for a Raspberry Pi B and power cord only through them.

[r39o]

Allied:

Ordered mine on March 23 and I just got an email that they shipped on April 1st. So 8 days.

Now I am on the West coast of the USA and Allied is in the middle. Usually 3 days for that via FedEx ground.

Still no updated shipping cost, which is really odd......

We'll see if they send my whole order or what exactly I get.

Waiting...waiting...waiting....

[jbeale]

FWIW- according to the below page (strange URL?) Allied has 86 "Model A" units in stock (shipment to North America only)
https://www.alliedelec.com/search/searc ... a|3|,N:108

I just ordered one. Annoyingly, the page will not tell you actual shipping charges before, during or even after you order. It does offer an estimator page https://www.alliedelec.com/checkout/shi ... mator.aspx and the cheapest shipping (FedEx Ground) was estimated around $7 for a 1 pound package going to California.

[rasprm3]

This is the real cost of a Raspberry Pi. Possible a dollar or two high here, but accurate.

Ordered through Allied.

35 for the mobo
7 English VAT tax (sales tax)
3 U.S. tax
8 shipping
$53 total for just the mobo

Then you need an SD card, power cord, probably a case, cables, monitor, keyboard, mouse. But you might have that stuff laying around.

[jbeale]

Since we're posting prices, here is my complete bill from Allied for a Model A plus 4GB SD card. (I live in the US, so I'm not paying EU VAT.)
In this order I specified shipment via USPS Priority, and the actual shipping charge ($6.02) was a bit lower than their estimate page originally suggested ($9.15 for 1 pound pkg). USPS is slow so I expect to wait a week or so to receive it; the invoice below is just what my "order shipped" email from Allied said.

Code: Select all

Qty.    Stock #    Mfr. Part#                  Price (USD)    Total (USD)
1       70266830    RASPBERRY PI MODEL A       $25.00             $25.00      256Mb RAM; 85.6x53.98x17mm; Raspberry
1       70235238    DA-SD-4096-R                $7.46              $7.46      SD Card; Flash Memory; 4GB; Class 4
-----------------------------------------------------------------
                                                            Tax:    $2.84
                                                       Handling:    $0.00
                                                        Freight:    $6.02
                                                   Order Total:    $41.32

[r39o]

My order came today, a day early.

The packing slip says nothing about cost.

I still do not know what the cost is.

My order just says pending.

Pending what?

I got several and the small bank check sized box says 1 pound.

We'll see......

[errolt]

RS has gone to crap. My first RPi preorder went smooth. I got my dispatch notification, the order was sent via DHL and I could track the shipment.

I ordered a new RPi on 2013/03/04. They said "Dispatch expected within one week".

Didn't hear anything from them. On 2013/03/26 I mail them to inquire. Get this response:

Your order REF 10102547XX is showing as dispatched on the Wednesday 13th March.
The feedback we have been receiving from our customers in South Africa is that they are taking delivery of their orders up to 40 working days after it has been dispatched.
If you do not receive your order within this time frame please email and we will investigate.
Thank you for your patience.

They SAY that they shipped it.

Two days later I get this email:

Please accept our apologies for the lack of communication regarding your recent order. It appears we have had a glitch in our system which prevented your order from being dispatched on Wednesday 13th March as previously scheduled. We have forwarded your information onto our operations department and requested for a re-dispatch to be sent today to the address originally stated on the order. Thank you for your continued patience and apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Continues here.

Don't know if "Continues here" is supposed to be a link, but it isn't.

Again no dispatch notification. So I emailed them yesterday. Guess what was their answer:

Your order REF 10102547XX is showing as dispatched on the Thursday 28th March.
The feedback we have been receiving from our customers in South Africa is that they are taking delivery of their orders up to 40 working days after it has been dispatched.
If you do not receive your order within this time frame please email and we will investigate.
Thank you for your patience.

Hell these people are getting on my nerves.

Guess now I wait another month before they tell me "oops, we forgot to send your order, we will send it today. Thank you for your continued patience".

[jbeale]

To my pleasant surprise, I received the R-Pi Model A that I ordered today, April 4. It came only two days after I ordered it on April 2 to ship via USPS Priority (see my earlier posts on this thread). The box says it came from Allied Electronics in Ft. Worth Texas; I live in California. The "Regulatory Compliance and Safety Information" note included in the box says "This product should not be overclocked as this may make certain components very hot."

The DA-SD-4096-R Class-4, 4 GB SD card I ordered along with it (marked "DANE-ELEC") tests on a WinXP laptop as follows:
Writing speed: 4.67 MByte/s Reading speed: 16.6 MByte/s H2testw v1.4 ( Only 3715 of 3716 MByte tested.)

I installed the current Raspbian from the download page, and it booted right up.

Code: Select all

[email protected]:~$ uname -a
Linux raspberrypi 3.6.11+ #371 PREEMPT Thu Feb 7 16:31:35 GMT 2013 armv6l GNU/Linux
[email protected]:~$ df
Filesystem     1K-blocks    Used Available Use% Mounted on
rootfs           3692248 1460844   2063084  42% /
/dev/root        3692248 1460844   2063084  42% /
devtmpfs           86184       0     86184   0% /dev
tmpfs              18888     196     18692   2% /run
tmpfs               5120       0      5120   0% /run/lock
tmpfs              37760       0     37760   0% /run/shm
/dev/mmcblk0p1     57288   18960     38328  34% /boot

Using the 'dd' test shown at http://elinux.org/RPi_SD_cards#Performance I get 5.0 MB/sec write, 17.4 MB/s read, just slightly better than the WinXP laptop reported.

Note- for initial testing of a new R-Pi board, I like to run PuTTY on a WinXP laptop, and just connect a $2 PL2303HX USB-Serial adaptor from Ebay to the Pi's GPIO pins. Four wires give me +5V power, Ground, Input and Output, as shown in the below photo with a Model B. No need to use a separate power adaptor, keyboard, or anything else. Works well!
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/t ... directlink

[wjd]

I just registered to share my experience with RS. It's been 3 months since my order and they've lied about dispatching it twice.

I ordered an RPi-A + USB hub 3 months ago, delivered to Australia. Seven weeks later nothing had arrived so I emailed them. They said it had been dispatched, giving the exact date of dispatch. After confirming my address said they would dispatch another.

A few weeks later and I still hadn't received a dispatch notice, so I emailed them. Again they said it had been dispatched, giving the new dispatch date.

Last week I ran out of patience and I emailed them again. This time they said "it seems that you were sent a despatch confirmation email in error." They then said they were having "stock issues" with the USB hub, and they would dispatch my order when they got it in stock.

Sounds like a load of crap to me. What kind of company can't stock USB hubs? They sell USB hubs in my local supermarket. It's listed on their website as "despatch within 7 days." Why did they claim they had sent it twice, even giving specific dates? They are either incredibly incompetent, or wilfully deceitful. My advice is to stay far away from RS Components.

[GordonFreeman]

Oh my, I really wished I read this post earlier, my partner ordered a pi camera from rs components as a surprise gift for me which was in stock (2 weeks ago). She didn't write down any reference number as she assumed it would be in a confirmation email which she never got. So now we cannot contact them about the order and absolutely no idea what's going on. There's no account to log into, no emails from them and no other way of tracking order progress. How can the raspberry pi foundation recommend this company? I certainly don't.

[stubright]

Is there any reason for RS to be charging £20 ex vat and ex delivery for a Model A when cpc.co.uk are charging £20 INC Vat and FREE delivery?

Stu

[Roninsi]

Why is RS selling RPi at ~20% higher price than 2 weeks ago?

[Bootsofescaping]

Why is RS selling RPi at ~20% higher price than 2 weeks ago?

I was wondering the same thing
when converted to dollars the B model is now ~50 dollars

as you can see here http://imgur.com/yleao0O

and it doesn't include shipping.

I have ordered from rs 2 times now, first time I ordered 3B and one A model, they shipped one B and one A, got the rest a month and a half later. second time everything arrived in a timely manner without issues.

[999frogs]

Oh my, I really wished I read this post earlier, my partner ordered a pi camera from rs components as a surprise gift for me which was in stock (2 weeks ago). She didn't write down any reference number as she assumed it would be in a confirmation email which she never got. So now we cannot contact them about the order and absolutely no idea what's going on. There's no account to log into, no emails from them and no other way of tracking order progress. How can the raspberry pi foundation recommend this company? I certainly don't.

Same here. No confirmation email, no account to check. Emailed them to ask about my order and just got a generic "we are having supply issues", nothing about the order itself. AND the wait has gone up by two weeks
Poor

[SteveSpencer]

Are we talking RS / Allied in the US, or in the UK?

I'm in the UK.

For balance, maybe I've been lucky. I ordered a model B when they first came out (from RS) and it arrived pretty much when they said it would. I got a confirmation email for the order, and then one when it shipped. Ordered a second once you no longer needed a code, and the same thing happened.

Since then I ordered 2 more (in a single order) model B Pis. They were later than expected being despatched, but it was in the order of days rather than weeks (or even months) later.

The biggest disappointment is that the later B boards were 512MB, but weren't UK made, which I would have expected. To be fair, they never said they would be, but I was still miffed.

However, it is worth pointing out that I bought the latter two not as a personal customer, but as a business customer - having set up an RS account many years previously, and continued to use it for a lot of my electronics purchases when it made economic sense.

This may or may not have affected how my second order was
Steve

[GordonFreeman]

It's been over 2 months now and still nothing. Never buying from RS site again. From now on if a site is recommended by raspberrypi.org then I'd probably look elsewhere first, very dodgy