Review: Tiger Direct

[drazi_guy]

I tried shopping there about 6 or 8 times over the last year. On each occasion, they were out of stock of the item listed on their website, but had something similar for just a few dollars more... I eventually resorted to just ordering from the website and shipping to my home, which was less troublesome that trying to pick up the merchandise myself. Of the items I have purchased, most have been fine, but two of the four RAM sticks I purchased about 18 months ago failed just after their warranty period ended.

[Ricketty Rabbit]

I have purchased online from Tiger Direct many times. I always check prices and product reviews before buying. Their prices are generally very good, and I have never had any problems with slow delivery or product quality.

[JamesK]

On each occasion, they were out of stock of the item listed on their website

I recently bought a Cisco 16 port ethernet switch from them. I saw it on the web site, but went to the store anyway, not expecting to find it. I did and bought it.

[57]

TD had a good price on a computer case I wanted. I phoned and they didn't have it at the store, so I ordered it online. Arrived within the delivery window. No issues. Satisfied first time customer.

[kevsim]

just bought a USB speaker online, fast shipping, extremely satisfied.

[ploooze]

This is my first attempt at a purchase from tigerdirect Canada . I ordered a computer on Saturday. I entered all the info correctly, gave Canadian credit card details and passed the transaction through Verified by Visa. The shipping and billing addresses are Canadian too. As someone who makes a lot of international online transactions I thought this should be a breeze.

On Sunday morning, (September 11 of all things!) at 7:47 am the phone starts ringing. It is tigerdirect, and they apparently want more personal info about me. I listened to the message but did not answer the call.

Later I see an email from them saying: Our order verification department needs more information in order to process and ship your order.

I phoned VISA to see if the payment got hung up, as in my experience they are the ones who might find things strange and suspend a transaction. But VISA just told me the confirmation code of the purchase and said all is well.

I sent an email to tigerdirect telling them the Visa confirmation code. They seem to have everything they need according to their order confirmation email:
Every order is thoroughly reviewed by our processing department to ensure that the order is accurate, the payment method is valid, and the user is authorized to use this payment method. Once the order has passed the rigorous review by our processing department, it is sent to our warehouse for shipment. Most orders are processed within minutes however depending on when an order is placed and the accuracy of the information supplied when the order is placed, processing can take longer. Further, for security reasons, in some circumstances voice confirmation may be required before we can process your order.

Well, if they really need to listen to my voice, I will try to comply. So I give them a call. But still they want more. They want the back of my driver's license showing the address I recently moved to.

And when I sent them that they said it wasn't enough and they want the front of my driver's license.

Now I am trying to figure out why they need my driver's license, by fax or email, in order to complete the transaction. They are going to have so much info on me by the time they complete this transaction they could probably steal my identity. I just don't get it.

Can anyone tell me why they need my drivers license? The first salesman, who is from syx, not tigerdirect, (syx could be the parent company) couldn't give me an adequate response and now I am about to question his manager.

If they really want to know so much about me they could at least let me know from the beginning. I would rather pay 10% and not go through this hassle, and not feel abused, or put at risk of an identity theft. I certainly don't see why they need my date of birth and my picture in order to sell me a pc. Or my sex, weight, height, eye color, hair color, and previous address. If they regularly handle online orders and they can't ask for the personal info they need at the time of purchase their website is defective.

In my opinion, I complied with everything they asked for, and then we agreed on a transaction. It is rude of them to want more from me after the agreement was made. Whether they want more money, or more information, it seems offensive to me. They are changing the terms of the agreement.

[Avro Arrow]

I can probably shed some light on Tiger Direct since I used to work for them in one of their stores. The people there work their butts off trying to give good customer service but the problem is that the corporates above them are a bunch of morons. They're not even businesspeople, they're politicians. The sales staff have a quota on how many "extended warranties" they must sell and also, they are required to sell some stupid virus software called CA. CA isn't necessarily bad but people don't want it because they know that there are much better (and cheaper) alternatives out there like AVG and Avast. If a salesperson doesn't meet these "screw the customer" sales quotas, they're fired. Also, when I worked there, I was shocked at how their inventory was all Intel and nVidia. Knowing what I know (at the time) I easily sold people AMD CPUs and after harping at my managers to get the ATi Radeon HD 4870 in, I sold 30 of them in 2 weeks. It was easy to convince people that the HD 4870 was a great buy when it performed as well or better than the GTX 260 despite costing $150 less. The Phenom II X4 940 was another easy sell to someone looking at a Q9400 because it was over $100 cheaper and performed more or less at the same level as well. TD seems to think that people don't shop around so they fill their stores with items that maximize profits rather than keep them competitive with other retailers, then blame (and fire) their employees for having low sales numbers. For the record, I was not fired from there, I quit to go to school. I personally don't shop there very much anymore and if I do, I go to the store and pick out what I want without asking for help from anyone. I'm much more satisfied buying from NCIX or CanadaComputers than I ever was with TigerDirect. The last thing I bought there was my laptop which I bought because it was a phenomenal deal. CanadaComputers and NCIX both had the same deal but they were out of stock. In the past, I had purchased two refurbished laptops from them and they were both defective. I then decided to buy a new laptop from them (eMachines E620-5885) and it was great for the 3 years I had it. It died because I did something stupid, not because it lacked quality. My current laptop (Acer Aspire 5560-sb401) was on sale for $499 and it was a great deal but as I said, NCIX and CanadaComputers both had the same deal. TD's website is mostly useless if you live near a store because the stores only carry the more expensive crap unlike Canada Computers which has almost no "online-only" items and their site also shows you which of their locations have stock. TD does no such thing so I tend to not buy stuff there as I like to do online research to help me decide what is available and what the best deal is. The only place I order from that is online-only is newegg because their customer service and prices both dramatically exceed Tiger Direct. With CanadaComputers (my first choice), NCIX (my second choice) and newegg (third choice just because they have no stores), there is very little reason for me to go to Tiger Direct these days.

[ogorek]

Never bought any thing at Tiger Direct and most likely never will. Somehow I don't have a "feel" for there web site. To many refurbished items and in my opinion to much junk. I went to Tiger Direct store while visiting Mississauga few years back but and as you point out the in store inventory is not the same as online. Walked out empty handed. If i want computer parts usually I can find them locally at reasonable price and TDs "refurbished" electronics prices are the same as FS or BB new items on sale, so I wait for the sale.

[Digital_Frank]

I buy a lot of stuff from Tiger Direct and Tiger Direct dot ca and they are great...

Just make sure you like what you buy to avoid their "restocking" fee if you want to take something back.

[Pinza]

I have used Tiger Direct On-Line several dozen times and always the exact same great service. Last October I bought 10 Western Digital Media Centre's to use as Christmas Presents, when I told them that this was my intention, they wrote back and said that my Warranty would therefore not start until December 25th. How fantastic was that.

[snorlax]

I have had good luck on three orders recently. Items as described. Price was right and quickly shipped. No UPS brokerage hassles. Items just left at my door.

[hugh]

I have shopped online four times with Tiger Direct but the last time was in 2010 yet today, I received spam email from TigerDirect. This despite having never asked for email from them and having Unsubscribed on several occasions.

I called today to have my name / email info removed from their system and a CSR (Estelle Kidwell) basically told me their was nothing she could do and just keep unsubscribing.

I went into my account and changed all my email addresses to fake ones so I'm hoping that will end (although they still have my email from my orders) the spam.

All my tech purchases are through NCIX and NewEgg. I won't deal with Tiger Direct again.