Bad OWC Experience

[uwphoto101]

I paid more to buy from OWC, expecting tech and customer support -- but I got NOTHING by doing so.

I have been a longtime customer of OWC, but have not needed to buy anything from them for several years. I decided to put an SSD into an old G4 Mac and bought an Addonics SATA to IDE converter from them. The same card was on Amazon and other places for less money, but I figured that I would be better off buying from OWC since they provided technical support. Well, I won't be doing that again. Buying from OWC rather than the vendor on Amazon was a mistake. I spent 16 hours -- no kidding -- trying to get the Addonics converter from OWC to work. I then spent another 3 hours over 3 days trying to get an RMA from OWC to return the item. I spoke with technical support who did not try hard to help. I spoke with customer service who were of little help other than issuing an RMA number and saying "too bad" to all my requests. I ended up having to return the Addonics converter to OWC at my cost. The whole experience was a huge pain in the butt and waste of time. I then decided to buy the same converter from Amazon. It cost $20 rather than $25, shipping was next-day (I am Amazon Prime), and it just arrived. I plugged it in, and it works just fine, booted up my G4 Mac immediately. I could have saved a LOT of time and hassle, not to mention 25% off the cost of the converter, by simply ordering the item from Amazon rather than trusting that OWC would do right by me. And -- I had to pay to get the item back to OWC!! If I had needed to return the item to Amazon, I would have done it in a few seconds and it wold not have cost me anything. OWC -- a complete waste of time and money. Negative stars to OWC for this experience. I am sorry that small businesses like OWC are being out-competed by Amazon -- but this time I paid more expecting technical and customer support -- and I didn't get it.

 

[russell_314]

I paid more to buy from OWC, expecting tech and customer support -- but I got NOTHING by doing so.

I have been a longtime customer of OWC, but have not needed to buy anything from them for several years. I decided to put an SSD into an old G4 Mac and bought an Addonics SATA to IDE converter from them. The same card was on Amazon and other places for less money, but I figured that I would be better off buying from OWC since they provided technical support. Well, I won't be doing that again. Buying from OWC rather than the vendor on Amazon was a mistake. I spent 16 hours -- no kidding -- trying to get the Addonics converter from OWC to work. I then spent another 3 hours over 3 days trying to get an RMA from OWC to return the item. I spoke with technical support who did not try hard to help. I spoke with customer service who were of little help other than issuing an RMA number and saying "too bad" to all my requests. I ended up having to return the Addonics converter to OWC at my cost. The whole experience was a huge pain in the butt and waste of time. I then decided to buy the same converter from Amazon. It cost $20 rather than $25, shipping was next-day (I am Amazon Prime), and it just arrived. I plugged it in, and it works just fine, booted up my G4 Mac immediately. I could have saved a LOT of time and hassle, not to mention 25% off the cost of the converter, by simply ordering the item from Amazon rather than trusting that OWC would do right by me. And -- I had to pay to get the item back to OWC!! If I had needed to return the item to Amazon, I would have done it in a few seconds and it wold not have cost me anything. OWC -- a complete waste of time and money. Negative stars to OWC for this experience. I am sorry that small businesses like OWC are being out-competed by Amazon -- but this time I paid more expecting technical and customer support -- and I didn't get it.

So you made a MacRumors account just to post about your bad experience with OWC…

It sounds like phone tech support wasn’t able to help you but perhaps that’s because the item was defective. That happens sometimes. They could’ve talked to you on the phone for a day but if the item was defective no amount of troubleshooting would have fixed it. Did they offer an exchange? I can’t recall ever buy anything from OWC so I don’t know how their customer service is. Usually I buy from Amazon because fast shipping with Prime.

 

[uwphoto101]

My issue with OWC in this situation is that they did not try to help. Tech support just said -- sounds like you tried everything, I have no idea why this is not working for you. Neither tech support nor customer service offered an exchange. Customer support told me too bad, this is not an OWC-made product so we can't really help you. Yep, next time I will just go with Amazon Prime, knowing that it will be less expensive and that OWC probably won't be at all helpful.
Lastly, while I did create a MacRumors account to post my bad experience, I did it to warn other folks on this forum. I've used MacRumors myself for one or two decades but have not posted much, and can't remember if I may have made another account or two.

 

[MBAir2010]

i had an issue in 2020 were my account was non-existent and i had a get a new account.
they seem pricey and complacent lately, and cant solve simple problem.
in 2001 they were the Mac apple place to get anything, like Jaguar and perfect memory that fits!
now we have other options and shipping is not an issue like the past.

they know there days are number with these "MaCooks" not_Imacs and mac minis wont be upgradable
and these older macs with obsolete intels chips wont run anything OS in a few more years.

i think i deleted their bookmark from safari this weekend.

 

[Mcgee189]

I had a similar experience with them, would never buy a thing from them again. Bought an Aura pro X2 SSD upgrade for my 2013 iMac (had high Sierra already installed). It just would not work, tried everything, macsales suggested a pram and SMC reset, did not work. Macsales said to send back the faulty SSD, they refused to cover shipping, they refused to offer a refund, they refused point blank to credit the sales tax, only offering a instore credit for the base price (even though well within warranty). So picked out a new item (mercury 4tb extreme pro)had an hour long talk with one of their agents to pick out the right items, they sent it with the wrong install kit, missing the bracket etc. Also had paid for their expensive shipping option that covered all taxes, import duties and customs, still had to pay them on delivery. Would never ever order from them again!

 

[Xii-Nyth]

They are certainly not what they used to be, was looking for an nvme drive enclosure that could fit more than one drive in it.

Found something which forced you to buy a junk ssd with it, lowest price was 699 if you chose to get it with the junk 1TB ssd. Details on the page consisted of large marketing text like "fastest. period." and was hard to find if it even was for sata or nvme drives. Instead specs have thinks like: "supported resolutions 5k 60 hz/ 4k 60hz / 4k 30hz" ????? its a drive enclosure ????? even if it was a monitor why these set values only ?????

For reference a single slot enclosure with the same bandwidth/drive is anywhere between 15-30$ depending on the quality elsewhere.

Clearly they now care more about money and prefer taking advantage of less tech savvy people and selling them a mediocre and vastly overpriced product, then making a high quality slightly more expensive because you are paying for quality product.

New leadership?

 

[theMarble]

They are certainly not what they used to be, was looking for an nvme drive enclosure that could fit more than one drive in it.

Found something which forced you to buy a junk ssd with it, lowest price was 699 if you chose to get it with the junk 1TB ssd. Details on the page consisted of large marketing text like "fastest. period." and was hard to find if it even was for sata or nvme drives. Instead specs have thinks like: "supported resolutions 5k 60 hz/ 4k 60hz / 4k 30hz" ????? its a drive enclosure ????? even if it was a monitor why these set values only ?????

For reference a single slot enclosure with the same bandwidth/drive is anywhere between 15-30$ depending on the quality elsewhere.

Clearly they now care more about money and prefer taking advantage of less tech savvy people and selling them a mediocre and vastly overpriced product, then making a high quality slightly more expensive because you are paying for quality product.

New leadership?

Absolutely. A few months ago I upgraded my MBP's SSD from the original 256GB drive to a WD SN570 1TB.
It cost me just under $100 USD for the SSD + adapter, while if I went for an OWC Aura Pro 1TB, it would of cost around $400 USD (where I could find it).

The SN570 outperforms the Aura Pro (in terms of read/write speed), can be used in other systems, and cost a quarter of what the OWC drive did.

On the other hand though, it's a shame that they are one of the only companies left making drive enclosures with FireWire on them. Most people don't care about FireWire anymore (thanks to USB 3 and Thunderbolt), but when you collect vintage Macs, then you need FireWire drives if you want something faster than USB 1.1/2.