# [UK] Oh no, Microdirect gone bust?!



## qubit (Jun 13, 2011)

Looks like prominent UK etailer www.microdirect.co.uk has gone bust. If you have any pending orders, I'd get them cancelled, quick.

This is bad news. The UK doesn't have all that many big specialist online PC etailers, so it's really not good when one goes down.  I've bought a few things from them and they were pretty good, too. Shit, I wish that dodgy overclockers would go bust instead and do us all a favour. 



> A source with inside knowledge of the matter has informed us that microdirect.co.uk, the PC, peripherals and components e-tailer, has gone bankrupt.
> 
> We expect a formal announcement to be made tomorrow, but the news has already begun percolating through the channel. We have put several calls into microdirect to get their official line on the matter, but at time of writing there were no senior managers present in the office.
> 
> ...



HEXUS


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 13, 2011)

Never bought from them, but it suprises me a little that they went bust. I always saw loads of their little catalogs on peoples desks while working in a few banks.


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## the54thvoid (Jun 13, 2011)

Their site had been going downhill i think.  I stopped using them a year or so back- the deals weren't as good as the usual big three, OcUK, Scan & Ebuyer.


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## gumpty (Jun 13, 2011)

This sucks. Never nice to see this sort of thing happen. Only bought from them once myself ... maybe that's the issue, we didn't shop with them enough.



FreedomEclipse said:


> Never bought from them, but it suprises me a little that they went bust. I always saw loads of their little catalogs on peoples desks while working in a few banks.



Maybe that's the problem ... too much £££ spent on printing catalogs?


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## francis511 (Jun 13, 2011)

I used to buy from them - usually good service


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 13, 2011)

as for pricing....check this out

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/48372/Corsair-SSD-120GB-2-5-SATA-II-Force-Series
no wonder they went bust. their charging like 3x as much as what everyone else is. prices avaerage about £170 for that particular SSD


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## robal (Jun 13, 2011)

qubit said:


> Shit, I wish that dodgy overclockers would go bust instead and do us all a favour.



What's wrong with them ?
I usually buy from www.scan.co.uk, but I've bought couple of things from Overclockers. They are the most expensive overall, but got good 'deals' sometimes.

Cheers,


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## qubit (Jun 13, 2011)

robal said:


> What's wrong with them ?
> I usually buy from www.scan.co.uk, but I've bought couple of things from Overclockers. They are the most expensive overall, but got good 'deals' sometimes.
> 
> Cheers,



You obviously don't shop with them much and I recommend you don't.

To put it bluntly, their customer service sucks bad and they commit outright fraud. I bought a CPU recently from them, a Q9550 on clearance. It was sold as 'OEM new', but had clearly been used, so I made the barstewards refund my money, including shipping both ways.

In fact, not refunding shipping unless you remind them _every single time_ after they've processed your refund for a faulty item, is obviously company policy with them. Also, you have to send a reminder for each direction, that's two reminders. Every time. This practice is illegal. After my experience with the CPU, I doubt I'll ever buy from them again, special offer or not.

I started a thread on this CPU if you care to search the forum. I initially thought I'd bought a bargain, until I physically received it.




FreedomEclipse said:


> as for pricing....check this out
> 
> http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/48372/Corsair-SSD-120GB-2-5-SATA-II-Force-Series
> no wonder they went bust. their charging like 3x as much as what everyone else is. prices avaerage about £170 for that particular SSD



Yeah, that's a pretty useless price. Thing is, most retailers have prices like that on certain items. Amazon does this all the time. How they stack up overall is what matters.

Have you noticed that the website is slow now and the product pictures are missing, except on their homepage? They don't even do GTX 580's as a product line!


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 13, 2011)

as far as cashflow problems go and seeing how much stuff is labeled 'out of stock' on their site. id say they have either stopped re-stocking and are just trying to shift what they have left just incase the company should go bust


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## Thatguy (Jun 13, 2011)

qubit said:


> Looks like prominent UK etailer www.microdirect.co.uk has gone bust. If you have any pending orders, I'd get them cancelled, quick.
> 
> This is bad news. The UK doesn't have all that many big specialist online PC etailers, so it's really not good when one goes down.  I've bought a few things from them and they were pretty good, too. Shit, I wish that dodgy overclockers would go bust instead and do us all a favour.
> 
> ...



I don't know about the UK, but cashflow trouble doesn't always equal out of bussiness, alot of time a company can file to get bankruptcy protection to stabilize cash flow against things like defaulting or late payment ballon payments. So the situation may not be that horrific, hang in for a few days and see what happens. 

  As to your credit card orders, call you CC company make them aware of the situation, remeber a slew of chargebacks could make things dramatically worse for a company in a cashflow pinch rather then better and that could cuase even worse problems. 

  First things first is to find out what the status of the orders etc and see where it goes. Could just be a bump in the road, these things happen.


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## qubit (Jun 13, 2011)

Thatguy said:


> I don't know about the UK, but cashflow trouble doesn't always equal out of bussiness, alot of time a company can file to get bankruptcy protection to stabilize cash flow against things like defaulting or late payment ballon payments. So the situation may not be that horrific, hang in for a few days and see what happens.
> 
> As to your credit card orders, call you CC company make them aware of the situation, remeber a slew of chargebacks could make things dramatically worse for a company in a cashflow pinch rather then better and that could cuase even worse problems.
> 
> First things first is to find out what the status of the orders etc and see where it goes. Could just be a bump in the road, these things happen.



Yes quite, cashflow doesn't mean out of business. All I know is what's in that article and according to that, they're going bust. We'll know for sure in a few days anyway.

Thanks for the info regarding orders, that's all absolutely true and very good advice.  Thankfully, I don't have any. I was just saying to others reading this that might have.

Personally though, I would pull my order if I had one, if it wasn't too late, as a company in this state can give you grief in lots of ways and life has too much of this crap in it already to take a significant risk of more crap.


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## FordGT90Concept (Jun 13, 2011)

Another victim of the global recession, it seems.

I wouldn't worry about outstanding orders because they are still obligated to fulfill them.  Even orders placed now should be unaffected.  All businesses that file for bankruptcy must settle their outstanding debts before they're allowed to be dissolved.


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## qubit (Jun 13, 2011)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Another victim of the global recession, it seems.
> 
> I wouldn't worry about outstanding orders because they are still obligated to fulfill them.  Even orders placed now should be unaffected.  All businesses that file for bankruptcy must settle their outstanding debts before they're allowed to be dissolved.



Quite true, but I'm just thinking about the quality of customer service. It can be bad enough when a company is in rude health let alone when they're in this state, with demoralized staff about to lose their jobs that just don't care any more.

The other things are warranty considerations. In the UK, the seller is obligated to look after the warranty (for a year, at least) not the manufacturer, so if they've gone under, the buyer has to look to the manufacturer and hope that they honour it out of goodwill and maintaining a decent reputation.

I'd avoid the chance of getting bitten by this, as much as possible.


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 13, 2011)

qubit said:


> so if they've gone under, the buyer has to look to the manufacturer and hope that they honour it out of goodwill and maintaining a decent reputation.
> 
> I'd avoid the chance of getting bitten by this, as much as possible.



oh dear....this is not looking good for customers who have purchased Sapphire graphics cards within the 6months.

even if the smallest thing goes wrong that you can easily fix yourself but require a little love and attention from sapphire, they will always tell you to send it back to where you bought it from. 

like the time i bricked a card after a bios flash and didnt back up the original bios or manage to find a suitable one in TPUs bios archive. I told them i could fix it myself in less then 5 seconds if they emailed me the bios for the card. but no! they wanted me to f**king send it back! so f**k you sapphire!!


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## qubit (Jun 13, 2011)

FreedomEclipse said:


> oh dear....this is not looking good for customers who have purchased Sapphire graphics cards within the 6months.
> 
> even if the smallest thing goes wrong that you can easily fix yourself but require a little love and attention from sapphire, they will always tell you to send it back to where you bought it from.
> 
> ...



Well said, exactly my point. It sounds like this company won't deviate from their standard scripts and processes, no way no how. 

A retailer even starts to show signs of going under, you get out of there, fast.


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## qubit (Jun 14, 2011)

The website has been getting slower and slower all day and now won't even load...


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 14, 2011)

loads just fine for me


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## qubit (Jun 15, 2011)

Yeah, it started working again sometime later and this time the pictures returned, too.


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 15, 2011)

qubit said:


> Yeah, it started working again sometime later and this time the pictures returned, too.



maybe they finally scraped together enough cash to pay off their server rental lol


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## Fusjon (Jun 15, 2011)

I used to work there, left about 5 years ago and I've been saying they're going down the pan for about 4.  Serves them right really, never any good stuff in stock, treat their staff like slaves, sh1t on customers fairly often.  

They had some great guys working there though amongst the trash, mostly the ones who were being shat on (3 of them still my drinking buddies).  Luckily they're getting full redundancy pay and if you ask me they're much better off.


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 15, 2011)

Fusjon said:


> I used to work there, left about 5 years ago and I've been saying they're going down the pan for about 4.  Serves them right really, never any good stuff in stock, treat their staff like slaves, sh1t on customers fairly often.
> 
> They had some great guys working there though amongst the trash, mostly the ones who were being shat on (3 of them still my drinking buddies).  Luckily they're getting full redundancy pay and if you ask me they're much better off.



welcome to the forum matey. Make mine a whisky & coke


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## qubit (Jun 15, 2011)

Fusjon said:


> I used to work there, left about 5 years ago and I've been saying they're going down the pan for about 4.  Serves them right really, never any good stuff in stock, treat their staff like slaves, sh1t on customers fairly often.
> 
> They had some great guys working there though amongst the trash, mostly the ones who were being shat on (3 of them still my drinking buddies).  Luckily they're getting full redundancy pay and if you ask me they're much better off.



Shit, no wonder. :shadedshu So it's definitely closing down then? It wasn't 100% certain in the article. Thanks for the info and well done, you've managed to score a Thanks on your first post. 

Welcome to TPU!


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## mizoo (Jun 15, 2011)

FordGT90Concept said:


> I wouldn't worry about outstanding orders because they are still obligated to fulfill them.  Even orders placed now should be unaffected.  All businesses that file for bankruptcy must settle their outstanding debts before they're allowed to be dissolved.



I am worrying.  I have placed an on-line order more than 2 weeks ago and received nothing so far. My credit card was charged. I can't get hold of them since 2 days when I started to chase them after this shipment. Today I have decided to make them a visit and found a 'refurbishment' paper attached to a closed door. The office on Upper Brook is closed now.

I really hope my 350 GBP is not lost.

PS Hello to everyone. I found your forum/thread while searching for fresh 'microdirect' news in google.


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## scaminatrix (Jun 15, 2011)

Hi mizoo, welcome to TPU!

At least you paid with a credit card - I believe you have protection against things like this because of using your credit card. Just send microdirect a webonte/email saying that you're going to ask you credit card company to cancel the payment. And then get in touch with your bank about geting the money back.


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## mizoo (Jun 15, 2011)

Thanks. I have just made a call to my bank to report this transaction. It may take up to half a year to get my money back. :/

I have also found this information, which just confirms this company is absolutely bankrupt now:

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2011/06/13/micro_direct_facing_winding_up_order/


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## qubit (Jun 15, 2011)

This is interesting. The website is still up and you can put stuff in the basket, but the buy button has gone!

I can still log into my account for now, too.

Welcome mizoo. TPU is a great place and we hope you enjoy your stay.


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 15, 2011)

mizoo said:


> Thanks. I have just made a call to my bank to report this transaction. It may take up to half a year to get my money back. :/



Thats bullshit. call up the consumer advice Bureau and see what they have to say. its retarded that they make you wait 6months just to be refunded. I know they need to investigate the matter and everything but 6 months??? Microdirect will be long gone before then

(fingers crossed that they will sell off their remaining stock for cheap)


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## scaminatrix (Jun 15, 2011)

Credit Card company will pay you back out of their insurance IIRC. My mother-in-law had a holiday and the plane company went bust or something, and she was told she'd get the money back, but only because of the CC. Cash payers got no refund. So yea, I know she got refunded even though company went bust, I'll ask her tomorrow how long the refund took.


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## qubit (Jun 16, 2011)

FreedomEclipse said:


> (fingers crossed that they will sell off their remaining stock for cheap)



I wouldn't hold my breath if for that. Sometimes these places keep the prices high and just slap "_*BARGAIN!!!*_" stickers over everything and the clueless punters lap it up. There was a thread on TPU on just this a while back.

It's very annoying for the clued up like us. 




scaminatrix said:


> Credit Card company will pay you back out of their insurance IIRC. My mother-in-law had a holiday and the plane company went bust or something, and she was told she'd get the money back, but only because of the CC. Cash payers got no refund. So yea, I know she got refunded even though company went bust, I'll ask her tomorrow how long the refund took.



This is exactly why all my online transactions are done with a credit card.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Jun 16, 2011)

loss of a good shop if true, i bought my pc from there and a few other peeps me-built pc's too
i knew they had shut one shop but one was improved recently


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## MilkyWay (Jun 16, 2011)

I thought they where kind of expensive? Maybe thats just me?

Also i wouldnt say big 3 is say big 4 OcUK, Scan, Ebuyer and Aria. There is Novatech and Overclock and a few other sites but i dont think they are as big and have as good prices as what i would call the big 4.

I feel no pain in seeing this place go, if Ebuyer or Scan died id be pretty fucking upset as they offer good deals.


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## qubit (Jun 16, 2011)

I buy from Novatech all the time MilkyWay and whenever possible. I find the prices are usually reasonable, plus they have excellent customer service and I can actually visit the shop to collect the item. On top of that, it still goes down as a web sale by ordering off the website, so I get the extra rights from the Distance Selling Regulations.


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 16, 2011)

qubit said:


> I buy from Novatech all the time MilkyWay and whenever possible. I find the prices are usually reasonable, plus they have excellent customer service and I can actually visit the shop to collect the item. On top of that, it still goes down as a web sale by ordering off the website, so I get the extra rights from the Distance Selling Regulations.



I mainly use Ebuyer. When i pricing up my good on Novatech, I found out they charged a lot more tax then Ebuyer, SCAN, DABS and some other popular e-tailers for the exact same parts for no apparent reason.

so for that reason i didnt buy from them


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## jd82 (Jun 16, 2011)

I spent £1000's with them through my business over the years. I run a small IT support company and they were my main supplier, yes they may have been slightly more expensive but I could get the parts on the same day. I don't use their biggest rival as I had a massive falling out with them.

The warehouse on Stockport Road was huge, the Upper Brook Street shop was just their offices and an additional retail outlet. When they closed down their warehouse I thought then this can't be good, then more and more often I was finding things were out of stock.

Finally I think it was Tuesday I went in and found they were taking no card payments. From what others tell me the shop has been closed since Wednesday.

Microdirect used to supply some very big organisations but over the years this business declined and they always had a bit of an indifferent reputation when it came to returns, and I think this really hurt them. 

I am very sad but not at all surprised, the last few months have been quite in the shop fronts and I could never see how they are making any money as the margins are so small.


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## qubit (Jun 16, 2011)

FreedomEclipse said:


> I mainly use Ebuyer. When i pricing up my good on Novatech, I found out they charged a lot more tax then Ebuyer, SCAN, DABS and some other popular e-tailers for the exact same parts for no apparent reason.
> 
> so for that reason i didnt buy from them



Oh yeah, not everything is competitively priced and one should *always* check, just as you have done. Amazon is a good one for having a mixture of bargains and weird pricing. I think it's due to their automated pricing software.


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## ShiBDiB (Jun 16, 2011)

Newegg and tigerdirect  love me my american companies


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 16, 2011)

ShiBDiB said:


> Newegg and tigerdirect  love me my american companies



Very off topic


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## ShiBDiB (Jun 16, 2011)

FreedomEclipse said:


> Very off topic



ya because u guys discussing the big 3,4,5 of uk hardware distribs. makes me bringing up my favorite 2 off topic... bug off


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## WhiteLotus (Jun 16, 2011)

FreedomEclipse said:


> Very off topic



Agreed.

As for myself, I purchase from eBuyer. Purely because I always have. Though perhaps I will branch out to aria. I know they do very good deals on the odd occasion. Though I just don't have the expendable income to make  use of them so I always go back to my trusted eBuyer. They are also very good with returns, and DOAs.

I had never heard of MicroDirect.


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## cheesy999 (Jun 16, 2011)

WhiteLotus said:


> As for myself, I purchase from eBuyer. Purely because I always have. Though perhaps I will branch out to aria. I know they do very good deals on the odd occasion. Though I just don't have the expendable income to make use of them so I always go back to my trusted eBuyer. They are also very good with returns, and DOAs.



i've used scan and they were quite good (excellent postage)


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## WhiteLotus (Jun 16, 2011)

I don't like being bombarded with emails from soo many companies. I found that Dabs are no way near as cheap as they used to be. I've never bought anything off scan, but I do prefer the way they lay the products out. Seems much more user friendly instead of ebuyers.


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## MilkyWay (Jun 16, 2011)

You can get free postage from Scan if your an AVForums member.


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## jd82 (Jun 16, 2011)

As I always need parts next day, which site offers the cheapest shipping for this. I have used Ebuyer in the past but next day is too expensive. 

I am considering CCLOnline but to me Ebuyers large stock base always seem to win me over. I often need unusual parts, such an IDE to USB bridge for £8, you can't get that sort of price any where else.

As you may have gathered I am not a PC hobbyist, I am an IT support guy so my needs might be very different to the PC type people here. The stuff I order is things like basic SATA drives, basic Corsair RAM that kind of thing.

How many days does the delivery take from Scan?


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 16, 2011)

ShiBDiB said:


> ya because u guys discussing the big 3,4,5 of uk hardware distribs. makes me bringing up my favorite 2 off topic... bug off



the hint is in the title.... *'UK'*Oh no, Microdirect gone bust?!

not

*'USA'*Oh no, Newegg/Tigerdirect gone bust?!

-----

If you dont have something of value to add to the conversation at hand, then dont add anything at all. youre the only one here posting about US e-tailers when the topic is about UK only retailers.

maybe you should take your own advice and 'Bug off'


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## qubit (Jun 16, 2011)

jd82 said:


> I spent £1000's with them through my business over the years. I run a small IT support company and they were my main supplier, yes they may have been slightly more expensive but I could get the parts on the same day. I don't use their biggest rival as I had a massive falling out with them.
> 
> The warehouse on Stockport Road was huge, the Upper Brook Street shop was just their offices and an additional retail outlet. When they closed down their warehouse I thought then this can't be good, then more and more often I was finding things were out of stock.
> 
> ...



Thanks for the info. It looks like the signs were on the wall for a long time, then. 

I bought a couple of items at different times a few years ago which had problems and I must say that they were ok with their returns at that time.

Again, I'm sorry to see them go, because the UK doesn't have that many specialist PC retailers and we could do with the competition to keep them on their toes and give us good prices and customer service.



WhiteLotus said:


> I don't like being bombarded with emails from soo many companies. I found that Dabs are no way near as cheap as they used to be. *I've never bought anything off scan*, but I do prefer the way they lay the products out. Seems much more user friendly instead of ebuyers.



You'll want to watch out for badly crushed boxes then. Since 2007, the boxes always have a habit of being unreasonably damaged from them, like they've been kicked all around the warehouse or something.  You can see that the damage was done before the item was packaged, so they know very well that this is happening. I must have had 4 or 5 items like this, which really tarnished their allegedly great reputation in my eyes and I try not to buy from them any more.

It's more like they're flogging you factory seconds as grade A brand new products - at new product prices, of course.  Fraud?



MilkyWay said:


> You can get free postage from Scan if your an AVForums member.



Good to know - if I ever buy from them again, that is.


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## qubit (Jun 16, 2011)

*Re off topic posts*

Just a reminder everyone that this is my thread, and while Shib's post was a bit off topic, it doesn't bother me so much. 

Please don't start attacking each other, or the mods will moderate and that will likely close the thread on what is an interesting and important topic.

Shib, if you have a comment about US retailers and can relate it to this thread's topic, I'd be interested to hear it.


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## scaminatrix (Jun 16, 2011)

qubit said:


> Shib, if you have a comment about US retailers and can relate it to this thread's topic, I'd be interested to hear it.



You just made me think - are Microcenter UK and Microcenter US under the same company? Should we expect US's Microcenter to have the same problems?


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## jd82 (Jun 16, 2011)

It is Microdirect, and it is just Manchester UK based business .


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## scaminatrix (Jun 16, 2011)

jd82 said:


> It is Microdirect, and it is just Manchester UK based business .



 Mass apologies, epic fail upon my part


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## qubit (Jun 16, 2011)

scaminatrix said:


> Mass apologies, epic fail upon my part



lol, don't sweat it, we all make mistakes. 

Except me.


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