Just before Christmas I ordered one of the new Asus Eee PCs from Amazon.co.uk, through a marketplace seller called BUG Computer Components – who are based in Germany.

Some weeks went by and I never received anything. My efforts to contact Bug proved fruitless as they never replied. Naturally I was concerned as I’d ordered something in excess of £200 and had received no contact from the seller. I emailed Amazon about it and they sent me a stock reply saying to contact Bug.

Not good enough.

I replied to Amazon and stated how Bug had not replied to me and that I wanted my order cancelled immediately so I could order it from somewhere else. Amazon did so this time, insisting I would get confirmation of this from Bug. Naturally I didn’t receive anything from Bug, and still haven’t to this day. I’d advise anyone to stay away from them when ordering items on Amazon’s marketplace.

I then ordered the same Eee PC from Aria.co.uk, based down the road in Manchester. Within one hour of ordering I received an email stating my order had been dispatched. Now that’s better, but let’s not count those chickens.

The package arrived before 9:00am on Monday morning, the next working day. Superb! When I plugged it in however the Eee PC asked me for a password for Natalie Coward.

Ummmm?

That’s right, they’d sent me a returned stock item instead of a new one. One that I couldn’t use because it was password protected. This was someone else’s computer!

Luckily they were very fast at rectifying their mistake and turned up later that afternoon to make the switch. So, what about the Eee PC itself?

I’ll review that little sucker in the next few days after I’ve had a chance to use it some more, and I’ll even write the review with it… unless it annoys me too much.

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