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Has anyone used the upgrading services of chargedpc.com?

H

Howitstarts

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 21, 2011
3
0
Topic.

Www.chargedpc.com offers an ssd upgrade service that you can ship you imac to. They seem new an have no reviews online so figured maybe someone here has tried using their service.

Also, I learned about the service from a member of chargedpc on this forum who seems quite knowledgable, but still am afraid of sending my new machine to them without some validation.
 
They do not appear on http://www.resellerratings.com/ and if you do a Whois lookup for the domain it has only been registered since the 27th December 2010, and even then it was registered from GoDaddy for 1 year.

I would not use them.
 
The website gives no information as to where they are located; no street address, not even a city. They are not apple authorized, so if they break something while upgrading, you are out of luck.

I wouldn't deal with them for anything.
 
On the FAQ page I located this:
Charged Computers LLC
605 Jarvis Ave
Far Rockaway NY, 11691

A quick lookup on Zillow shows that this must be a home based business:

This is a 2000 square foot, multiple occupancy home.

Not about to send my baby there. No way. It stays on my desk. :)
 
I wouldn't trust them:
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: CHARGEDPC.COM
Created on: 27-Dec-10
Expires on: 27-Dec-11
Last Updated on: 02-Jan-11
Click to expand...
605 Jarvis Ave:
ScreenCap 4.jpg​
 
Last edited:
Well .. maybe they´re just new. You can trust them if your iMac has out of warranty or AppleCare.

Or simply have spare iMac, ready to be modifed just like regular PC :)
 
Almost sounds like a ship me your iMac and you'll never hear from me again type deal.
 
while im not supporting this option, but i think its a bit rude to post a image of their house for whatever purpose it was made to do...regardless if its a legitimate business what difference would it make if they operate from a home (turned business)?

It appears they are atleast a registered business in the state of NY, so atleast you have options if something were to happen and if you use a verified method of payment say through paypal or googlecheck out you are definitely covering your bases.
 
ZMacintosh said:
while im not supporting this option, but i think its a bit rude to post a image of their house for whatever purpose it was made to do...regardless if its a legitimate business what difference would it make if they operate from a home (turned business)?

It appears they are atleast a registered business in the state of NY, so atleast you have options if something were to happen and if you use a verified method of payment say through paypal or googlecheck out you are definitely covering your bases.
Click to expand...

I for one am grateful the photo was posted. Anyone who advertises as a store that updates iMacs but instead the iMacs are sent to their home and most likely you won't see it again. To the person who posted the photo thank you fir keeping us from getting SCAMMED
 
ZMacintosh said:
while im not supporting this option, but i think its a bit rude to post a image of their house for whatever purpose it was made to do...
Click to expand...
There's nothing rude about revealing information about a company that does business with the public. It's public information, and should be available to anyone considering doing business with them.
 
ZMacintosh said:
while im not supporting this option, but i think its a bit rude to post a image of their house for whatever purpose it was made to do...regardless if its a legitimate business what difference would it make if they operate from a home (turned business)?

It appears they are atleast a registered business in the state of NY, so atleast you have options if something were to happen and if you use a verified method of payment say through paypal or googlecheck out you are definitely covering your bases.
Click to expand...

Point is, it's better not to be scammed in the first place. That's no ruder than posting a picture of any other business. Sorry, but shipping a $1600+ computer to a duplex (which isn't even close to apple authorized) just seems fishy. You would be far better off doing it yourself, rather than sending it there.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

iRobby said:
ZMacintosh said:
while im not supporting this option, but i think its a bit rude to post a image of their house for whatever purpose it was made to do...regardless if its a legitimate business what difference would it make if they operate from a home (turned business)?

It appears they are atleast a registered business in the state of NY, so atleast you have options if something were to happen and if you use a verified method of payment say through paypal or googlecheck out you are definitely covering your bases.
Click to expand...

I for one am grateful the photo was posted. Anyone who advertises as a store that updates iMacs but instead the iMacs are sent to their home and most likely you won't see it again. To the person who posted the photo thank you fir keeping us from getting SCAMMED
Click to expand...

At least you'd know who's door to smash down in the event of it being stolen.
 
Thanks for the input. I personally am going to pass on this upgrade for now, mostly because I don't feel like spending 400 bucks. Looking at their order form, they offer two great SSDs, and on their blog has an SSD install guide.

Another factor for me is that there even if there is a 1% chance of failure, I don't want to take the risk since they are not apple certified.

It's also interesting to see what their how it works page says: http://www.chargedpc.com/pages/How-It-Works.html
"state of the art clean room facility" .. seems odd to be in a house, probably just sensationalism.
 
old-wiz said:
The website gives no information as to where they are located; no street address, not even a city. They are not apple authorized, so if they break something while upgrading, you are out of luck.

I wouldn't deal with them for anything.
Click to expand...

That is assuming you ever see your computer again.
 
Call me a cynic, but someone registers on this forum and their first post is to ask about a company that no-one's ever heard of.
 
Glen Quagmire said:
Call me a cynic, but someone registers on this forum and their first post is to ask about a company that no-one's ever heard of.
Click to expand...

They've (ChargedPC) been posting comments about SDD upgrades to 2011 iMacs in the iMac thread here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1150900/

I called one of the owners named Dan. He doesn't strike me as anything more or less than anyone else I've ever dealt with that was trying to be a start-up in this screwed-up world.

Funny how the culture of Mac users have changed. I've been using these things since the '80s and back then Mac users were an open-minded, less suspicious group. Has anyone here ever used the services of a freelancer working from home? I only ask because having someone Lord over my machine and taking that stress off of my plate isn't a bad thing, and OWC (for the moment) isn't even in the running to perform this service.

Some of you who have gotten local AASP to do the work for you are lucky. I don't have that option.

I wonder what it would feel like to want to get started in this racket, given the pitiful margins one would have to work with servicing people's machines, to have to pay rent in New York for a 'commercial' clean room? I don't think it is sustainable. Maybe ChargedPC can post some more info about themselves for those naysayers, so as to avert being totally ruined by the viral nature of the negative PR they are being hit with here.

They have seen this thread and I imagine they are horrified about it. I would be. Here are some positive thoughts about them:

1. They obviously know how to do the swap because they have produced a video tutorial of same.
2. Dan, the guy I spoke to, freely admits he is a small home-based business and is not scamming anyone on this forum. I also Googled around to see if they were doing anything sneaky elsewhere and found nothing.
3. I asked them pointed questions about technique and they seemed to know what they are doing.
4. They are at least a registered entity with an address. (I am not, yet I have been in business 28 years and work for very big and very small clients alike, all on word of mouth, and if I were to be subject to the public's rating of where I work/live, a forum, or what the BBB has on file for me, I'd be dead in one hour.)
5. One screw-up and their payment gateway is shut down. I don't think anyone would go to the trouble to register a business, post training videos, post comments on how-tos, and build out a website so they could burn one customer for one lousy iMac (sorry, one beautiful iMac)....

Just my $.75 cents. :rolleyes:
 
whoah.

I think there are some pretty rude comments posted here.

How many of you have used their very professional SSD upgrade guide. Hundreds of us I would bet. I personally used it and without it, I would have been lost as there are no alternatives.

Whether or not we send in our computers, that's one thing. However you shouldn't assume too much. Pretty much every great company out there started in someone's basement or garage.
 
I forgot to add. Having done my own upgrade, if I weren't so impatient, I would have used charged in a heartbeat. I spent hours and hours trying to get that damn motherboard back in. Reconnect all the wires, place the lcd back in without getting any dust or fingerprints. Then the lcd wasn't sitting in there flush because of my stupid extra long sata cables. Not to mention that after even having to buy a pressure wall bracket (ssd bracket), I had to use velcro because the bracket didn't fit.

As I spent hours jiggling the motherboard back in and trying to get the screw holes to line up, then looking at one of the lcd cables thinking, how the eff do I connect that....the entire time I was wondering, will this thing even start up when I turn it on....

Yeah, I got lucky this time and everything worked. I have put together PCs for 15 years without any problems but this upgrade was hellacious to put mildly.

If I had to do it again, I'd use a service like charged because honestly when you're spending 3k on a machine, a few hundred more to ensure things are done right and warranties are not voided is worth it.

Just my 2 cents
 
wangkom said:
I forgot to add. Having done my own upgrade, if I weren't so impatient, I would have used charged in a heartbeat. I spent hours and hours trying to get that damn motherboard back in. Reconnect all the wires, place the lcd back in without getting any dust or fingerprints. Then the lcd wasn't sitting in there flush because of my stupid extra long sata cables. Not to mention that after even having to buy a pressure wall bracket (ssd bracket), I had to use velcro because the bracket didn't fit.

As I spent hours jiggling the motherboard back in and trying to get the screw holes to line up, then looking at one of the lcd cables thinking, how the eff do I connect that....the entire time I was wondering, will this thing even start up when I turn it on....

Yeah, I got lucky this time and everything worked. I have put together PCs for 15 years without any problems but this upgrade was hellacious to put mildly.

If I had to do it again, I'd use a service like charged because honestly when you're spending 3k on a machine, a few hundred more to ensure things are done right and warranties are not voided is worth it.

Just my 2 cents
Click to expand...

I sweat bullets for two hours swapping out the HDD on my 7,1 27" 2.4 and can say yours was way more trying than anything I was faced with. I don't see any companies out there doing this service because it is risky an the pay stinks. That creates a gap in the market for entrepreneurs like these guys. Like I said: you gotta start somewhere. (Kudos to you wangkom for stepping out on a limb.)
 
Dear All,

We were lucky enough that one of our customers sent us the link to this forum (we usually monitor MacRumors pretty closely, but as it's the weekend we haven't been checking as often).

We would like to address some of the concerns that have been raised here.

  • We are absolutely a small, home-based startup. As many of the members have pointed out, commercial rent is pretty expensive in NYC, and one of the ways we are able to keep our prices evenly remotely reasonable is with extremely low overhead cost.

  • We faced a fundamental problem starting in the Apple service business, namely that there are huge barriers to entry, and the ability to instill trust in our customers. We considered pursuing Apple Technician testing, but as the tests only offer access to Apple's online database, and excludes the ability to officially service Apple computers, or order Apple parts directly, we found that it would be a rather useless waste of our money. Additionally, there is no difference between an AASP installing non-Apple hardware, or anyone else doing it. The whole point of our service is that we offer SSD and hard drive sizes that Apple doesn't, so it wouldn't make a difference to have an AASP install an non-Apple SSD.

  • In terms of instilling trust in our customers, the only way we are able to do so is to offer information that proves we know what we're doing. We posted the teardown and SSD install guide, continue to offer answers to member's questions on the forums, and do our best to guide people with information we believe is useful to the Apple community.

  • We admit our service is not for everyone, as some people feel comfortable performing the installs themselves. But for those people who do not, we felt we had the ability to offer a service at a reasonable price, something we felt people would appreciate.

  • We also understand why people would be hesitant still, and this is why we have made the process as safe for the customer as possible. We are officially registered with the State of NY, we operate our store with security and SSL certification, we use trusted payment gateways like payPal and Google Checkout (which offer customer protection), and we do are best to be as open with our communications as possible. In short, we're not sure what else we can do to gain the public's trust, other than continuing with our service and making sure our customers are satisfied with their purchases.


In short, we do what we can to provide the best service possible. We are not a multi-billion dollar company, but we offer a personal level of service and support that we're proud of, and we are sure that as the weeks go on, and more customers receive their upgraded Macs, our testimonials will speak for themselves. We welcome all additional questions and concerns through our email at info@ChargedPC.com.

Much thanks to those for their continued support, and we look forward to continuing to offer our services to the Mac community for years to come.

Best,
ChargedPC.com
 
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