Regular readers may remember I ordered a Drobo external computer storage device last month. My experience with the company hasn’t been great so far. I ordered the thing on July 11, at which time they said there was a 5 day backlog of orders. That would put delivery about July 23.
After contacting them the following week, I got an email from Malissa King, their director of sales, on July 23. She said they expect the order the ship by the end of the week. That would put delivery about July 30.
In reality, the order shipped July 31 and arrived August 6. That was three and a half weeks (18 business days) after I placed the order. But at least it arrived intact.
However, then I was looking over my Visa statement, and noticed that they overcharged me! I dug around to try to find what the real price of the order was supposed to be and found this:
- The original invoice says the price was $959.84.
- The Drobo Store website says the price was $969.84 (ten bucks more).
- And they charged my Visa card a 3rd, totally different amount: $963.31.
It seems strange they can’t seem to make up their mind about the actual price of the thing. I wrote an email on August 7 to sales@drobo.com to let them know about the discrepancy. We’ll see if I hear anything back. I’d hate to have to dispute the charge, but it doesn’t seem right to charge me more than the original invoice, without any explanation.
Hi this is Tom from Data Robotics. We apologize about the backorder issues. We received quite a lot of orders and it’s taken longer than expected to fulfill them all. We’re working hard to make sure nothing like that ever happens again. I can’t go back in time to make your product arrive any earlier, but let me know if there’s anything we can do.
Regarding the price and Visa statement. There’s clearly some sort of issue and we should take care of it as soon as we can. I don’t work in Sales, but I’ll make sure it gets taken care of for you.
To close the loop, I did get an email on 8/11 saying their distributor would apply a $3.47 credit to my card.
How much did customes charge you for your drobo?
Is it working well?
Did you buy only the drobo, but w/o hard drives?
How much was shipping?
tia,
Ra’anan
I bought the Drobo with 2 1TB drives. They charged $23.03 for shipping, which seems reasonable. But they also charged tax, which is strange since I thought online purchases in the USA are tax-free unless the vendor also has a store in your local area.
From the invoice:
Sub-total $899.00
Shipping $23.03
Tax $37.81
Total $959.84