owc.comReviews of owc.com

I bought a NEW 16.0TB Seagate Exos x18 enterprise drive from OWC. The following occurred: -They shipped me a used drive. First time plugged it in it was a total failure, heads hitting and grinding audibly - I contact them to return. They refuse say I have to follow up with Seagate. - Seagate confirm that drive was never sold as an individual drive and has been pulled from an OEM device and re-sold. Refuse to give me a replacement. - Contact OWC, they refuse to replace it. - I push it flagging they did something dodgy with Seagate. Begrudgingly they agree to replace it under the 2 year OWC warranty it came with. - I ship it to them from overseas. - Without any correspondence they send me a replacement. - Replacement is a different brand and model. - Replacement is visually used and using SMART can determine is not new and has been used. - Contact OWC and explain all the above. They don't apologise for anything.

I got my 27in (2015) iMac upgrade kit on Thursday at 12 :30 PM. Every thing I needed to instal a 2TB SSD that was also included in the kit. All installed and working in less then two hours, Brilliant thank you for saving my Mac and me,

The 'Linux Capable Tower' bait and switch scam: Other World Computing has a bait and switch scam going on. They are advertising used Apple computer towers as having High Sierra on them, which would make them very Linux capable, and tricking people into assuming that these towers have an unaltered high Sierra boot ROM of MP51.0089.B00 in them. They BAIT you with a "High Sierra Tower" but they then SHIP You a "Mojave" Tower with a Mojave Boot ROM of 144.0.0.0.0 knowing that you expected a Linux Capable High Sierra system and that the "Mojave" Tower CANNOT Boot into Linux At All - and you would be forced to ship it back right away!!! They do this in order to scam hundreds of Customers, out of tens of thousands of dollars, in "Restocking Fees" each year - DESPITE Having "14 Day 100% Money Back Guarantee" posted RIGHT There on the bait and switch Tower's Sales Page!!!!!! They Keep the Money you pay, for the 2 Year Extended Service Plan - on the tower you bought, and they keep 15% of the sales price as a "Restocking Fee": and they've made a Quick $300 on Bait-and-Switching you into buying a system that Cannot Run Linux - and that you must immediately ship back. A reputable Company would cancel the insurance plan on the tower and send the money back right away when you return the tower. A reputable company would put "Cannot boot into Linux" right on the sales page, but no, that would spoil their little scam: no one would buy their towers! If I had known before hand the True condition of the system they were going to ship me: I would never have purchased it! They deliberately pulled technical sabotage by upgrading the tower to Mojave, and then removing the expensive graphics card and the hard drive ... and putting in a cheap graphics card - and a cheap hard drive, and reinstalling a high Sierra OS: just so they could claim it was a High Sierra Tower! But it is NOT a High Sierra Tower it is a Mohave Tower they have deliberately downgraded: so they can use weasel words to trick technical people like me into buying a bait and switch machine! They tricked me into buying a machine that I would never have bought if I had known the sabotage they had done to it, charged me $1200 dollars for it, it cost me $140 to ship back, out of my own pocket, and only refunded $900 of my money. They cheat hundreds of people every year of $300 by bait and switching them a Downgraded Mojave Tower for an unaltered High Sierra Tower - no one gets their "100% money back", ever! I want the REST of my Money Refunded! I want them to ALSO pay me back the $140 it cost me to ship back to them their weasel worded lying sabotaged tower they tricked me into buying just so they could cheat me of a quarter of the money I paid them!!! Where's that "14 day 100% Money Back Guarantee? It IS A LIE ... they never refunded full price to Anyone who got tricked into buying a "High Sierra" 'Linux Capable Tower' from Them!! They are serial scammers: and I'd LOVE to get a class action lawsuit against them from everyone whose "Extended Service Plan" money was kept ... or got hit with hundreds of dollars in "Restocking Fees" after being promised "100% Money Back" by these liars. If you got ripped off by believing you were getting an UNALTERED "High Sierra" tower with a boot ROM Version of MP51.0089.B00 ... and you were forced to ship back to Other World Computing a "Mojave" Tower with a Boot ROM of 144.0.0.0.0 in it: feel free to contact me - and we will FILE a Class Action lawsuit against their "Bait and Switch" - and Excessive restocking fees to rip off unsuspecting consumers - AGAINST O.W.C.. ! Do not buy from these bait and switch scammers! Signed, Disgruntled and ripped off technician.

UPDATE 062022: By writing a negative review, I was finally able to get somewhere. Wish I had worked with this rep from the get-go. They sent a replacement iMac: I can confirm it has a different SN and doesn’t have the same cosmetic damage as the original. As to whether the crashing issues are gone, only time will tell, so I’m temporarily changing my rating to 3 stars. The fact that it took so much effort (and time) on my part for them to make this right still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But at least I finally got someone willing to work with me. ORIGINAL REVIEW: I just flushed $3,062.39 down the toilet. I initially wrote a negative review, but then deleted it in the hopes that OWC would make it right. Unfortunately, after returning my computer for inspection and waiting several weeks, they did NOT make it right. Not only did they blatantly blow off the cosmetic damage caused by opening the iMac using metal tools, claiming it was dust (seriously? Dust?), but they did not acknowledge my issue that the computer randomly crashed. Now they are sending it back without fixing a thing??? I used the exact same software I ran on my 2014 iMac, which never presented a problem. The crashes always occurred when I was working on an important project (Using Adobe CC) where I lost all my progress. I took a risk purchasing a refurbished Apple, and it did not pay off. This computer is a lemon, and they are not willing to do anything about it. I’m a freelance graphic designer with a very limited budget. My hope was to purchase the latest iMac that would also work with Windows before Apple went with their own processor that wasn’t compatible. Unfortunately, I was sold a dud machine and they are not willing to do a thing about it. Just ask "Nicole H." who is supposedly Leadership. Stay away. Far, far away from these scammers. You will only be screwed in the end.

OWC Case numbers: 01232846 and 01308724 OWC Thunderbolt 3 Dock: £274.49 On 18th June I bought myself a Mac Mini after owning an old Mac Pro, so I then needed to buy a whole load of peripherals so I could plug everything in. After losing terabytes of data using a hard drive enclosure from an awful Chinese brand, I had been very sensitive to the sounds and lights of peripherals connected to my Mac, not least OWC peripherals. I had previously noticed with the cheap Chinese HDD enclosure that the power was fluctuating, so I was a bit alarmed when I noticed during startup and shutdown the lights of my USB hub connected to my OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock would flash on and off. I was frightened that the dock would be sending inconsistent power/signal to my new replacement HDD enclosures (also OWC). I contacted OWC and they asked me to do a few tests. This was all over live chat and they were incredibly SLOW to reply during the conversation! I guess they were dealing with multiple people all at once. I then set about making videos showing the flashing lights and how I was worried about it. They said to send the dock back and they would send me a replacement. There was a bit of confusion over payment of the postage to the US and I missed the part in an email where it said I would have to pay at least for one way. So it cost me £35 to send it to the US. They said they would not refund this. It took an age to get to them and likewise it took ages to get back again. I was without the dock for a month and had to muddle along in the meantime. I got the replacement which exhibited EXACTLY the same behaviour. I chased them about this and did various other videos showing what was happening. Instructions of tests to try were via email and they would take at least a week to reply to me and most times it would be very vague instructions without any screen shots to help me. After a month or so of testing the replacement they concluded that it was working correctly after all despite being told to send back the original one that behaved exactly the same way!! So I had basically been used as their R&D! I bought the dock in June, sent it to OWC in Aug, and have only just a week or so ago got a refund for the postage in December! BUT, although everything considered they did agree to refund me the postage (at the very least!!), when I received the refund, it was half what it should be because they said they most they refunded for postage was $25!!! They didn't even tell me this beforehand, they just arrogantly let me find out for myself. FFS, THEY were the ones who said the dock was faulty and yet now the dock is still the same in its behaviour, it's ME that has to pay for postage and waste nearly six months being messed about! To top it off, when they sent me a replacement dock, they sent me a US PLUG!! I asked them to send me a UK one to which they agreed, and that was a couple months ago and I still have the US one with no sign of the UK one! Their customer service is appalling, clearly they have ZERO regard for their customers and ZERO sense of responsibility when they have screwed up!! I should have just got another Thunderbolt 3 Dock from the Amazon seller rather than waste all this time with OWC! Truly awful! And BEFORE you suggest I contact you, how about YOU contact ME, and firstly give me the full refund (maybe with a little compensation for my wasted time), and send me a UK plug!

It would seem almost impossible that a company like OWC could send out a dud SSD Blade drive…. But that’s exactly what they did. After replacing my old HDD with the OWC SSD, it took nearly two hours on an international call (paid for by me) to decipher that the SSD was defective. I then had to give them my credit card details and persuade them to pay for the shipping to replace with a working SSD (I had to pay another €60 duty). I then had to open up the iMac yet again and go through the whole reinstalling procedure. I then had to arrange shipping back to the US of their dud drive at MY EXPENSE!!!!. The fact that OWC have no quality control meant that I had to spend an extra 6 hours to remedy their incompetence. I wrote them to request compensation for a situation they created. The arrogant customer “service” guy offered me $25 back and 10% off a future purchase Talk about treating their customers with contempt. If you value quality, STAY AWAY FROM OWC.

If you stay near them everything you buy might still have a good support. If you purchase form overseas.. support doesn't exist. Customer service is only nothing but words. No action taken.

Bought memory ($1,500 + shipping, tax etc), shipped from US to UK and paid a 'Landed'. Although, their UK agent's handling precluded my reclaim of UK VAT (paid as part of original invoice). As a business that's just a cost I didn't need. The order was part of a larger order and they actually shipped part of the order to a different customer. Which they realised by going through the in house CCTV - meanwhile I had to wait while they retrieved the item from the customer, re-tested it and then sent to me. Nuts! Unfortunately developed a fault, does happen. RMA raised, paperwork raised, UPS forms and label supplied by OWC. UPS get it all the way to local depot and then it's lost. Given all my memory is now lost and I'm having to chase OWC - despite them promising to 'monitor the return actively'. Over a month goes by .... OK, if UPS has lost it, we'll ship you new memory if you'll pay for customs/VAT charges. No - that's not OK, OWC need to pay that and claim it back from UPS - why should a customer have to pay multiple times for the same item AND be deprived of the use of the item in the meantime. While it worked I had no complaints. They seem to have REAL issues with their customer services practices though.