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Month: December 2024

Buying a pre-build PC on Costco, a saga

Published by Silveira on 2024-12-09

During Black Friday, I bought a computer from Costco, item 1857562 (iBuyPower i9-14900F+RTX 4070 Super). After about a week, I got the wrong computer. An iBuyPower i7-4700F+RTX4060 instead (item 1815274). That’s a weaker and cheaper computer (about $500 difference).

I called Costco, they offered me the following options:

  1. Return the computer, receive the money back. This would leave me without the computer and with the money buy the computer I wanted is now out-of-stock and there are no Black Friday deals.
  2. Return it, and the when the 1857562 (iBuyPower i9-14900F+RTX 4070 Super) is back in stock, they would price adjust it to the price I bought. They claimed that it will be back in stock at some point, but besides the time I fear the risk of them not honoring the price adjustment.

I offered them a 3rd option, return the wrong one and, for my troubles, I buy the a 1088917 (MSI Aegis ZS2 Ryzen 9900X+RTX 4070S 12gb) with an extra discount. This is a very similar machine with slightly better specs. They accepted. I had to buy 1088917 and once they ship it I will have to call Costco for the price adjustment. I will also have to handle the hassle of the return.

Overall, a terrible experience and a risk I never thought I would have with Costco. Looking the reviews I saw I was not the first one with exactly the same problem on this Black Friday of 2024.

ItemDescriptionDiscounted priceMSRP
1857562iBUYPOWER SlateMesh 8 Gaming Desktop – 14th Gen Intel Core i9-14900F – NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Super 12 GB- Windows 11 – 32GB RAM – 2TB SSD$1,300 (Black Friday)$1,700
1815274iBUYPOWER TraceMesh 7 Gaming Desktop – 14th Gen Intel Core i7-14700F – GeForce RTX 4060 8GB – Windows 11 – 32 GB RAM – 2TB SSD – Black$ 1000 (Black Friday)$1,200
1088917MSI Aegis ZS2 Liquid Cooled Gaming Desktop – AMD Ryzen 9 7900X – GeForce RTX 4070 Super, 12GB – Windows 11 2TB SSD$1,500 (Deal going on after Black Friday)
$1,300 (Agreement)		$1,700
Prices rounded up for simplicity

Hopefully I will get a good deal out of all this but I still have to handle the return and price adjustments.