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goonyah
26th July 2002, 14:54
If you are considering ordering recordable DVDs from meritline, please read this post!

I just wanted to detail my experience for all of you out there who are trying to find the right DVD-R for authoring. Personally, I have placed orders from several different companies, and only had problems with returning merchandise to meritline.

Basically, I've been hunting for the best quality generic-priced DVD-R I can find. I won't go into detail on that, cause I know the moderators don't like generics discussions. If you're looking for that though, I assure you the answer is in the forums.

So, I've placed many orders, some of which only 5 discs out of 25 burned properly, and I had no qualms about sending them right back where I bought them. I mean, if they are defective, I want my money back. These things aren't cheap. Anyway, I've done this several times, with no real problems (sometimes there's a restocking fee, or a pro-rated refund -- which is fine with me). Then came meritline.

On advice from a friend, I ordered some of the purple DVDPro discs from meritline -- he had great luck with them. Mine, however, were complete crap (so much for quality control), and I was only able to burn maybe 3 of the 25! So I sent them an email, they issued an RMA, and I returned the discs. This was over a month ago. Since then, I have sent them numerous emails asking the status or my refund -- every time it is several days before I get a response. They asked me at least four times if I wanted a refund or replacement -- each time I said REFUND. Finally, yesterday they sent me an email saying that they were issuing the replacement, and it was shipped. I almost went crazy. So now, they won't issue my refund until I return this second set of discs. Unreal, I think I'll just try to sell them on ebay to recoup my losses.

So, if you've actually read this long post (sorry), I hope you will really think twice before buying from meritline. Over the past year, I have gotten some great advice from this forum, and some posts have saved me a lot of time, money and effort. I hope this is one of those for someone else.

Please don't support this kind of service from meritline -- go elsewhere!

PS. When I do find the "magic" generic, I'll post it -- so we can all benefit. I assure you though, it won't be from meritline!

kilroy
26th July 2002, 15:44
odd i have had very good results from Meritline...what dvd-r did u order... did it have a light purple bottom or DARK purple bottom and what was the brand that ADVINFO said... i got the Meritline brand dvd-r with the DARK purple bottom, they were like $1.95 US price...ADVINFO said they were RITEK brand and i havent had a problem burning on them at 1x... if u bought the cheapest DVD-Rs from Meritline i hate to be mean but u get for what u pay for..it sux about that shipping back problem :/... as stated consider buyin the Meritline DVD-Rs..they are cheap and work really well so far ive burned 6 and all good..its up to you just tryin to help u out..double check as to what brand u got.. u prolly got the DVDR Pro or somethign with the light purple bottom..those suck according to many people..get back to me and good luck ! :)

lakini18
26th July 2002, 18:36
I too have had great experience with Meritline dark purple DVD's. I have burned over 75 now, with no problems. I did try the very cheap ones with the light purple bottoms, and they were complete crap. But I sent them back, and my credit card was credited the difference. I have had a few dark purple bottom ones go bad during the burn, but sent them back with no problem at all.

goonyah
26th July 2002, 22:58
Look guys - I know which discs seem to work well, thanks for the advice however. This post was intended to advise others of the lack of service I have recieved from meritline, not a critique on their goods. I know that generics are only so-so when it comes to consistency. I just wanted to know that they would respond to my return. Which they didn't! I got the run around for a month -- and still don't have my money back!

I just hope that someone who is thinking of ordering from meritline sees this post and has second thoughts -- you can get the same discs, cheaper, elsewhere.

thxtof
27th July 2002, 01:43
Yeah you can find the same dark purple ritek DVD-R at supermediastore.com for $1.35, instead of $1.79 at meritline !!

Supermediastore has an excellent customer service -- I bought 125 of these Ritek so far, all burnt without problems.

atreides93
27th July 2002, 05:56
That's too bad. I've ordered a ton of crap from meritline, but i've never tried returning something.
so far, just about every disc i've got from them has worked ok. one of them had trouble in my sony but that was just one.
i recently got 25 cheapies, they were the cheapest ones they had, and so far the last 10 i've made, have been fine. i watched all of them for a while, but not the whole movie/video though. hmm
what kind of problems were you guys seeing with the cheaper ones?
________
macintosh games (http://macgame.org)

thxtof
27th July 2002, 17:06
With the very cheap one (VIVASTAR or unbranded meritline) usually the movie start freezing after 50 mns. And you cannot copy the DVD-R back to your hard drive. If you really want to make sure that the DVD-R works properly, just watch the last 15mns.

BTW I had also some problems with meritline:
Ordered 25 dark purple at $1.79... couple of days later I receive 25 clear purple, and after checking the manufacturer with ADVDinfo they were all VIVASTAR instead of Ritek.
I called Mertiline, and they told me that they sent me this crap because they were out of stock with the Ritek dark purple one !!! Without even asking me if it was ok with me
:angry:

So eventually I sent everything back, after 3 weeks and at least 5 phone calls, I did not get my money back. One day I was verry pissed on the phone and they finally gave me a refund for everything, including shipping... that was 4 weeks after I sent everything back.

goonyah
1st August 2002, 14:48
Check this out. If you read my post above you know I was waiting to receive the "replacement" that I DIDN'T ask for from meritline. What a debacle.

Well, I got the replacement disks last night, and much to my chagrin -- they weren't even the right disks! My credit card was charged for $52.55 -- the crappy disks they sent cost only $29.75 with free shipping! I can't believe this, I am still being swindled by these people.

Please, do not buy from meritline! Do you feel luck punk, well, do you?

By the way, supermediastore has the same disks, much cheaper.

atreides93
1st August 2002, 22:28
i would suggest you dispute the charges, call your credit card company and then write your credit card company a letter stating that meritline mischarged you twice and/or sent you the wrong product and will not fix the problem.
also include a copy to meritline.
________
DT-2 (http://www.cyclechaos.com/wiki/Yamaha_DT-2)

Antonio S.
1st August 2002, 22:49
Supermedia store and Meritline are the same people...

goonyah
2nd August 2002, 14:54
seriously, meritline and supermediastore are the same? I knew that cddvdrmedia.com was them ... and thanks for the advice!