Just an update to my last post… I had heard some online rumors that PC Club was being acquired by a new company and would be reopening. Official news post here.

The last weekend, I ordered some computer parts from the only local computer retailer left in my area. I consider them the only local store as Best Buy and Circuit City do not count, and Comp USA (if you count them) closed recently too.

Expecting the parts to arrive today (Tuesday), I was excited to see a number call me that resembled PC Club. I got a voicemail after missing the call. The call dropped so I called back. I was surprised to hear the sales person inform me that PC Club was closing and I would need to come into the store to get a refund on my order. Um… What!? Closing? I asked him what he meant, and he explained on the phone that they were bought out or some crap.

After a few moments, I was partially upset that I was not going to be getting my parts as expected today, but that turned into a moment of fear. This all happened so fast that I was afraid I may not get my money back. So I did a quick Technorati search for anything PC Club related. Only found one thing, this. Now this is claiming bankruptcy, so this is what I left with as I immediately drove to the store.

Upon arriving, the door was closed and the security gates closed. I had to ask to come in, only being let in after I informed them that I was called about a refund. According to what the sales guys told me, a new owner had purchased the company 2 or 6 weeks ago (I forget which it was). And he just up and disappeared after the transaction was complete. I am not sure which I believe more, Bankrupt or new owner. Either way, it really blows. Not to mention, I feel really bad for the employees. No one would like to go to work and find out around lunch that you are out of a job as of tomorrow.

A tech support worker told me that he was told subtly to not take in a new order as he was helping a customer. He was then pulled aside and told the bad news. Ouch!

HardOCP is also mentioning Bankruptcy. I saw another site that mentioned PC Club closing and that all product was being sold at cost. This was not the case when I went in. My order was only held up by a CPU. The MoBo, Vid Card, and Memory were all in stock. So when I was there, I asked if they had any other CPU’s that I could get, hoping to get something off. The Manager would not sell at discount, and I ended up only taking the Vid Card and getting refunded the rest. One other customer was in getting his order, and was told same thing. They were not selling anything to anyone, normal or discount. And were trying to refund.

Regardless, I ordered my stuff through NewEgg. And I sure hope that refund goes through. If it doesn’t I am not sure who I would even call to complain.

Update – From HardOCP Forums:

So….basically, we all got screwed.

2 years ago, the owner/founder (Jackson Lan) passed away after a long battle with cancer. Now it seems his dream passed with him. He had an outlook for PCC that never would have ended in this manner.

His brother took over the company, and shortly thereafter ~15 store were abruptly closed citing reasons of ineffectiveness. Of course many of these stores had yet to be open for 2-3 years. Those stores were in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, etc.

Roughly about a month ago, maybe a little more – the current president, the vice-president, and a couple of regional mgrs were ‘separated’ from the company. Then came a massive reorganization in which HQ was restructured from the top down. It seemed as if the company was consolidating and preparing an effort to return to the old days of focusing on the ‘brick and mortar’ business that it was founded on. In the weeks following, cost cutting measures were implemented and more staff rearranged and removed…including the heads of accounting and HR. Still, we were all reassured that this was being done for the good of the company.

Then come the inventory issues. All stores in the company are running short of product and the distribution center has no inventory on hand. We are told this is because new purchase accounts are being established and the lull is only temporary. District managers are plainly telling store manager’s as recent as yesterday that inventory problems should be taken care of soon and that we may just have to deal with it for a couple of more weeks. In the mean time, customers continues to ask if we’re going out of business – resellers are openly pissed about not being able to get product.

Then there’s today. And all of you already know what happened. Senior management disappeared and were unreachable by the company attorney during the ‘meeting of doom’. We closed the store, made final deposits, got our stuff, and left.

If you talk to the people who have been with PCC for a while, they’ll tell you that the current state of PCC was not always like this and it in no way resembles the founders original dream.
PCC was good to me, and I worked my ass off for them while I was there. We had a good store. We had loyal customers. We had solid employees. And we continually posted a profit.

Loyal employees deserved better and this should have gone down much differently.

May 28th would have been 6 years for me. I’ll miss my store, the people I worked with, and those I interacted with daily.