TAMS Computer Sales and Recycling — Attraction in Lindon

I've had a great experience with TAM's in the last couple of weeks. It started out with a problematic misunderstanding, but they turned it around quickly and promptly. Here's what happened.

I have been looking for some cheap surplus server gear to migrate my in home server/network system to a true enterprise/rack solution. I'm the IT manager for my wife's blog and we host it out of our home. I've used some old desktop tower computers for this purpose and have had to go through some odd measures to ensure proper backup and redundancy in case of failure. She puts a good 15-20 hours into a week and can't have it going down.

New enterprise level server gear is too expensive for our situation, so I began looking for surplus, particularly government and university surplus. I attempted to buy a couple of servers from the U of U surplus site, but they pulled the servers before they went to public sale.

I worked near TAMS for a number of years and had once checked out their store when I was looking for a cheap switch for the tower server setup. At the time, it was going to just be used for personal home use and I decided that their enterprise stuff was over the top for my needs. But I thought that this time I might be cheaping out too much wasting my time looking for surplus, so I decided to look at TAMS again.

On their website they show a lot of server gear and I browsed through their inventory and picked out a number of the best servers that were available. These appeared to me to be significantly underpriced (which turned out to be true). I reserved them all with the intention of reselling half of them and keeping the other half.

It turned out that TAMS had mis-listed hundreds of servers accidentally and told me they couldn't sell me the servers I had reserved at the prices I reserved them. This upset me quite a bit, but I was able to contact one of the owners of TAMS and he worked with me to get me what I wanted at a great price. The pricing on their site has since been updated and the inventory made correct. They have promised me the mistake would not be repeated.

I was pleased enough with the server and rack that I purchased that I returned several days later and acquired a bunch of other gear and a couple of days after that to help my sister in law pick out a laptop.

I've opened up every device I've purchased from them, and they are spotless clean. This equipment has obviously come out of a very controlled environment. The servers at the U of U surplus looked pretty beat up and slightly dusty inside, but these look new inside with no dust at all to be seen. Very clean gear.

The biggest downside I see to TAMS is that you have to know on your end what you're getting, but this can work well to your advantage if you do your homework. They price things such that they'll move and it appears they need their inventory to move quickly to make space for new stuff coming in. If you learn what to look for in computer hardware, you'll find some amazing deals here. I regularly check their EBay store as well and there are things listed there that aren't on their main website. Some stuff they sell seems a bit overpriced to me, but some of it seems quite under-priced as well. Do your research and you'll find great deals here cheaper than I could even find online anywhere else.

The best part of all of this is knowing that what I'm buying has been checked and comes with a 30 day return policy. This is worth extra money to me as most surplus gear is sold "as is" and it's difficult to know if it works well or not.

Overall, I originally felt pretty bad at not getting the servers I originally reserved, but I did recognize that something seemed off on the pricing and they've thanked me for making them aware of it. They've turned that experience around 180 degrees completely and I'll be working with TAMS in the future. I'm going to recommend them to anyone looking to do what I'm doing, which is home server work. It's amazing the system you can set up for less than a new desktop...

My son recommended Tams when I was looking for a computer to handle some CNC software. When the computer was picked up and delivered to me, the wrong power cord had been included. When I contacted them, they said if I would bring the power cord back they would exchange it. I live about 100 miles from the company, so it was no easy feat to get back to them to pick up the correct cord. Then after having the computer for only a month, I started having trouble with the power button. It wouldn't turn on for me even though I clicked it several times. I finally called them and, of course, once I had someone on the line the machine started. However, after another couple of weeks, the computer refused to boot even though my son (a computer tech), and I tried several things. My son took the computer in and was told they would check it out and get back to me. I called them a couple of days later since I hadn't heard anything, and I was told they had cleaned the computer and it was running fine. Since I didn't trust that the machine would continue to boot, I asked that they give me a different computer which they did. I was told it would ship out on Wednesday and they would call right back to give me shipping charges and shipping information. When I didn't hear back after a couple of days, I called them again. I was placed on hold for several minutes and when they got back to me, they said they were taking so much time to make sure shipping costs and address were correct. I told them again where I needed the computer to be sent to me (since I have had to go to Boston for several months) and they took my money for shipping and said they would send it today. Shortly after, I received the shipping info and they were sending the computer to the wrong address!! I called right away and I was able to get the address changed, fortunately for me. I have to say that I'm not very impressed with this company. Maybe I will change my mind after my new computer...

Horrible experience with them. Decent laptops and prices but unknowledgeable and careless employees. Trying to order from them was a complete waste of time!

I ordered a laptop but when it came in I discovered that they had sent the wrong charger. Ok...why? Not too big of a deal. When the CORRECT charger came in (almost a week after ordering), I found out that one of the laptops functions I had ordered for was not working. After trying to do my own research to rule out any issues with it that I could maybe fix, I called TAMS and they had no idea what was wrong. I had to drive down from Layton to Lindon to go see what was wrong or possibly getting a replacement. Got there and found out that they had actually sent me the wrong laptop, that it had been labeled wrong. No possible replacement was ready except for other models with poorer conditions. The employees there did not seem knowledgeable about computers as the employee at the front desk couldn't figure out how to turn on and login to one of the computers. They told me they had one in the back and have it processed and ready the next day to ship. Two full days later and I still hadn't heard anything about the new laptop being shipped. I called them and found out that they not only had they not even processed the laptop yet, but they also didn't have the model in the same conditions I had paid for. They tried offering another laptop that was supposedly better, but it was nothing that I had wanted or needed. Cancelled the order completely and demanded a refund. Will not order...