First, I'm a 35 year customer of Newark Electronics. I used to go to their stores regularly, when they went to catalog only their service was GREAT. This has all changed. It is now HORRIBLE. My last 5 or 6 orders with Newark have been a TERRIBLE experience. My advice is to avoid this shell of a once great company at all cost. As a customer, you are crap in the eyes of the modern Newark. You will not be able to speak to anyone that is capable of doing anything. All calls route to the offshore call center where you will be cut off, given excuses and never get a real answer or closure. Everything else must flow through the website, which just flows into the same call center. But it gets worse. The latest scam is when the bumping morons ship your 12 line item order one line item at a time (after you explicitely checked the box that says "ship it all as one order". With this, shipping on a $100 order goes to $150 additional. Not sure how this makes for a harbinger for the Newark shareholders, or impacts the bottom line. Perhaps it's some odd extension of some austerity package in the big data system that the folks on the boardroom bought on the retreat. And then of course, you get the wrong stuff, way late and have to contact the same bumping morons to try to straighten that out. Having been in the business for over 4 decades, this is unacceptable, childspeak nonsense. The entire board behind this sham should be fired immediately and repurposed to something more in line with their skillset. "headquarters in chicago". No, not really. There's no one there and no way to contact them. Why not go bold and proclaim headquarters on Mars? under the same business accumen, it's an equally valid statement. Digikey ships a complete order in a day, if theres a problem I talk to someone in Mn directly in two rings of the telephone. Mouser operates same way, as do many others. This whole notion of treating customers like crap, giving them false promises, telling them what they want to hear and then not executing or delivering is as transparent as the golden fixtures on the company jet. yes, yes, yes, yes, I know. "we have a strict policy on that policy and thereby we can't, won't, don't". Enough already. If you can't run a business, stick to golf and let the right people do THE WORK. Use Mouser, use digikey, leave Newark in ditch where found. read more