I Am Not Alone
My experiences are by no means unique.
Look at the Kelkoo reviews, Dooyoo reviews and Ciao reviews: many people are still having the same old problems. (Watch out for the occasional positive review that is just too positive, and so obviously posted by Mesh staff!)
In 2007 Mesh were investigated by BBC's Watchdog. Despite the MD of Mesh appearing on the show and promising to sort out customers problems, nothing much has changed.
For a recent (but very typical) story have a look here:
DON'T BUY FROM MESH COMPUTERS!
Look at this graph from page 37 of May 1998 Computer Shopper UK; the first page of the Dan Computers advert.
Note not only that Mesh are near the bottom (although there are many other manufacturers missing from the graph who may or may not appear lower) but they have the second largest proportion of "No" responses (second only to Tiny) of over 30%! Is it worth around a 1 in 3 chance of having enough trouble with a Mesh PC to not want to buy another one?
Also, I have reproduced an article from the Daily Mail. It was faxed to me at the time and became rather faded, thus the picture is not too good. The date of the fax was 14th March 1996, and the article concerns a Mesh customer who had to use their credit card company to get their money back.
Free From Mesh (Upgrades)
Eventually the 486 based machine became too slow, and when at last the warranty was up it came time to upgrade. I bought parts from Simply Computers (now part of Misco) and in early 1998 wickmesh became an AMD K6/200.
The 486 processor, motherboard and RAM were sold at a boot fair for a measly £4...
As time marched on, even the upgraded K6 wickmesh became too slow, and I was faced with a problem. As the best part of wickmesh (the case) was an AT type, and all new motherboards were ATX, for my next upgrade I was forced to buy a new case. My main computers became AMD Athlon XP based - firstly an 1800+ and then a Semperon 2800+. Wickmesh remained in service as my "hack" computer, spending most of its time with its lid off so loose hard drives could be connected and formatted. With its memory maxed and a tiny processor upgrade (to a K6/233) it did this job very well for several years, even running Windows XP!