A further update on preorders (18th of November 2012)

[elwing]

How can ED know when Craig has run out of preorder Pandoras without a firm number? According to ED's records there shouldn't be that many left. However it looks like Craig has an awful lot left to go. What else would explain this discrepancy? Craig just needs to come out and say it. It is well past the time he can hide this number.


Even if he gives a number I would recommend ED can somehow confirm these numbers.

I can assure you that at least day five preorder are not all sent to customer.. I know there was quite some cancel/upgrade, but still I can't think only 25-75 left like what ED's number says

 

[zagabar]

How about if actually all (or as many as possible) of craig's preorderers who haven't got anything could all post their details in a forum topic? to try to get an estimate of the situation. they could all be mailed perhaps? or perhaps only craig has their contact info? Perhaps then the lurking forum people among them would be better than nothing? just to see if we are talking about tenth, or hundredth of them?

 

[elwing]

won't work well, it seems that only something like 1/5 of people posts...

 

[zagabar]

won't work well, it seems that only something like 1/5 of people posts...

Wouldn't it give more information than nothing?


perhpas not worth it though? i don't really know

 

[RobeeJay]

German Tank Problem time maybe?


http://www.pagetable.com/?p=547

 

[Timstertoo]

won't work well, it seems that only something like 1/5 of people posts...

Wouldn't it give more information than nothing? />


perhpas not worth it though? i don't really know

I think the thread should consist of people only posting one single post that they are in Craigs list and their order date. No discussion or memes. And it should be stickied for a while.


Problem for ED is going to be how to validate who actually ordered or not if Craig is unwilling or unable to provide ED with a complete list.

 

[Timstertoo]

won't work well, it seems that only something like 1/5 of people posts...

Wouldn't it give more information than nothing? />


perhpas not worth it though? i don't really know

I think the thread should consist of people only posting one single post that they are in Craigs list and their order date. No discussion or memes. And it should be stickied for a while.


Problem for ED is going to be how to validate who actually ordered or not if Craig is unwilling or unable to provide ED with a complete list.

Also whatever happened to the premium queue? They have been rather quiet, would be great if they've been delivered.

 

[_wb_]

Why doesn't Craig want to say how big his queue is? The only explanation I can think of is that he is hiding something big from us and from ED. Otherwise he would have posted a long time ago something like "OK, there are 583 people in my queue, which is more than what you would expect but I lied a bit about it, sorry about that." The fact that he hasn't done that, indicates to me that the situation must be much worse than that. Maybe Craig has some big customers who preordered hundreds of units at a time, perhaps at a discounted price, so his queue is really several thousands or even tens of thousands? We wouldn't know about those because he may have told those big customers not to disclose anything about it in order to keep ED motivated to get their units produced. This would also explain why in the summer Craig suddenly got hundreds of refunds at a time, which "unexpectedly" ate up the preorder money he collected with the newly announced 1GHz units. It seems very unlikely that all those refunds coincidentally coincide; the more likely explanation is that one if his "big customers" finally got tired of waiting.


I don't really want to start speculation about these kind of conspiracy theories, but I just see no other reason why Craig wouldn't be more open (at least towards ED).

 

[zagabar]

if he did something big like that, or if there continues to be valid suspicions on him doing so, isn't it possible to take legal action to straighten this out?

 

[Nagelfar]

I think the thread should consist of people only posting one single post that they are in Craigs list and their order date. No discussion or memes. And it should be stickied for a while.

+1


I don't think every preorder is registered here but it would be a start.


Also I'll just repost my two questions to Craig:


1) Where did the money for the 1 Ghz testrun go? Money you, Craig, took from people.


2) What happened to the tax return you should have gotten in November?

 

[ibisum]

I think its time someone went Legal on Craig and stopped him committing petty fraud and mail crime.

 

[skeezix]

I think ED should stop trying to save Craig (or his customers) until Craig finally shows some transparency (maybe not publicly but at least towards ED). If that means Craig has to file for bankruptcy and his customers get only partial refunds out of that, then so be it. There's no way you can help someone who doesn't seem to want to be helped, and in fact even refuses to inform you about the size of the actual problem.

Sigh, so, the people who were unfortunate enough to arbitrarily choose to order from Craig several years ago, should be made to suffer? Without the money from those orders there would be no Pandora at all. Craig sold roughly 3/4 of the original units, punishing the people who bought through him because of changes later makes absolutely no sense.

ED is not intending to let anyone rot; its not EDs legal requirement at all, but he's said many times (and followed through!) that he intends to take care of everyone; it takes longer since he's essentially sending units out for free (from his books), but in the long term no one is being left out to dry.


jeff

 

[EvilDragon]

Well, he gave me an answer via mail. I asked how many 1GHz, how many refunds and how many remaining old preorders are still left.


Only got one number, so I guess it's a total...?


According to him, he got many units back with broken LCD Cables, Cases, PCBs, etc.


That's why he got about 700 remaining preorders. The number is high, but it's not an impossible issue.


It's puzzling to me though... he must've gotten over 400 totally broken, unfixable Pandoras back, and that is 10x more I ever got.


At least we got something now... if it is accurate.


On a sidenote, I have no idea what's the problem with the website.


He keeps asking me via eMail whether I'll bring the website online now or not. I even sent him via eMail that I'll bring it online once the order page has been fixed (as mentioned here as well), but all I get as a reply is the question when I'll bring it online.


I'm totally clueless here what to do. Should I just hack around in the HTML code myself to fix it and bring it online?

 

[MooTheKow]

Man.. here's a good question:


Who is crazier:


John McAfee and 'the Belize government is out to get me!!!!' or Craigix and 'All these people who have donated thousands of hours of their time to try to help make my project successful are out to get me!!!'

 

[Galaxis]

Also whatever happened to the premium queue? They have been rather quiet, would be great if they've been delivered.

I got lucky with a premium Pandora through Craig right after the first bigger batch of working CC boards had arrived. Which means at the same time that some non-premium preorderer probably didn't get his unit. Also I have no idea how many premium orders didn't get delivered when production with CC broke down a short time later.


What I do know is that every time I try to bring up the Pandora on some gaming related forum, there is always someone around who feels scammed by the whole thing, and that's usually the end of any useful discussion (never mind the price problem).

 

[Exophase]

According to him, he got many units back with broken LCD Cables, Cases, PCBs, etc.
That's why he got about 700 remaining preorders. The number is high, but it's not an impossible issue.


It's puzzling to me though... he must've gotten over 400 totally broken, unfixable Pandoras back, and that is 10x more I ever got.

I think Craig said that he has to support giving full refunds on hardware over some ridiculous time span like 5 years. That people don't have to go through an RMA process or anything, that the law always favors giving the customer and that you have to prove that they broke the unit to waive the right to a refund. The detailed RMA process should have been done anyway in order to better generate information on how to salvage the parts.


IF this is really what happened I still don't think Craig should have ever ponied up refund money so easily. For any orders received more than some reasonable time period (a few months?) he should at least make a lengthy RMA process necessary for getting a refund. At this point the letter of the law doesn't matter because he's breaking a bunch of other laws to try to satisfy this. Giving people refunds on shipped hardware should be his lowest priority. Surely the damage from making people with questionable refund criteria seek legal action would be less severe than what he ended up with. They certainly should have never been prioritized over outstanding preorders or refunds to people who haven't ever gotten anything.


So the reasons why Craig could have gotten a far higher percentage of broken Pandoras sent back:


1) Customers in the UK have a higher expectation of getting their money back no question asked than those in Germany


2) His customers have less loyalty to the project, yours are less likely to cause you problems


3) Craig speculated that some people are breaking their Pandoras deliberately to try to get money back. If this is really happening then it could as well be down to his customers respecting him less and also being more regretful of the purchase


4) Could Craig's Pandoras have had assembly problems causing higher failure rates?


At any rate, if he really has hundreds of broken Pandoras he should send them to you and/or others like Link and Askarus who have experience servicing them. You can pay/credit him the money that you're able to sell them for or service parts for (minus whatever it costs to fix them). Then you can also get some verification that he isn't lying about this. There's no way you're going to get Pandoras that are totally unserviceable, unless they were deliberately destroyed in which case Craig definitely should not have given money for them.

On a sidenote, I have no idea what's the problem with the website.
He keeps asking me via eMail whether I'll bring the website online now or not. I even sent him via eMail that I'll bring it online once the order page has been fixed (as mentioned here as well), but all I get as a reply is the question when I'll bring it online.


I'm totally clueless here what to do. Should I just hack around in the HTML code myself to fix it and bring it online?

Make a thread asking for help on this. And contact Gadgetoid if you haven't already.

 

[Binth]

I tried to be patient with all of this and not get into anything negative but when you are down 700 bucks and the dude holding it is in a country other than your own so any legal recourse is probably nil. Therefore I must wait and hope that a solution is found. Equally upsetting is I do have to agree with some of the new posters here that it is intimidating to post because you frequently get shot down and ridiculed. So I am willing to bet there are many other lurkers (like I was for years) who will not post for such reasons. I posted some of my frustrations about Craig's attitude and get slammed for it because god forbid I mentioned the "order number" fiasco. And yes I understand the context of all that I just used it as an example of some of the hostility demonstrated. So I do understand how new posters feel.


Also that new kickstarter and seeing how responsive he was turned out to be the final kick in the rear for me. Where is that dedication taking care of those of us still waiting for product 1?


I also like the great ideas of people suggesting that anyone who ordered from Craig should be left out to dry, that will show 'em. When I ordered mine I did not know there was a choice of shops in the summer of 09, I was also one of the fools that took the bait and sent more money to get a 1GHz model because I believed in the project. Because I was late to the party again I might be one of the unlucky ones to get screwed out of 700 bones.


So yes I too must loudly disagree with any suggestions of seeing Craig go bankrupt. I hope he has the decency to try and fix this mess.

 

[Link]

According to him, he got many units back with broken LCD Cables, Cases, PCBs, etc.


That's why he got about 700 remaining preorders. The number is high, but it's not an impossible issue.


It's puzzling to me though... he must've gotten over 400 totally broken, unfixable Pandoras back, and that is 10x more I ever got.

700 doesn't seem like an impossible issue if there were 4000 more Pandoras coming down the pipe, but aren't the plans to do less?


ED, do you mind telling us how many Pandoras have been shipped to Craig since February? Obviously 70 1GHz Editions (and recently another 26 or something?), but how many Rebirth Edition?


Where I find a problem is that you never were given data from the beginning, other than 800, then that number increased after Craig found some orders he "misplaced" or "found"? And we wonder why we can't get stats on remaining preorders from him....


How is someone supposed to stick to a business plan, when more preorders show up once a plan has been initiated? And you've paid him for parts which should have funded refunds, but with 700 units remaining, and all these people on the boards asking where their refunds are, not just recent, its been going on since March as I was one of those people looking for a refund from Craig as I couldn't operate my business while waiting for Craig to figure out his own. Telling someone you are going to refund them and then leaving them without anymore communication and to wait indefinitely is not a refund. I can't thank nobody other than ED for resolving that issue.


If this new website does go up, it would be appreciated if people could get directed to Ithic.com while hovering over North America. Something needs to be done to sell Rebirth units too, the new site can't be 1GHz specific if both you and I are trying to sell what Rebirth units remain.


Has the stockpile of Rebirth processors been used up? Or will you still have small runs of those coming from Global Components?


I understand what its like asking Craig questions and only getting half the answers. I'm over it. Part of me really wishes I would have cancelled the Kickstarter because that's what I was about to do when Craig stuck ED for €20000.

 

[mosschops]

Well, he gave me an answer via mail. I asked how many 1GHz, how many refunds and how many remaining old preorders are still left.


Only got one number, so I guess it's a total...?


According to him, he got many units back with broken LCD Cables, Cases, PCBs, etc.


That's why he got about 700 remaining preorders. The number is high, but it's not an impossible issue.


It's puzzling to me though... he must've gotten over 400 totally broken, unfixable Pandoras back, and that is 10x more I ever got.

I find that somewhat hard to believe (not you ED, the numbers given to you). Mind you given my interactions with the whole entity of open pandora ltd i shouldnt be suprised.

 

[Grench]

Well, he gave me an answer via mail. I asked how many 1GHz, how many refunds and how many remaining old preorders are still left.


Only got one number, so I guess it's a total...?


According to him, he got many units back with broken LCD Cables, Cases, PCBs, etc.


That's why he got about 700 remaining preorders. The number is high, but it's not an impossible issue.


It's puzzling to me though... he must've gotten over 400 totally broken, unfixable Pandoras back, and that is 10x more I ever got.


At least we got something now... if it is accurate.


On a sidenote, I have no idea what's the problem with the website.


He keeps asking me via eMail whether I'll bring the website online now or not. I even sent him via eMail that I'll bring it online once the order page has been fixed (as mentioned here as well), but all I get as a reply is the question when I'll bring it online.


I'm totally clueless here what to do. Should I just hack around in the HTML code myself to fix it and bring it online?

I suspect you're thinking too deeply on why Craig doesn't want to do those changes.


The way he has it set up, ED gets orders from only mainland Europe. All other geographies go to Craig's queue.


If he follows ED's suggestion, presenting the 3 shops to order from equally, he would logically loose sales from the Americas (North & South) to Link, loose sales from all mainland Europe, Asia and Africa to ED - and be stuck with just the few that come from Britain and Her Majesties protectorates.


Craig is a self admitted sales guy. Sales guys spend a big chunk of their time figuring out how to game the system. He knows that he got most of the US/world orders because the OpendPandora.org web site defaulted to his store. He doesn't want to loose these territories to Link/ED.


To ED, this is about having the web site be open and legal. So that it presents all three selling shops equally and allows the consumer choice to where they are going - and to have it take orders on each of the respective store's site.


To Link, this legitimizes his shop.


To CraigIX, doing it ED's way is a huge loss in sales territory. Having the main store not default sales to him would feel like a theft of market.


In this case, however, I think ED holds all of the cards. He stands on the 'righ & fair' side of the equation. But I can also see why Craig is going to fight tooth and nail to try to prevent it from happening.


It's like a fiscal cliff in a microcosm analogue.