Should ED stop delivering units to Craig?

[Scntrblob]

(...at least until he receives accurate data about his queue?)

It's kinda bizarre I think, like sending the little profit you make out into the void/darkness not knowing what happens to it. I understand and appreciate EDs attempt to let noone leave empty handed here, but I think we all agree, that Craig should hand him out his queue-data. And I think he would do so, once he realises there will be no more charity for him. It's not like it is cruel or something, it is just fair, as far as I can overview things.

I won't even start speculating what Craig might do with the pandoras instead of sending them to his costumers or if he would ever signal it once his queue is empty. That's not my (main) concern. I just want fairness here, and maybe protect ED a bit from a situation where his too-good-for-this-world mentality is a little misplaced and could do him and this project further harm.

What do you think?

 

[EvilDragon]

He doesn't get Pandoras. I always ask him for the next addresses to ship the Pandoras to.


And following the boards, it seems they all have been old customers.

 

[ShleeDragon]

He doesn't get Pandoras. I always ask him for the next addresses to ship the Pandoras to.


And following the boards, it seems they all have been old customers.

Ed: That's entirely what he meant. We know Craig doesn't get them physically but there isn't really a difference if you simply ask for the addresses.


I've said it before - I have no problem with you holding off on sending Pandoras until Craig answers your questions because without solid numbers. It's easy to imagine you'll have problems planning for the future.

 

[Exophase]

They had an agreement, where for every X Pandoras ED sells he sends Y Pandoras to send out to 1300 outstanding orders in ED's and Craig's queue. ED's part of the 1300 has been filled, Craig's hasn't, so until it is he should keep doing that.

 

[Scntrblob]

Oh, sorry, if that's the case I was a bit quick here. I thought Craig would ship them himself, as there was sometimes talk that you would first collect a certain amount of units before they go out to Craig, or similar.

Well this is a different case then, but it still sucks. I mean, you still have to pay the investors back and there is no way to make plans about that until you know his queue for certain.

 

[_wb_]

He should stop shipping units to Craig. He can ship them to Craig's preorderers directly if he wants to, but I think Craig has proved to be untrustworthy, and until he gives accurate information (i.e. a detailed list) to ED, I don't see why ED should believe that Craig is even shipping those units to his preorderers - for all we know, Craig could just as well be selling them on eBay or handing them out to his friends, we have no clue at all. (ninja'd by ED himself, looks like this is arranged in a better way than what I assumed)

Also, I would like ED to be able to pay his debts and his investors ASAP, so he can get his hands free to start thinking about a successor to the Pandora. Any free unit sent to Craig's preorderers is essentially slowing down this process, although I do think those original preorderers have the right to get their unit (but it's not necessarily up to ED to deliver it). In my opinion, the following would be a better solution:

1. Craig sends ED his full list of preorderers

2. ED calculates an rough estimated shipping date for everyone on the list (basically the avg time per preorder unit times the queue position)

3. Everybody in the queue gets a choice:

1. Stay in the queue, pay nothing (this option already exists, but without the ETA)
2. Pay a bit to get the unit faster (not immediately, but something closer to now and it becomes a hard deadline, not a rough estimate)
3. Pay the production cost to get the unit now (this option already exists)
4. Get out of the queue, and get a voucher for the DragonBox shop, which can be used e.g. in the future to help buy a potential Pandora 2
5. Get a refund (this option already exists)

For choices 4 and 5, I think Craig should pay for (at least a significant part of) the refund/voucher. After all, these are still his customers. His main incentive to give the list to ED and let him handle it, is that probably less people will ask for a full refund when ED is handling things than when Craig is (poorly) handling them.

 

[Exophase]

Oh, sorry, if that's the case I was a bit quick here. I thought Craig would ship them himself, as there was sometimes talk that you would first collect a certain amount of units before they go out to Craig, or similar.

Well this is a different case then, but it still sucks. I mean, you still have to pay the investors back and there is no way to make plans about that until you know his queue for certain.

The 1300 units was part of the investment plan, so they should go out as is possible via profits from new Pandora sales. ED has also been using other profits he's made for this, but those should still count towards the 1300 unit deficit.

I agree that nothing should be sent directly to Craig. Even if he has no problem sending them off it's just a waste of shipping time and expenses when the units are trickling out so slowly that they're sent one at a time. Some of those will also have been converted into refunds and sending Craig money is an even worse idea..

Past the remainder of the 1300 units I think ED should be more frugal with funds allocated to Craig's preorders. BTW, maybe we could get a number for how many of those remain? That isn't going to be the full extent of Craig's obligations but it'll at least put a lower bound on it. Maybe it's been mentioned before but if so I forgot/didn't pay enough attention.

There are also going to be people still donating money and of course that should go towards fulfilling the 1300 units do.

 

[aholmes]

Evil Dragon is the best.

I do not trust that Craig Bloke. He's a con man and should be locked up for his crimes.

 

[Scntrblob]

...


Past the remainder of the 1300 units I think ED should be more frugal with funds allocated to Craig's preorders. BTW, maybe we could get a number for how many of those remain? [...]

 Isn't that the whole point? That not even ED knows the size of Craigs queue and Craig doesn't want to share it?

 

[Exophase]

Isn't that the whole point? That not even ED knows the size of Craigs queue and Craig doesn't want to share it?

I said the 1300 units, not "Craig's queue." Think about it for a second. X = number of outstanding preorders ED shipped from his queue since the investment plan started. Y = number of outstanding preorders ED shipped to Craig or Craig's customer. Remaining owed to Craig (at a rate proportionate to new Pandoras sold) would be 1300 - (X + Y). Not hard.

 

[Askarus]

The question is easy answered:

Craigs customers: No

New customers: Yes (Pandoras might become cheaper if there wouldn't be the old Pandoras)

Pandora owner: Don't care

So there's not much left for discussion, right?

No matter what comes out in the end: I don't think EvilDragon will stop sending Pandoras to Craig-Customers until the 800 units  will be shipped (it's also in the investment business plan).

 

[ShleeDragon]

The question is easy answered:

Craigs customers: No

New customers: Yes (Pandoras might become cheaper if there wouldn't be the old Pandoras)

Pandora owner: Don't care

So there's not much left for discussion, right?

No matter what comes out in the end: I don't think EvilDragon will stop sending Pandoras to Craig-Customers until the 800 units  will be shipped (it's also in the investment business plan).

This let's Craig off the hook again..... ED needs to have an end game planned and Craig is a wildcard.

It's about numbers - If ED cleared the queue on a one-to-one basis.... Craig shouldn't have nearly as many Pandoras in his queue as he does which means he is moving the goalpost which is fraudulent.

ED might have planned for X numbers from both queues..... but does that mean he's got to go above and beyond the already generous support he's offered.

Bottom line: without solid numbers, he cannot plan and that helps none of us.

 

[Exophase]

The only explanation Craig gave for why he appears to have a lot more preorders outstanding than the number originally told to ED is because a lot of people have sent back their Pandoras, now broken, demanding refunds.

I always said that, regardless of what the law says the user can do, giving them refunds should take a lower priority vs giving refunds and Pandoras to people who order them. But now that I think about it more, the whole scenario as Craig presented it sounds incredulous. I could see a few people of the thousands of preorderers sending in a broken Pandora and immediately demanding a refund. I can't see it being dozens of people, much less hundreds. Unless the business decorum is very different in that part of the world. It just seems too sleazy to be something people were doing en masse.

An alternative story I could believe is this: We know lots of people sent their Pandoras back to Craig for repair. Sometimes their third, fourth, whatever, unit. We know that people waited months for repairs. I personally decided I'd never send my Pandora to Craig for a repair. What I could easily see having happened is these people demanding refunds only after months of waiting, or after sending in their third or fourth Pandora because they're sick of dealing with a product viewed as inherently defective. And that'd explain why ED didn't deal with nearly as many refunds, if he was better at dealing with repairs.

What Craig should by all means have the information for is a log for every preorder. That would when they paid for the unit, when the unit was shipped, a record and date of every piece of correspondence both ways, when the unit was shipped for repair (and what the damage was), rough overview of milestones for the unit's repair status (or unmet dependencies like parts not in stock), and when the repaired unit was shipped. But I strongly doubt Craig has anything close to this. During the repair process he should have kept users informed if there was a long wait pending, and why, but I know for sure he didn't do this.

One other thing to consider. Craig spent money received for 1GHz units to pay off refunds. This effectively added the 1GHz orders to his queue. But at the same time, one 1GHz unit sale should fund two classic preorder refunds, so it'd actually have removed one from the total. And long-term there's no additional loss since 1GHz and classic units cost about the same to manufacture. Therefore his count should have gone down. Unless he actually spent some of the money on other things.

 

[MrBazil2k]

This is such an difficult topic/discussion =S

Since CraigX doesnt offer any detailed information about his queue situation...

For me as an neutral outsider it looks like CraigX is cheating.

I think the one who knows best what to do is ED himself.

 

[ShleeDragon]

Exo: If Craig got so many returns and damaged units.. I can only assume Craig has sent every one of them to ED for savaging? *cough*

and regarding the refunds -  Craig should have given every cent to ED to cover the preorders and 1Ghz models.... but he didn't and that's history

 

[Exophase]

Exo: If Craig got so many returns and damaged units.. I can only assume Craig has sent every one of them to ED for savaging? *cough*

One wonders...

 

[vcoleiro1]

Sometimes I wonder if Craig has lost his pre-order queue and is waiting on people to write to him to angrily demand their pre-order  before they get sent one?.  

You know, I want all Craigs pre-order customers to get their Pandora or a refund.  But , this situation where ED doesn't? get needed info from Craig has to stop.  I hate to say this but if I was ED, I would stop sending pre-orders until I got the following from Craig

1)  A complete list including addresses etc of people still wanting their pre-order

2)  A complete list of pre-order refunds

3)  A complete list of remaining 1Ghz orders

4)  A complete list of all other remaining outstanding orders

5)  A complete list of 1ghz and other order refund requests

6) A complete list of  returns still pending a fix

If I was ED , I would pick up the PHONE and call Craig and let him know I'm happy to work together to try and resolve the remaining pre-orders, refunds etc as much as I can within reason but I cannot continue doing anything until I have the above info. Without the above info , I would just send out the remaining 210 I'm obliged to and not go any further, the ball would then be in Craigs court to cooperate or lose out.

 

[Timstertoo]

Alternatively we could come up with our own list.

We all mail our order confirmation to one person who makes a list. Then it is known who has ordered, what is ordered and when the order was done. I'm happy to mail my confirmation to anyone willing to take this chore on. I'm also willing to have the mails sent to me, or better an adress provided by ED so he can see what goes on, and make the list. Although I'm pretty sure ED has a couple of people around him who he trusts and are happy to do that for him.

A mail gets sent out to all forum members to make yourself known if you are still waiting.

The process reverses. ED has units ready for shipment and sends Craig the names he's planning to ship to so Craig can confirm they are a customer and still in the list.

This way ED has a list he controls, all the names and order details have been provided vulontarily so no legal issues and the danger of Craig slipping in new orders and pocketing the cash is gone.

Also ED can directly approach this list with any idea/deal he so wishes to propose. Although I bumped heads with Grench I think it's great to see another option added for donators and hopefully that will help out move units faster.

 

[pmprog]

Alternatively we could come up with our own list.

Hmmm, I give that 2 minutes before people start generating random order numbers. With no information from Craig, it'd be impossible to verify

 

[Timstertoo]

Alternatively we could come up with our own list.

Hmmm, I give that 2 minutes before people start generating random order numbers. With no information from Craig, it'd be impossible to verify

I guess you stopped reading there as I came with a solution for that problem later in my post.