What the hell?


@dysphasic. Sorry i dont get your point? Why am i asking anyone to trust me? I think youve got your wires crossed somewhere...
 
Is there no way for me to get my money back without going through any legal processes?

If you want a refund, then that is exactly what you will have to do ....

No, definitely not. This might be the only way to get it right away, though I'm pretty sure a legal process could take months as well.


But as said, I am currently setting up the production in Germany.


A business plan has been done, investors are being gathered and it's looking good. However doing all the contracts and getting the money will take a while.


No investor throws his money without serious consideration at a project, and forcing potential investors to hurry up would result in most just telling me "No, thanks".


The contract is currently being translated into English. While I'm not bad with the English language, I'm certainly not good enough for a proper contract.


It should be ready next week.


The business plan includes additional money raised for refunds, so that any refunds that happen until the production continue can be done without causing more trouble in the production.


This includes my customers as well as Craigs customers, everyone who received the business plan can confirm this.


So the only thing I am asking is to wait until this has been setup. You're money is safe right now, but if anything bad happens (legal action also costs money) and OP Ltd. has to file insolvency for any reason, it might be way more complicated for me to support OP Ltd. and their customers, as I have no idea how long the insolvency manager will need to sell me the remaining parts OP Ltd. has, how cooperative he will be to work together with me, etc.


I still plan to support all customers even in that WORST case (which hopefully will not happen and can prevented, but this all depends on the amount of people asking for refunds RIGHT NOW or taking legal action).


It's as easy as that.


I know I can't prevent you from taking legal action, I know I can't tell you to wait for your money a bit more, but I can just ASK you to hold on a bit until I got everything working and sorted out.


It's not Craigs fault the company in Texas is that crappy - and while he is responsible in front of all his customers, I hope his customers will also support him (or us) a bit more.


You can still take legal action or ask for refunds one month later, unless you SERIOUSLY need the money.
 
BTW, mecaron, is there any reason why you signed up a second time on the boards instead of using your primary account (Radical)?
 
@dysphasic. Sorry i dont get your point? Why am i asking anyone to trust me? I think youve got your wires crossed somewhere...

Erm, I meant it's hard to trust Craig's UK company! Sorry, didn't mean to disparage you! You don't have any of my money, for starters.
 
Is there no way for me to get my money back without going through any legal processes?

If you want a refund, then that is exactly what you will have to do ....

No, definitely not. This might be the only way to get it right away, though I'm pretty sure a legal process could take months as well.


But as said, I am currently setting up the production in Germany.


A business plan has been done, investors are being gathered and it's looking good. However doing all the contracts and getting the money will take a while.


No investor throws his money without serious consideration at a project, and forcing potential investors to hurry up would result in most just telling me "No, thanks".


The contract is currently being translated into English. While I'm not bad with the English language, I'm certainly not good enough for a proper contract.


It should be ready next week.


The business plan includes additional money raised for refunds, so that any refunds that happen until the production continue can be done without causing more trouble in the production.


This includes my customers as well as Craigs customers, everyone who received the business plan can confirm this.


So the only thing I am asking is to wait until this has been setup. You're money is safe right now, but if anything bad happens (legal action also costs money) and OP Ltd. has to file insolvency for any reason, it might be way more complicated for me to support OP Ltd. and their customers, as I have no idea how long the insolvency manager will need to sell me the remaining parts OP Ltd. has, how cooperative he will be to work together with me, etc.


I still plan to support all customers even in that WORST case (which hopefully will not happen and can prevented, but this all depends on the amount of people asking for refunds RIGHT NOW or taking legal action).


It's as easy as that.


I know I can't prevent you from taking legal action, I know I can't tell you to wait for your money a bit more, but I can just ASK you to hold on a bit until I got everything working and sorted out.


It's not Craigs fault the company in Texas is that crappy - and while he is responsible in front of all his customers, I hope his customers will also support him (or us) a bit more.


You can still take legal action or ask for refunds one month later, unless you SERIOUSLY need the money.
This whole thing is giving me a headache. I just need the money to repair my son's car.

BTW, mecaron, is there any reason why you signed up a second time on the boards instead of using your primary account (Radical)?
You mean my son's account? He said he tried to contact you people but his posts weren't showing up.
 
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He's probably on mod queue or something.. Or his posts are being removed (I know some were)
 
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This whole thing is giving me a headache. I just need the money to repair my son's car.

Well, I'm sorry that money is that tight then.


I doubt a lawsuit will speed things up here, but it seems I can't be of much help then.

BTW, mecaron, is there any reason why you signed up a second time on the boards instead of using your primary account (Radical)?
You mean my son's account? He said he tried to contact you people but his posts weren't showing up.

Ah, that explains why you've got the same IP address.


Well, why he got a few warnings because he didn't watch his language sometimes and attacked other community members verbally, so I guess some of these posts have been removed.
 
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Ad hominem attacks on users don't really address why an entity presenting itself as a business and happily taking money from customers can't devote resources to responding to emails in a timely fashion or even answering the phone. It doesn't really matter if the big bad supplier has done you wrong, or if it'll all be tickety-boo in just a few months when the investments roll in, or if your mother's gazebo has been destroyed by an errant weather satellite crashing to earth and you needed to spend the week reassembling it. If you've taken our money and you want to be perceived as the sort of business that does not get discussed in What Not To Do lists, then you have an obligation to your customers to either provide:

  • the goods we paid for
  • our money back
  • or a damn good and timely explanation as to why we can't have the first two.


Everything I'm seeing here from OpenPandora Ltd (as opposed to OpenPandora Gmbh - ie Craig's company, not ED's) is exactly the sort of thing that precedes the apologetic post along the lines of

"Thankyou so much for your kind support over the years. As you now we've had some trouble over the years. With that in mind, the UK arm of OpenPandora is shutting down because we can't afford to operate it any more. Sorry about that, but it turns out it sucks to be you. Luckily ED has a business plan set up so it shouldn't be too long now before people who currently have never heard of a Pandora and don't yet realise they want one will be able to purchase one risk-free and get it delivered promptly. For everyone else who's supported us financially for the past few years and to whom we've delivered nothing but more requests for money and more reasons why we can't deliver what you paid for: sorry it didn't work out. Thanks, though."

And having ED have to apologise on your behalf repeatedly like the put-upon wife of the husband drunk at the party again is just embarrassing.
 
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This is what happens when the opportunity to act appropriately is repeatedly spurned.


[edit] For the record, it hurts me to feel this way and to feel a need to post this sort of stuff. This isn't my style. I sincerely wish nothing short of worldwide success and recognition for the Pandora and the team behind it, including Craig. I guess it's just a feeling born of the frustration of watching Craig slowly but surely flush the goodwill the project has engendered in people down the toilet. I have the vain hope he'll wake up to himself before it's all too late...
 
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Ad hominem attacks on users don't really address why an entity presenting itself as a business and happily taking money from customers can't devote resources to responding to emails in a timely fashion or even answering the phone. It doesn't really matter if the big bad supplier has done you wrong, or if it'll all be tickety-boo in just a few months when the investments roll in, or if your mother's gazebo has been destroyed by an errant weather satellite crashing to earth and you needed to spend the week reassembling it. If you've taken our money and you want to be perceived as the sort of business that does not get discussed in What Not To Do lists, then you have an obligation to your customers to either provide:

  • the goods we paid for
  • our money back
  • or a damn good and timely explanation as to why we can't have the first two.


Everything I'm seeing here from OpenPandora Ltd (as opposed to OpenPandora Gmbh - ie Craig's company, not ED's) is exactly the sort of thing that precedes the apologetic post along the lines of

"Thankyou so much for your kind support over the years. As you now we've had some trouble over the years. With that in mind, the UK arm of OpenPandora is shutting down because we can't afford to operate it any more. Sorry about that, but it turns out it sucks to be you. Luckily ED has a business plan set up so it shouldn't be too long now before people who currently have never heard of a Pandora and don't yet realise they want one will be able to purchase one risk-free and get it delivered promptly. For everyone else who's supported us financially for the past few years and to whom we've delivered nothing but more requests for money and more reasons why we can't deliver what you paid for: sorry it didn't work out. Thanks, though."

And having ED have to apologise on your behalf repeatedly like the put-upon wife of the husband drunk at the party again is just embarrassing.

Um... yes, they have an obligation to provide either the product or a refund, but I think it's being made perfectly clear that you'll get what you paid for or a refund; this is just an extremely busy time.
 
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This is what happens when the opportunity to act appropriately is repeatedly spurned.


[edit] For the record, it hurts me to feel this way and to feel a need to post this sort of stuff. This isn't my style. I sincerely wish nothing short of worldwide success and recognition for the Pandora and the team behind it, including Craig. I guess it's just a feeling born of the frustration of watching Craig slowly but surely flush the goodwill the project has engendered in people down the toilet. I have the vain hope he'll wake up to himself before it's all too late...

That is better than I could ever put it. Oh, and Onpon4, yes they have an obligation to provide either a product or a refund. However, Craig's company is refusing to reply to emails, including those requesting refunds from people who no longer trust the company with their money. Sure they're obligatd to provide a refund, the problem is they are Not liging up to that obligation and people cannot get a refund as he is ignoring their requests.


The difficulties of moving to Germany do not affect statutory rights, and Craig is ignoring those rights because I want my refund bcause I do not trust him to have my money yet he is ignoring every request for a refund. "We're busy" is not an excuse for ignoring a requst for a refund.

Oh, and again, EvilDragon, you put up an address where we can buy directly from you, I will do that literally the day after Craig gives me a refund. And I don't care if I have to wait over a year.
 
Following the threads on these boards, there seem to be some contact problems right now with OP Ltd.


I assume that Craigs team is not working fulltime on that right now to minimize the running costs.


With CC not really delivering anything (except a couple of PCBs every few weeks), there's not much choice left right now, sadly.


This probably lead to a huge backlog of eMails.


I can't do much here but tell you I'm sorry for that as well.


It's a sad situation thanks to these production issues, so I hope you can hold on to your money for a bit more.


I'm currently organizing the movement of the production to Germany and am gathering investors right now (and it's really looking good at the moment).


I've got costs for recovers as well planned in my business plan, so once the funding is secured, refunds will be taken care of as well.
That's not really acceptable though, is it?


This is all sounding really gorram fraudulent, "Oh hey, we're having problems with this and that but it'll all be okay in x time but lol we can't guarantee anything!"


I just want my money back, after all this waiting I'd at least expect the decency to be refunded when I ask for it.
Browncoat pride!


CircuitCo SUCKS. It's not Open Pandora's fault, rest assured that Pandora's exist, and are in the hands of people.. But CircuitCo is slow, lazy, and barely delivers, which is why there's going to be a BIG overhaul.


Also, something's been wrong with the e-mail system... But don't panic, everything shall be alright. Just let OP sort it out.
 
If you've taken our money and you want to be perceived as the sort of business that does not get discussed in What Not To Do lists, then you have an obligation to your customers to either provide:

  • the goods we paid for
  • our money back
  • or a damn good and timely explanation as to why we can't have the first two.

Well, your third point has been replied a few times already:


The goods can't be shipped right now, as the company that was supposed to have all 4000 PCBs produced until February 2011 still owes us the remaining 1000 - and with as few boards as we get from them, it'll still take a while.


That's the whole reason why the production is moving to Germany.


The second issue is a trickier one. Sure, reducing manpower to reduce costs leads to huge backlogs. However, I can also imagine that too many refunds will be a problem as well.


I don't know the exact details of OpenPandora Ltd., but as they only make money from selling Pandoras and with nigh to no Pandora PCBs currently being delivered from CC, there's not much money to be made.


Too many refunds sure would cause issues here.


However, this is, as mentioned, being taken care about, but it needs some time.


That's why I've been asking to hold on until the investment stuff has been finished. Then I know for sure that there's money for needed refunds.


And while I WILL take care of ALL customers, whatever may happen, having legal action or even an insolvency manager involved will make taking care harder, so of course I'm all for trying to prevent that.


In fact, the fastest and safest way to get your money back is probably to wait until the investments have been taken care of.


If a company files insolvency, things will take months - and if there's nothing left, you wouldn't get any refund at all.

And having ED have to apologise on your behalf repeatedly like the put-upon wife of the husband drunk at the party again is just embarrassing.

Well, we're both involved here, and I know my business plan better, so I can at least reply that also refunds are being taken care of ;)
 
Browncoat pride!


CircuitCo SUCKS. It's not Open Pandora's fault, rest assured that Pandora's exist, and are in the hands of people.. But CircuitCo is slow, lazy, and barely delivers, which is why there's going to be a BIG overhaul.


Also, something's been wrong with the e-mail system... But don't panic, everything shall be alright. Just let OP sort it out.

Well, while that's true, it's also perfectly understandable why some customers behave like this.


Not everyone has followed the project from the very beginning, not everyone had known us before the Pandora, not everyone knows we're basically just a bunch of guys just trying to create an OpenSource handheld, working hard to get through all the issues there are.


If you just found out about the Pandora a few months ago, OpenPandora would just be like any other company to you.


You wouldn't care about their issues with any companies THEY have, as YOU ordered something from THEM, and therefore THEY have to deliver it.


So while I can perfectly understand their concerns and posts here, I also hope they can understand what we're trying to do here and that trying to get a refund as quickly as possible is the best way to not get anything at all.
 
Browncoat pride!


CircuitCo SUCKS. It's not Open Pandora's fault, rest assured that Pandora's exist, and are in the hands of people.. But CircuitCo is slow, lazy, and barely delivers, which is why there's going to be a BIG overhaul.


Also, something's been wrong with the e-mail system... But don't panic, everything shall be alright. Just let OP sort it out.

Well, while that's true, it's also perfectly understandable why some customers behave like this.


Not everyone has followed the project from the very beginning, not everyone had known us before the Pandora, not everyone knows we're basically just a bunch of guys just trying to create an OpenSource handheld, working hard to get through all the issues there are.


If you just found out about the Pandora a few months ago, OpenPandora would just be like any other company to you.


You wouldn't care about their issues with any companies THEY have, as YOU ordered something from THEM, and therefore THEY have to deliver it.


So while I can perfectly understand their concerns and posts here, I also hope they can understand what we're trying to do here and that trying to get a refund as quickly as possible is the best way to not get anything at all.

That's a really good example of why I'm trying to get a refund. And if Craig actually replied to emails, perhaps people would not be so urgent in demanding a refund. But for now, I want my money back before the UK company crashes because Craig thinks he does not have to answer to customers.
 
To be honest, I also got a huge backlog of eMails.


If you're just one person, it might be hard to reply them all in a timely manner if there are also other things you have to take care of.


Communication with OPT Ltd. had never been an issue until CC slowed down a LOT.


They don't have enough manpower right now, but manpower would cost money and avoiding as much costs as possible while there are no PCBs delivered is the only way right now.


It's really a vicious circle...
 
emails are cheaper than PCBs. I appreciate the difficulties of a backlog, but over 2 weeks with no reply is not dealing with a backlog, it is ignoring emails. Even just a "we have been messed about by Circuitco, please be ready to wait another month or 2" bulk sent email would be a reasurrance. But I had to post nearly 40 messages in a day on here to even get an aknowledgement that Craig was still trading (and even then it was "we'll get to your email"). He is going to go bust soon unless he reasurres some customers.
 
Well, I can only speak for myself. Right now, I've got about 4 hours of sleep each day.


I've got a backlog of eMails of about 1 month, as I'm stuffed with other work (like setting up the business plan, repairing Pandoras, etc.).


Craig sold 4 times as many Pandoras as I did. If he gets 4 times as many eMails as I get, he would get about 100 a day.


A person replying fulltime to eMails would be needed, and that would cost easily 2000 EUR per month.


Sure, PCBs are more expensive, but you can sell them for a win and also cover the costs for that fulltime job.


Right now, thanks to CC; there's nothing to sell, so he would lose 2000 EUR per month just from that job.


So these costs are being put at a minimum right now.
 
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