After lurking on Head-Fi for years, I created this account just to be able to PM markodarko, the user who initially identified many of the problems with what we've been told about the Skyn, all the way back in February. I never heard back from him, and I was willing to wait, but...anybody who is surprised that we ended up here should read
his last comment before requesting a refund:
In particular, nobody should forget this reasoning:
3) Your error was forgetting about (1). You no longer thought of this as a launch pad for the retail version. You got greedy. You saw the hundreds of extra potential sales and realised "hold on a minute, this is quite a niche market. If we've sold 500 units or so at COST to the campaigners, who are we going to sell the retail versions to?". So...
4) You tried to get us all to pay $79 for the once promised Super Amp upgrade, but I was a right pain in the arse and forced your hand to stick to your promise, so...
5) You had to come up with another plan to get profit from the 500 (or whatever the number is) or so contributors, which is when you came up with the idea of the "Amp Extreme" for $79.
At the time, Mr. Goodman, you responded to markodarko like so:
Thank you for stating your opinion. And it's just that, of course. Refund processed. Be happy.
in
your reply.
It wasn't just an opinion, Mr. Goodman. You tried it again on all of us who hung in. This is my second and last CEntrance product, as well as my last crowdfunding contribution to anybody, because you keep claiming everything is just a "misunderstanding" and always blame other people. Test labs didn't make you try to charge everyone the extra $79 one more time (which is NOT how stretch goals work, in any case), Apple didn't make you tell us all you had a fully ready-to-go design that just needed $12k worth of production tooling. As you wrote in the Indiegogo campaign, "As of today, we have fully functional samples and design is ready for production." The first half of that statement might have been true, given that you showed at CES a month later, but in no sense were you "ready for production" at that time. Chinese customs didn't say that for you, no matter how many times you've blamed them.
As for why I will return to lurking,
this is what markodarko got for his trouble:
ya know, markdodarko should be eternally grateful to Michael G for a refund.
there are plenty of other campaigns that follow the IGG Policy of "No Refunds" to the letter, so the fact that MG let this guy off the hook instead of "forcing" him into spending for a great sounding audio device is beyond "customer service".
CEntrance has had plenty of enablers along the way. I'd love to know how many of my fellow Skyn buyers feel "eternally grateful" for receiving something "beyond 'customer service'."
