Has anyone here who has ordered either the Geek Pulse/LPS/Source/Wave tried to amend or cancel their order?
I'm not too sure about all the nitty gritty stuff about Indiegogo policies or fair business practices, but I was discussing this issue with a few of my friends whom I know through this hobby, and a few of us have tried to make amendments to our orders, either through cancellation or tweaking.
Supposedly, because of IGG's terms and conditions, there will be no refunds allowed, hence no order cancellation is possible, and we are all stuck with our original orders.
There's plenty of ways to pour in more $ and invest in more stuff and more perks, but not a single way to cut down or withdraw. We kinda came to the consensus that this is almost like a $ snare.
It's not as if we backed products that were custom fitted to individual specs, like CIEMs, or a specialized order. And it's also not as if the cancellation of an order poses a huge loss to them in any sense. With the forever funding campaign, they're having more and more orders coming in, so I don't quite think they'll face problems of a surplus in stocks.
A friend of mine who ordered the Geek Source didn't want it any longer because his needs have changed, and because he's recently run into some problems with cash. LHL won't let us cancel the order, and although we tried to find ways to help him, none of us were keen on the Geek Source.
Because a couple of us pooled used the same email to pledge, I didn't mind taking over his contribution if they'd allow me to swap the Geek Source for something else (I enquired about combining the Source with the Pulse xfi, and either using my marketplace credits, or simply using some $ top up to upgrade to a Geek Soul). Unfortunately, I was simply told that it can't happen.
The reason given was that the Soul is currently limited in quantity. Which baffles me because although it's technically true that there are currently limited units of Soul (0 to be exact), isn't the whole point of a pre-order to plan for making more units in the future? I stated up front that I didn't mind be put last priority because I'm still studying and in no rush to receive my xfi anyway, but apparently, it wasn't enough.
One thing additionally that irks the heck out of me is their marketplace credit system. The few of us who pledged during the Geek Wave campaign only did so towards the tail end of the campaign when they offered the late backer benefits, like $100 Geek market credits for every $500 you contribute between now and the end of the campaign. Many of us were actually pushed off the edge to take the plunge because we just wanted value for our $, and it's not like university students can really afford high end stuff when we aren't having any income. That was also the reason why we chose to commit using the same email account, because doing so would allow us to accumulate more Geek marketplace credits.
Unfortunately, LHL did not at that time specify anything about Geek marketplace credit. How to use it, when to use it, what it could be used for, or anything remotely related to useful information. Even today, we are still completely in the dark as to how it even works. We just assumed rather logically that a marketplace means you could choose what you wanted, even if it meant being more expensive than the campaign prices. But everything we've enquired about using it, it's just met by the same 'you-can't-use-it-like-that' rejection, with no further comment or clarification. I'm not sure if anyone else here has faced this issue, but it honestly feels like we'll never see a single $ of our marketplace credits, and that the concept behind it was simply means to egg people sitting on the fence at the end of the camping to just go all in.
Using the LHL support system has also driven us mad. I don't really have any qualms because it so happens that my ticket posts there are quite few, and always happen to be answered by Manny, who's always rather polite. My friends are less enamored with their experiences. Things like auto-closing your ticket in your face when the issue hasn't even been resolved. Not bothering to check up on old tickets. Having written in detail, but rudely being told to phrase it simpler for them to understand, when they haven't even taken the time to read through your previous tickets or real through with any patience or diligence to try make sense of your post before asking the customer to rephrase.
This has turned out to be somewhat a collection of our concerns/ mini-rant, and I'm just interested to know if others have felt the same way or encountered similar issues.
I personally applaud LHL for taking on the crowdfunding concept. It's a great idea, and they are slowly streamlining and refining their modus operandi. They do also seem like great guys genuinely passionate about what they do. But some of the issues we're facing honestly doesn't make any sense to us at all.
