Refund on my FloJack pre-order

[ChuckParticipant]

Hi Richard, Flomio,

You guys are basically not providing any updates on what is going on with our customer-orders, and have not been replying any inquiries for a while now.

Since nothing has changed and Flomio has no plans to deliver products it seems which have been paid for (or at least Flomio has FAILED to show plans it seems, even with the constant and continuous inquiries, suggestions and patience from lots and lots of us customers about whats going on and when we will get our products which we ordered) , I think its time to contact the bank/card-company to do a CHARGE-BACK, and forcefully collect monies/funds back which was paid to your for products ordered and unfulfilled!

You guys have basically “failed to deliver”, and are “refusing” to provide a refund (based on your response to requests by customers, which sounds weird/off), even with you failing to deliver on the product purchased. So, CHARGE-BACK is the solution.

You guys need to understand that customers’ money is THEIR money, and if they order a product and you cant deliver, you REFUND IT! Its that’s simple. Us customers understand that your company did R&D (and incurred R&D expenses) to manufacture your products (every company does R&D and incurs cost), but really that R&D is “YOUR OVERHEAD COST” not the customers’! You are in business to provide a product (Flojack and other stuff) and then service (whatever that is) and if you cant deliver on the product/service say so and provide refunds, and be responsible for your expenses!

So, Flomio, do you have Flojack products ready to deliver and will ship/deliver them now, or do you leave us customers with no other option but to perform CHARGE-BACKS and get our money back?

Expecting a swift response and a resolution to this ongoing issue!

 

[RichardKeymaster]

Hi Chuck, thanks for your note.  At Flomio we’re passionate about connecting the digital and physical and have chosen NFC as our first technology enabler.  We learned early on that without interface ubiquity (essentially all devices supporting it), NFC would never be a winner.  In other words, if Apple devices didn’t join the party we wouldn’t have a business.  So we went against our better judgement (and that of our investors) and created the FloJack.  We’ve spent more than we had, worked harder than we could, and stuck with it even though others claim NFC is a dying technology.

We appreciate all the support (both financially and otherwise) we’ve gotten from our community.  For those that have lost faith and want to issue chargebacks, they’re well within their right.  Either way, we’re going to keep doing what we love to do.  That’s to deliver a FloJack that works great, delivers interface ubiquity, and shows the world that NFC is here to stay.

Richard and the Flomies.

[ChuckParticipant]

I hear you Richard. We haven’t lost faith, its just that when you commit to something you have to ensure you stand by it (integrity), and deliver at whatever cost. I stand with you guys, but at the same time, I NEED MY PRODUCTS/ORDER!

I’ll hold-off on the charge-back for now; but you guys needs to know that with “Pre-orders”, you are NOT supposed to charge the card/collect the money for the product, until you actually SHIP (or are READY TO SHIP). I spoke with my bank and they said I have 90days to do a charge back, so if I still dont receive a product by around then (which I am hoping isnt the case because that will speak VERY BADLY of your company, Flomio), or if the product is faulty and you guys dont help rectify/fix/replace it, I should let them know. So really its up to you guys to deliver.

On a final note, I am disappointed (and I imagine so are other buyers/customers) because what I had said HERE seems to now be true; in fact it is MUCH WORSE than I projected which is appalling (i.e. the concern that based on the news you guys put out about slow deliveries at 30units ONLY a day, I PROJECTED that it would basically take 34DAYS which equal 7WEEKS basically based on my estimations then after I realized the state of my order). We are NOW in the 7TH WEEK, and STILL NOTHING! (and you had given your word that that wouldn’t be the case); what else do you expect anyone to say except “Disappointing?”

So again, really its up to you guys to deliver, and determine/seal your fate.

Thanks.

[JakeParticipant]

Hi there Chuck,

I understand your concerns but, regarding our fulfillment, we are a small team. I personally assemble, flash and test EVERY FloJack we ship. I am one man and I try my best to get as many as possible out every day — some days way more than 30, sometimes only a few more but consistently more than 30/day.

I can assure that your order will be shipped as soon as humanly possible and I apologize for the delays. Thank you for your continued patience.

Jake

[ChuckParticipant]

Yet another One Month gone by and still NOTHING! Utter disappointment guys! It seems the Charge-Back will be the way to go afterall. SAD and DISAPPOINTING Flomies!

By the way, how does any of all the issues which have all been about iOS, so far affect ANDROID (or any other OS/Phone systems)??

You guys need to publicly address this!!

[JakeParticipant]

We have publicly addressed it:

FloJack Reimagined

[ChuckParticipant]

Richard, Jake,

A package arrived today with ONLY ONE device inside and ONE BATTERY. I ordered TWO units!!! (and you guys have marked my order as “Complete??” when you only send ONE out of the TWO I ordered??)

When will the second one be arriving? I only received ONE TRACKING number, where is the SECOND TRACKING number so I can track the second unit (with a “Priority Flat-Rate” shipping cost of $17.35, which is already over-priced for two small flat rate boxes, since each small-flat-rate-box is normally about $6 or $7 MAX, I imagine that each device is sent in its own box, so I’m giving Flomio a benefit of doubt that you just forgot to send me the second tracking number, and not that you would claim that you put two devices in the one box).

So, Expecting an email with my second tracking number for my SECOND UNIT!

[RichardKeymaster]

Hey Chuck, I was just going through different forum threads and making sure declared issues were addressed. Let us know.

[RonaldParticipant]

Hey Richard and Jake, my thread and inquiries were never addressed since the last message I sent to you guys. Please see Tagged: （# flo10002）. I pretty much waited for a YEAR (all paid up in advanced which now I think is an incorrect practise by you guys) and still not get any respectful reply and your failed promise of delivering the FloBLE. If this project is way above all your team’s skillsets and ability to produce and deliver to the market, you guys have to be totally honest with it and refund the money to customers. I didn’t place your order via kickstarter. I placed it directly in your website which in no way was I being told clearly that it was a non-existent product during the time of placing the order (or kickstarter driven to deliver kind of project). If you see my thread, I actually have a person who was working in your Flomio team telling me after placing my order I would get it after a week. I ordered the scanner and also the NFC stickers, which I really don’t believe you guys can’t ship out the NFC stickers because it is still in development when they are not even the so called innovative core part of the hardware things you guys are making. If you guys keep basing replies with one lie after another, and disregard giving me proper options like actually shipping a piece of hardware that works or refund the money back to me since you guys can’t deliver, and yet you guys still don’t own up to the problem you guys created for me and refuse to respectfully follow up with me within this week, you literally force me to make the next move which is to file a criminal report to the police, inform my lawyers, alert my credit card bank about this transaction fraud to also file an investigation, and also alert all kinds of tech media organizations like Techcrunch and all relevant people who had given public marketing exposure for your product about this incident and your business practices which includes failing to deliver and show absolutely no respect to me in following up my order (and I am sure all the people in the same situation as me with you guys will definitely voice out to the public). You have my email and contact and there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to not follow up with me and rectify the PROBLEM YOU CAUSED! I am posting this to ALL YOUR THREADS SO YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE TO NOT SEE THIS MESSAGE. I hope you understand that if you guys keep running the business like this in the dark (absolutely no weekly or monthly updates on development /shipment progress), you risk tarnishing your brand and respectability and even if you guys deliver the promised project after another 2 more years because it seems like its your hobby project funded by innocent victims like us, the product will basically be D-O-A when reached to the mainstream market regardless of how amazing it will be.

[RichardKeymaster]

Hi Ronald, many customers -Kickstarter and pre-order alike- have asked for refunds with the same reasoning as you have posted. Our position has remained consistent ever since the FloJack campaign began: in order to achieve a price point the market could bare we need to place a bulk order of at least 1000 units. We achieved that goal with the Kickstarter campaign and placed the order with the factory, assembled all the units, and developed the iOS SDK for most of the Apple mobile devices (iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad, iPad Mini). This was of course for iOS6 and below. There is plenty of evidence to corroborate that claim. When iOS7 was released it became clear that porting all the SDKs to the new OS was more effort than we had the resources for since we spent all the pre-order dollars developing everything for iOS6. That’s when the FloBLE idea came about and a willing enterprise to fund it’s development and bulk order. That effort is still ongoing.

Flomio has restructured time and again to try and deliver something our customers can use. We have FloJacks in stock but stopped shipping them because customers complained that it didn’t work with there iOS7 devices. If you want your FloJack hardware, we are more than glad to ship it to you since that is what you paid for. If your order contains other items we sell, we keep the whole order on hold. We don’t ship partial orders because the shipping charge does not cover two separate shipments, only one.

We welcome customer feedback like this. That’s why we setup this Forum to being with. Positive or negative, it’s the reality of our situation. Something we have no intention of hiding. The Flomio brand is, at the end of the day, a reflection of what we can deliver based on the resources we have. Today, that isn’t much but we are not giving up. We are a competent and capable team and have shown it many times. The FloJack history may not reflect it, but iOS7 was a challenge we did not foresee or plan for.

[RonaldParticipant]

Richard, as a capable person you claim to be or being part of this capable Flomio team, how can you put all backers and actual customers like me in such a risk when you guys make a new decision to pursue the FloBLE path which requires you guys to completely rebuild the product when you guys don’t even have the resources and capital to do such an action. You guys announced the new direction since the beginning of this year like January. It is now more than 7 months and almost heading towards Christmas and still no signs of a finished FloBLE product. Didn’t you guys take into account that a new iPhone is about to come out in September this year with iOS 8 and there is going to be a more radical change which will render your development work useless again if you are building really boiler code or hack type of hardware? Honestly, Apple is probably aware of startups like you guys that are building iPhone hardware add-ons/accessories that are not conforming to the iPhone hardware and software protocols, so will even modify newer iPhone hardware and software to ensure you guys can’t hack their hardware to deliver NFC capabilities (after all, Apple did not buy into the NFC technology and refuse to offer it after so many subsequent iPhone generation launches or otherwise they would have added it themselves into the phone in the first place). Third party NFC add-ons to iPhone will only work if companies deliver and fix issues quickly, which in your case is no where near this kind of capability level. If you are still just presenting a believe and no real solid proof that your continuation with the current development and business practices will work, you really need to stop giving false hopes to all your involved backers AND customers and actually put your team on the path to salvage what is left in your project and liquidate to return funds to customers and move on to a new idea (and PLEASE STOP using Kickstarter as your shield and excuse to fend off any wrong-doings you guys committed). So far the last most substantial update you guys broadcasted out was a change of direction to produce FloBLE. There is no substantial follow up or blueprint/demo prototype of the actual device being build and on any final step to launch it. This is a very strong disappointment and I would be terribly shocked if you guys are actually Silicon Valley based talent kind of startup. One simple solution to your iOS 7 problem was really building the bridge hardware to bypass the jack input and link Bluetooth to the NFC detector hardware of the FloJack. If resources and capital was limited your capable team should have dismantled the existing FloJack inventory and modify all of them with the bluetooth bridging fix which suppose should be a small micro chip solution to integrate into your existing FloJack hardware and re-create the casing with newer, cheaper and faster manufacturing processes like 3-D printing instead of completely re-manufacturing a new batch of inventory. It takes you guys more than 7 months to create such a fix?? This is a joke… REALLY!! Before you procrastinate onwards with your repeated and lame excuses, you better think hard how you and your team are going to explain all these flaws one after another continuously to the panel of judges in a court hearing which they are most likely going to give precedence to suppressing fraudulent businesses and setting a strong example to curb future potential frauds.

[RichardKeymaster]

Ronald, I think you missed this blog post sent out in March, 2014 with FloBLE progress and working proof of concept. BLE is a standardized interface and not something any device that conforms to the specification can block. The pace of our development is slow because we have to work on other consulting projects in parallel to keep the business running. The FloBLE solution is in fact a bridge implementation that bypasses the jack input with a BLE chipset, but in no way is it “simple”. BLE doesn’t support serial UART emulation as a standard profile so aside from the laying out of a new PCB, new power and antenna front end design, and bootstrap firmware development, there was the BLE ramp up work and serial driver work that has taken the longest. In fact there are still challenges in the broad BLE community to achieve consistent serial data throughput across BLE.

Again, this feedback is helpful. We stand by what we have done and continue to work on. If legal action is taken against us, we will present the facts as we see them.

[RonaldParticipant]

You are still in denial of the problems you are causing customers like us. The fact that one of your employees or representative promising my order will be filled after 1 week of placing of the order (solid prove shown in the forum page that involved my question) and not meeting the delivery time for more than a year is a serious breach of contract of sales. An involvement of a court hearing will be multi-dimensional (i.e. not just why your kickstarter project keeps delaying and delaying). You charged my credit card quickly (i.e. solid prove of establishing the contract of sales) after placing my order and failed to satisfy the delivery period promised to me (i.e. fundamental breach of sales of contract), you even have the guts to refuse answering my last message for several months until today when I have to initiate a following up response and now you have absolutely no idea or even tell me when you can deliver the product to me (i.e. no intention of warranting the contract of sales). This is a lot of stuff on your plate at the moment. If you honestly think you can serve all your backers and customers right now without a solid deadline (something you guys supposed need to work hard and commit to) and you guys are still getting new orders and only taking in new capital (regarding whether its investors or product buyers) you guys are seriously running a scam closely comparable to a pyramid scheme which is an undeniable fraud. Do you guys still need another 6 months holiday in Miami Beach before you can come up with a deadline delivery date which is gonna be another 5 years later just because you guys suddenly become full time third party contractors to other non-related companies and demoted yourself to being casual time flomio developers which has an important legal duty of trust and responsibility to your backers and customers?
This is not a feedback to support your continuation of procrastination. This is a request to resolve my issue now and give me (the victim) respectable and acceptable options to quit this scam that you are running now.

[RichardKeymaster]

Hi Ronald, we apologize that you were misinformed by our customer service representative. He should have followed up with you directly about the non-shipment of FloJack orders late last year. The issue was that we were learning about the problems with iOS7 at that time and didn’t know what to do about it. I will ship out your order #4232 as is but be warned that it will only work as designed on iOS6.

[RonaldParticipant]

This is no apology and correct attitude Richard. You are literally giving me no decent option but to accept your “now turned junk” inventory which there is no way I am able to use now because all my devices are iOS7 and there is no way to downgrade it back nor will I do that to render my devices useless just to use your hardware. I am not your project backer nor direct investor so I should not be responsible for or have duty to absorb your business risks and losses. Any customers that purchase an item from a seller have the right to obtain a fully working and functional product. Your company failed to deliver the sales goods within the time period and caused me to lose out on the return faulty goods period entitlement is literally stripping me of lawful rights as a customer (and you cannot assume that in that order period the item was fully functional because the goods were never delivered and you cannot prove that the particular items you were suppose to send to me would be 100% functional). After a year, you still intent to ship me a failed product (which you already confirmed that it will not work with existing iPhones that run existing generations of hardware and software OS). If you do so, you are still in breach of contract of sales. If you work out the maths, your company holding my money for more than a year must accrue interest charges (which your company owes me principle and interests). Any capital issues you are facing now with your company is something you have to work out with your banks/shareholders/business partners owners of Flomio. If you give me a fair, respectable, and proper options that I agree with as well, we can still work out something together that will result in a win-win situation. Otherwise you need to own up the full consequence of this ordeal which you have caused to your customers like me.

[RichardKeymaster]

Hey Ronald, I understand your position and agree with most of it. Where I object is to the notion that the product we fabricated is “junk”. The device operates as we said it would from a hardware standpoint. The issue is with the host device side of things, in this case iOS devices. We developed an open source iOS SDK that demodulates the data that comes from the FloJack. This SDK works consistently with iOS6 (as promised) but not consistently with iOS7+. Other companies that have audio jack accessories on the market like Square and Paypal have resolved these issues with iOS7. So clearly the problem isn’t impossible to solve, it’s more about whether it’s worth our time or not. We decided after understanding what was happening that it was better to focus on a standardized interface with BLE.

That being said, I want to reach a win-win situation with you and the many other frustrated backers that saw value in what we were creating. Our options are 1) to work consulting to generate enough profit ourselves to take FloBLE to production (thereby developing at a slower pace than normal) and deliver something to backers like you or 2) quit and close everything down. Myself and the team have chosen option 1 for the time being. Part because we still believe NFC is a winning technology ( one that Apple is likely to embrace soon) and part because of our commitment to a community that has supported us.

If those that have lost faith and think we’re just a bunch of scammers rather we choose option 2 then I would suggest they keep polluting these Forums with fallacies about our incompetence and inability to make what we’ve proven we can make. Either way, the Flomies are going to stand tall about who we are, what we’ve done, and where we’re going.

[Author]

Posts