A fresh new start, Part 1 (2011-07-12)


Now I’m really pissed (before I was lurker here). Last update from Open Pandora Sales I have got 2 months ago and they want to force me to upgrade to the premium to get Pandora faster or get money back (even less than I had to “invest”). No words after that. Now I see that I need to wait even longer, IMO even longer than ppl from Batch2 because CC will have rest of their work deep in the hole (“Whatever” and “I don’t care” rules for small companies in US).
Have you read A fresh new start, Part 2 (2011-07-12) yet?
 
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Now I’m really pissed (before I was lurker here). Last update from Open Pandora Sales I have got 2 months ago and they want to force me to upgrade to the premium to get Pandora faster or get money back (even less than I had to “invest”). No words after that. Now I see that I need to wait even longer, IMO even longer than ppl from Batch2 because CC will have rest of their work deep in the hole (“Whatever” and “I don’t care” rules for small companies in US).
Have you read A fresh new start, Part 2 (2011-07-12) yet?

Yes, and there is no word about CC, breaking the deadline agreement and pulling back rest of the production from CC to somewhere else on their cost. Perfect agreement should work in both ways ;)
 
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Yes, and there is no word about CC, breaking the deadline agreement and pulling back rest of the production from CC to somewhere else on their cost. Perfect agreement should work in both ways ;)
It's fairly well known that Craig isn't the biggest fan of actual contracts. In the perfect world someone would say they can do something and they'd do it, or if they can't, find someone who can to keep their promise. We don't live in a perfect world, and I can't say how Craig's optimism and good faith played out in the contract negotiations, but I suspect that it wasn't as much in OPT's favour as we would have liked. Craig's a good guy, but I think he was quite naive about the whole affair before it started. No doubt all the mistakes made will never be made again.


edit: Bear in mind also that they do have some recourse: emails from an official source are as legal a contract as a physically signed piece of paper. They may yet be able to sue them depending on who was communicating with them and exactly what was said.
 
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As far as I know e-mail is equal to fax correspondence in US, so it has lesser value. What you need is a real copy (not a xero) of a contract/agreement with signatures. Fax/email version is good to initiate any project.


PS.


"find someone who can to keep their promise" - nobody can provide that of caused by Acts of God or other circumstances beyond person/company control, but all the rest should be written and become "time is of the essence" warranty for OP.
 
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Now I see that I need to wait even longer, IMO even longer than ppl from Batch2 because CC will have rest of their work deep in the hole (“Whatever” and “I don’t care” rules for small companies in US).
I would strongly assume that even if the batch 2 boards are produced first, they will put them into batch 1 cases and respect the queue.
 
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Now I see that I need to wait even longer, IMO even longer than ppl from Batch2 because CC will have rest of their work deep in the hole (“Whatever” and “I don’t care” rules for small companies in US).
I would strongly assume that even if the batch 2 boards are produced first, they will put them into batch 1 cases and respect the queue.

Check my questions here. Everything is in OP hands ;) So far I have bad experience with that kind of stuff and keeping the order queue (Notion Ink and first pre-orders).
 
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As far as I know e-mail is equal to fax correspondence in US, so it has lesser value. What you need is a real copy (not a xero) of a contract/agreement with signatures. Fax/email version is good to initiate any project.
A legally binding contract has two things: an offer and an agreement. It doesn't matter what form it is in. A verbal contract is just as binding as a contract signed in blood. The only catch is proving that the agreement actually happened. Signatures on a physical paper are the preferred method because it is (presumably) very difficult to forge a signature: that's your signature, therefore you must have agreed. Fax is a poor way to engage in a contract because it is easily forgeable and untraceable: it is difficult to tell whether this print off I'm holding actually came from you or if I just printed it off. And of course a verbal contract is completely worthless because there is nothing but my word to say what, if anything, we agreed upon.


Email is a great step up in that it is less difficult to forge: assuming that they are keeping their email records as they should, a lawyer can request the respective servers be inspected and prove that an email really does say what the print off says it says, and that it did originate from the company in question. If it turns out they have not been performing due diligence in maintaining their records and all the emails have "mysteriously vanished", OPT is still likely to win a pittance at least.


First precedent I can find is from a home sale in 2002. I apologize for the archive.org url but it seems to have disappeared from the original website.


Since then there's been a number of cases where email has been upheld as a legally binding contract.
 
IMO it is based on the state law. I had an experience (not good) in NY state and emails as a major evidence to the verbal contract, which was called a "gentlemen agreement" by a lawyer - case closed, lesson learned :\


Hope OP will clean that mess early enough.
 
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ED thanks for the detailed info, more of the same kind of crap OP have had to put up with over the years.


but ............


based on "We are missing about 1000 PCBs from batch 1" the assumption is OP have 3000 pcb's to make 3000 Pandora's, and with Craig having approx 75% of the boards he should have be able to produce around 2250 Pandora's.


Being approx 1700 in Craig’s queue and having waited for over 2 years & 2 months can someone explain why I (and others) have still to receive our Pandoras.


Please don't get me wrong, I have stuck with it because I believe in what you are trying to achieve. I know you have been seriously dicked around by almost every supplier and had some seriously bad luck over the years. I'm not ranting or accusing anybody of deceit or theft but I am struggling to understand how the numbers stack up and when I might finally receive my Pandora.


Here's hoping for good news.

Yes, I agree with you. I understand the production problems that have occurred but it sure seems like somehow I got skipped in the queue as well. I originally ordered on 10/1/2008 and was told by Jacquelyn at openpandorasales that my "approximate queue position is 1300 - 1400". Something just doesn't add up here.


Raven
Same here, I ordered 10/05/2008 and I was estimated at 1500-1600 or there abouts. I'm very curious about that as the premium Pandoras shouldn't have bumped it by that much.
 
Bla, I was told I was approx. in queue 2000 at Craig.


Now with some folks ordering multiple devices this maybe would be Pandora No. 2500 at Craig .. the wait continues ..


So with 20% of pcb's broken .. how good is your case to take CC to court?
 
Now I’m really pissed (before I was lurker here). Last update from Open Pandora Sales I have got 2 months ago and they want to force me to upgrade to the premium to get Pandora faster or get money back (even less than I had to “invest”). No words after that. Now I see that I need to wait even longer, IMO even longer than ppl from Batch2 because CC will have rest of their work deep in the hole (“Whatever” and “I don’t care” rules for small companies in US).

You won't have to wait longer than people for Batch 2, because regardless which company produces faster, delivery will go according to the queue.
 
My polite request seems to got lost in the "sue them" "wow 20% failures" din. :-(

As you might know (I mentioned this a few times), I don't know anything about Craigs queue or the numbers of his queue.


With Premium upgrades, he kept eating it down from both sides, so I guess the queue doesn't say much about how many units are left, but that's something I cannot tell you.
 
Now I’m really pissed (before I was lurker here). Last update from Open Pandora Sales I have got 2 months ago and they want to force me to upgrade to the premium to get Pandora faster or get money back (even less than I had to “invest”). No words after that. Now I see that I need to wait even longer, IMO even longer than ppl from Batch2 because CC will have rest of their work deep in the hole (“Whatever” and “I don’t care” rules for small companies in US).

You won't have to wait longer than people for Batch 2, because regardless which company produces faster, delivery will go according to the queue.

Good to know. Thanks! :)
 
So with 20% of pcb's broken .. how good is your case to take CC to court?

Those 20 percent are not broken.


They have issues. Might be a missing resistor. Might be a part not properly soldered.


Doesn't have to be a big problem, but needs to be manually looked at and fixed.


So we're not losing 20 percent of the boards - they just need some time to be fixed.


Though in mass production, you never should have such high number to begin with.
 
^ sorry, that was a bit of a crude statement.


But indeed, 20% is just ridiculous for mass production and is taking a lot of time/money to resolve (probably on both ends of the line).


In retrospect I guess the point of "oh, but they make the beagleboard, so it's fine" VS "we need to have a better grasp on the production process" is of course much clearer.


If anyone ever questions my patience I will refer them to the Pandora-project and tell them to STFU :p


/me back to the waiting-game
 
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My polite request seems to got lost in the "sue them" "wow 20% failures" din. :-(

As you might know (I mentioned this a few times), I don't know anything about Craigs queue or the numbers of his queue.


With Premium upgrades, he kept eating it down from both sides, so I guess the queue doesn't say much about how many units are left, but that's something I cannot tell you.
ED thanks for the reply, I do realise you have little knowledge of Craigs queue but not being able to ask Craig directly I can only post on here and hope that he might read it and maybe reply with more accurate information.
 
My polite request seems to got lost in the "sue them" "wow 20% failures" din. :-(

As you might know (I mentioned this a few times), I don't know anything about Craigs queue or the numbers of his queue.


With Premium upgrades, he kept eating it down from both sides, so I guess the queue doesn't say much about how many units are left, but that's something I cannot tell you.
ED thanks for the reply, I do realise you have little knowledge of Craigs queue but not being able to ask Craig directly I can only post on here and hope that he might read it and maybe reply with more accurate information.

I don't think so - he is all over iCP
 
I'm confused. Sorry I'm a newbie, and I'm sorry if this I'd a dumb question, but does that mean my iControlPad will be delayed? I ordered mine on Saturday and I got a paypal confirmation that the shipping was posted. This is my first item ever that I've ordered over seas and I'm in the US. I'm really looking forward to getting this controller foot my HTC Incredible and mt iPod lol.
 
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