Late Night Update for 10/10

[phelix]

Well, it's late, but I can't sleep (damn tinnitus). I had hoped drudging through old posts would put me to sleep, but I was wrong.

I actually wanted to have an evening when I didn't have to come back here, but apparently I do.

You're not helping yourself with that line.

The entire delay with BMG right now is they had to make the slipcase and insert the DVDs. For some reason they thought we were going to just ship the DVDs loose. So that caused the delay we're currently getting through.

Isn't that excuse getting a little worn out? You've been using it since September 19th. http://www.mscl.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... ight=#6170

We are still waiting on BMG to finish the set. They had a couple of delays, and apparently didn't realize that we wanted the set to ship to us in a slipcase. While I know the lunchbox is going to be cool packaging, I doubt most of you will want to store the set in the lunchbox.

Doing the math, If we assume it takes a worker 30 seconds to stuff one slipcase. In an 8 hour workday, that's 800 per day (a little more actually). I don't think an outfit like BMG would have fewer than 4 people working on this (or 2 people for 2 8-hour shifts). That makes 3200 per day, or 2 days to pack all 5000 sets. Given the size of BMG, they probably can easily pack 5000 in one day.

Maybe my math is off or BMG is really slow, but I just have a hard time believing it takes 22+ days to print and pack 5000 sets.


Let's look at the lunchbox:

http://www.mscl.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6556

wrote:
2. What is the status of the lunchbox and bonus disc?

They needed adjusted art and got that yesterday. They will be done in 10 days.

10 days from that statement is Oct. 5th.

http://www.mscl.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6948

The lunchboxes are printed and getting assembled. We will getting them this month.

http://www.mscl.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=7477

I had an email exchange with the lunchbox manufacturer last night. According to him, AU still has not done what it needs to do to get moving with the lunchboxes. In fact, he says that the printed metal (not shaped into lunchboxes yet) will go into storage tomorrow if Ross does not at least call him.

To quote his email to me "The factory will warehouse the printed tin on Wednesday if they don’t hear from me."

G-Wiz is getting paid tomorrow and next week. They'll be getting the boxes done next week and shipping them off to us. There may be a delay due to the longshoreman's strike, but they didn't think it would be that long. I'll ask robert there to confirm it with someone here so you won't have to just take my word for it.

(emphasis mine)

If you really want to regain some trust with us, Jason should be the one robert talks to. Put Jason back in the loop.



Now, let's turn our attention to the bonus disc:

http://www.mscl.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... t=bmg#6948

The lunchboxes are printed and getting assembled. We will getting them this month. The bonus disk is being finalized and will be printing within a week.

No we are not burning them themselves. All Justin told Jason was that he was going to prep the video and menus for the production company. It will be authored and duplicated by a local firm that can turn it around quickly.

The bonus DVD will hopefully be going into production next week as well. It will be done by a northern CA DVD production company,

I'm having a hard time reconciling these three statements. You're statement on the 4th implies that almost all the work is done ("the bonus disc is being finalized") while later statements show you haven't even gotten everything together yet to send off the production company. Has the disc been authored yet? Have you received and gone through a check disc from this company to check for errors yet? If the disc hasn't been authored yet, I find it hard to believe that it will be ready for duplication by next week.


I think I'm beginning to see a little of what Jason is talking about.

[leerosevere]

Oooh I feel so sorry for Ross. Having to post here so often. Look, over 100 posts! (And only 99% were vague and uninformative)

Of course Jason's made 6 times that amount of posts, without complaining. He's always here for us (so much for *his* so-called life) and it's NOT EVEN HIS JOB. He just cares about the project, and wants to help the customers as much as possible.

If it weren't for him we wouldn't know half the things we do. More than half....We'd have no clue what's going on. If I may sound like a parent for just a moment: Anyone who bashes Jason should be ashamed of themselves!

Jason responds to criticisms, and it doesn't stop him from coming back to help us some more. But Ross can't take the critical (in both senses of the word) questions and comments aimed at him. Poor delicate guy...I should've remembered that CEO's are by nature sensitive introverts who can't handle confrontations.

Anyway, I agree that Ross isn't the victim here, and I hope no one falls for his poor-me-I'm-so-overworked-and-underpaid (HA!) act.

[So-Called Loon]

Why are there still unresolved double charges from August? Is AU.com that inept?

Um, that's double charges ($99.98 + $115) from July for me!

[pgh kenny]

Rather than yapping on this message board, a good start for Ross might be refunding overcharges.  It doesn't bode well when people are posting that they still haven't seen refunds from July overcharges.  Talk is cheap, and in the case of Mr. Rojek, it appears that talk is much cheaper than actually taking care of what needs to be done.  

If I am the CEO of a company and my customers who paid a collective $400,000 are royally pissed about my company's refusal to refund overcharges, I would make damn sure everyone had a credit posted to their account before I went out of town (on business or pleasure).  I would at least make sure I kept the whining to a minimum before the credits were processed.

Money does not f'in disappear.  That's right Ross, credit card authorizations are not touchy feely things that are hard to get a grasp on.  I'm sure there is a list detailing the exact credit card activity for all customers.  The list is printed out? Hire a f'ing secretary to type it into a spreadsheet.  

Performing an audit is not rocket science.  There is a list of order numbers, a list of credit card numbers, a date people ordered, and the total amount that was charged to them and when.  With that list, it should take about an hour using a spreadsheet to come up with a list of credit card numbers and the appropriate refund amount.  Don't want to pay the credit card processing fee? Buy a copy of Quicking and print f'ing checks.  And don't whine about the 37 cent stamp.  Do what you need to do, but don't wait three months to return people's money!

I'm sure any of us more technically oriented board members could do the audit in less than 2 hours.  It is fundamentally wrong that customers should have to contact the retailer to fix a problem that the retailer could fix on their own.  And for god sakes, if you can't do it yourself hire an f'ing accountant to get it sorted out.  Can't do math? Hire a college intern. The refund process does not need to be a 2 to 3 month ordeal.

And by the way Ross, a reasonable retailer would have turned off their shopping cart and repaired it once the problem started in July.  Do what you need to do.  Manually remove customers from the database.  There should have been no overcharges in August.  Oh wait, that's right, it's a theft cart not a shopping cart.

YOU CAN NOT PRODUCE ONE CREDIBLE REASON WHY CUSTOMER DOUBLE AND TRIPLE CHARGES CONTINUED ONCE THE PROBLEM WAS BROUGHT TO YOUR ATTENTION IN JULY.

YOU CANNOT PRODUCE ONE CREDIBLE REASON WHY CUSTOMERS HAVE BEEN WAITING THREE MONTHS FOR A F*CKING REFUND.

[Khisanth]

If anyone hasn't read John Grisham's book The Rainmaker, then I'll summarize a bit -- business is about making money. To do so, they stiff people a lot. It's a fairly successful practice, because they're taking advantage of people who probably won't complain. Then someone actually gets a lawyer, and then a huge lawsuit ensues.

The current situation sure sounds like something similar. That's all.

Oh yeah, and I'm doing some research here;
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/selfhelp/smallclaims/

[mental]

I'm going to introject here a bit. I found out about the set in March or so on the usenet newsgroup. I wasn't really aware of the website/forum..as I haven't followed the show much since it was cancelled from MTV. I debated about ordering, and eventually missed the orginal preorder date for the lunch box....so I decided to wait till around June 15th to order.

June 18th comes and goes, and I start to wonder...so I do some looking, and find this forum. I read the stuff, and wonder if the DVDs are really gonna happen. I'm pacified for a bit, till July 3rd comes around. I get a new charge of $79 on my credit card. I call AU on July 5 and get Wade, who says there's nothing he can do on the 5th, the "accounting department" will have to do it on Monday. I call my credit card company and tell them about the charge....they say it's just an authorization at that point, and I can't do anything yet. I call AU on Monday and tell them to refund my double charge, and to cancel my order, and they say I'm set to be refunded...by [strike this]Wednesday[/strike this] Friday I call the CC company....no credit, and it's now a charge, not an authorization. So, no credit for the $79 overcharge, and no credit for the $115 charge for the set. I told them to dispute the charges. They investigated, and I got my credits. I decided to wait till they actually were shipping to reorder, glad I did.

What's the point of all this?

I believe in giving people a reasonable time to fix overcharges....3-4 days..is all that's needed. After that...why didn't you all just dispute that with your credit card company? I really don't understand the logic of waiting 3 months for them to credit you when you have a recourse with your CC company?

I also think that if your CC knows that the dispute isn't related to "services" but to "products" that were never shipped, you should be able to dispute them still, even if you ordered in Feb.

I sure as heck don't work for AU, my DVDs are coming from Amazon.

[pgh kenny]

i'm just speaking for myself here, but the reason that I didn't immediately dispute my charges was that the rumor going around was that our orders might be canceled if we disputed and asked for a refund. please know that this was before i knew that amazon.com was going to be selling the set. this was before i knew everyone that ordered from au was going to get the tin box. and I did formally dispute the charges yesterday, no problem. but the burden should not be on the customer to seek a refund for a transaction they did not authorize.

[mental]

but the burden should not be on the customer to seek a refund for a transaction they did not authorize.

I agree completely that that's not how it should be. But, after waiting weeks/months, and not getting anything from AU, sitting around waiting longer doesn't seem like a viable solution anymore. I just wonder why some folks who still haven't gotten their charges refunded are still waiting.

I know what you mean about not knowing about Amazon then...since I wasn't on the list for the lunchbox originally, it wasn't a big deal to me to wait till they shipped then reorder.

[GordLacey]

Performing an audit is not rocket science. There is a list of order numbers, a list of credit card numbers, a date people ordered, and the total amount that was charged to them and when. With that list, it should take about an hour using a spreadsheet to come up with a list of credit card numbers and the appropriate refund amount.

Well, AU was supposedly doing this months ago. No idea what happend.

Gord

[smackey]

I also think that if your CC knows that the dispute isn't related to "services" but to "products" that were never shipped, you should be able to dispute them still, even if you ordered in Feb.

I just got off the phone with my CC company and they had told me something similar. I was calling in reference to my original charges though, because I wanted assurance that I'll see my $99 again before canceling with AU. The rep said that since more than 60 days had passed, I would need to send--in writing--a "diary" of the whole (one-sided) transaction, showing that I had not received product I was charged for. She seemed to think it was a no-brainer that they would overturn the charges.

[john]

Ross-
You mentioned the interest on the overcharges. I was double-billed in late July. I know that for me, I have a 17.99% interest rate on my visa. At $115x 17.99% is $20.68 of interest a month. Three months (July, August, September)--

$20.68X3= 62.00 in interest.

--Kali

That's actually pretty funny!! Your credit card charges you 17.99% a month?! That's an annual percentage rate, so your charges are more like $5.

20.68 * .25 (3 months) = $5.17

good luck getting your loot!

[pgh kenny]

if nothing else maybe we can at least thank ross for the recent explosion of registered members in the so-called forum

[kriddyboo]

You know, it's so funny to read these posts. On one hand you have people who are pissed off if Ross doesn't post any updates or explanations, saying "He doesn't even care!"

Than you get people that are livid that he is posting, saying he should take that time to "refund people's double charges".

It's no wonder he does not want to come on this site. I don't even want to come on this site. I have refrained from posting here for about a month, because people have become just way too nasty on here. Even now, I'm sure at least five people are going to give me s**t about this post.

And no... I'm not with AU (People who have been on this board for a while know that to be true).

I don't know what has happened to this site. Wait yes I do... and everyone has a right to be upset. I myself was double charged and was outraged at the time. But, I have received my refund and have decided to go on. People here are not just willing to let the past die. How many times do we have to read the same posts over and over.

Even you Jason, you were so optimistic in the beginning. Now, (sorry if I upset you) you sound just like everyone else. I know that you have not been paid fully and I'm sorry. You were the first to offer to help me when I was double charged. I told you then that you were a special kind of person. But you've let your anger take the best of you. Remember when that freak Matel_handheld_football (or some other freak) first started causing panic about the sets long ago. Everyone was pissed and starting to get upset. You stated time and time again not to bring panic to the site. Now, it seems like everytime you post, you are hinting about matters that are only bringing on more panic. Why is it you are now doing the exact thing you were against not long ago? I'm not trying to get on you Jason. I will always be in your debt for getting the show released. If it weren't for you, we would have nothing to be all upset about.

All I'm saying is couldn't everyone just cool off for a week or so to see if Ross might come through this time. We might all just be pleasantly surprised. If he doesn't, we will be no worse off than we are now. We all know our options to take then.

[Jason R]

Kriddyboo,

I certainly respect your opinion. However, I think that you are so used to hearing about AU's errors that you are perhaps too forgiving.

I don't mean to cause unnecessary panic. However, if everybody paid between $400,000-$750,000 (after all, I don't even want to guess the total overcharge amount), then I'd say that I am just slightly justified in demanding to know why BMG hasn't been paid. AU is actiing like it is hurting for cash. Despite precharging everybody.

I'm sorry to disagree with you. And I respect your opinion, but I feel that this is possibly a legitimate cause for panic. I will try to keep my emotion out of my posts, and I will stick to the facts. However, I cannot promise that this will make the truth any easier to read.

Jason

[smackey]

How about I send about $60 cash direct to BMG for a DVD set? They get paid, and I get a DVD set within the next week. Sounds like a win-win.