Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: esc on March 11, 2021, 08:54:31 PM
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It's been several weeks since I've ordered some very basic items and AmigaKit still lists the status as "Pending" (not even "Being Picked" or whatever the next step is).
I've sent an email to them asking for a status update and haven't heard anything back...this was several days ago.
I refuse to believe someone can't respond to a measly email to give a status update. Two weeks without even acknowledging a purchase is completely unreasonable behavior for a vendor. I've submitted a dispute to PayPal.
Now, I understand AmigaKit probably isn't the true 24/7 job of the people doing the work there, but this is unacceptable. I'm curious if other people have had similar experiences and what you've done?
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They are just superbusy trademarking whatever, squatting domains, whack-a-moling (!) site certificates, putting their trademark stamps and stickers on all possible pcb they can find... you know, fighting off competition and protecting their business... no time for customers :)
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@esc
Apologies for the delay. We have had staff self-isolating in late February and we are catching up with the backlog.
I have checked our Support mailbox and cannot find any email from you: did you inadvertently send an email somewhere else such as Sales instead?
Please send an email to Support: http://www.amigakit.com/support and we can give you an update.
We work full time in the Amiga community and serve hundreds of customers every week. In this niche market we manufacture and assemble hundreds of items in house to serve the orders that come through our webstore.
@kolla
We are fast approaching two decades serving the Amiga community exclusively. We are always working hard to protect and improve the business for the benefit of our long-standing customer base.
The vast majority PCB designs we stock are original designs commissioned by Amiga Kit. The hardware and software developers who work for us are paid for their efforts. The revenue we get from the Amiga community in sales is reinvested back into our community and products.
I am bemused what domains you think we are squatting on?
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Thanks amigakit - not trying to throw shade here, it just wasn't clear to me how to follow up on my order and yes, I _did_ send to sales@ because the "Customer Support" hyperlink on the website routes people to a "Conditions of Use" page and simply defaulted to using what I found in the "Contact Info" section in the site's footer. Perhaps the link to email support@ could be made more clear?
It's also frankly a bit strange that I emailed sales@ which is advertised on the website and nobody responded or rerouted nor do you seem to have any indication that I've emailed. Do people check that email address at all? :P
In any case, condolences on the sheltering in place, I think some sort of proactive communication about orders being temporarily delayed is warranted, maybe a banner on the site so people don't get frustrated wondering where their money went.
Thanks.
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I am bemused what domains you think we are squatting on?
Wild guess. Kolla might be referring to:
http://www.amigatechnology.com/
Source topic (https://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?
mode=viewtopic&topic_id=41785&forum=2&start=0&viewmode=flat&order=0)
If his definition of squatting refers more to "not fully developed for use", then he might also be referring to:
http://www.amibench.net/view.php?desc=0
If you have been promoting usage of the above, then pardon me. I haven't seen it.
@kolla
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
#6
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@number6
Amibench has not been promoted yet- we are still tweaking the format to improve it for the benefit of the community. We prefer to make an announcement when all functionality is up and running to our satisfaction.
The word "squatting" suggests encampment on a website that we do not own. We came to an agreement and purchased Amibench from the original owner so this is certainly not the case. This is the no different to any other websites that are owned by AmigaKit Ltd.
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I wasn’t thinking of that one, I was thinking of numerous amigastore.~(eu) with broken self digned certificates, blank pages and whatnot - and of course there is amigapassion.com
On a positive note though - glad to see that the amiga checkmark/tick isn’t polluted with trademark and/or copyright signs.
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@number6
The word "squatting" suggests encampment on a website that we do not own.
Like you did with amigapassion.com to lure potential customers away from amigapassion.co.uk? And now it’s just an empy shell and amigapassion didn’t care to play that game and just changed their name to retropassion.co.uk instead, you mean that kind of thing? Yes, that is clearly hostile domain squatting.
But the domain squatting term is generally used on anyone who register tons of domains without making any good use of them, other than preventing others from registering them. Well, that didn’t work so well, amigastore.eu came around... so maybe "amigastore" isn’t so protected after all.
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@kolla
As a U.K. company, we have been continuously and wholly operating in this market for nearly two decades as Amiga Kit Amiga Store. If you take our ownership of AMIGA.org into account, that extends our operating time to approaching three decades.
We have certain protections for the business we have worked extermely hard to build up and maintain over this extraordinary level of time. Our reputation and goodwill was hard earned after serving tens of thousands of customers, attending and sponsoring shows and events over the world. We have seen many competitors come and go during this long time. We have made many friends across the community.
Therefore when a brand new entity pops up and establishes a U.K. limited company with a similar name, this can conflict with our identity that is firmly established.
We were satisfied that an agreement was reached with the incumbent company when a name change was made which suited their business model in a better way. So all parties reached mutual resolution.
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Similar name? Are you joking?
Most users mix up amigakit and amikit all the time and you do nothing.
AmigaStore.eu shows and you do what? Gritting teeth I’m sure.
Amigapassion.co.uk shows up and you just have to register amigapassion.com - amigapassion is too similar to amigakit and amigastore? Is it so that you take claims to any use of the word "amiga" in the UK? If so, that is nuts. As in lunaticy, crazy, paranoia.
You talk about reputation, but AmigaKit’s reputation is dwindling away fast because of your very own actions.
And you now pretend to have "operated" amiga.org for three decades? That claim isn’t even funny, it’s tragic.
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@kolla
Let me clarify: AMIGA.org has been operating for nearly three decades. It has provided the oldest continuous web services out there even predating amiga.com.
We are the current custodians keeping the site operating along with its other services such as the Wiki and Amiga Developer Team. Hopefully to the ongoing benefit of the community who share our passion for this platform.
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What is clear to me. Anyone can do what they want in the Amiga community, unless it is Amigakit. This is FACT, everything turns into a witch hunt.
So Amigkit has domain, amigastore since early 2k. asb register amigastore.eu. Thats OK. As long as its not Amigakit.
Amigapassion does exactly what Amigakit was being accuesed of and its OK. As long as its not Amigakit.
Amikit has registered trademarks and domain, thats OK. As long as its not Amigakit.
Im sencing a pattern here. Same old same old. Ever since I started at Amigakit (12+ years), its always been the same attitude, thats OK aslong as its not Amigakit.
Similar name? Are you joking?
Most users mix up amigakit and amikit all the time and you do nothing.
AmigaStore.eu shows and you do what? Gritting teeth I’m sure.
Amigapassion.co.uk shows up and you just have to register amigapassion.com - amigapassion is too similar to amigakit and amigastore? Is it so that you take claims to any use of the word "amiga" in the UK? If so, that is nuts. As in lunaticy, crazy, paranoia.
You talk about reputation, but AmigaKit’s reputation is dwindling away fast because of your very own actions.
And you now pretend to have "operated" amiga.org for three decades? That claim isn’t even funny, it’s tragic.
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So Amigkit has domain, amigastore since early 2k. asb register amigastore.eu. Thats OK.
Apparently.
Amigapassion does exactly what Amigakit was being accuesed of and its OK.
I don't see AmigaPassion doing anything special, they just registered AmigaPassion.co.uk - a name not related to amigastore or amigakit in any way, aside from starting with "amiga" and being located in UK.
The strange thing here is AmigaKit doing a hostile squatting of AmigaPassion.com, yet letting amigastore.eu pass.
What is it with that? Special treatmernts for UK?
Amikit has registered trademarks and domain, thats OK. As long as its not Amigakit.
Amikit didn't go on a trademark spree like only AmigaKit has done
What are your plans for non-amigakit products that have for example A1200 in their names, like the Bitfrost A1200, like A1200.net cases... ah yes, A1200.net cases... we saw how that went down. So what's the point of registering all these trademarks? It seems silly and clearly you are not defending any of them, just a waste of time and money.
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February 23rd I ordered eight items. After my original rant here (and trying to email AmigaKit) I finally received an update that status of my order had been moved to "Being Picked." This occurred on March 12, the day following AmigaKit's reply to this thread.
On March 12, two items were listed as Allocated, two as Being Assembled (which are both basic SCSI cables and I'm puzzled what assembly is actually required), and the remaining four items are still "Pending."
I've been beyond patient; this is unacceptable. How is AmigaKit still in business? No other business would survive behaving this way. At a bare minimum an email with status should be expected. I've flagged to PayPal.
At the end of the day I'd really like to support an Amiga business and would still like to receive these items but I don't trust AmigaKit. So that email response to me here was clearly a bunch of hot air. Or maybe you guys just need to get your business in order. This is crazy.
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If you didn't wait three months after payment for the delivery without any notification you are good and have nothing to complain about.😉
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I'm sure that most of Amiga people are very patient and do understand that Amiga is not a million dollar business, but it would still require communiction.
I do not have a problem to wait, if seller is communicating! I'm prety sure that most of us think same way.
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Amiga is a specialist niche market. Many of the items we sell we manufacture in house. At the moment supplies are slower to us due to worldwide pandemic, staff isolating and of course other factors such as Brexit. We apologise for any delays to any customer orders and will try to mitigate any problems at the earliest opportunity.
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Please explain to me how any of the following items are manufactured in house and require over a month and half to cobble together:
SCSI cable
Floppy cable
Voodoo exhaust fan
IDE Cable
EasyNet PCI card
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Hi
Sorry for the delay- your order has been further complicated because you opened a PP dispute and the funds have been frozen. If you contact us again on Tuesday after the Easter holidays we can advise on shipping and the order's unallocated frozen funds.
The Blizzard PPC SCSI cable is a specialist item we assemble in house- you will notice that no other resellers stock this item because it is not an off the shelf product. We had some staff off work self-isolating which gave us a backlog on assembly. However we have now almost caught up on the backlog.
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About this communication "thing", do you understand that most of it could be automated? So that anyone would not need remeber anything?
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It's also frankly a bit strange that I emailed sales@ which is advertised on the website and nobody responded or rerouted nor do you seem to have any indication that I've emailed. Do people check that email address at all? :P
This is AmigaKit's passive aggressive way of putting blame on you, the customer. Yes it's your fault because you emailed sales@ instead of support@, even though it's the same guy opening both mailboxes. It's not like you had a sales question. Oh wait, you did.
Also this:
Sorry for the delay- your order has been further complicated because you opened a PP dispute and the funds have been frozen.
Again, your fault for opening up a case with PayPal after only a month and a half of waiting.
It's too bad, this is a recurring issue with AmigaKit - I see threads with the same complaints over and over again. They seem like the type of company I would like to support, guys I'd probably get along with if I met at an Amiga show, but they seem incredibly disorganized with terrible communication skills and bad customer service.
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@Kremlar
We serve many customers weekly and the vast majority are satisfied. The minority who we don’t meet their expectations we adjust our operations for future. In June we have been serving this community for seventeen years. We hope that your past orders with us were satisfactory.
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Of course you have many happy customers. What seems bothersome to most people is the type of problems the unhappy customers do have. People waiting forever for items they've ordered or items they've sent in for service with no communication from AmigaKit. They submit tickets, send emails - no response. Then they post to the public forums and get a response, always with an odd excuse as to why they weren't successful at obtaining a response from you prior.
I run a business myself and have for 20 years now. My business has been extremely busy for all 20 years, especially the last 5. Not once will you hear one of my customers complain an email or call they made to me went unanswered.
You say it's a niche market as some sort of an excuse, yet say you work full time and are busy servicing a large # of customers. You can't have it both ways.
My advice: answer your emails. Your customer's time is more valuable than yours. No one likes going unheard. Hire some lacky from the forum to help answer your emails if you need to - markets like this always have people willing to work cheap "for the cause". Working remotely is not an excuse to not answer emails. I can answer my emails from the toilet if I need to (and sometimes I do!). The whole world has been quarantining for various parts of the past year. Good companies have adapted.
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Matthew Leeman a come a long way from a brick and mortar store in the Pacific NW since long ago and could prolly use a break. Must be getting but can't fault him for drive. Current management can be a bit um, uneven, but so it is what is is. I buy from who's got it. amigastore.eu or amigakit.com, don't care really.
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Spoken to Chris directly and resolved. :-)
Amigapassion does exactly what Amigakit was being accuesed of and its OK.
Can you clarify what you mean by this?
Thanks!
RetroPassion (formerly known as AmigaPassion) :-)
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We can see both Matthew and Chris have logged on to the forum since my request for clarification and no reply, we have now contacted them via the contact us page for clarification.
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I thought he is in Wales