So I unblocked upas and DMd him after some complaints in my discord, got no reply - but at least it seems like he read it and decided to Email everyone, cool!
BTW:
CannonKeys is covering the cost of shipping, unless you opt-in to pay the cost of shipping.
GMK is not refunding us for the cost of shipping.
This is on cannonkeys, GMK has refunded vendors for shipping costs (retroactively) after GMK made mistakes.
If he is as bad as communicating with gmk as he is in past gbs, where he collected money and then left people hanging, then it doesn't surprise me that he didn't manage to get refunds for shipping costs.
I personally wouldn't reward him omitting shipping this out for close to two months and paying shippingfees in his place as a result of his incompetence, but this is up to everyone to decide for themselves. Hope it gets out to everyone waiting soon!
We do feel bad that it took this long to get the replacements out - but please understand, this was an unexpected occurrence. To give you some insight, we are careful with the group buys we run and try to ensure that group buy items do not all arrive at the same time. We did not plan for the capacity to ship this out when scheduling group buys, as no one knew this would be necessary. COVID also threw a wrench in our timelines, so we got to a point where we had a lot of projects lined up to go out all at once. Those using the original GMK WoB/BoW caps could still fill out their boards, so we made the choice to prioritize the GBs that had already been subject to many delays and hadn't shipped at all yet.
We are also sitting on existing restocks of items. From a business perspective, this is far from ideal. We'd love to sell those ASAP and recoup the money we spent to buy the stock. But again, we made the choice to prioritize existing obligations, such as replacement WoB/BoW keycaps.
The email about replacements that we sent was written and scheduled earlier this week, prior to Emir's DMs to me - I want to make it clear that he had nothing to do with the email going out. This was based on our current schedule taking into account our office move, and current capacity.
While Emir did DM me, I chose not to respond. Despite constantly accusing others of not communicating well, Emir's communication has been anything but professional. My perspective is that our responsibility at this point is to our customers. Emir was paid in full shortly after the GB ended, before the kits shipped, so we have taken care of our obligation to him. In the past Emir has told me verbatim, "You can **** off now," and has had a generally negative disposition. Responding to him is not something I believed was necessary or productive given past interactions I've had with him.
I don't know what Emir is talking about when he says we've collected money and then left people hanging. Every GB we've run thus far has been successful, and to my knowledge we've taken care of everyone who has had issues. We answer any support tickets sent to support@cannonkeys.com within a few business days, and are also responsive on our public discord (our mods also help provide information in that channel). If anyone feels like we have left people hanging, please let me know with specifics, I'd be glad to discuss that and make improvements.
As to communications with GMK - we have talked to GMK about this extensively. As shown above in the thread, KBDFans is charging shipping fees, and that's because GMK will not refund us. From their point of view, they are replacing these keycaps out of good will, not because they necessarily believe they did not meet their own internal quality bar. And as such, they are not refunding the shipping fees.
We are not requiring anyone to pay shipping. If, out of the kindness of your heart, you would like to help out with them, we greatly appreciate that!
And we are always open to feedback! If anyone has ever had a bad experience with us or suggestions for improvement, please let use know via support@cannonkeys.com or in our
discord!