I appreciate the offer, Tym, but I'm not necessarily looking for customer support. I was speaking more on a project level. There are outstanding orders (including mine) and I'd like to open a dialog about getting them fulfilled so we can close this out. What can I do to make that happen? Do I need to fly to the UK to sort caps, or can I write a check to help pay for shipping & overhead? I want to help but it would be awesome if someone from CtrlAlt could lay it out for us; where we stand now and what it will take to reach the finish line. I don't mean to imply that anyone is dawdling, but I'm ready to see some action and results.
We are still trying to resolve some issues with this GB after the mess we were left in, if you would like the set replaced with something else we have on hand please let me know, if not, we will get this sorted for you as soon as possible.
You're very polite, Tym, thank you. But I'm not sure you understand what I'm going for here. I'm looking for a little transparency and some progress on TOXIC. Surely someone at CtrlAlt has a high-level overview of the group buy that they can share with the rest of us. I'm not asking for anything that wouldn't be shared in the normal course of a group buy, and I'm not asking to be moved to the front of the queue. If there's something I can do or contribute to move us forward I'd like you to tell me what that is. I believe this is a simple request and it doesn't warrant a support ticket; it can happen right here. I've got nothing to hide.
From my understanding (and people can totally correct me if I'm wrong) the TFR debacle ended up leaving a bunch of group buys in the lurch.
This one is still on the list to be fixed, but bunny and co are working from oldest to newest, and will take care of this one as soon as they've got the older ones sorted out. Some of the stuff was lost when it was reclaimed (I think there were actually unsorted keys in the bottom of the boxes when they finally came back and a bunch of missing keys), so it's going to take re-ordering stuff from SP.
So, the TLDR is not project management or a lack of a plan from bunny's perspective (on the contrary, bunny has actually taken on the burden on his own), it's just that they don't have product to ship yet because of the ****ty situation that they were put in. It's just going to take time and the resolution of previous buys that got screwed up.
I understand this part, but I need more. Bunny's last big update was in June 2015. I'm sure there's been progress since then (which is great!) but there are still outstanding orders. How many, and what are they waiting on? Someone should be able to share that information, at the very least.
And then, what can we do to help? I understand that CtrlAlt is, at least in part, a volunteer effort. I get it. So what are the resources needed to complete TOXIC? Does it mean volunteers to sort & pack? Does it mean funds to ship or to buy replacement caps? Some of us can contribute and there's absolutely no shame in asking for help. Let's face the reality of what's necessary to complete this project, please, for the love of god.
These are two very easy questions that someone should be able to answer: where do we stand today and how do we move forward?
hey sir i just got linked this
ill do my best to address the state of affairs, i guess to make this simple ill give an account of the buy from the start up until now so all info is found in one place
sorry if this is in part repetitive
i entered in to this gb with other people, whilst i posted the OP it was a group effort,,the people involved and their roles are as follows
bunnylake - collect funds, maintain the thread, pay the manufacturer
codyeatworld - web dev
margo baggins - point of contact with manufacturer
flyingraccoon - to ship orders and make the cables
the top 3 people who completed their roles within this gb (with the exception i guess of me maintaining this thread at a high level recently, which i will discuss later in this post)
flyingraccoon however didnt, this isnt the first buy he did with us, he did 3 very successfully, and then left us in the lurch on 3 more (this buy, raindrop and penumbra)
now, as this buy was the third of those 3, you may question why raccoon was still involved when it came to this buy, but due to timings, issues werent completely apparent by the time this completed production from SP, a majority of penumbra had shipped, and raindrop had begun shipping, as these 2 buys took place in fairly quick succession, and the production timings for this buy against raindrop actually shortened that gap, as this set was made early, and raindrop was made a bit late
one these sets were on hand with raccoon, communication started to break down, i was given excuses, and i often gave him the benefit of the doubt given our previous history, and that at the time i considered him a friend
this began an almost year long struggle to make anything happen, we would discuss plans, that i would be told would be stuck to, and never happened, broke things down in to realistic deadlines etc, nothing, he was offered help and support from numerous sources but i kept getting either broken promises on long periods of silence
finally enough was enough, and we had to try and salvage the buy, cody agreed to take over shipping if we could recover the sets, and that was the start of the next struggle, getting the sets from raccoon to cody
to this day we havent received everything, we did get a large amount of the sets back across 3 buys, enough to ship almost 600 orders between the 3
but even the packages we received were a nightmare, kits broken up, boxes of just loose keys, huge gaps between shipments, receiving sets in sucha way we could ship orders as we would have say alphas and no mods etc
what we ended up with was about 80% of the stuff back, raccoon also had a considerable amount of shipping money i had sent him via paypal which i also never received back
since we got the last shipment, which i guess is the better part of a year ago at this point, i have had communication from him once, about 8 months ago, when he told me he did have some more boxes, and missed them as they were packed away or words to that effect, and he would look for them and get them out to me, since then i havent heard from him again
the situation i was left with was covering the bulk of the shipping on those 600 orders myself
which brings us essentially up to the situation we are in now, which is we currently have orders we cannot full fill at this current time
this isnt the only buy we have had to be in this position with, and i started with the oldest first
we have just got everything in we need and sorted everything we had left of penumbra, most of which has just shipped or is about to as we are working our way through the support requests for that buy
we have also been shipping raindrop again, having got a large amount of the missing sets now sorted and covered, we are just short some reverse kits for that buy now, once that is completed i will be dedicated to having this buy resolved
what i have been offering people who have contacted me so far is a replacement set from another buy that we have on hand if they havent wanted to wait, and so far i have sorted and shipped those for about 20 people, again i am covering this cost
for anyone who doesnt want that option, right now its a case of waiting, what this buy needs realistically is money, given the shipping costs i have had to put up already, and the fact it affected 3 buys in a major way, it wasnt an amount of money i could cover myself all at once, i have been replacing kits as and when i can, what we are short of on this buy now is mainly alphas, some mods, and small amounts of tsangans
whilst i feel i have done everything in my power to make these gbs right, the state of them is currently not acceptable, and whilst it was caused by someone else, it does have my name attached to it, and as such, i will see it through to its conclusion
im not going anywhere, im not running, and i will make sure things get done, it just takes time, we will have penumbra done imminently and everything we can with raindrop which will leave that pretty damn close to 100% finished
what me and cody want to do is ship literally every last thing we have between us (which we have been doing steadily and will conclude shortly) and then work out exactly what itll take to wrap everything up from there, and then work on making that happen
because of your posts im making an early update now, but the plan was for us to get that done, and then make a full post and status to everyone, which we will still do, and will essentially be this post but with accurate figures and what our plan will be at that point
i know it sucks, but its been a long time already, sit tight, let us just wrap up everything we can, and then sit and figure this out properly