Well then, isn't this interesting. I hope you guys are okay with long posts, because I checked this thread on my phone halfway through the day and have had a few hours to think all about it. First, I'm an honest guy, as some of you may have realized. I'm not a thief, and I'm not trying to sabotage a company that I have held in high regard. I've got money, if I felt like buying a Topre, I could have easily done so. Hell, I just blew $1,200 on a headphone amp yesterday. It isn't like I need the money I'd be getting from selling it, so I'm just fine with returning it. Actually the true purpose behind me offering it up here was that I wanted to see what would happen... For the lulz if you will. You'd have to think me an idiot if you thought I would post on here without thinking the owner of EliteKeyboards would read it. This forum is essentially the lifeblood of his business, it's a community full of the enthusiast niche that he caters to.
Now, I'll say it now, currently (expecting a positive response from Brian) I plan on returning this keyboard in exchange for the tenkeyless I paid for. It is no longer for sale. I was only ever going to sell it if Brian was cool with it. He clearly is not. However, I'd like to say a few things about Brian and the situation while I'm at it, because he sent me a fairly rude, threatening PM earlier which reads as follows:
Hi Ragnorock,
I'm sorry if we sent you the wrong keyboard, we can swap out the 103UB for the keyboard you ordered at no cost to you. Please e-mail support@elitekeyboards.com and we'll arrange a replacement.
FYI, keeping property which you have no right to, that was shipped to you as an honest mistake, falls under a part of common law called Unjust Enrichment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unjust_enrichment
Further, shipping an item obtained under such pretense is mail fraud, and is a Federal offense under Title 18, Chapter 63 of the United States code.
Note that as soon as whomever was supposed to receive the 103UB contacts us, we'll know who you are.
Best regards,
Brian
EliteKeyboards
Sure Brian, if you want to know who I am, my name is David McClellan and I live in Spokane Washington. My mailing address you sent it to was posted here. My order number was 6855.
Believe me I'm well aware of how it usually goes when the new guy gets in a fight with an established member of the community, I'm not trying to start a flame war here. I do appreciate Brian's efforts for the community, but I do not appreciate being threatened. In addition to the rude post he made in the thread, that strikes me as the incorrect response to the situation. As a business graduate student and one who knows more than a couple of lawyers, I'd like to offer another interpretation. First, I do have some right to this keyboard. I ordered a keyboard and received one that was not what I ordered. It does not matter whether the keyboard was more expensive or not, I have been inconvenienced and am entitled to the use of the keyboard until the situation is remedied either by my hand or by EK. I will also end up having to take time out of my day to drop off the Topre on it's way back to EK, which has significant value to me as my free time is fairly limited- just like everyone else.
Second, who is there to say that there is even a customer that mistakenly received "my" keyboard instead of their Topre? That makes a big difference to me. I bought this keyboard on the 20th, it shipped on the 21st, and received it on the 26th. It's been almost a week since and he clearly hasn't heard from this "unfortunate customer." The common law he referenced requires that someone else be detrimentally affected by my gain, in which case I would gladly return it. If not, then the fault lies with Elitekeyboards' own incompetence. I'm not trying to say that in a mean way, but if I make a mistake, I own up to it and if it hurts me and me alone, I accept the loss. I am not required to restitute you at the expense of my time to help you fix your mistakes. This sort of thing happens all the time and every single time it has never been worth the companies time to go after the customer who doesn't feel like being nice and returning what they mistakenly received. The $140 lost is a writeoff compared to the cost of hiring lawyers to come after me. I highly doubt a company the size of EK has a lawyer on retainer. I don't feel like wasting my time doing that either, but the empty threat of legal action was unnecessary. If Brian were to have just simply asked for it back, either now on here, or when they realized they sent the wrong keyboard, I would have returned it then as well. A dishonest person would have lied and said they DID get a tenkeyless in that situation, and thrown it up on eBay or here without saying where he got it.
That brings me to my next point, if Elitekeyboards didn't mix up shipments and instead simply sent me the wrong keyboard, then have they really lost money, or just lost profit? I'm no stranger to high retail markups, but I've honestly little idea what the markup on their keyboards is. Based upon my experience I would expect it to be fairly high, since they have almost monopoly on the market in the US as he said. In addition the effort gone through to provide to such a niche, small market (and thus small quantity sold) the only way to really make any significant money is to mark it up a fair bit. So my thought process was this... maybe they only made $10, maybe they lost $20 or so, but if I were to go and buy another keyboard from them after selling this, their lost profit would almost assuredly be more than made up. I suppose you could argue that the Realforce I was selling here is one lost customer to them, but it's likely that customer wouldn't be interested in paying full price anyways if they're shopping around on places like this. In the end, I didn't really see anything wrong with me selling it providing I'm not hurting anyone. Of course EK would prefer me to return the Topre and get the keyboard I paid for, but they can't really fault me for wanting to do what I will with it. If Elitekeyboards "lost their ass" to my benefit and are willing to admit it, then of course I'll make it right. I'm not a bad guy and I would like to be a part of this community if you'll have me.
Anyways Brian, depending on your response here I will be sending you that email looking for the exchange, but if I don't get an apology for your tone and alienating me as an ill natured person, you can hire a laywer and I'll give mine another call. I already talked to him about it prior to writing this post. I expect that no cost to you means you'll be sending me my keyboard (Also I would like to change my Leopold from MX Blacks to Browns) in a box with an RMA notice authorization and shipping label also inside that I can affix to the Topre's box (It's sitting exactly how it arrived to me in it's original shipping box) and just drop off at the nearest Fedex. You can PM me again if you wish if you have anything you feel needs to be private, but I don't see any reason for there to be anything kept from the community here. I'm all about full disclosure as you can tell.
Hopefully you now understand that I am not below the calibre of character that the average Geekhacker is and we can deal with this on amicable terms... it just really gets under my skin when people try to make me out to be someone I'm not.
Anyways, now that that's dealt with, I'd like to thank Wanabe for his support and the rest of you for an enjoyable read.
I'm Ragnorock, I like keyboards and I doesn't afraid of anything.
