Hacker News Reader

Comment by guywithahat | Hacker News Reader

I got one and had a terrible experience.

They ship it from Hong Kong with no packaging foam, so it arrived with a broken screen. I contacted them about it and they gave me some trouble shooting things which didn't work and then told me I could pay to ship it to their service center, even though it shipped to me broken. They referred me to their return policy which at the time basically says the buyer assumes risk for the product if they ship it broken (which is a violation of Visa and Mastercard's seller's terms of service)

I then had to fight them for months to get my chargeback, the whole time they were threatening me in childish ways and only after I won (because obviously, I don't know why they thought they had a chance) did they politely offer to pay for a return label.

Horribly run company, if you order from them be sure to use a credit card or something with a chargeback capability

View on HN

That experience is frustrating for sure, but for what it's worth, they basically sell these at cost with very little mark up.

It's a store for hackers; it's not meant to be a consumer shop. I think they even warn you to not buy if you expect returns or customer service.

> but for what it's worth, they basically sell these at cost with very little mark up.

That's worth nothing.

> it's not meant to be a consumer shop. I think they even warn you to not buy if you expect returns or customer service.

Reminds me of: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/24/the-adventures...

"Wow! I didn't know you could even do that."

So add a very little bit more mark up to ship it correctly and to account for some percentage of returns due to shipping damage.

The problem is that this amounts to a fantasy they wish were a thing. You aren't legally allowed to ship products to consumers broken and keep their money.

They have a bright red notice on the product page begging consumers not to order it. Doing it regardless and demanding it to be treated like an ordinary customer interaction makes sure that this approach will be less likely to be repeated in the future.

I do not understand why somebody would do such a thing consciously. We have the situation that somebody wants to distribute the hardware at cost for development. And a big group of people who want exactly this deal. Why is there a need on a personal level to basically sabotage this? Or what am i missing that doesnt make this behavior really dickish?

edit: And again, i am not talking about people who misunderstood what exactly was offered here. That absolutly shouldnt happen. I just dont understand why somebody would do this consciously.

I think the idea is to create a minimum standard of service, so people have the same base expecations. If businesses started selling a lower-priced with zero-guarantees model (which is essentially gambling), it will become a race to the bottom with an abundance of scammers. It would be hard for users to tell if a certain price point means 20% chance of dead-on-arrival, or 80%.

But these issues only occur at scale. As long as PinePhone is able to keep their zero-guarantees model under the radar, maybe it's fine

I absolutely understand the argument when it comes to ordinary commercial interactions. This isnt supposed to be one though. Its the solution to the problem how you can get hardware to developers as cheap as possible. I do not understand why anyone would insert themselves into this interaction.

even if what you say is true, it should have been possible to properly wrap the package so that the phone inside doesn't get damaged. that doesn't cost to much. and if they can't cover the risk of damage with money back, they could offer insurance for that instead. i'd gladly pay a bit extra.

Not going to argue on that. I am just very confused by the sentiment of people ordering something as if it was a consumer product despite knowing the only reason they can get one is because they are using the mechanism for developers to get hardware at cost. Which means the obvious solution is stricter screening of who can get one.

Developers can’t use broken hardware. The packaging doesn’t have to be fancy, but it does have to be secure enough that the phone arrives undamaged. Otherwise no development can be done. The OP is not unreasonable for wanting a physically unbroken product, sold at cost or not.

That just brings us back to not properly communicating or understanding the terms of the interaction. If you get it at cost and the shipping company wont cover the damage, somebody will. In this case the recipient will cover shipping to the service center and pine will cover the actual repairs. Thats the deal. Not understanding it is one thing, doing so and demand otherwise later another.

edit: again, not defending their packaging skills here.

The thing is nobody cares whatsoever what they communicate because you just can't legally do that most places. You can write depending on mood box may contain poo, dead rabbits, or live bobcat instead of phone and when you deliver anything but what the user paid for intact and functional their bank is going to take their money back and whomever is taking payments for you may opt to stop doing so if it happens too much.

Ultimately "YOU CAN'T DO THAT" just doesn't mean you CAN do that as long as the letters are big enough bold enough or red enough. It means YOU CAN'T DO THAT.

You cannot offer goods that don't work on a website where you anticipate people paying with their paycal mastercard visa or amex and expect them not to exercise terms that must exist by law because the alternative to someone doing the easy thing and yoinking their money relatively cheaply back over the wire isn't the incompetent OEM keeping the money its waiting for a very expensive lawsuit wherein the customer takes back not only their $99 but the $5000 it cost them to collect their $99. If enough people do that ultimately they ruin you and people come to take all your tinker toys and auction them to pay your debts.

The actual alternative is to have an actual signed contract with prospective "developers" for access to equipment. There isn't a blurb you can put on a website that will serve.

A proper way to handle this is to charge a little bit extra, and use that money to process the broken devices.

selling things at-cost or whatever is no excuse for shoddy packing methods

That’s not an excuse. In fact, smaller hacker shops more often than not provide a better experience than most ‘consumer’ shops; and certainly better than the average massive corporation.

It’s the kind of place you can maybe talk to an actual human.

It’s not the kind of place where you break your Credit Card Merchant’s rules and refuse refunds on items poorly packaged and broken on arrival.

After reading OP’s comment, I will never be ordering from this company, and I was highly considering it.

In an ethical, commercial and legal sense, you are definitely entitled to a refund in these circumstances.

But in a philosophical and aesthetic sense, if you can't fix the screen yourself, you might not be the target audience for this product.

As far as I know pinephone is a phone for software tinkerers.

I'll bite: how am I supposed to fix at shattered screen, at no additional cost to myself?

You can't. That's why I made the distinction between the ethical and aesthetic aspect, and concluded that the GP was most definitely entitled to a refund. Since the legal and financial framework supports this logic as I do, they were able to turn that refund into a reality.

A decent comparison would be wild, ad-hoc music festivals or raves. Nobody deserves to have painful experiences, and such experiences certainly do not have to be a fundamental part of these events. Nor should people be shamed for complaining after the fact. That said, it's also true that you have to approach these things with a certain mindset that's conducive to making the most of it. The comments I'm seeing here don't reflect that, even if I don't disagree with their arguments regarding commercial responsibility.

You don't.

These devices are sold close to cost price. Ethically the disclaimer still makes sense even if shipping killed your screen and not manufacturing.

Although I'm surprised it's not possible to get the shipping company to foot the bill.

Shipping companies have pretty explicit limits on liablility unless you declare a higher value (and pay a fee). Of course they won't accept high value fragile items for shipment if they're not packaged adequately, which seems to be the case here.

Why did you order it if you didnt agree with that policy? They warn you on the product page with giant red lettering. Did you not understand it? Or that it is not a consumer product?

You can’t disclaim responsibility for shipping a broken device no matter how many labels you stick on the site.

I understand the frustration if you got into this not understanding what was going on. In which case even more effort needs to be made to make sure such misunderstandings dont occur again. Thats why i am asking where exactly the problem stemmed from.

If i personally send you a prototype at cost and you demand it to be treated like a normal customer interaction the result will be that i wont be sending out prototypes at cost to just anyone any longer. Thats quite the bummer for people who wanted one.

So the question is how can we connect group A (manufacturer) and B(eager testers) without group C(Consumers) getting caught in the whole thing?

edit: Not saying what Pine is doing is good or bad, but the core problem isnt specific to Pine and many tinkerers might end up in this situation one day. And charging above cost is extremely counterproductive in some situations because it locks out some developers.

Again, you're missing the point: there is no amount of clever verbiage that makes it ok to charge someone money to ship them a phone with a broken screen and make that person eat the cost. It doesn't matter if you call it a "prototype" and say "you're not a consumer". It is not ok no matter what language you use.

If you genuinely want people to be prototype/beta testers, give them the phone for free and then ask for it back at the end of the beta period. But the transaction occurring here is, fundamentally, a consumer transaction no matter what Pine wants to call it, and that comes with certain responsibilities which cannot be disclaimed, period.

I am not arguing that you dont have the rights as a consumer. You obviously have.

I confused why somebody would claim them despite knowing that the only reason they can get a device in the first place is because they are ordering something that is not meant to be ordered by consumers. They arent priced in. You used a mechanism and involved yourself into an interaction you werent supposed to be in. Because the fix for the problem at hand is no longer allowing just anyone to get a devkit. Because the whole point is to get the device to developers as cheap as possible.

edit: Or differently put, the problem here isnt that OP got damaged hardware but that he ended up in an interaction he wasnt supposed to be in. And keeping people from accidentally ending up in there is one problem you can work on, but what motivates people to do this consciously?

I think the people arguing the opposite view might have misunderstood the complaint as being about software. I'm sure Pine64 does get complaints about the software not being usable and that's why they have the big red disclaimers. There's no excuse for shipping a broken screen and not fixing it, or issuing a refund, prototype or not.

There are so many boilerplate disclaimers that are meaningless, how can you possibly ask this question?

If you stuck to "didn't you agree with that policy" perspective, you'd never get in a car, on a plane, or buy anything.

Thanks. I am asking because you can (and absolutely should) work on people accidentally ending up in an interaction they werent supposed to be in. Thats a problem you can work on, especially with your feedback about disclaimer fatigue. And having a look now the current order page is indeed quite the clusterfuck. When i ordered it was just one big red line right above order button, Either way, its something that can be worked on cooperatively. Its in both parties interest that this doesnt happen.

What is a lot harder, and needs additional information about the motivation, is why somebody would consciously engage into this interaction and then demand it to be a different format. Because then it becomes a task of filtering out motivated people.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com