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With regard to Purism the company: Folks should be wary about ordering from Purism until/unless Purism shows clear signs in the future that it will give timely

With regard to Purism the company: Folks should be wary about ordering from Purism until/unless Purism shows clear signs in the future that it will give timely refunds to customers who do not want to continue waiting for the Librem 5 device they ordered years ago. (For the purposes of this post, let's assign the value of timely to be no more than 30 business days from the original request for a refund.) Worse, Purism continually sets new deadlines which they continue to fail to meet. As it stands, there are lots of reports of Purism telling the customer that they may only receive a refund when Purism claims that particular device is ready to ship to that customer. This is against their original terms of service and AFAICT isn't legal in the U.S. Many users have contacted their state's attorney general to complain about this business practice. I'm confident I can simply link to the purism subreddit and readers here will instantly find relevant reports about the difficulty of receiving a refund: https://www.reddit.com/r/Purism/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Purism/ To be clear-- my complaint isn't about Purism not being able to ship Librem 5 on time. My complaint is about their unethical practice of withholding refunds from customers who clearly and reasonably request one after patiently waiting to receive their devices. In fact, a number of the complaints on that subreddit were posted only after the customer claimed they had been emailing Purism for over a year to obtain a refund for the device they ordered but never received. Edit: clarification with the word "timely" added, a definition of "timely" provided, and a few other stray clarifications to be maximally generous.

pessimizer 4y ago
I fear this is another setup where you're not buying a product, you're actually financing a company that is going to pay back the loan with a product that they haven't built yet.
- abhorrence 4y ago
  It’s sad though, since the laptop was such a refreshing experience when I had one many years ago.
- seba_dos1 4y ago
  To add some context: the Librem 5 project started with a crowdfunding campaign at the end of 2017. The initial projected release date was early 2019, but the project caught delays and eventually started shipping preorders in quantity in late 2020 (early revisions started shipping to backers who opted in for those at the turn of 2019/2020 already). At this point, however, the world was well into component shortage, which ended up severely impacting the production. Right now the shipping queue is at the preorders from early 2019 (with some thousands of phones already shipped) and is expected to reach the present somewhere in the first half of 2023. The product is certainly "built yet", it's just shipping slower than anticipated and, in turn, still has a queue of preorders from years ago to fulfill (I believe the most dense preorder periods have been handled by now though). Disclosure: I work for Purism as a software dev.
  - monopoliessuck 4y ago
    Hey I remember that crowdfunding campaign! If the shipping queue is at 2019, why is my refund for an order from 2017 not processed? First you guys said it was because I had to wait until my batch was going to ship. I waited. Now no who knows and no one will talk to me beyond saying "maybe soon?" and throwing their arms up. I'm a FOSS advocate and loved the idea of the Librem and even the idea of paying more for an ethical device, but this all leaves a very bad taste in my mouth and I'm not alone. Any info would be appreciated. The email volleyball doesn't ever yield any new information month to month to month...
    - seba_dos1 4y ago
      I don't know much about how refunds are handled, sorry. As far as I'm aware, the crowdfunder preorders were never supposed to be refundable (as that kinda defeats the idea of crowdfunded development); the refund policy in the shop was meant to apply for regular sales of things that were already available to buy there, which were just laptops and accessories at that time. I know that some refunds are being issued anyway, with the caveat that you have to wait for your phone to be ready to ship (otherwise the company would have to effectively cover for your withdrawal, as the components and production are already financed with that money). That's all I know.
monopoliessuck 4y ago
I ordered in October 2017. I gave up a few years ago and tried to get a a refund. I'm in the "queue" for one, but it's just been years and years of being screwed around with "reasons". I send an email every month or two asking about it to no avail. I'm apparently marked "priority", whatever the hell that means. I've lost all faith in purism as a company.

pessimizer 4y ago

I fear this is another setup where you're not buying a product, you're actually financing a company that is going to pay back the loan with a product that they haven't built yet.

abhorrence 4y ago
It’s sad though, since the laptop was such a refreshing experience when I had one many years ago.
seba_dos1 4y ago
To add some context: the Librem 5 project started with a crowdfunding campaign at the end of 2017. The initial projected release date was early 2019, but the project caught delays and eventually started shipping preorders in quantity in late 2020 (early revisions started shipping to backers who opted in for those at the turn of 2019/2020 already). At this point, however, the world was well into component shortage, which ended up severely impacting the production. Right now the shipping queue is at the preorders from early 2019 (with some thousands of phones already shipped) and is expected to reach the present somewhere in the first half of 2023. The product is certainly "built yet", it's just shipping slower than anticipated and, in turn, still has a queue of preorders from years ago to fulfill (I believe the most dense preorder periods have been handled by now though). Disclosure: I work for Purism as a software dev.
- monopoliessuck 4y ago
  Hey I remember that crowdfunding campaign! If the shipping queue is at 2019, why is my refund for an order from 2017 not processed? First you guys said it was because I had to wait until my batch was going to ship. I waited. Now no who knows and no one will talk to me beyond saying "maybe soon?" and throwing their arms up. I'm a FOSS advocate and loved the idea of the Librem and even the idea of paying more for an ethical device, but this all leaves a very bad taste in my mouth and I'm not alone. Any info would be appreciated. The email volleyball doesn't ever yield any new information month to month to month...
  - seba_dos1 4y ago
    I don't know much about how refunds are handled, sorry. As far as I'm aware, the crowdfunder preorders were never supposed to be refundable (as that kinda defeats the idea of crowdfunded development); the refund policy in the shop was meant to apply for regular sales of things that were already available to buy there, which were just laptops and accessories at that time. I know that some refunds are being issued anyway, with the caveat that you have to wait for your phone to be ready to ship (otherwise the company would have to effectively cover for your withdrawal, as the components and production are already financed with that money). That's all I know.

monopoliessuck 4y ago

I ordered in October 2017. I gave up a few years ago and tried to get a a refund. I'm in the "queue" for one, but it's just been years and years of being screwed around with "reasons". I send an email every month or two asking about it to no avail. I'm apparently marked "priority", whatever the hell that means. I've lost all faith in purism as a company.