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December 31st, 2009

## Cherrypal shipping status update

By Chris Meadows

Although this is technically an e-book blog, not a “Cherrypal blog,” I have nonetheless written the most about the devices of any blog so I feel a little bit of responsibility to the people who ordered them after seeing them here.

So here is a roundup of comments we have received today about the status of people’s Cherrypal Africa orders.

In summary, some people have had very good communication with Max Seybold (especially if they were proactive and called the number on the website to talk to him), while others are still upset that they have not heard anything.

Details after the jump.

”Broken Promises!”

“Ray” writes:

> Broken promises!

> I ordered mine on 12/16 (one of the first orders by my reckoning) and today (12/31) saw nothing delivered…

> …so, two weeks and one day later and still no product.

> Further, no replies to email inquires and the customer service # given on the paypal transaction page is an “incorrect” (fake?) number.

> I’m seriously starting to worry now.

Nate the Great writes:

> It’s Thursday, and I still don’t have it. I haven’t even gotten shipping confirmation.

“Nice to Get Info”

A tweet from Bryan Everly (who also posted a comment on the 29th about not having heard from Cherrypal) says:

> Heard from #cherrypal CEO Max Seybold. Problem with my order and will be resolved by end of day or I’ll be refunded. Nice to get info.

I have asked him to post a comment with more detail.

“David” writes:

> Ordered mine on the 22, says “pending” on the order (31 st) so probably not processed yet, far less shipped.

> I suspect the slash dot effect, too much volume. My order # is in the eight hundreds, Nate who ordered his the day before might do some maths and we can get an idea of volume.

> Even with the best of intension they may truly be toiling to satisfy this sudden increase in orders.

> As most sales where probably via credit card in 30 days they will have the cash to make things happen.

> I am ordering from the third world, OK “Island nation” world 2.5

> This pricing, their willingness to take credit international cards and to directly ship to me make an irresistible combination.

> Increasingly US suppliers only want local sales.

> I grow accustomed to waiting

> Least we miss the point, this can bring the net to another layer of humanity.

And finally, “Kate” writes:

> Hi, I thought I’d leave a note here in case anyone’s looking for updates. I have spoken three times with Max Seybold, who has been very pleasant and apologetic about the glitches hindering the distribution of the first batch of orders. Here goes:

> 1. The phone line keeps breaking — and was out entirely for the first week of the Africa launch — but when it’s working, Max picks up the phone right away and ready to help out. He’s really nice, but there’s nothing he can actually do to fix the issues with the shipping because …

> 2. The distributor in Hong Kong bundled all the orders into one huge shipment without authorization to do so, so there was only one tracking number for all the laptops together as they made their way to Alaska. (This is why your order has never been updated from “Pending” status.)

> 3. Once in Alaska, the units shipped out individually — with tracking numbers — but the list of tracking numbers is fairly useless to Cherrypal, because they don’t know which order number belongs to which package. Max seemed reasonably confident that the shipment was “on time,” which I’m inclined to disagree with only because of the New Year’s Day holiday and Sunday (no mail). That’ll slow things up a bit. But from my conversation with him, it seems reasonable to expect packages to arrive next week.

This matches what I heard from Max when I spoke to him on the phone the other day myself.

This seems to be fairly good news even for the people who are having problems with their orders. (I should note I have not heard anything about the test units I am getting myself, which should be bundled with those orders.)

Given how much publicity the program has gotten, and how many orders they have received, it is easy to imagine how overwhelmed a company small enough that the CEO answers the phone and support emails himself could be by this level of popularity.

The addition of the double-holiday-season and the distributor foul-up seems to have created a “perfect storm” of problems, but hopefully they will be resolved soon.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 31st, 2009 at 5:36 pm and is filed under Cherrypal, Chris Meadows, crappy customer service, netbook, netbooks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

### 7 Responses to “Cherrypal shipping status update”

1. Nate the great Says:
   December 31st, 2009 at 7:03 pm

   (in response to David) My order number was 805.

   I’m calling BS on their explanation. It makes no sense. In order to unbundle the shipments, you would have to generate a new shipping label for each shipment so you could then hand the shipment to the delivery service (Fedex, UPS, USPS etc). A new label means a new tracking number. If that number existed then it could be given to the relevant customer. They haven’t been, so the shipments don’t exist.

2. Chris Meadows Says:
   January 1st, 2010 at 11:28 am

   So maybe they weren’t able to match up the order numbers (and, hence, the e-mail addresses) in their computer system with the names and addresses on the shipments. I don’t know. Any explanation over the phone necessarily has to be simplified. I’d give them one more week. The holiday season slows everything down.

   And as we pointed out before, Cherrypal seems to have a history of problems shipping on time but so far the shipments have arrived eventually.

3. Nate the great Says:
   January 4th, 2010 at 4:27 pm

   I still don’t have it, nor have I received any proof that it has been shipped. I think there is a scam in here somewhere.

4. africa on delivery Says:
   January 5th, 2010 at 2:36 am

   i guess all is really a fake.

5. RedSonja Says:
   January 6th, 2010 at 7:19 pm

   The Cherrypal contact phone # on the website has been disconnected. I have not gotten a refund on the Bing I ordered, contrary to an email I received yesterday advising me that, since they had neglected to charge me shipping, they were cancelling my order and I would need to resubmit it. Not a chance! At this point I just hope that I can get my money back.

6. Chris Meadows Says:
   January 6th, 2010 at 8:00 pm

   Sonja, I just phoned Max at 650-319-8300, the number listed under “support” on the Cherrypal website, and it rang and he answered it right away. (And I will be writing up his comments in another article later tonight.) It may be that the contact number you dialed was inaccurate, or you misdialed, or something.

   Anyway, I can swear to you that the above number works, and he was there when I spoke to him just a moment ago.

7. RedSonja Says:
   January 6th, 2010 at 8:10 pm

   Huh. Because when I called about an hour ago, it rang a few times and then I got “The number you have called is no longer in service.” And I redialed, just to be sure. I guess the phone line was overwhelmed or something.

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