iRex in violation of Credit Card agreements? - Page 2

VillageReader · 07-20-2006, 04:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by oliverbogler

They have a US representative, in San Jose, but from his email, he does not appear to be an iRex employee.

If he isn't an employee, it isn't their office and so US law wouldn't apply. Doesn't mean that someone like Spitzer wouldn't try to jump in and get their name in the paper IF they thought they had a chance of winning something.

bingle · 07-20-2006, 05:14 PM

Hmmm. I guess iRex should have warned customers about the unfinished state of the supply chain and delivery process, not just the hardware and software.

But when you ordered it, you knew that they were an inexperienced company selling beta hardware with many unforseen difficulties - threatening to sue just makes iRex feel that they shouldn't have given anyone the opportunity to order before they were 100% ready.

Kakyou · 07-20-2006, 06:49 PM

Guys, guys, guys!

Hold on there. This thread is totally starting to slide into murky waters.

Be very clear. This has very little to do with "the law"

First of all. If you purchased the iLiad with a credit card, non-delivery is not really between you and the seller anymore. It's between you and your credit card company and between your credit card company and the seller. Basically, the CC company has your money, the seller has the cc companys money. So if you want your money back, you go to you cc company. Then they go back to the seller.

Second, no one said Irex broke any laws (at least I didn't). At worst, they may be in violation with agreements that they made with Visa/Mastercard/etc in order to accept credit card payments. Each card company can set up it's own guidelines to vendors in order to ensure quality. If a credit card company gets a large number of complaints that a vendor is breaking these agreements, they can decide to pull thier service and the vendor could not accept that type of credit card anymore. I state again. This is a global deal as credit cards are a global deal. Doesn't have anything to do with regions or national borders. You get the same protection when you use a credit card in Brazil, Tokyo, or Paris.

The only way this becomes a problem between you and Irex directly is if you paid in cash.

But none of this is really the point of my original post.

What this shows is that Irex is *REALLY* unprepared to enter the mainstream marketplace. As unfinished as the product is, the company itself seems to be in even worse shape.

ecommerce is really not that hard. There are online shops that pop up overnight that can get billing, shipping, and customer service down with no problem. They just sign up for "Online store package A". It's not much harder than setting up a web domain. Irex's system looks more like something the president's 16 year old nephew who is taking computer classes put together.

But as I stated before, even this could have been dealt with very easily. So they put up a lemon of an online store. Well, eventually most of the kinks were worked out. But, by taking payment in advance of shipment, my expectations have shifted. I'm not a person who has just ordered a product, I am a paying customer waiting for delivery of a product.

Go into a nice French restaurant for a meal. Assume that under any circumstance you are going to pay the full price of the meal. How would you feel if it takes an hour after you are seated for the meal to come out? Would you feel any different if they asked you to pay the bill in full before you were seated and then made you wait an hour?

Now what if the waiter came out every 5 minutes to apologize for the delay, explain what was going on and update you as to when the meal would be ready? What if the manager came out a few times to do the same and chat you up a little to make the time go by, explaining some of the history of the restaurant, making small talk, and describing the menu to whet your appetite.

Some people might not care for it, but personally I would consider that great service.

If you look around, you will note that many technology product companies put forums on thier websites so that customers and potential customers can ask questions and get them answered by actual representatives of the company. You can see what kinds of problems others may be having as well as an official response. Other companies have employees who are allowed to post to public forums on other websites to interact with thier customer base rather than just spy on them.

But Irex doesn't have to do any of this. They certainly have broken no laws that I know of. At worst they seem to be playing deep into the "minimum effort we can do without getting into big trouble" pool. And yes, it would be very easy (I hope) to cancel my order. I am sure it would mae the next guy in line happy

But again, that is not the point.

I have been an ebook reader for many, many years. As a mobile professional, an ebook reading device has been part of my kit for almost a decade now. I wrote one of the first user reviews of the Sony Librie to circulate on the internet. I concider myself a power ebook user and I have been waiting VERY long for the medium to catch on.

I joined this test group, not to read books. I got books. I joined to review the device. Since I got no device I review the company. I review the customer service. I review the store. If Irex is gonna mess things up, you can bet I will be posting with criticism and suggestions on how to improve. If Sony had listened to practically anyone who purchased their book, things might have turned out quite differently for the Librie. If Irex shapes up, starts talking to it's customers, maintains the device through regular firmware updates, and continues to expand content, you can be i'll be buying these things as Christmas presents till the end of time. I'll be posting glowing reviews of the device just about the time Sony dumps it's version 1.1 on the market. and better yet, I'll be telling the guy sitting next to me in business class that he has got to buy one of these.

Now assuming I am not the only one who thinks like this, does it really sound so hard for iRex to send someone out to sit down and talk about the food?

firekat · 07-20-2006, 06:49 PM

oliverbogler,

Geez! San Jose is just down the road from me. Maybe your representative friend can hand deliver my iLiad, or I will just drive down and pick it up!

oliverbogler · 07-20-2006, 08:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by firekat

oliverbogler,

Geez! San Jose is just down the road from me. Maybe your representative friend can hand deliver my iLiad, or I will just drive down and pick it up!

To reach Jeff phone the number on this page. He is very nice and helpful.

VillageReader · 07-20-2006, 08:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kakyou

Guys, guys, guys!

Hold on there. This thread is totally starting to slide into murky waters.

Be very clear. This has very little to do with "the law"

First of all. If you purchased the iLiad with a credit card, non-delivery is not really between you and the seller anymore. It's between you and your credit card company and between your credit card company and the seller. Basically, the CC company has your money, the seller has the cc companys money. So if you want your money back, you go to you cc company. Then they go back to the seller.

Second, no one said Irex broke any laws (at least I didn't). At worst, they may be in violation with agreements that they made with Visa/Mastercard/etc in order to accept credit card payments.

Hmm, hope I didn't suggest iRex broke any laws - in fact credit card laws in the US probably differ by state. In general, the practice here is that credit cards aren't billed until shipment (although a company may block an amount equal to the order when the order is placed). But equating the general practice is probably more of a competitive than legal issue.

Companies that have a 'presence' in another country, however, must comply with local law (regardless of whether a third country likes or agrees with that policy).

To take some heat off, I'll cite some recent examples. In the US, Yahoo and Google have been castigated in the press and 'reviewed' (whatever that means) by government authorities because they 'caved in' to the Chinese to meet local laws regarding the control of information flow. In much of the world, China is seen as an antagonist of free speech and made front page news in many newspapers.

But it seems to me that AOL got far less bad publicity over limiting certain WWII and fringe political group information (I'll be discrete, I'm not certain where mobileread servers are housed) and they made that information inaccessable from that country after authorities raided their local offices and tossed some executives in jail. In much of the world, the country taking action is seen as a democratic, western society with free speech. And in most newspapers this information, if reported at all, was buried in the middle of the paper or well into the business section.

I would argue that both events are limitations on free speech, but the companies with global operations needed to meet local laws if they wanted executives to stay out of jail and to keep operating in that country.

Companies inadvertantly break laws because all coutries, states or provinces, and cities, have complex legal systems (how else would they keep all those lawyers employed). Good companies do as much as they can to avoid problems in advance, and correct these errors when they are discovered. I don't see any issue with iRex that is anything other than inexperience (and a bunch of hyper geeks that want their shipment yesterday).

Paethon · 07-20-2006, 10:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kakyou

What this shows is that Irex is *REALLY* unprepared to enter the mainstream marketplace. As unfinished as the product is, the company itself seems to be in even worse shape.

iRex is a producer and wholesale dealer, not an onlineshop.
It is planned to sell the iLiad in cooperation with newspapers and eBook-shops.
The only reason you can buy it directly from them is, because many users begged for it

Thats like complaining about the difficulties you have to go through when you want to buy a CPU directly from intel.

arivero · 07-21-2006, 05:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kakyou

(...)

What this shows is that Irex is *REALLY* unprepared to enter the mainstream marketplace. As unfinished as the product is, the company itself seems to be in even worse shape.
(...)
I have been an ebook reader for many, many years. As a mobile professional, an ebook reading device has been part of my kit for almost a decade now. I wrote one of the first user reviews of the Sony Librie to circulate on the internet. I concider myself a power ebook user and I have been waiting VERY long for the medium to catch on.

I joined this test group, not to read books. I got books. I joined to review the device. Since I got no device I review the company. I review the customer service. I review the store. If Irex is gonna mess things up, you can bet I will be posting with criticism and suggestions on how to improve. If Sony had listened to practically anyone who purchased their book, things might have turned out quite differently for the Librie.
(...)
Now assuming I am not the only one who thinks like this, does it really sound so hard for iRex to send someone out to sit down and talk about the food?

I think they are overhelmed, note that the iRex page shows a recent job add for salespersons.

As for the general policy of the company, it is a natural consequence of its adventurous foundation. See, e-ink is developed at MIT but somehow they fail to gain interest from big companies, so they spin-off E-ink.com. They get philips and sony, and it seems that the license/patent thing inplies some continental distribution: Sony starts shipping for the East, Phillips get Europe. Note that a paralell, non-existant but patented by Xerox spin-off Gyricon, menaces the shipping to USA. Well, even Phillips does not take so deep interest as it should, and it again spin-offs iRexx with its engineering team and little more, no user-oriented but looking for Business partners. And here we are at the users the end of the queue, at the restaurant at the End of the Universe, trying to make the technology really useful.

BTW, my hope is that the flexible display units (Philips and Plastic Logic, as fas as I know) will get soon a marketable product; librie, iRex being intermediate things.

rmeister0 · 07-21-2006, 08:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kakyou

First of all. If you purchased the iLiad with a credit card, non-delivery is not really between you and the seller anymore. It's between you and your credit card company and between your credit card company and the seller. Basically, the CC company has your money, the seller has the cc companys money. So if you want your money back, you go to you cc company. Then they go back to the seller.

Um...no. The credit card company will require you attempt to work out your problem with the merchant first. If that fails, then you can dispute a charge with the issuing bank, but you will have to show them your communications with the merchant up to that point in time. Investigating disputes is costly and time consuming, so nobody wants to be in that position: not the merchant, and not the card issuer. The merchant especially, as if the dispute results in a charge-back the merchant pays a charge-back fee in addition to whatever money is refunded.

Quote:

ecommerce is really not that hard. There are online shops that pop up overnight that can get billing, shipping, and customer service down with no problem. They just sign up for "Online store package A". It's not much harder than setting up a web domain. Irex's system looks more like something the president's 16 year old nephew who is taking computer classes put together.

I do ecommece for a living, and getting it right actually is that hard. The real problem appears to be their supply chain on the back end.

Remember, they had no intention of launching direct to consumer sales at this point in time, so they caved to people banging on their door asking them to do it NOW and not later. It should be no surprise that the result is rushed and not polished. I think iRex is getting more criticism than they deserve for not being a good B2C operation when they were intending to be a B2B operation all along. They are two very different critters and everyone seems to be asking a fish to run the Kentucky Derby.

What iRex needs to do is assign someone as a customer representative or 'evangelist' to be the public interface for the early adopters. That would go a long way, but I suspect their big focus right now is getting the software revisions done, getting manufacturing issues worked out, and getting those B2B deals done.

LauretteBradley · 07-21-2006, 11:17 AM

Well, I for one am a very cool, calm, collected, "paid not shipped", number 619, living in the USA.

Of course I wish I had my reader, but I have entertained myself by bulking up on content (that manybooks.com site really has a lot of good stuff!)

Given the disclaimer we all had to sign, I figured that the entire business was a mess, not just the software. Since we are pioneers, I didn't expect a 5-star hotel along this road. Rare is the outfit that has it's supply chain figured out before it officially opens. I once worked with a PhD in Physics from Cal Tech who told me that retail ordering and provisioning were a LOT more difficult than quantum mechanics.

Maybe I have just over done it on the meditation thread, but I wish iRex well, and am patiently waiting for them to get their kinks ironed out.

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07-20-2006, 05:14 PM	#17
bingle Addict Posts: 273 Karma: 499 Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: San Francisco Device: Sony Reader	Hmmm. I guess iRex should have warned customers about the unfinished state of the supply chain and delivery process, not just the hardware and software. But when you ordered it, you knew that they were an inexperienced company selling beta hardware with many unforseen difficulties - threatening to sue just makes iRex feel that they shouldn't have given anyone the opportunity to order before they were 100% ready.

07-20-2006, 06:49 PM	#18
Kakyou Member Posts: 16 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2006 Device: Many	Guys, guys, guys! Hold on there. This thread is totally starting to slide into murky waters. Be very clear. This has very little to do with "the law" First of all. If you purchased the iLiad with a credit card, non-delivery is not really between you and the seller anymore. It's between you and your credit card company and between your credit card company and the seller. Basically, the CC company has your money, the seller has the cc companys money. So if you want your money back, you go to you cc company. Then they go back to the seller. Second, no one said Irex broke any laws (at least I didn't). At worst, they may be in violation with agreements that they made with Visa/Mastercard/etc in order to accept credit card payments. Each card company can set up it's own guidelines to vendors in order to ensure quality. If a credit card company gets a large number of complaints that a vendor is breaking these agreements, they can decide to pull thier service and the vendor could not accept that type of credit card anymore. I state again. This is a global deal as credit cards are a global deal. Doesn't have anything to do with regions or national borders. You get the same protection when you use a credit card in Brazil, Tokyo, or Paris. The only way this becomes a problem between you and Irex directly is if you paid in cash. But none of this is really the point of my original post. What this shows is that Irex is REALLY unprepared to enter the mainstream marketplace. As unfinished as the product is, the company itself seems to be in even worse shape. ecommerce is really not that hard. There are online shops that pop up overnight that can get billing, shipping, and customer service down with no problem. They just sign up for "Online store package A". It's not much harder than setting up a web domain. Irex's system looks more like something the president's 16 year old nephew who is taking computer classes put together. But as I stated before, even this could have been dealt with very easily. So they put up a lemon of an online store. Well, eventually most of the kinks were worked out. But, by taking payment in advance of shipment, my expectations have shifted. I'm not a person who has just ordered a product, I am a paying customer waiting for delivery of a product. Go into a nice French restaurant for a meal. Assume that under any circumstance you are going to pay the full price of the meal. How would you feel if it takes an hour after you are seated for the meal to come out? Would you feel any different if they asked you to pay the bill in full before you were seated and then made you wait an hour? Now what if the waiter came out every 5 minutes to apologize for the delay, explain what was going on and update you as to when the meal would be ready? What if the manager came out a few times to do the same and chat you up a little to make the time go by, explaining some of the history of the restaurant, making small talk, and describing the menu to whet your appetite. Some people might not care for it, but personally I would consider that great service. If you look around, you will note that many technology product companies put forums on thier websites so that customers and potential customers can ask questions and get them answered by actual representatives of the company. You can see what kinds of problems others may be having as well as an official response. Other companies have employees who are allowed to post to public forums on other websites to interact with thier customer base rather than just spy on them. But Irex doesn't have to do any of this. They certainly have broken no laws that I know of. At worst they seem to be playing deep into the "minimum effort we can do without getting into big trouble" pool. And yes, it would be very easy (I hope) to cancel my order. I am sure it would mae the next guy in line happy But again, that is not the point. I have been an ebook reader for many, many years. As a mobile professional, an ebook reading device has been part of my kit for almost a decade now. I wrote one of the first user reviews of the Sony Librie to circulate on the internet. I concider myself a power ebook user and I have been waiting VERY long for the medium to catch on. I joined this test group, not to read books. I got books. I joined to review the device. Since I got no device I review the company. I review the customer service. I review the store. If Irex is gonna mess things up, you can bet I will be posting with criticism and suggestions on how to improve. If Sony had listened to practically anyone who purchased their book, things might have turned out quite differently for the Librie. If Irex shapes up, starts talking to it's customers, maintains the device through regular firmware updates, and continues to expand content, you can be i'll be buying these things as Christmas presents till the end of time. I'll be posting glowing reviews of the device just about the time Sony dumps it's version 1.1 on the market. and better yet, I'll be telling the guy sitting next to me in business class that he has got to buy one of these. Now assuming I am not the only one who thinks like this, does it really sound so hard for iRex to send someone out to sit down and talk about the food?

07-20-2006, 06:49 PM	#19
firekat Groupie Posts: 157 Karma: 314 Join Date: May 2006	oliverbogler, Geez! San Jose is just down the road from me. Maybe your representative friend can hand deliver my iLiad, or I will just drive down and pick it up!

07-21-2006, 11:17 AM	#25
LauretteBradley Enthusiast Posts: 30 Karma: 3474 Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: RI, USA Device: Kindle Paperwhite, Kindle reader on iPad and iPhone	Well, I for one am a very cool, calm, collected, "paid not shipped", number 619, living in the USA. Of course I wish I had my reader, but I have entertained myself by bulking up on content (that manybooks.com site really has a lot of good stuff!) Given the disclaimer we all had to sign, I figured that the entire business was a mess, not just the software. Since we are pioneers, I didn't expect a 5-star hotel along this road. Rare is the outfit that has it's supply chain figured out before it officially opens. I once worked with a PhD in Physics from Cal Tech who told me that retail ordering and provisioning were a LOT more difficult than quantum mechanics. Maybe I have just over done it on the meditation thread, but I wish iRex well, and am patiently waiting for them to get their kinks ironed out.

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