Source
r/cloudmaker•
Tearik

If you still haven't received what you were promised.

I'm really tired of seeing people being screwed by this company again and again. So here's some info from the FTC.

Delays

If the seller is unable to ship within the promised time, it must notify you, give a revised shipping date and give you the chance to cancel for a full refund or accept the new shipping date. The seller also must give you some way to exercise the cancellation option for free — for example, by supplying a prepaid reply card or staffing a toll-free telephone number.

If you don’t respond — and the delay is 30 days or less — it’s assumed that you accept the delay and are willing to wait for the merchandise.

If you don’t respond — and the delay is more than 30 days — the order must be canceled by the 30th day of the delay period and a full refund issued promptly.

If the seller can’t meet the revised shipping date, it must notify you again by mail, email or telephone and give you a new shipping date or cancel your order and give you a refund.

The order should be canceled and a refund issued promptly unless you indicate by the revised shipping date that you are willing to wait.

If you don’t respond to the second notice, the seller should assume that you are not willing to wait issue a full refund promptly.

Refunds

If you pay by cash, check or money order, or a non-seller credit card, the seller must give you a refund within seven working days after the order is canceled.

If you pay by credit card where the seller is the card issuer, the seller must credit your account within one billing cycle after the order is canceled.

I hope this at least helps a few people here.

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EDIT: Moving my reply to Cloudmaker's response to the OP as well.

There is no window to process a refund. You just have to return the money. Which you're obligated to do if you haven't delivered a product by 50 days after the order if the customer doesn't agree to an extended deadline. Case by case is complete BS. If you're passed your legal deadline you are obligated by law at risk FTC fine to issue a refund free and clear. Furthermore your time limit for doing so is very clear on the FTC's page.

How Quickly You Must Make a RefundWhen you must make a Rule-required refund, the following applies:

If the customer paid by cash, check, money order, or by credit where a third party is the creditor, or by any other method except credit where you are a creditor, you must refund the correct amount within seven working days after the order is cancelled.

If the customer paid by credit where you are a creditor, you must credit the customter's account or notify the customer that the account will not be charged within one billing cycle after the order is cancelled.

Failing to issue the refund. Free and Clear. Inside your legal time limit can open you to Civil Litigation from both your customers and from the FTC at up to $16,000 per infraction.

Why You Should Comply with the Rule

Merchants who violate the Rule can be sued by the FTC for injunctive relief, monetary civil penalties of up to $16,000 per violation (any time during the five years preceding the filing of the complaint), and consumer redress (any time during the three years preceding the filing of the complaint). When the mails are involved, the Postal Service also has authority to take action for problems such as non-delivery. State law enforcement agencies can take action for violating state consumer protection laws.

There is also no window for a customer to issue a chargeback if they present evidence to their bank of the situation. This is to allow chargebacks on things with extended preorder windows and the like to keep shady businesses from opening a preorder and then telling people they're not getting their product once the standard 120 day window is up.

If you can't deliver on your promises. Don't make promises. No one here wanted to see you guys fail. But I think everyone is tired of seeing you make excuses, blame other people for your problems, and especially seeing you blame your customers for your problems.

As a final note, when you reply to a post and then it immediately drops 3 votes to be zero upvotes. It is obvious that you're trying to hide the post so that your customers won't be aware of their legal rights. I was generous by posting this on this sub. I can just as easily move the information over to ECR. It won't even be any trouble as I saved a copy of everything I wrote along with the formatting so that I don't even have to trouble myself to retype it.

Posted Apr 22, 2016, 3:29 PM UTC · edited

4833
tweetleski•

You should put this on ECR where you aren't subject to the censorship and down votes by these people. The greater community needs to know what's going on in case they unfortunately get sucked into this borderline fraud

14
TearikOP•

So far, other than the early onset of downvotes. It's stayed pretty visible. I was putting it here simply because complaints were leaking on to r/ECR again.

One of the staff has reached out in an interest to hold a private conversation about some of the points I've mentioned here. Hopefully he'll take my advice to heart and they'll get their company back on track.

7
WhoKnowsWho2•

Good info for the people being told they can't have a refund.

7
TearikOP•

Yep. I just wanted to point out that denying a refund, or trying to charge a "restocking fee" in this situation is illegal on CMTs part and can/will subject them to large fines from the FTC.

2
ManBearPig2114•

Nice work on this info. I didn't purchase anything from CMT, but have been following this shindig ever since the delay reports started coming it. Again, props on the legwork and the post!

6
TearikOP•

Thanks man. I just want people to understand that they're not necessarily screwed and at the mercy of a company that isn't delivering their promises.

4
ManBearPig2114•

Well you got 2 big thumbs up from me!

2
TearikOP•

Thanks, I appreciate it. I was kind of surprised that I wasn't just banned from r/cloudmaker after I posted it tbh. I'm happy that people are getting to see the info though. This post has actually made it to the Top - All Time list for this sub lol.

3
ManBearPig2114•

Man, if I wasn't unemployed I would totally give you gold. I was victimized by the infamous ecr_exchange scam by u/serjorah and felt the hurt in that way. It's one thing when it's a person, and a totally different thing when it's an actual "company" not delivering; or even coming close to it for that matter.

6
mistressbliss•

Use a sybian vibrator

3
ManBearPig2114•

Say what?

2
mistressbliss•

HAHAHA you ever have too many tabs open and go to grab a link to reply to something and reply to the completely wrong thread? Welcome to my total fuck up. But man is it doozy oops.

4
ManBearPig2114•

LOLOL. I kinda figured as much! I was just reading through those comments and was like...wtf? Seems like a fun time though! ; )

3
megalodon90•

Yes please :)

1
TotesMessenger•

I'm a bot, bleep, bloop. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:

^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^(Info ^/ ^Contact)

1
sleepyslim•

I ordered in June and I got my device, but it's been repaired at least 3 times and it still has a dead cell. It's been basically useless since I got it. I was promised a replacement battery and I have yet to receive it. I've emailed a few times and I was told they were waiting on a new shipment of batteries, but it's been about a month and a half. One year anniversary is right around the corner and it's a still a paper weight.

1
[deleted]•

[removed]

1
[deleted]•

[removed]

1
SeneekikaantWhiteout SX•

yeah great, make them go bankrupt so that everyone who has their stuff already now has a generic mod that they can do a few minor modifications to and nothing more. why not just move on and wait for it to arrive? it will arrive eventually, and no amount of complaints will make it happen sooner. they really are a great quality device and the wait was totally worth it, but by throwing in a bunch of extra legal bs, you're just delaying things further.

-1
[deleted]•

[removed]

1
DisrespectTheTables•

Im with you on this. CMT is trying their hardest to change the industry and have hit so many bumps on the way.

There are so many larger companies that have been around since forever and release mods that break in a few weeks/months where there is no option outside of buying a new mod. Yet people still keep throwing money at them.

1
SeneekikaantWhiteout SX•

exactly, this community is just acting like a bunch of spoilt children who didn't get their way. I'm sure they've blown hundreds in the past on other junk they no longer have or use and don't even think twice about that.

0
CloudmakerTechCMT Staff•

If you haven't received what you wanted, a very small quantity of people meet this criteria - email into [email protected] and we will put you in queue for a refund. Because it is past the window for us to actually be able to process a refund, much like it is for customers to process a refund, we need to work with our processor on a case-by-case basis.

I hope this helps.

-17
TearikOP•

There is no window to process a refund. You just have to return the money. Which you're obligated to do if you haven't delivered a product by 50 days after the order if the customer doesn't agree to an extended deadline. Case by case is complete BS. If you're passed your legal deadline you are obligated by law at risk FTC fine to issue a refund free and clear. Furthermore your time limit for doing so is very clear on the FTC's page.

How Quickly You Must Make a RefundWhen you must make a Rule-required refund, the following applies:

If the customer paid by cash, check, money order, or by credit where a third party is the creditor, or by any other method except credit where you are a creditor, you must refund the correct amount within seven working days after the order is cancelled.

If the customer paid by credit where you are a creditor, you must credit the customter's account or notify the customer that the account will not be charged within one billing cycle after the order is cancelled.

Failing to issue the refund. Free and Clear. Inside your legal time limit can open you to Civil Litigation from both your customers and from the FTC at up to $16,000 per infraction.

Why You Should Comply with the Rule

Merchants who violate the Rule can be sued by the FTC for injunctive relief, monetary civil penalties of up to $16,000 per violation (any time during the five years preceding the filing of the complaint), and consumer redress (any time during the three years preceding the filing of the complaint). When the mails are involved, the Postal Service also has authority to take action for problems such as non-delivery. State law enforcement agencies can take action for violating state consumer protection laws.

There is also no window for a customer to issue a chargeback if they present evidence to their bank of the situation. This is to allow chargebacks on things with extended preorder windows and the like to keep shady businesses from opening a preorder and then telling people they're not getting their product once the standard 120 day window is up.

If you can't deliver on your promises. Don't make promises. No one here wanted to see you guys fail. But I think everyone is tired of seeing you make excuses, blame other people for your problems, and especially seeing you blame your customers for your problems.

As a final note, when you reply to a post and then it immediately drops 3 votes to be zero upvotes. It is obvious that you're trying to hide the post so that your customers won't be aware of their legal rights. I was generous by posting this on this sub. I can just as easily move the information over to ECR. It won't even be any trouble as I saved a copy of everything I wrote along with the formatting so that I don't even have to trouble myself to retype it.

9
CloudmakerTechCMT Staff•

This is all information that we are aware of - but thank you for reiterating. Every merchant processor is different, and for ours, we need to do something called an extended credit capabilities. I believe this is because card information can only be kept for a certain period of time. So it is very much case-by-case. We used to process refunds after the 120 day mark through Paypal until we realized people were still pursuing chargebacks even after they had received their refund (double dipping, if you will). Please see this for more info: https://support.authorize.net/authkb/index?page=content&id=A472

There is indeed a chargeback window, found readily available online: https://chargebacks911.com/chargeback-time-limit/. That being said, it can extend beyond the standard window should you present a case (we have heard 180 days).

I wish it was as cut and dry on not making promises vs. making promises, but there are a multitude of factors (in and out of our control) that contributed to the delays we have faced. We are happy to have everything out the door with this next batch that is coming to us right now.

-11
TearikOP•

Yes, I understand how authorize works. I've used them before. When making a rule required refund however, they don't have a choice but to work with you on it as your legal timeframe for making the refund is so short.

You're right and wrong on the chargeback window. It has a standard time line. I almost linked that. However, in situations such as this one. Where preorders were part of the deal with an initial agreed upon wait of more time than the deadline you can still start a chargeback process. As many card companies view the initial date of promised delivery as day one in this case.

Yes, I'm quite aware of how how working in manufacturing can have unexpected delays. If things are shaky though, you just don't make promises. It's bad customer service and its bad business. As you can see from the situation you're in. When you don't take ownership of an issue and try to pass the buck to someone else (even if it's their fault) you will lose business. Your customers didn't enter into an agreement with your business partners. They entered into an agreement with you.

As I mentioned before. No one wanted to see you fail. You had a potentially great idea, but you've fallen through horribly in execution and many of us see the situation as you not doing a whole lot to make it right. I don't personally think its too late for you to salvage your business, but its absolutely time for you to lift the blinds and keep your customers completely up to date on the state of things.

5
CloudmakerTechCMT Staff•

Noted, and thank you for the constructive criticism. We like to keep information about chargebacks at bay, because it can be heavily abused (i.e. chargeback after the product has been received). There's a lot of elements being worked on behind the scenes, and unfortunately our communication has suffered because of this.

Of note, there are literally only a handful of pending online orders - around 40 - who we have been in discussion with consistently. Those customers were also given the opportunity to switch to another unit color, but most had chosen not to.

-10