TVease - Bad Experience

[Paul-Virginia]

I ordered (and paid for) an Ubuntu box (Zodiac). Advertised delivery date was not met - requested a cancellation via email and phone but no response - my credit card company is researching the problem.

I know that there was a recent post by a very dissatisfied TVease customer that was not well received on this forum; I am not that person but just another very unhappy customer of TVease. This is just another post to help make others aware of TVease.

The pone number on my credit card statement listed that of TVease' ex partner(Chris); he stated that he no longer has a business relationship with TVease but he did give me the number of the owner (Lon).

Perhaps TVease/Lon would agree to a Telecon that includes me, the moderator of this forum, and other disgruntled TVease customers so that more people can get a subjective review of TVease. I'm willing to set such a Telecon up. There must be others out there who have had similar experiences with TVease and I'm sure they would like to voice their opinion.

[Kingsley]

This is what happens when you get excited over a product just because it runs Linux. I hope you and other people recover from this scam.

[Six_Digits]

What is TVease?

[Paul-Virginia]

Thanks Kinsley, and I hope that others learn of my experience, as well of the others who have complained about that outfit. I will now proceed in the direction of building my own.

Paul

[asdf@cyberdude.com]

You're not the only one to be frustrated with this company. I've been following their forums since March 2006, and I haven't seen ANYONE that has received a Zodiac yet.

The owner, Lon, is now in the habit of deleting negative posts on their forum. This includes requests for shipping updates, status of refunds, complaints, etc...Censoring customers is not really a sign of a company with whom I want to do business.

By my count, there must be at least 55 outstanding machines (order #92 was not yet filled, and I know they're at least up to order #155). That means that this guy, who (supposedly) builds machines out of his basement, has AT LEAST $110,000 IN OUTSTANDING MACHINES, and is deleting posts on his forums about people requesting refunds!!!

I'm going to shamelessly endorse the company I ended up buying an HTPC from: Sys.com. I DO NOT work for them or am in any way affiliated with them, other than my buying a machine from them. The company is owned by Gigabyte, the makes of motherboards and other hardware, so it's a legit company.

I ordered my machine, and it came in FIVE BUSINESS DAYS, as requested. Mike, my contact at Sys.com, has been more than willing to help out any time I need him. The service has been great, and the machine works fine. The rub is that this company is a windows shop, so there's not a lot of linux support. You're on your own for that, though Mike was willing to research some of the hardware compatibility for me.

Just passing along a good experience, since I know there are a lot of people out there that have had a really hard time with TVease.net.

[thetiptonian]

I don't know Lon, and don't wish to bad mouth the man. From what I understand from his forum, he's been having some difficulty with his family. I initially purchased from TVEase because I liked the product specs, and wanted to support a small company. But I believe my experience was time wasted for me, and will stick to the facts.

I ordered a box from them on April 1, 2007. I was order number 107. I expected the stated wait time of 3 to 6 weeks.

12 weeks later I checked up on it, and was told they were behind but would be catching up soon, and Lon assured me it would certainly be shipped by the "end of summer." Subsequent to that, I was told 4 or 5 times that my box would ship "by the end of the week," but it never did.

On Sept. 15th I canceled my order. After several e-mails and forum posts (some of which were deleted), Lon acknowledged my cancellation on Sept. 19th. After additional e-mails, he said that he had initiated the refund with his bank on Sept. 27th. Later, he changed that to Oct. 3rd. He also said his bank told him it would take 3 weeks for me to see my refund.

On Oct. 17th I turned it over to my bank's credit card fraud division. I still have not seen a credit to my account by TVEase.

[lonce]

I delete posts because they are not questions about your refund, or your machine, or shipping. They are direct attacks at me and my company. I cannot allow that on the forums. I am sorry you are unhappy with the service, however, our delays are well documented on our forums and site.

We are not scamming anyone. We are building machines and doing the very best I can to make everyone happy. With one person building, managing the sites, doing all customer service, and pretty much everything else. I have to decide what is more important, answer 200 emails a day, and the forum posts, or build machines and do things to get machines out the door.

There are machines going out the door. There are very happy customers. And your estimation of 110,000 dollars is way off base. I wish I was even close to a quarter of that.

[Paul-Virginia]

Lon,

You continue to take orders even though you haven't shipped products that folks have paid for in early '07; this is going from the posts on TVease.net, but who knows how long this has been going. TVease DOES NOT have any satisfied customers that have posted anything on your forum, or anywhere else that I know of. There are posts that communicate your customers' dissatisfaction plus people wanting the product that they paid you for many months ago. Have you skipped town? The link that (to a post on the TVease forum) you sent me in your last email is for a deleted (how surprised I am about this!) post. For those still reading this post, what follows is the email that Lon/TVease sent me on Nov. 7, '07.
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Forum reply at Tvease - Media Center's for the Masses.

Post made: Friday 09 November 2007 - 19:02:03
Posted by: eagle1316

Post: Holy mother of pearl, Batman! Lon where are you?

Please click the following link to view the full thread ...

http://tvease.net/support/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?5857.last
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[lonce]

With over 100 machines shipped, I assure you there are many happy customers. They are not on the forums because there is no need for them to come there.

Everyone assumes I am taking orders. How do you know I am taking orders? You make all these assumptions without knowing what is actually going on.

I am not going to take up any more of my time answering here on the Ubuntu forums. It is in very poor taste to come to some one else's forums to air your problem.

Again, the posts are deleted because they offer nothing constructive to add to any of the conversations. They are nothing more than you venting about your unhappiness.

[Nano Geek]

With over 100 machines shipped, I assure you there are many happy customers. They are not on the forums because there is no need for them to come there.

Everyone assumes I am taking orders. How do you know I am taking orders? You make all these assumptions without knowing what is actually going on.

I am not going to take up any more of my time answering here on the Ubuntu forums. It is in very poor taste to come to some one else's forums to air your problem.

Again, the posts are deleted because they offer nothing constructive to add to any of the conversations. They are nothing more than you venting about your unhappiness.You didn't say whether or not you are still taking orders. To me, it seems like it would be best for you to stop taking orders until you can catch up with your back orders.

I'm not trying to be negative, I'm just saying what I think would be best for you.

[bapoumba]

ubuntuforums is not the proper place to discuss this matter. Both customers and owner of the Company should be able to solve this matter elsewhere. I'm closing the thread, and leaving it visible for general information.