Yes there has been a lot of bait and switch with Chinese suppliers lately. I've absolutely stopped using UTSource as they take your money and the next day say the price has changed.Aeberbach wrote: ↑Thu Feb 10, 2022 8:42 pm I don't know but I think the first A1200.net projects (like the A1200 case) happened when Chinese factories were eager for business and the world's supply chain was not completely screwed. Early projects succeeded. Now I suspect the manufacturing partners have either outright ripped off, abandoned for more lucrative work or otherwise let down A1200.net (one guy in Singapore from what I have read). There's an unrelated C64 keycaps project that I have been following too - it might be 3 years old at this point? The difference is I regularly get long updates about why the keys received this quarter are not good enough and the factory is going to adjust something yet again.
That said simple honestly and good comms goes a long way.
In November 2020 i placed a webstore preorder for a Spectrum Next (~£350). Due for delivery in August this year. I enquired in September where my order was and got told to look at the kickstarter. I expressed a bit of dismay because I hadnt signed up for a kickstarter (and never will) so just asked to be emailed when there was updates.... got told no just look at the kickstarter.
Anyways today I basically said either refund me or ship me and I got told no.
I wasnt aware I was crowdfunding. I thought I was pre-ordering a product from a webstore. A few more angry exchanges and I got my money back with some sulky "we dont want you in our community anyways" type comments. I think we've collectively shipped over 1000 TF cards of one sort or another since i placed that order. I would advise people to stay away from the Spectrum NEXT. Seems like its run by numpties.Unfortunately we won't be able to refund pre-orders. We made it explicitly clear in the shop, in bold red, that this was the case -- see below. In understand the frustration with the delays and have been doing our best to keep all backers informed of why that is, but otherwise this is the nature of crowdfunding, I'm afraid.