Yep. We want them to do better — better for customers, better for the people they hire, and better for whoever it is who owns and manages the business.
It’s opaque from outside China, hard to tell what’s happening — and changing fast.
Example: I bought two blue S2+ flashlights. One came quickly and is perfect. The other came after long delay and was missing the retaining ring for the driver, and the driver was soldered into the threaded part of the pill.
I left a message saying it wasn’t right — am wondering if it’s a third party problem, an inconsistent build from Convoy, a change that will persist, whatever.
Curious, and hoping to be able to know what I’m going to get next time.
I got an immediate reply saying the blue S2+ is out of stock and not available any longer— and an offer to credit the whole price I paid to a “wallet” plus points, or to give me ten times that “dollar equivalent” as points.
Huh. Out of stock. Hmmm. Still for sale; I can still buy another one online, so their page says. What’s wrong here?
Well, that was overboard in one way, and just a trap in another way, as I don’t want a “wallet” in their system, nor “points” that can never be fully spent — when you can only spend points as partial payment, and every purchase gets you more points. See how that works?
So I said no and suggested a couple of flashlights I think could still be moddable, priced less than the amount in question.
They said both of those are also out of stock and not available, and which of the “wallet and points” offers do I want to accept?
Neither one. Hmmmmm.
All three of the flashlights in question are still offered for sale on the web page and can be ordered without getting a message about them being out of stock or delayed.
Hm. Hmmmmm.
Shorter: I do not like being pushed into the “wallet and points” system at all. I think it’s a trap to lock people into being customers.
So I told them to heck with it, forget about it, I found I can buy the missing retaining ring from another company, and got advice on how to clean the solder out of the threads and I’m going to fix the S2+ myself.
I closed the ticket.
Don’t give me no option except putting money into a “wallet” and “points” — set up so I can only spend on more stuff from your company.
And don’t lie to me about what you do and don’t have in stock for sale, to try to push me to take the “wallet and points” — as long as you’ll sell it to anybody else, it’s in stock. Or not.
That’s wrong. End of story.