To me, this sounds more like a warranty case, rather than a refund case. You admitted that you damaged the device, maybe only on the surface (?). I do not think you would get a refund in the EU after the xy-day period (minimum: 14) has passed, even if you sent in an undamaged device. If you send back damaged goods within the refund-period, I doubt that many companies would give you a refund.
What you would get is a repaired device, and maybe asking for that would yield a better result.
Also, almost all Laptop manufactures do not offer any support if you install Linux. Buying such a Laptop for Linux is a gamble, and you might end up without sound for years (eg HP Spectre).
I donāt think that by breaking my comment into little bits and comment them separately you can get a good grasp of what Iām saying (You can separate the salt from the beef and analyze it, but you wonāt discover the flavor of the jerky).
Just to be clear on one thing: I really donāt consider myself as an eternal unsatisfied person. Nicoleās last comment is exactly what a concerned consumer (which I am) needs to know before being able to make an informed choice (and not a gamble), when choosing to buy a product, that is repeatedly (recently) described as potentially defective.
Thanks for the post. Iāve had mine for a few months The problems are just surfacing.
Headphone jack never worked, HDMI connection worked at first, now intermittent. Iāve just lost the ability to connect to WiFi. These things speak to me of poor manufacturing quality.
If the process of getting it fixed is so arduous I can save a lot of mental anguish and time by throwing it away and getting another computer. Iām in Australia, no local distributor, I would have to return it with a months postage time each way. Then no Guarantee the problems would not continue. Lets face it we bought a Lemon. Pure B/S.
Gelphi
Hey man, sucks that you had this crappy experience. But Iām kind of puzzled that you ordered your laptop from the US and incurred a hefty import fee in the process, given that we have Linux laptop manufacturers here in the EU as well. Next time youāre in the market for a Linux laptop, you may want to take a look at Tuxedo Computerās offerings. Theyāre based in Germany. Some of the guys at the hackerspace have one, and so far, Iāve heard nothing but good from them. Ordered one for my mother somewhere last year, and so far, no complaints from her either. I can understand ordering their Librem 5, since this is a unique device that currently has no locally available counterpart. But Linux laptops have been available outside the US for quite a while now. No more import duties, and way faster (and cheaper) shipping than if you have to send it back to the States. Cheers, man, and good luck getting your issue with Purism resolved to your satisfaction.
[EDIT] Also, not to be a dick about it, but I think technically Purism is in their right to refuse a refund at this point in time. From the link you pasted regarding the European Consumer Guarantees:
In most countries there is a āhierarchy of remediesā. This means that your customer must firstly request that you repair the product, or replace it if repair is not a viable option (e.g. too expensive). You must do this within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience for your customer.
So technically, they are allowed to refuse the refund and instead repair your device and ship it back to you. Given that the scratches make the unit unsellable, itās not entirely unreasonable of them to opt for this route. Sucks for you, but legally, Purism is not in the wrong here.
He admitted no such thing. He admitted there were some scratches on the shell. These are no basis for refusing to honour the legal warranty (min. 2 year) in the EU. These are considered ānormal signs of useā. It would be different if there were dents or cracks in the case, but surface scratches are not considered ādamageā.
[EDIT] That said, see my edit above. As long as theyāre offering a repair or replacement, right now theyāre in their right. If OP wants a refund, heāll just have to go through the inconvenience of waiting for the device to make it back to him, continuing use of a machine he no longer trusts to work reliably (given that the problem has apparently recurred in the past, even after repair/replacement), extract his data from the dead system if it fails again, and then he can ask for a refund. Which is pretty shitty, given that he lives in the EU and shipping back to the States is pretty expensive, not sure whether he has to pay import duties again, and it takes a while for the device to make the trip to the States and back. But unfortunately, thatās the risk you take when ordering from outside the EU.
But, Tuxedo is Clevo, ie System76, as far as I know. The point with Purism, which is why I paid the US import + Purism prices overhead, is that you get as libre and as custom laptop hardware as possible.
You should be able to use the 3.5mm audio jack if you update the firmware.
I recommend that you contact Purism support for the HDMI and WiFi issues. This may be a software issue that can be resolved without shipping the laptop back to California for servicing.
Your policy is sham I purchased the laptop over a year now.Never received it. Asked for a refund and still haveāt received my refund its been over 6 months now since Iāve been asking for my refund. Clearly it shows no one in the company cares taking money and never returning it.
I feel that just because other companies are not doing the right thing, doesnāt make it OK for others. Are Librems waiting for a new law to force itās hands, or will they be ahead if it?
Too, other companies (those mentioned) are heads and shoulder bigger - way bigger than Librem and can afford to not care about their image. Obviously because people still use Facebook, Google, Microsoft and so on spy-machines, theyāll flock to what works. Librem is small by comparison and canāt afford to play the same games the giants do with their customers.
The context wasnāt that itās OK because other companies do the same thing but rather providing evidence to counter the claim in the previous post that those companies do not behave in said manner.
Removing the context to imply Iām saying something different is a less than honest debate tactic.
At no point did I say that just because these other companies also behave this way it was OK, but rather Amstram made the claim that other companies behave differently without providing evidence then ElimTevir provided these examples with no evidence to back up the claim.
I merely provided evidence to counter the claim that was being made without any supporting evidence.
I have plenty of criticisms of Purism, and I absolutely think they could have handled this better. I also think when making criticisms itās important to keep things factual to keep from having valid criticisms be overshadowed by demonstrably false criticisms that then devalue all criticism.
Too many people want everyone to act, think, and do as they would do. Iām not about to join that club. So it goes with the caution:
"Warning. Anything one says can and will be taken out of context and used against one in the courts of Social Media (and forums too).
Thank you amosbatto,
I did firmware update It didnāt solve main problems of WiFi connections and HDMI.
The WiFi went out when I was using both Bluetooth and WiFi at the same time, extra load and heat on components. Itās dry joints from not proper soldering to Motherboard.
How Do i contact Purism Support about a Warranty Issue ?
Iāve tried some things but have no response back yet.
Gelphi
How do you know this? I have read of software issues with using Bluetooth and WiFi at the same time in other WiFi cards. So what specifically makes you think itās hardware rather than software, and if hardware what specifically tells you itās dry joints?
Is there something that can be done to reduce the likelihood of this battery charging failure occurring with other customers? Human time is arguably the most valuable commodity I am aware of. The time this customer has spent in the return process for a device that literally stopped working is worrisome. I understand that you as a manager at Purism may think that this customer is belligerent, but why not give him the refund and then sell the device for xx% off (marked as open box)? That makes him happy and the person who buys a ādamagedā device happy. If this customer tried to get a return and had no operational issues, I would fully understand your response here. However, I truly do not understand why you or your company has taken such a hard response to this customer. This company is supposed to be fun, exciting and inviting but you have come across to me as quite the opposite.
I am not here to berate you or your company. In fact, I am currently saving up for the Librem 5 USA. This is post and your hardened response is primarily concerning to me because I have an interest in this company succeeding and would like to see all of its devices with a Made in USA option at some point.
Sorry for the late reply. While it appears that their laptops are indeed Clevo and they donāt seem to design/manufacture their laptops in-house, I donāt see why that should matter.
A laptop does not magically become better because itās custom. One might even argue the opposite, because it means that it can suffer from issues that affect only a limited set of users (harder to find community support), and may rely on a fix from a single vendor who may or may not be inclined to invest in said fix. Also, our definitions of ācustomā probably differ: any object that is produced in quantity, and for which I can easily pick up an exact duplicate, is not custom in my book. But I digress.
As for the presumed difference in ālibrenessā, it would entirely depend on which hardware is installed in the system. As far as I know, neither AMD nor Intel are open hardware, nor is the majority of the rest of the system. But pragmatically, what we really mean by ālibreā in this case is probably not requiring closed-source drivers or binary blobs? Which is indeed an issue with some network/wifi and video cards. Iām sure itās perfectly possible to get a completely ālibreā laptop from Tuxedo under this latter definition. Especially now that nvidia is also starting to open-source their drivers, a happy fact that was not known to either of us back when this exchange happened.
I might have missed something, but feel free to correct me in that case.
The main selling point of Purismās offering is the extra security. They also have a roadmap to obtain RYF certification for their hardware, something Iām unaware of Tuxedo pursuing. If thatās important to you, fair enough.
If not, Tuxedo offers a lot of the same advantages as Purism. They also write their own tooling for their machines, also try to mainline as much of their customisations as possible. So although you wonāt be indirectly funding the Linux Phone development by buying Tuxedo, they still give back to the community. Their Linux distro is optimised for their hardware, just like Purismās.
On the other hand, Tuxedo doesnāt incur import fees, doesnāt have shipping issues that Iām aware of, and offers free return shipping for in-warranty repairs. Theyāre also easier to take to court for me as a European, should they not honour their agreements. Which, contrary to what Purism does (e.g. retroactively changing the refund policy), is not something Iām aware of Tuxedo engaging in. Then again, Iām not active in any of their communities, so I have no clue what skeletons might be hiding in their closet.
Tuxedo/System76 (and other Clevo offspring) feel like theyāve been made by pragmatists, while Purism HW is made by idealists (cranky people would say frauds) for idealists (cranky people would call us fools). I actually owned, or am an owner of laptops from all three companies and I like them all for different reasons.
