You should note in this thread is that sometimes refunds were given after Purism was contacted by a state AG or a lawyer.
Purism ânot wanting to give refundsâ has always been the case. You not wanting to hear about how Purism is still acting reprehensibly/poorly is not a reason to close the thread. If anything, itâs a reason to keep the thread more active.
Except thereâs been mixed feedback as to whether or not Purism is issuing refunds when money becomes available. As there has been no official statement from Purism on this youâre assuming refunds arenât available anymore and assuming they wonât be in the future when you suggest that this thread is no longer relevant.
How about letting the people whom the thread is relevant for post and letting the thread end when no more people post because the relevance is no longer there. Making off-topic posts only serves to make the thread more active which appears counter to your stated goal of closing the thread.
OK, fair enough. I did overlook that one person received a refund this year. And separately from that, we can see that one person received a refund last year. Thatâs it for 2 years.
Whether that is enough data to âestimate your refundâ is doubtful.
On that we agree. There has been no official statement from Purism. So speculation rushes in to fill the void.
Yes. Based on a post from 4 days ago when it was reported
No refund
but the amount + 20% in the shop
So they are rejecting a request for a refund (and this topic contains at least one other poster whose request for a refund was rejected) but instead offering store credit (with 20% bonus).
Gee, with the 20% bonus and a later order of a Librem 5 (as contrasted with an early backer), that could just about be enough to get a Librem 11.
If that were a problem then so many topics in this forum would be closed as having gone off track.
Itâs not my stated goal (and I donât have the access to do so). I was making two observations:
It is not clear that mere activity of a topic would save it from being closed.
As you were.
Purism went from saying they would refund your money at any time if you changed your mind, to saying they would issue your refund when you reached your turn in the shipping queue, to receive a Librem 5.
Now, it appears that Purism has changed the refund policy again. Now there are no refunds. There is only credit in the Purism Store, plus twenty percent.
Does anyone else here see the lack of morality in these unilateral changes in policies with no apologies and no recourse for the customer? There is no way that I will ever buy anything from Purism again. They donât keep agreements and donât care what anyone thinks about them. No business lasts long term that way. Itâs just a matter of time before they go out of business.
Yes, this has been discussed several times on the forum, youâre not alone and this isnât the first time this policy has been changed unilaterally and retroactively.
This style of rhetoric might feel good, but isnât helpful and isnât relevant to this topic. Feel free to reply with a linked topic, though be aware it will likely devolve to flaming and being locked as there is a lot of passion involved in such topics.
For people who are considering âtaking delivery and selling their phoneâ or âselling your order via Purism support changing buyer detailsâ, it appears that this route will be difficult due to lack of demand.
Witness the difficulty here: [ASIA] Librem 5 for sale - #12 by irvinewade where they are trying to sell a Librem 5 (with Asian version of the modem) for $450 (or $520 on ebay).
[Edit: Here is one on offer from Europe. [SALE] Librem 5 Evergreen Europe unopened . Ask is 900Euro (to cover import duties) while the most recent Bid is 500Euro+ up to 150Euro if the buyer has to pay import duties for a private transaction.]
Nothing unexpected, but whatâs the other option? Neither getting hands on device nor money?
My opinion is that Purism is taking advantage of the fact that lawsuits are difficult and itâs also difficult to get the FTC or other government agencies to take notice. I believe it is clear that, legally speaking, Purism can not retroactively change the terms [e.g. refund policy] of a sales contract.
Purism has decided that it is cheaper to take the publicity hit from not treating its customers with respect (and not honoring their sales agreements). I can not fathom why people would trust Purism to create/sell a privacy and/or security product if they canât trust them to honor their refund policy.
I think it is exactly as you wrote @Privacy2, I am yet again ghosted by Purism since I replied to them with âno, a store receipt is not acceptableâ (they asked me if it was, soâŚ).
So, I totally agree with you: âI can not fathom why people would trust Purism to create/sell a privacy and/or security product if they canât trust them to honor their refund policy.â That is excatly what I am thinking right nowâŚ
Just my opinion, but: there are specific and very important differences.
First of all Purism did never any important thing wrong except the refunds problematic. This is the requirement that we can call it an âexceptionâ. Otherwise they will loose all trust.
Second ⌠theyâre not transparent with refunds, but source code is transparent, so we actually donât need to trust in what theyâre doing, we can prove it and we can trust in GNOME and others that they reviewed the code that came upstreamed to their code base. And in fact, thanks to this some problematic features like not randomized LUK got better after such reviews.
The last point is the fact, that even if I would not trust Purism, I would have no choice to trust them. The alternative would be using a smartphone or the Pinephone pocket computers. I donât trust smartphones even more since nothing (hardware, firmware and preinstalled OS) is (free) open source and Pinephone is just not daily drivable for me. So at the end it doesnât matter for now if I can trust or not. L5 is still a device I never would change to something else that exists right now.
So if I could buy the same device for the same price to replace my smartphone, I would do it again as long as those 3 points stay as theyâre. The refunds problematic just changed two important thing to me: (1) I would not count on refund, so I would not buy as long as Iâm not absolutely sure I want it or (2) I would buy somewhere else if there is a Purism-like company with comparable products but which is more trustworthy.
Letâs summarize;
You ordered the L5, Purism would like to deliver it. You say No.
They offer you a store credit. Again You say no.
If you donât accept any of their offers, you are the one who is loosing money.
@shopping4purism, I deleted my initial post. But can you please re-read my posts on this topic and maybe understand my point? That Purism has promised a refund several times, then, unilaterally, decided that a refund is not something they want to handle.
OK, so Purism, send me my phone. I am so sick of being treated like a moaning baby on this forum for belvieving in what you stated when I sent you my $600. For a bunch of you, that is maybe not much. For me, that is another month where I can pay my rent. I truly believe in open hardware/software. But I donât believe in Purism anymore.
And yes, I am âstupidâ. I agree. And I am losing my money. I am an idiot for believing that this company would honor their promises.
No you are not stupid, far from that.
I agree with you that Purism changing their refund policy is not OK. But fact is they did and you have a hard time to accep this new situation. As I see it, you are having a hard time (financially and emotionally). Financially you have a next best option and you refuse it.That I find difficult to understand. Itâs far from ideal, but If I where you, I would choose one of the two offered options. Then try to sell the choosen option. Again not what you had in mind but better then nothing.
Also as soon as you accept this new situation, you will find peace of mind.
That is a big win (for your health). I appoligize for simplifying this issue, but my lack of better English knowledge is hindering me to choose better words.
Yeah, I am stubborn.
But now I have told Purism support to send me my phone. Maybe they will even answer me this time! Who knows?!
If anyone is interested in buying it, PM me.
I wonder why Purism is so short on cash, even after catching up on the Librem 5 shipping queue. Could it be that for every promised refund that was not issued, that there are five people out there who would have ordered a Librem 5, but they decided not to do business with Purism at all because they donât like how Purism does not honor their own agreements (the agreements that Purism drafted themselves) with customers.
Being cash poor at the beginning of a manufacturing ramp-up is understandable. Being cash poor upon reaching shipping parity brings up questions about the long-term viability of both the product and the business. As we all know, Purism doesnât generally disclose their financial position. But we do know one thing about Purismâs finances. Itâs the only thing they tell us (indirectly) about their finances. They are cash poor.
Conspiracy theory time.
A big bunch of smart and evil people saw a huge potential of Librem 5 breaking the Android/iOS duopoly and wanted to stop it. They preordered Librem 5 with intention to cancel their preorders and destroy the company. Purism noticed way too many calls for refund and understood that they wouldnât survive if they fulfilled them all. The rest of the story is in this topic above.
My comment: Purism did everything right. I hope they will be able to fulfill all refunds when possible though.
Not sure whether I should laugh or cry.
They violated their sales agreements. How can you possibly say that they âdid everything rightâ.
I would go further and say: they promised refund for everyone if the initial campaign failed, the main mistake they made is keeping the refund policy after the initial campaign closed, like many crowdfunding campaign they should have said NO refund after the campaign closed
yep agreed totally 
, if Purism didnât had the delays, he would have received the device before his refund request, no money waiting anywhere, he would be in the same situation and no one to blame.
I also thought of this but I did end up with it didnât happened
Why ? Because If I was a competitor, I wouldnât provide cash to a potential threat, you would have to know/predict the heat problem/social crisis/cpu shortage to play that game.
And If I did play that game, I would have order a dozen of device, and then at the first opportunity of weakness from Purism, I would have ask for a refund and hit them with all my lawyer powers (I would not want that from google or Apple), making sure of the bad press in the niche technical world about the trial.
It didnât happened
So my more realistic theory is just: because of the social crisis in 2020/2021 and electronics shortage, people have lost money, feared to never get the device, didnât understand the wait for the development and get tired of the delays, [insert other consequences of this period], so many of them decided to ask for a refund
Yes exactly, they protected the business to be able to fulfill all the pre-orders, and in consequence be less damaging (on the social viewpoint)