For fanboys/fangirls: Did I make a mistake ordering the Librem 5 USA?

Hardware Librem 5
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@johnk

I’m something of a “fanboy”. I have owned three Librem laptops and I think companies like Purism benefit humanity. :slight_smile:

That said… I won’t order a Librem phone anytime soon. There is no confusion about the “in stock” meaning. Kyle clarified it recently. It means that some phones are on the shelves but they are likely to be used to fill previous orders. Hence, your order is likely to be filled with product that is not currently on the shelves. That means, you aren’t just relying on Purism to complete your order. You are also relying on the supply chain which is not reliable.

So I think Kyle is right that “guarantee” is not the best word to use. But I do think Purism is being honest in their cautious optimism about a 90 day lead time. They may very well be right… and that would be great.

But do I think current orders will be fulfilled by then? Probably not. My guess is more like 6 months. Why? Because the world is a mess right now and I don’t think it’s going to fix itself in a month or two and because everything this past couple of years seems to turn out a bit worse than initially expected.

Also… full disclosure… I’m also not interested in a Librem phone because - while I do think the Librem 14 running Qubes is one of the most secure options out there - I don’t think the Librem 5 is the most secure phone out there. But if I did think it was the right choice for me, I would order one as soon as possible to get my name in the queue because the longer I waited, the longer it would be before I got one.

Hope that helps. Good luck!

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… and the more it would cost you, potentially.

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One thing going for the OP is that there were vastly fewer Librem 5 USA orders compared to the regular Librem 5, allegedly. That means the OP’s shipment could occur fairly soon.

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Should somebody tell him that the rest of the world would consider that “backordered”

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We all want Purism to flourish as a company, or at least I assume that was everyone’s initial attitude. What’s not to like about a privacy-ensuring phone in an era where all phones and many computers are spying on us? Who wouldn’t want to support a startup developing a quality product which promises to promote privacy and liberty? Who wouldn’t want to support them when they fell on hard times? No one wants to beat on a man who’s down.

Unfortunately, however, Purism goes out of their way to lie and mislead and antagonize their customers and supporters. So far out of their way that it’s difficult or impossible to maintain any sympathy for them. If they were transparent about what was going on and that they had problems, everyone would understand and support them. Instead, they tell lies, promise unrealistic deadlines, change contract terms and try to apply them retrospectively, pretending they were never any different (when web archives clearly evidence otherwise), drag their feet unreasonably on refunds, and act aggressively towards those they have, well, cheated. I suspect there is a bit of a Theranos thing going on where their CEO wants to maintain the image of a successful entrepreneur when reality isn’t quite like that, and is diverging ever more widely from that alternative reality as it did for Elizabeth Holmes. Does it make me a Puri.sm hater to say this? I’m not one. I’m just laying out what I see as the facts. Would I have bought Purism’s product and waited patiently for it - until such time as they really started taking the piss, e.g. by trying to retrospectively change their contract terms - if I was? Do I need conflict? Like you, I was buying a product, not supporting a charity or participating in a crowd-funding campaign, and now Purism is pretending otherwise. Does it make one a Purism hater if I’m annoyed by such behaviour?

You do realize that Purism phones - even L5USA - contain Chinese-made components, quite possibly made under those exact “slave labour” conditions, don’t you?

I don’t think there is any “if” about it. There is a snowball’s chance in hell of Purism shipping your Librem 5 USA by early February.

What do I propose you do? What do you want to achieve?

Do you just want the phone? That’s a wish you may never get granted. You can wait and do nothing. You’ll wait a long time. Odds are you will never receive anything. Or you will receive something that will never work properly. There is maybe a 10% chance at this stage you’ll eventually receive a phone that will eventually (later still) be usable as a phone. Even if this were to happen, there is IMO a better than even chance that that phone will not remain supported.

Do you want your money back? As you have (unlike me) ordered your phone after Purism changed their terms and conditions which now say you can’t get a refund until your product is ready to ship, you will face even more of an uphill struggle if you seek a refund. You could argue that their contract term is unreasonable, and therefore, as the contract was drafted by Purism and you are the weaker party, that it should be set aside. But it may not be a straightforward argument and you may not prevail. You could perhaps try to get your money back by selling your place in the queue, as some others seem to have done.

Is there any other worthwhile goal you could try to pursue? I can’t think of one, but maybe you can elaborate more on what your objective is?

You could certainly cause Purism a lot of trouble, because their conduct is IMO actionable and potentially of interest to the authorities, but whether that’s something that will do anything for you is another question. It could protect others gullible parties from getting burned, I suppose?

I think you have answered your own question.

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From https://puri.sm/policies/ :

  1. If, for any reason, you want to cancel your order before it was shipped, we will issue a full refund.
  2. If you want to draw funds from any product that you: back, pre-order, early purchase, pre-purchase: when your pre-order is reached in the shipping queue you can decide whether to have it shipped or opt for some other option.

Being as I did not “ back, pre-order, early purchase, pre-purchase,” I would understand that clause 1 applies to me and I could have legal grounds for demanding a refund if the phone is not shipped within 90 days.

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I second that.

@dr_t Let’s not confuse refund terms for the regular L5’s and L5 USA’s. The latter have long been “in stock” and are supposed to be refunded within a few business days upon request (unless shipped).

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@johnk, @Greendrake These are good points, and I agree with most of what you say. I’d however also like to point out that when I placed my order for L5 (not L5USA) in 2019, the applicable refund policy was this https://web.archive.org/web/20191128161958/https://puri.sm/policies/ . There was no

If you want to draw funds from any product that you: back, pre-order, early purchase, pre-purchase: when your pre-order is reached in the shipping queue you can decide whether to have it shipped or opt for some other option.

wording in it. Furthermore, as https://puri.sm/faq/what-does-pre-order-mean/ now reads (this page is new and did not exist when I placed my order):

Refund policy for pre-ordered devices is different.

I.e. the refund policy for pre-orders is that you have to wait until your order is ready to ship to get a refund, but for an order, you are entitled to an immediate refund at any time. And the refund policy that applied to L5 orders to those of us who placed our orders back in 2019 was the same as the refund policy is for L5USA orders placed today.

So you might think that Purism would have simply honoured my request for an immediate refund. Nevertheless, Mladen Pejakovic wrote to me saying the company will not issue me a refund until my phone is ready to ship. Do you think you will be any better treated? I doubt it. Your legal position, I believe, is the same as mine. To get a refund will require being a bit more robust with Purism, I believe. I’ve commenced my first steps in that direction.

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I didn’t “preorder” the L5 USA, and neither did some other users I’ve seen here who made a regular purchase of a product listed as being “in stock” yet haven’t received their product even after the lead time listed. I’ve not asked for a refund yet, as I am (for the time being) still hoping against hope that Purism will fulfill what they advertise (unlikely as that may seem).

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An excellent question!

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I wouldn’t place myself in the “very well off” category, but my reason for ordering (not pre-ordering) was to get the phone within what seemed to be a reasonably certain timeframe — “6 to 8 weeks” or “90 days” — depending on where/when you look or who you ask — comparing to the ever-vague estimations for the regular L5. So I upgraded my regular L5 pre-order (from December 2018, $599) to the order of L5 USA in July 2021 (paid the difference). Additionally, it seemed to be safer in terms of possible refunds: since it was now an order, I thought it should be easy to get a refund quickly if it is not shipped, not like I would have to wait for the original $599 pre-order refund for hell knows how long.

Well, it is now obvious that I made a mistake. They now agree to refund “probably some time in Q1 2022” or within “several weeks” (again, depending on who you ask) which I am of course not buying and talking certain steps to collect the debt ASAP.

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Please let us know how that goes.

I’d prefer to have the phone. But at some point my patience is exhausted and I start to believe I will never get it.

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Maybe you’re not familiar with all of their work? Like:
https://forums.puri.sm/t/purisms-deceptions-and-misleadings/13315/76

(I wrote that; login required since it’s in Round Table category.)

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Its really cool of y’all to hijack this thread instead of respecting OP’s wishes and starting your own. You want Purism to respect your wishes but you don’t do the same for others.

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Yeah… I’ll put it this way, this doesn’t quite match my experience with purism xD

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When I ordered (not “pre-ordered”) my L5, Purism’s position was very clearly stated in their CEO’s announcement on 5 September 2019 (https://web.archive.org/web/20191205011932/https://puri.sm/posts/librem-5-shipping-announcement/):

“Purism is publishing its full, detailed, iterative shipping schedule. This expands on the existing commitment to start shipping in Q3 by defining specific batches, their features, and their corresponding ship dates . …Batch Evergreen … Shipping window: Q2 2020”

and I placed my order in reliance on those representations and similar representations made to me by their web site at the time I placed my order. The announcement very clearly refers to orders, not pre-orders and furthermore contains a number of other commitments which I believe make very interesting reading in light of what has actually taken place. If you read that page in its original form and compare it to your actual experience, do you think Todd Weaver was being truthful?

The announcement was not qualified in any way, it was a “commitment to … specific … corresponding ship dates … Evergreen … Q2 2020”. If you look at that press release as it is on the Purism web site today (https://puri.sm/posts/librem-5-shipping-announcement/) and compare it to the contemporaneous snapshot on the Wayback Machine, you will see that it has been historically revised in an Orwellian fashion, as has the “policies” web page (https://web.archive.org/web/20191128161958/https://puri.sm/policies/, https://puri.sm/policies/), which Purism is trying to retroactively apply in its amended form to orders placed prior to the said amendment and to retrospectively reclassify our orders as “pre-orders” subject to a different refund policy.

We all understand that startup companies experience problems and that projects, technical development etc. is unpredictable and can hit roadblocks. Most of us would support that, maybe even fund it as investors if we were approached in an honest and transparent fashion. I think what most of us resent is - lying, deception. And gaslighting.

Gaslighting: Purism is behaving as though we are the ones who are crazy, unreasonable and that we knew what we were letting ourselves into when we placed our “pre-orders”. But thankfully there is a historical record on the Wayback Machine which clearly confirms that we’re not the ones that are crazy and mis-remembering (or “mis-remembering”) history.

Since Purism is in a business (delivering products you have to trust not to spy on you and protect you from spying) which depends crucially on end user trust, I think behaving in this way is a fatal error. I waited patiently for Purism to deliver their long overdue product because I was expecting it to be a good product, so maybe worth the wait. However, I have now lost faith in the company, I do not trust them, so I would not want the product today even if it was available - because I do not trust either the company or their product.

Even though it is supposedly all open-source, in reality, no customer has the resources to verify correctness, you can’t be sure that the code installed on the phone is actually built from those open source sources, and most of all, you can’t verify the hardware, much of which is in fact not open source and some even consists of black boxes made in China.

The crunch point for me came, I think, when Purism notified me that they were going to include a Chinese-built modem in the L5 they would deliver to me, but I could pay another 200% surcharge to get the same phone built using U.S. components. Since no privacy product can be built using Chinese components, that was in my book another bit of historical revisionism and gaslighting. And it now turns out that even this phone (L5USA) may contain Chinese components. Was this announcement that they were using Chinese modems in the L5 just a ploy to get us to cough up because they in fact knew we wouldn’t want such components in our phones?

Also, what’s with all the philosophizing by Purism employees over whether China is less trustworthy or the U.S. is and whether China is really still truly Marxist … Makes me believe they do not really understand the problem they are claiming to solve.

Therefore, I personally am now opting to pursue my refund exclusively - aggressively if need be.

If anyone wants to buy my place in the queue (and if that is indeed possible), I’ll sell it at par. I just want to be shot of Purism at this point.

I’d have thought that it would also be in their interest to have me gone from their forums and that they’d be happy to give me a refund … but … to each his own.

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I have emailed the following to Purism support to inquire as to how prompt they would be with issuing a refund if I request one:

Hello support representative name,

Per the “Refund policy” on this webpage on Purism’s website, https://puri.sm/policies/, “If, for any reason, you want to cancel your order before it was shipped, we will issue a full refund.”

When I check my order status, I am told that my order is “Awaiting Shipment.” If I chose to request a refund before my item is shipped, how long would it take for Purism to issue the full refund?

Sincerely,

We will see what their response is.

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And the response:

Hello John,

We can start the process immediately upon request, previously it would usually take 1-3 weeks, but for past few months we’re experiencing delays with refunds, so the process takes more time to complete (I’m afraid can’t discuss the reasons).

This feel so very much like Purism is borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. I think I might begin the steps that appear to be necessary for escalation to get a refund.

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For the record, I’m personally happy with the product I received (L5 Evergreen). It’s about what I expected, with some software still a work in progress, and not a perfect device. It will improve over time, as most GNU+Linux products do.

I participated in the crowdfunding campaign because the mission was, and still is, important to me, and to the public. I don’t consider myself a fanboy, nor am I pleased when timelines slip, but I have no qualms about crowdfunding or ordering from Purism again, if it’s for a device I need or want, especially a groundbreaking one.

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“but for past few months we’re experiencing delays with refunds, so the process takes more time to complete (I’m afraid can’t discuss the reasons).”

Short of funds…as in so short that they cannot meet obligations…is the only reason I can think of they’d be having to delay refunds. There’s no “supply chain” issue with doing a back charge.

I think perhaps the reason they can’t make USA phones is not a supply chain issue, but rather that they can’t afford to buy the parts.

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