I remember someone else commenting on similar accusations that Purism is not very good at scamming because they keep shipping phones to their customers 
Like me, Iâm typing this on my Librem5, I patiently waited years glued on the Estimate your Librem5 shipping topic until they reached my place in the queue, and then I received it.
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Correction.
Librem 5 has an assembled in the USA product. - the parts that a regular person would have no hope analyzing are still made in china.
but you havenât even tried using it? - and the Librem hardware isnât exactly going to scream past it in a race⌠- still this is something that Iâve said in a previous comment, those just looking at specifications, without having actually used the device are guessing, they donât know how well the thing performs, or what optimizations might make relatively weak looking hardware perform out of its class.
(itâs just as bad when the Librem âhatersâ do it to the librem.)
no, the Librem is (rightly) criticized as being like a beta release because it purports to be a finished product.
The pine phone doesnât have the same criticisms, because it claims to be a beta release - if you were to say this librem phone is a bit like a pre-release beta version people would (rightly) say that sucks.
if you say this pine phone is a bit like a pre-release beta version people would (rightly) ask you what did you expect when buying a product that is called beta?
-you see the situation is the same, but the customer expectation is different based on what they were told at the point of sale.
I agree, I think (based on the reviews etc that Iâve seen), that it is subjectively the best device for me - thatâs why I ordered one. (note, ordered, not backed, pre-bought, etc.) I ordered one with a promise that they could deliver in a âfew monthsâ.
Linking to other articles of crappy corporate behavior does not absolve purism if their duty to do better.
This is a classic âwhat aboutâ argument. I say Purism make promised that they cannot deliver, and then withhold refunds from sales contracts they know that they cannot complete. - you say, but what about TeslaâŚ
uuuuh⌠thatâs kind of exactly the problem with Purism too though?
They took my money years ago, promising delivery in a few months. - that money is long since gone and I have no device, and they keep emailing asking for people to invest so they can afford to buy components?
This is pretty much a definition of a ponzi scheme. Purism already spent the funds theyâll need to make my device, - they are relying on new customers to get funds to buy the component parts to fulfil old orders⌠eventually, (if they run out of new customers to fund the back orders) theyâll leave people disappointed - the irony of course is the only people that entered into an agreement with purism knowing they could lose money are the funding backers⌠and itâs them who are shouting hardest in support search for fresh suckers to help fund their go at actually getting the device!
but there is a (huge) difference between supporting purism (as you have by project backing, or supporting as I have done by buying product) and supporting their shady business practices.
I can say, I support the products, and I support the goals, but I do not support their business practices. - and to be honest, weâve seen time and time again that they are very slow to respondâŚ
It took months last year for them to actually change their website from âorder now and get it in a few monthsâ to say âpre-order now, we have very delayed delivery timesâ
- this is a sales practice they were using where they would deliberately lie to their customers to secure orders. - and it took months of people complaining in these forums before they just did the right thing and gave an honest(ish) account of their lead times.
I donât see it as overconfidenceâŚ
weâre coming up to about 3 years since this went from pre-order to order:
https://web.archive.org/web/20191011093525/https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ (11-oct-2019)
https://web.archive.org/web/20191016155227/https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ (16-oct-2019)
(but it was backorder in the shop)
in December of 2022 (9 months into the pandemic, whilst supply lines were shutdown and they knew they had no components to fulfil backorders and could not supply new orders, they were saying âplace your order now and get it in a few months.â https://web.archive.org/web/20201221052514/https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/
Kyle was making posts in this forum and sending out news letters talking about supply chain issues, but in April it still said âplace your order now and get it in a few months!â https://web.archive.org/web/20210405111134/https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/
and even then the update they made was to change to âcurrently shipping back orders place your order now and get it in a few monthsâ - so honest(ish) acknowledging the delays, but STILL making promises they knew they couldnât keep on delivery times.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210427032938/https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/
so⌠up to that point you could have believed maybe they didnât notice⌠but they noticed, and made a conscious choice to keep lying to customers.
Even when they said that they stopped shipping because they had no parts to build devices with⌠they kept lying to customers.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210921090149/https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/
this time last year they were telling people, order in October '21 and youâll have a phone by Q1 2022,
weâve now just about to enter Q4 2022 and people who ordered a year before that are still waitingâŚ
This is more than overconfidence and poor delivery.
Honestly⌠Iâve seen it all now, you sit there talking as if Purism can do no wrong when it purposefully misrepresents itself to customers to secure orders, whilst calling out another company that is advertising with some integrity!!
Youâre conflating extended delivery times and poor ethics.
A company that advertises buy now and get it in 2 years probably has the same lead times as a Librem phone, but are significantly more honest in what they are sayingâŚ
Iâd rather buy from a company that doesnât lie to its customers.
what about those that were told they could buy now and get in a few months in the end of 2020 or in the first quarter of 2021? - what about when as above Purism knew (and Kyle was saying they didnât have parts.) but they kept saying buy it now get in in a few months (over a year into the pandemic?)
Kyle (many times) hid behind âa few monthsâ being vague, but what about this people who ordered in Octâ21 being told the could get it Q4 '21 or Q1 '22 - itâs at least 6 months after these guys were told theyâd have the device⌠but they are still waitingâŚ
what would you call it when an entity make a promise to deliver something in a given timescale but they know that they canât?
If you waited YEARS, then itâs clear that you were a project backer. - the company said, hey give us money now, weâll use your funds to develop products. if we are successful at bringing a product to market you can have it, as a reward for believing in usâŚ
The agreement you made was really complete when they used the funds to pay developers. you took your chance, knowing that there was a possibility the deal wouldnât work out.
You are not a consumer, you were an investor, and you were looking for a reward or dividend (you invested in a product idea, your dividend is the phone.)
The experience I am writing about, (and the one the thread starter is talking about is very different.
the contract we had with Purism is that we would purchase a phone that was complete, and which they said was shipping, and that weâd get it (in a few months, or by Q4â21/Q1â22)⌠but actually, Purism took our money, and used it to fund that reward to their early investors. - and they appear to be left in a position where they donât have funds or supply lines to secure components, (are sending emails - I think 3 in the last year) asking for funding, - the last one, of a few days ago specifically says that they need funds to buy parts.
Itâs like claiming that Barnie Madoff wasnât a scammer because some early investors did get some money out.
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The word origin of blindsided is âold englishâ from the 1600âs. Is it also a US football term? Yes, but itâs derivative and in alignment with the original meaning.
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We know now that even with all of the phones in pallets, Pursim has never shipped the Librem 5 at the rate that would have allowed them to clear their full backlog in 6 months. That they would assert that in 2019 is either a lie or incompetence.
Stop making excuses for Purism. If Purism gave a 6 month lead time in 2019 and didnât have their FCC cert ⌠thatâs on Purism. Itâs all their own fault. Not only that, recall that Purism waited until Sept 2019 to reveal that they were going to release their phone in non-production batches ⌠they knew in 2019 that 6 months until the delivery of what they eventually called Evergreen was impossible. So donât cover up that reality with your FCC cert bullshit that didnât even become relevant until delays in 2021.
Either way it may not be helpful in explaining to someone who is not a native english speaker, which was the context of my post i.e. in respect of the two specific posters who were grappling with these expressions.
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This one ? 
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Skyâs Edge has experienced the same problems getting parts for its Rotary Un-Smartphone as Purism, so it has had to keep breaking its promised shipping dates just like Purism. In February 10th, 2020, Skyâs Edgeâs founder posted an announcement on his personal web site about a kit to build the Un-Smartphone and in 2020, he managed to ship a small number of the kits (over 100). In Jan. 2021, Skyâs Edge website promised that it would ship the Un-Smartphone âbefore Summer 2021â. In May 2021, the website said: âUpdate due to the global microchip shortage: Ships no earlier than September 2021 and as late as early 2022.â In Jan 2022, it said: âComplete kits will be available no sooner than January for the N. American region. The global version is more affected by the shortages, so a shipping estimate is TBA.â In April 2022, it said: âPre-orders placed now will be shipped around November of 2022.â Now the website says: âPre-orders placed now will be shipped in the spring of 2023.â
Customers who ordered the Un-Smartphone in January 2021 expected to receive their phones âbefore Summer 2021â, but now they are being told that it wonât ship until Spring 2023. Skyâs Edge hasnât been around as long as Purism, so its customers havenât been waiting as long for its products, but it seems really strange to praise Skyâs Edge while simultaneously criticizing Purism.
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I feel that youâre intentionally letting the point slip over your head just so that you can defend PurismâŚ
I havenât made comment on global shortages, (I think everyone accepts that they happened) Iâve made comment on customer service, updates and estimates given around those unavoidable delaysâŚ
thatâs why my comment said Iâd rather buy from a company that honestly told me something was years away, rather than a company that promised itâd be next month 24 times. - there is a difference here.
Bearing in mind that purism at the time were using JIT production, knowing they couldnât get parts, and saying that they would not only reach the (hundreds/thousands?) of phones backorders but also reach parity, at a time when they had no stock or components⌠I donât know what the unsmart phone did (Iâm not following the project.) - but I imagine that this person may be looking for components in the tens to hundreds scale rather than the hundreds to thousands scaleâŚ
My response was to say if they are given honest updates thatâs a world apart from consistently making promises that you know you wonât keep. - purism must have known that they wouldnât/couldnât secure the thousands of CPUs they needed. - but still advertised they cloud/wouldâŚ
to go to the examples that you gave, this is like me saying I could write three hundred thousand lines of code, and claiming that would mean Iâm just as competent as the team at purism⌠- well, yeah⌠but itâd all be absolutely useless! Would you argue it doesnât matter than Iâm making a dishonest argument saying I can write 300,000 of code if I know that the code would be useless?
Itâs what youâre choosing to measure as an output. - in the examples that you gave itâs the usefulness and reliability of code. In the examples that I gave itâs the usefulness and reliability of the estimated delivery.
I donât really know how to put it any other way to you. - People feel they were lied to because they were lied to.
if the exact same delays happened, but with honest and realistic updates these threads wouldnât keep happening.
These threads keep happening because people keep letting their emotions rule their expectations. If you really feel the way you do and you really know what you know (you say a lot that you know the state of Purismâs inventory), then you shouldnât come here to argue with strangers about it. Go write to your DA. Go complain to Purism itself. Waging an online crusade whose only purpose is to vent your anger instead of actually trying to solve your problem isnât going to help anything.
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Of course, how could I have been so stupid to have not realized that Purism play no part in setting these expectationsâŚ
Iâm quoting from Todds blogs. - you can match the sate of the blogs where he was saying they both had no components, and no hope of getting components with the pages from the archive.org linked above when the sales page gave quite a different picture for both the possibility of being able to create hundreds of devices to both clear the backlog and deal with any/all new orders.
Iâm not American, I donât have a DA, and the country Iâm in has no jurisdiction over Purism. - it would be exceedingly costly for me to start legal action in the states.
With luck waging an online crusade will do one of two things.
1, stop Purism stop acting in a way that is quite unethical with the way it advertises itâs products.
2, or, stop people buying their product with the result that the company fails.
the first is the hope, the second is what I would hope will be the inevitable consequence if they keep carrying on the way that they do.
I never said that.
Maybe. Regardless, I want no more part of it.
The point, clearly, is to warn others. Buyer Beware! If you already know better, then ignore it.
Which is fine â he never required you to participate. You volunteered. But, that brings up the question about why you seem to always participate in threads like this?
If I had to explain you wouldnât understand, and thatâs all the attention Iâm giving to your bait.
Please donât denigrate people. Thereâs enough negativity in this thread.
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No explanation from you is necessary or requested â it seems self-evident. You completely missed his intention/point. IMO you behaved like a smug ass toward him. And then you stalked off like he was somehow asking for your bullying/time/attention. Thatâs my understanding of this situation. You seem to enjoy harassing and demeaning people who want to say bad things about Purism.
So you want to screw many people who really want this product to succeed because no matter what you say, it is the best on the market. Furthermore many people already spent money on the devices and want that the work on the software moves forward and that the devices receive software updates over longer period of time.
So in short - as you got negative experience, you want thousands of people to suffer from negative consequences.
Very nice from you, thank you.
The truth is, that you have no proof whatsoever of criminal intention of Purism. Your considerations are not a real direct proof, but just indicators that support your theory, but canât definitively prove it.
You can guess and I can guess. You guess criminal intention. I guess that there are people at Purism who also really wanted this product to succeed and have decided that keeping cash for keeping the company afloat is more important than keeping a promt refund policy. I guess that if they had 100 million USD funding, this would have never happened.
It is just a guess. Just like yours is just a guess.
Now let us move on. I want my Librem 5 smartphone to succeed and I recommend it to other people because for me fighting the monopolies of Google, Apple, and PRC is important. No words from your side are going to change that.
The only thing that you can do is to bring tens or hundreds million USD on the table and build a better device. Then we can talk again.
If myself and others like me get together and force a class action lawsuit against Purism, here is what will happen.
1.) A judge will order Purism to comply with every and all FTC laws that Purism is currently violating. I doubt that the judge will try to split hairs when it comes to the definition of âpre-orderâ vs âorderâ. He has the power to end Purism all together if Purism does not comply with his orders.
2.) Purism will either go out of business because they are not capable of issuing the refunds per the law without collecting many more pre-orders first to keep the illegal scheme going, or will be shut down by the court outright.
3.) Those of us who get our refunds wonât give a damn about what everyone else here says or thinks about us. Weâll have our money and Purism will have been punished for their violations of the law. The prevailing social purpose will be to not violate peopleâs legal rights to refunds when the seller does not comply with the law. Screw the whole âprotects your privacyâ thing. I just want my money back and to see Purism punished for their mis-deeds at this point.
4.) Todd and company will all have to go out and get real jobs working for someone else. Theyâll have to hope that no government agency prosecutes them for their money-pyramidding scheme and wide scale violation of FTC and Securities laws.
5.) Iâll feel a sense of satisfaction when I read all of these details in the daily newspaper or see Todd doing the perp-walk on the evening television news. Maybe Iâll donate my refund to a registered charity.
All of this while enjoying your made in China Google phone with a modem which you have no idea what it is doing and if and when it is sending data against your will.
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Absolutely, I can endure a lack of privacy more than I can endure a lack of honesty and wholesale violations of trade and banking laws in the the companies that I choose to do business with.
Iâve completely lost all confidence in Purism. I know they are lieing to me with just about every excuse they put out there. They do not operate like a company that respects their customers. I no longer wish Purism to become a successful company. If Purism becomes successful, they will have done it using means that are morally repulsive to me. I would rather lose my money and my privacy than to see a company become successful through the use of these unethical and morally repugnant means. I didnât agree to fund only a perpetual improvement of opensource software when I made the purchase of a Librem 5. I just want my damned hardware to start with. But now, I donât even want that because it comes from a company that I canât respect. Purism was completely off the rails long before anyone even thought about a Pandemic. The global supply chain issues were a great smokescreen for an already-failing company.
A successful company would never so blatantly violate trade laws by not shipping, not complying with laws that govern transactions when the campany canât meet their shipping commitments, and ghosting customers who try to exercise their legal rights. These tactics attack financial integrity itself, and erode overall integrity in financial trades of any kind, in-general. We canât allow this behavior in our society. Itâs time for Purism to either close-up or be taken down using legal means.
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you would need to add the context to this that I am one of the people that are caught up in this.
they have my money, I donât have their device. - if they shut shop tomorrow, I loose (money), BUT society wins (less unethical business practices).
if they are unethical, or if this is a pyramid scheme, your point of view is you are happy for the next guy to to loose money as that lowers your personal loss or increases your gain.
Of the two positions, Iâd rather be taking my stance, (even though Iâm a buyer, not a backer - and entered into this not thinking my money was at risk iâd rather be at the end of that chain, than supporting it for personal gain.)
I canât take the stand that Iâm ok, and if I can just get enough people to keep the money rolling I might win. - I canât support them no matter what.
But, notice how you only quoted half of what I said? The full context is Iâd like Purism to both exist, carry on AND be better. - but it seems that they (over many years of people complaining) donât want to get better⌠(and I understand that, if I could tell a small lie to a stranger to secure my livelihood, Iâd be very tempted to as well.)
Anyway. if your argument is so weak you have to misrepresent what I say to make it, you might want to consider what youâre arguing for!
who said criminal? - I havenât said that⌠- but, if you want to go thereâŚ
If the crime is false advertising, the relevant legislation in the US would be. the Lanham act.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/false_advertising
For this to be a crime, youâd have to pass a number of tests.
(1) defendant made false or misleading statements as to his own products (or anotherâs);
On April 30th 2021 Todd wrote a blog post (the ball and supply chain post) that effectively says, we have no more stock, we have no more parts, we have no way of getting parts, and suppliers have jacked up their prices to such levels that even though there are technically parts out there, we just canât afford to buy them. - this was a really strong statement. but it had to be effectively bullied out of the company because of all the threads in this forum.
At the same time the shop, on April 30th was still saying buy now and get it in a few months. (and linking to the January blog article and November 2020 shipping update.
the shop stayed that way until may or June of that year.
They also had written on their blog that they were expecting a flood of orders as the product moved from a backers project, to general sale. - and they new that changing this status at that time, but also saying that they canât actually deliver would have limited those sales.
so, test 1 is complete, Purism made false or misleading statements about their levels of stock. and that was (likely) designed to influence the purchasing decision.
(2) actual deception, or at least a tendency to deceive a substantial portion of the intended audience;
The statements are made on the shop page, - they are likely to deceive anybody looking at that page considering a purchase.
(3) deception is material in that it is likely to influence purchasing decisions;
I say that you are less likely to purchase, if you realize that your money is at risk.
when I purchased the device it said, but it now and get it in a few months. - for me, this means in (or around 3 months (90 days) - I specifically paid with a credit card. because you can charge back or claw back funds inside of 120 days. - so in theory, based on the advertising representations made by Purism, I was safe. if theyâd said, 6 months, or 2 years, Iâd maybe have waited until the shipping parity was actually reached.
Specifically their statements influence purchasers by understating the risk of their capital, and the delivery times of the product.
(4) the advertised goods travel in interstate commerce; and
The goods are definitely sold between states and internationally.
(5) a likelihood of injury to plaintiff. However, the plaintiff does not have to prove actual injury.
Purism have admitted (in the funding round 2 email) that they couldnât buy components, and required more community funding to finance the parts for orders they already got paid for.
So⌠I said, unethical⌠but if you want to call it criminal⌠I guess you could be right!
Actually, quite the opposite, I would give them the full benefit of the doubt, there is that saying ânever attribute to malice what could be explained by incompetency.â (Hanlons razor)
But when youâre talking about if something is criminal⌠(well thatâs a matter of facts and law, opinions, or old sayings, donât matterâŚ)
It might not be obvious, but the act doesnât require an intent to deceive, - there are two relevant concepts in law mens rea, and actus reus.
Mens rea means an act of the mind, this is a thing that requires intent, and marks a distinction between doing something by accident, or meaning to do something. (e.g. the different between murder and manslaughter.)
Actus reus means the act of doing it. - like speeding is an offence, it doesnât matter if you means to be speeding, or just happened to not look down for a bit. you did it, the offence is complete.
False advertising is an act, and doesnât require a guilty mind, or intent. the tests are pretty simple did it happen. - just like speeding, (and the law doesnât really care why, or what your intent was.)
Purism made a statement in their blog on April 30th that they could not meet orders or secure parts for an unknown duration.
on the same day (and for at least a month afterwards) the shop page said buy now, get in a few months.
Those are mutually exclusive statements, they cannot both be true. - you canât both not know when you can deliver and know you can deliver in a few months. So no, itâs not just theory, it is perfectly true, and factual that Purism made misleading and false statements in their advertising.
or in short, I can definitly prove it, because I can link to independently archived pages in archive.org showing that Purism advertised that you could get you device in a few months. AND I can link to information from their CEO that knew this isnât possible. - this isnât a grand conspiracy. itâs a simple series of statementsâŚ
I think thatâs a fair guess. (itâs the same as the guess I made) but without seeing their books or asking them we canât know that.
Sure, Iâll happily move on from saying Purism should do better, or advertise more ethically, as soon as these threads stop happening. - these threads are a sign that things need to improve. not that the company should put its head in the sand any hope nothing happens.
So do I! (donât forget we both have cash in this game, and, and as a general release buying, rather than a backer. I potentially have more cash in it!)
I canât recommend a company that doesnât act in an ethical way. The sad part about that is itâd be so easy for me to say to friends and family hereâs a great product. simple to talk to the managers at work and see about getting it on our authorized purchase lists. (assuming that it works with enterprise MDM) it costs me nothing to say this company has a great product, but long lead times. but I canât make that kind of recommendation that people spend money if I canât know that theyâll actually get what they order!
-maybe when they reach shipping parity? at least the main issue would have taken care of itself then!!
But now weâre back to the what if all the sales were going to (for example) pinephone, could they bring a better device, faster, with more backers?
Itâs fine if youâre willing to support unethical companies. - I mean I filled up from a BP service station just the other day. -but you should be aware of what you are doing.
(of course) I think Iâm fairly judging the situation.
when people say Purism are just a scam - I suggest that they look at the evidence.
when people say conde contributions donât matter Iâm fully on board with the argument that they do.
when people say there are no issues with false advertising at purism, I say that there is (and yes, also prove it.
I think there is nuance, Purism is not all good, but not all bad. (we donât have to be polarized into extreme camps.
I think that you are being unfair. in judging the situation since you are saying, there is no false advertising and appear to suggest even if there were youâre happy with that since you gain the device and updates for as long as they are around.
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