Purism is not a scam. They are simply delayed.
I ordered a Librem 5 in the year 2019 after I had an unusual lot to drink. I didnt read the fine print that it was a PREORDER and so the device didn’t arrive until Spring 2023. This is because Librem 5 was being designed during this time, and slowed down by chip shortage and pandemic.
But when my Librem 5 did arrive, I enjoyed it, so I ordered Liberty Phone in maybe August 2023. It arrived in maybe October 2023 or so but I asked to slow it down by 2 weeks when I was on a vacation.
So when folks tell you it took them literal years to get a Librem 5, they are telling the truth, but that is because Librem 5 was in the process of being invented. Now, today, it is invented and does not take years.
When you ordered on May 9, your order was added to some internal Purism processing that is hard to follow. When you email asking them for shipping tracking information, they will have none, because they did not ship it yet. After their humans in person get that Librem 5 in a box and ready to go, you get an email that says, “Your order is ready to ship!” with some tracking number. Then it takes about 1 week depending on your physical location, and then the device arrives.
The mystery months, where it takes 1-3 months between when you buy and when you get that email, are the Purism time that people complain about. I am just a customer like you - no affiliation with Purism - but my guess is that the orders are processed by humans. So the humans operate in a kind of human timeline, instead of like the efficient clockwork of machines big companies lead us to expect these days.
Compared to iPhones and Androids, Purism is quite a small company making an extraordinarily different style of device. Their finances are different and smaller in scale. According to leaks and rumors, for years while Librem 5 was developed a huge bunch of people bought the preorder like me and sometimes didn’t read that it was a preorder. Then, again according to leaks and rumors, Purism spent the money they got from preorders entirely on R&D for building this unique device. It’s literally like a third way of constructing a phone software, totally unique, and more like a hand computer. Tbh as a user I love it, but I reckon world order governments don’t.
Then according to these leaks and rumors, after the money was spent, social media did it darned’est to convince users who preordered that they should all refund because Librem 5 was taking too long to make. So Purism was suddenly hit with this kind financial “attack,” expected to refund hundreds of dollars they already used for R&D. And, again accordingly to leaks and rumors, these people believed in freedom software and the mission of trying to make freeing hardware like this more than in the finances needing to be some profitable thing, so they took out some painful loans from loan sharks or something I don’t know, and skirted by trying to refund only what they were legally obligated to so that they wouldnt sink the ship and would make the kind of freedomware handsets they sought to make – for those users who still wanted them – instead of saying, “oops, we’re not a bank, the users decided to destroy us!” and filing bankruptcy or whatever.
And that’s the story I heard after I received my Librem 5, so I bought many thousands of dollars of other Purism stuff like Liberty Phone since then in the hopes it offsets or helps out people in pain hoping for refunds or whatever is happening to those forums users who always sound so upset.
These things I ordered are real, and they arrived, and I happen to like them. Support sometimes takes up to a week to respond at their busiest but they always get back to me. There is a real device called Librem 5 and you can get one if you wait it out until the humans do their human thing and send it to you. I know, because I’m writing this message by using one.
But estimates for exactly how long it takes the humans to do their human thing seem to always be incorrect, and the time is variable. If you ask for a refund in a panic, well honestly I’ve never tried that but there have been several forum users who complained that their panic increased and increased until they end up just selling the device when it arrives or selling their order to someone else before it ships, because they become so frustrated by the idea of the humans doing “their human thing.” As someone who never tried it, I wouldn’t advise panicking like that, but we are all free to make our own choices.
