I agree. I doubt this is possible as I have not received my modem selection / shipping address confirmation email. The employee who has been assisting me said last week that while it was still possible to get my phone this month, they needed to confirm with their operations manager if the January ETA was going to happen, but I haven’t heard from them since. I sent a follow up email this evening, but yeah… I reckon it just is what it is 
Best of luck to everyone else waiting.
This. Patience.
Apparently, delays with the Librem 14 creation process meant that emails relating to the Librem 5 didn’t go out last week. Maybe this week.
Apparently shipping estimate emails have now gone out for those people who were crowdfunders. If you ever said what your order date is, I can’t see it / remember it. What is your order date?
Nope, they seem to done with September, but October backers (that’s me 
) are still waiting 
In response to Ochiba’s comment on possibly needing to retain legal council, your legal council will ask for $500 down just to your take your case. That $500 will be gone before Purism is even aware that he or she exists and you still won’t have your phone after paying double for it. We’ve got to be real here. As long as Purism is fulfilling orders at some pace, even the state Attorney’s General will leave them alone. Let’s just wish for Purism’s success and not look back. That is the only path with an avenue of getting what we paid for.
Maybe you’ve never heard of Hyatt Legal or MetLife legal services, but depending on your company benefit package, services like purchase issues and small claims counselling are free. I got my refund, but initially Purism changed their policy and tried to post-apply it to my order. My lawyer advised me that the fastest course of action would be small claims and she offered to send what is called a 93A to start a 30-day process wherein Purism has to refund/respond. To file small claims is $45 in my city, but it’s faster than an Attorney general which can be a three week to forever process.
Also, Purism knows they are obligated to honour a purchase contract. They just updated their policy to say no refunds going forward, but everyone who purchased earlier is protected. Or maybe it’s state-by-state (my state protects consumers from bad online purchases) Anyway, I got my refund, and Purism was professional and polite throughout the entire correspondence. I still wish them success!
Wow, that is amazing. So it looks like anyone who placed a pre-order for a Librem 5 before the relatively recent rule change in refund policy can still get a refund, even now. You’re proof of that, having recently received your refund. Purism must have cooperated because they knew that you were legally correct, based on the refund policy that was in effect at the time when you placed your pre-order. It wouldn’t have been worth your fighting the matter if Purism hadn’t relented almost right away when you threatened to take legal action. They just needed to know that you really intended to follow through legally. It looks like I was wrong on that. It’s nice to see that Purism had the integrity to recognize your rights, even if it took legal threats to prompt them to do the right thing.
Speaking of honor, no one should participate in crowd funding if they are going to treat it as a preorder. The legal system might not make a distinction, but the whole point of crowd funding is to crowd source the capital that will be going towards the development and manufacturing of a product. If you do not see yourself as an investor bound by a contract to support the crowd effort like everyone else who put up the funds required, then wait until the product can be purchased from stock. I really do not like other people creating legal costs with my investment capital because they want to renege on their part of our crowd funding. It seems like people hear what they want to hear, like imagining that an estimate was a commitment, or that a prototype is the final product. If you have trouble understanding these things, then crowd funding is not for you.
Some crowd funding IS a pre-order though.
some campaigns are literally, we have this thing ready to go, but we need to sell a thousand to get a production run. those are pre-orders…
It really depends how things are advertised from the start.
I strongly disagree. They are 2 very different types of legal contracts. A preorder is simply a purchasing arrangement with a supplier. Crowd funding involves the crowd taking an investment risk as a collective, regardless of how far along the company is in its product development and manufacturing stages.
If you can’t see the difference between the statements
“We need funding to develop x product”
and
“We need to pre-sell to reach a minimum order quantity to produce X product”
That seems like a you problem…
Why do you think the minimum order quantity is necessary? You are providing financing.
If you participate in a collective purchasing agreement, then you should be prepared to follow the terms of that agreement, including any refund policies, if there are any.
There are a lot of value statements and appeals to emotion in your argument here, and unfortunately, not everyone shares your values or your motivations. For the record, I wanted a linux phone that I could install the distro of my choice and have a KDE interface on; that’s why I participated. Doesn’t matter, the point is a purchase contract is a purchase contract–you can bring your feel good moral for the sake of being moral values to it, but I would recommend that you not apply those values to others.
If you are collective investor, viz., you have to rely on thousands of i-don’t-know-joe-six-packs to help you drum up capital for your “investments”, and you have a basic understanding how contracts work, then perhaps you should not participate in kickstarters with explicitly defined refund policies as that will obviously be a high risk to your $599 “investment capital”. Plus it’s a waste of time and energy to have to tell a bunch of randos on the internet: “You’re not doing it right!”
Can I assume you are talking specifically about the Purism funding?
Perhaps you should try using specific language, instead of general language.
there are lots of other crowd funding campaigns, and other types of crowd funding campaigns.
including campaigns that are for fully developed products that have a minimum order needed…
let me put it another way. manufacturing ONE thing, could be very uneconomical, so instead you need to order one thousand such that you can split the costs.
Not all “crowd funding” is pitched as investing in ideas, some are pitched as group buys.
That’s why it is possible to set a minimum funding goal, (i.e if you need funds for a thousand, the platform provider won’t let you walk off with funds for ten.)
it really depends what the specific terms described when you parted with your money were.
I was looking for screenshots of the crowd funding campaign and I found that this topic has been discussed before, which is not surprising: Chestnut shipping
Librem 5 crowd funders could donate any amount of money they wanted to, and could select a reward if their contribution was above a minimum. Any lawyer will tell you that these words have meaning under law. You could have donated to the cause and not have selected any reward. This is clearly not your standard purchase contract. If you just want a KDE phone, just wait for the product to be made and buy it when it is stocked. Then, your standard purchase contract exceptions will apply.
Congrats on your big win. I hope you learnt your lesson and stop pre-ordering stuff though.
You talk in absolute terms, for all campaigns. - which as i’ve pointed out isn’t true.
Contract terms form addition to law, they don’t replace law. - and generally can’t remove consumer protections.
for example I can say that if you reply to this message there are specific conditions attached, or limitations placed on you. (e.g you must pay, or you lose some right) but just saying something doesn’t make it true, or legal, or enforceable.
This is only partially true, again, it depends on what is described at the order point.
Think this through…
The conclusion of this is that you donated, and you got what you paid for as soon as your payment was processed.
would you be happy for Purism to start shipping to customers that purchased after November '20 before your pre-order? - there are a lot of people that would be more than happy to take your place in the line if you’re convinced that you ONLY donated and HOPED for a reward.
The legal system often favors the less informed, such as a consumer in the consumer-business contract. But if you are fully aware of the agreement that you commit to, will this bias towards protecting the less informed still work in your favor? The specifics in the situation will also be considered. Personally, I would at least be a little embarrassed to try the “I’m owed a refund for my donation” excuse in front of a judge given my extensive experience in crowd funding. I am not going to try to feign ignorance because there is plenty of evidence that will work against me. Also, I am a bad at lying.
If two parties enter into a contract with full disclosure, both parties are bound by that contract. Only a violation of the terms of that contract by one or both parties voids the contract and potential damages can be sought for remedy. Whatever the law is doesn’t matter, the law in this case is your contract, period. If you can argue that information was withheld then you might have an argument, but I don’t think there was any doubt when I sent my money to Purism that there was no guarantee that I was even going to get a phone let alone having to wait 3 years for it. If you enter this space on the bleeding edge of a new product expecting a standard retail experience, I think it’s pretty clear that your risk is much higher when supporting a product on this platform. You enter those crowdfunding websites fully aware that it’s more risky than buying an already existing product. Hell I’ve lost money supporting products on Kickstarter that never got off the ground and they made off with the cash…too bad so sad. Nobody forces you to spend money in a casino.
Expect the initial agreement was one could ask for a refund at anytime which was later changed breaking the initial “contract”