There is something here that I just don’t understand. This is not an attack on JCS. JCS appears to be an under funded employee of Purism who wants to help as much as he can help. He can’t issue something that he doesn’t have the authority to issue. He has to wait until April 26th in this case to ask the finance department to issue this one refund. Fair enough where JCS personally is concerned.
But this information really tells us something of importance about Purism. Even with investors putting money in to the company, Purism is either just barely able to meet its past and current financial commits, with only some constrained amount of extra money available to go toward the backlog of refunds. Or, Purism does have larger amounts of money available from which they could issue more refunds right away, but they choose to not issue those refunds because they want the money to go other places. Either way, the budget is tight during what could be called an IPO or early-investment phase and something else right now ranks higher to Purism than their own public image of having at least some integrity on the refund issue. The money they’re holding hostage right now does not belong to them and the un-willing lender never intended to make a long-term loan to Purism. What happens when Purism has to survive on their own sales revenues in an environment where people know about these integrity issues in-advance?
If I were Purism, I would want to put this chapter of broken promises behind me as soon as possible, by paying out every last refund as quickly as is possible and then announcing to everyone that all backlog of refunds has been paid to the current time. But Purism just does what they want to do with other people’s money that they were trusted with. It’s really amazing as time goes by that anyone buys anything from Purism anymore, or invests any money in Purism. I might rather choose to take a trip to Las Vegas and put my money on the roulette table instead as a safer investment.
I have yet to receive cash compensation from Purism since starting in October. This is largely my decision as I’ve been deferring cash invoices to accelerate paying off AP, but of course this has limitations since I have rent to pay and a landlord unwilling to accept convertible notes as payment. Landlords are so picky.
I wish I could discuss finances here which would greatly improve understanding and alleviate some of the assumptions seen scattered around the forum, but I will say this:
True, this has been a particularly challenging period in Purism’s financial and PR timeline, but things are turning around for the better. The investments are truly making a huge impact on Purism’s ability to breathe and catalyzing the ability to live within its means (i.e. purely from sales revenue).
This is done by clearing oppressively-termed debts, enabling policy and infrastructure (i.e. IT, ERP, etc) improvements for streamlined operations, and fueling some very exciting R&D that has massive potential within the realm of PureOS security features and enterprise sales partnerships. “I don’t care about enterprise sales - I just want my refund.” Yes, totally understood. However, do keep in mind that an entire refund backlog can quickly be reconciled with even a single enterprise deal.
Purism is acutely aware of all outstanding refund requests and is fully committed to process them as soon as financially possible. In fact, I received a copy of the spreadsheet of all outstanding requests today and am working with leadership, finance, and support to discover and evaluate operational efficiencies to increase allocations toward refund disbursement.
It is one of my personal goals to accomplish exactly what you are saying. I am working hard to help Purism get to the point where they can confidently announce that 100% of all refunds have been processed, that they can guarantee a shipping window, and that there are policies in place for consistent operations and customer engagement such that they are never in this predicament again.
I want to note that “can be” is far far different than “will be”. I’m not aware of anyone from Purism asserting the latter.
While that’s good to hear, I wonder why Purism hasn’t made any official announcement saying that.
[Edit: You say that Purism is “acutely aware” of all outstanding refund requests. Explain, then, why Todd pretended not to understand the nature of the refund requests. See the discussion between Todd and Joe Johnson on the discussion tab of https://www.startengine.com/offering/purism . Personally, I read that and my opinion of Todd goes way down. Any comment @JCS ? What do you tell others in Joe Johnson’s position who are left without a refund while Joe got one? ]
I do know – the thread of “Purism has stopped replying to me” is the gist. I’ve collected lots of stories. It’s on forums (here, reddit, mastodon) and is in the press (e.g. Louis Rossman, …). It is everyone’s business how a FOSS company treats its customers.
It seems hypocritical that when one discusses FOSS, everyone here emphasizes that “sunlight is the best disinfectant”. But when one discusses issues with a FOSS company, they say “it’s not anyone’s business”.
This omits a very important half of the picture. Purism is aiming to put into the hands of its customers tools that will protect the privacy of the customer. Privacy is more important to Purism and to Purism’s customers than to the average person.
A private conversation between two parties should not be made public without the consent of both parties. In that sense it is not my business and it is not your business.
It is not private when one (or more) of the participants makes it public.
If you are acquainted with a couple and it becomes apparent that one is beating/abusing the other, do you look the other way and say “it’s not my business”? When others try to bring up that situation, do you have the gall to tell them “it’s not your business?”
My experience in Australia for what it is worth. I purchased 2 x Librem 5s in 2021 and it took 2 years for them to arrive, but I accepted there would be delays. Have these phones worked, yes they have as phones and a basic computer but you would be foolish to think the transition from Android or Apple to this new ecosystem would be easy. So much convenience is lost and this is the price of improving your security. However, in 2022 I ordered a Librem 14 with Qubes pre-installed. It arrived in a month or two, and I have to say once I started to grasp how Qubes works (which took a while), it is brilliant. The laptop is well spec’d, performs very well and with the latest Qubes 4.2.1 the software is slick. Highly recommend the computer, but while the phones are well built, you are buying into an embryonic ecosystem that you have to be ready to support. That is a personal decision. I make no comment on the companies problems with supply or apparent difficulty with refunds. I just state that they make genuine products, some of them very good.
Did you read what “someday” has discussed? I don’t think they ever implied that Purism doesn’t make genuine products.
Summary: They ordered a Librem 14 (mid-Feb 2024). Delivery was delayed too long. In the meantime they got a different computer and asked for a refund on the Librem 14. Purism ghosted him. At this point they have now taken delivery of the Librem 14 that they no longer want or need. They are selling it. If you think it’s so great, perhaps you can buy it from them or find someone to buy it from them.
Several forum users have however made that implication over the journey e.g. a forum user who is in dispute with Purism and has received neither device nor refund.
Given that @someday has received a device and is considering selling it … yes, in the case of that specific forum user it would make no sense to suggest that the products don’t actually exist, and that user did not make that implication.
But then forum users sometimes reply to posts where the reply is not actually a reply to the post e.g. no text from the post was quoted.
Yes. I looked into it … and I guess I was wrong when I said that someday never implied that Purism doesn’t make genuine products. In this case, Discourse recorded this as a reply to someday’s early entry ( Where’s my refund? - #87 by someday ) which was before he was able to get JCS to intervene (to get customer service to stop ghosting him if he agreed) to take delivery. In fact, that post by someday did use the words “Ponzi scheme”. Still, I would think one might read the whole thread before replying to a 3 week old entry.
