While the events around the refunds are upsetting to me, I hope that Purism will continue to provide transparent updates, and not just having public code accessible, which I think will help rebuilt trust that was lost. The business side of Purism has largely been a black box and this update was refreshing to read.
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I was also surprised but obviously happy that Purism is actually doing quite fine financially 
One thing I never understood, but read everywhere is the whole drama around refunds. People crowdfund a Linux phone, then become disenchanted and think they can get their money back. It doesn’t work like that. You invested money in something that might come to fruition, but you also might not get anything. That’s crowdfunding for you. Get over it.
I do think it has hurt Purism’s reputation, because those people were not timid about spouting their grievances. I still read about it every time Purism or the Librem 5 is mentioned, and for new customers, it doesn’t inspire confidence.
Ah well, here’s to a long and prosperous future for Purism and their Linux devices 
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There’s a lot of people that did not crowdfund but made a purchase of a product then requested a refund when any of a number of circumstances changed including the product not being up to what was marketed.
Accusing them of crowdfunding or otherwise blaming them for Purism overpromising is disingenuous and lumping those two separate groups together does a disservice to both groups.
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I also want to add to this that purism has changed their refund policy twice and applied them retroactively.
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That’s not what happened.
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There are examples where people ordered a Librem 14 listed as “in stock”. Delivery was delayed … so they asked for a refund. Purism then goes “no contact” or tries to convince them to accept store credit … only to go “no contact”. There have been multiple examples of this. WTF.
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The “crowdfunding period” for the Librem 5 was only until October or November of 2018. After that it was a “pre-order” and Purism made it clear that they would honor their refund policy on those order. They didn’t.
And worse …
Get over it.
Get informed about what went on instead of making incorrect assumptions. When Purism finished delivering (3+ years late), we were told that there were something like 400-600 people who requested refunds instead of deliveries (3 years is a long time) … and are still waiting.
If a company doesn’t honor their own refund policy, I don’t think they are worth dealing with. That’s just my opinion.
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was it ?
I thought it was until 2017
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You’re right. Sorry for the confusion. Purism clarified on 2017-10-24 that the crowdfunding target was met and that further orders were considered “pre-orders”.
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It really doesn’t matter if it ended 2017, 2018 or even 2019 because people also bought later and that was the core message.
I pre-ordered 2019 and researched about the product and state. I thought I could have it in hands in some month (over 40 as I know today), but I also knew that there was still a risk to get nothing into hands (L5 was still in development). I just thought it’s a quiet low risk, so I pushed the order-button.
It’s part of the truth that people should have known there is a risk in pre-order and a lot of people did not care about. This is no blame about refund requests, but something to keep in mind that this was also a part of their own decision to give their money away to something a bit more risky than usual.
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I asked because i was curious if i was wrong about the chain of events.
I always advise people not to pre-order products from companies and to research the company they are trying to buy from and the product they are thinking of purchasing even if the product was in stock.
I also do blame them if they didn’t do what i mentioned above but i don’t do that to shift the blame from my favorite company and focus most of it on the consumer.
some people here are pro consumers when it comes to other companies and anti consumers when it comes to Purism.
Purism changes their refund policy and applies it retroactively then consumers should know better and lets talk about risks. but if other companies did the same then that is not okay and they should be sued.
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Just to be clear, my message was not about protecting Purism and not even specific to this company (but a bit on company size). I agree with all you said.
By the way, everything under the line of my previous post was no answer specific to you anymore.
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This message is to lakei. Actually getting a requested refund. It should work like that if Purism makes that promise. The crowdsource terms and the pre-order terms promised unconditional refunds. Unilateral changes to the original agreement is both dishonest and illegal. Feel free to make excuses for Purism if you must. But please don’t lie about the original terms of the agreement. Now that Purism is floating in money, they can’t hide behind a ball and supply chain or a pandemic. Yet they still remain silent on the issue of refunds even now, thinking that no one else will notice if they don’t bring it up themselves. This will remain as unfinished business for a lot if people until Purism makes good for those people and admits to their dishonorable ways, and promises to change their ways going forward. Many successful companies actually list “goodwill” in the community as a tangible financial asset to the company in their financial records. If Purism did that right now, that number would be a negative value. Do the right thing Purism. Mail these people checks for the full amount of their original purchase. Apologize and offer them a financial incentive to make another purchase if they will only give you another chance to make it up to them. Your current unspoken message is that these are just f-ing refund people who should just be ignored.
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I definitely do make a distinction between companies I buy from. A small company like Purism that tries to bring an actually working Linux phone to the market and is able to support that product for many years is very valuable to me. So I cut them a great deal of slack. I donate to them and support them in intangible ways just in the hopes of them not going under. I have a couple of small companies that I support in that way.
Then there are companies that I just want to buy a product from. I would be upset if I would not get the product in time, yes, because I do not sympathize particularly with the company’s cause.
So while I do not want to diminish any real grievances of people who believed they were wronged by Purism, I just want to offer my perspective on all the negativity surrounding an actually working, open-source, almost open-hardware Linux phone.
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you got it wrong and then told them “Get over it”
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There’s a big question mark regarding who “them” is. The way I see it, the vast majority of posts complaining about the refund situation are from people who are not in fact waiting on a refund.
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I reached the point at one time where I decided that I wanted a refund on my Librem 5. I got in early enough that I was promised an “unconditional refund at any time” before they changed their refund policy retroactively. Several months later, my intuition told me not to request that refund because it appeared from reading several stories in this forum, that Purism was literally tossing out people’s orders and never sending anything at all to those people that requested refunds. It wasn’t just theft. It seemed to come with a f…k you to those people, from Purism. So against my wishes, I waited, not wanting to get on Purism’s list of people they ignored and gave nothing to as a person’s place in line came and passed. About a year later I got my Librem 5. But it came with a great deal of resentment on my part and a decision to not make the same mistake again. They took advantage of my trust in them. While they had my money, they told lies and called the shots, not even realizing how unacceptable their business practices were. With or without a pandemic and supply shortages, they lacked yet even more in ethics than they lacked in performance. There were no apologies and they did not share critical information. When you can’t keep agreements and you’re an ethical person (Todd), you tell people the honest truth and let them understand the truth of the facts and the real risks involved as you plead for their voluntary cooperation in what ever you can do. You don’t carry on this false persona that everything is under control and that you’re doing nothing wrong. As Purism defaulted on timely deliveries, we deserved to know how many Librem 5’s you had sold, how many were delivered, and where we were in the queue, without all of the guesswork. It’s like those who got screwed over were to blame as refund requests were a reason to flush the person’s order down the toilet. I would have rather lost my money if it would have resulted in Purism being liquidated by the courts to pay its debts. So now that Purism is floating in money, we’re about to see the other side of the same coin. How will they treat people when finances are good? We’ll see. I am not optomistic. Money never fixes poor ethics and disrespecting the customers.
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Thanks for elaborating on what your actual situation is.
I don’t see that Purism is “floating in money”. They are profitable this year but this year’s profit is much less than the accumulated losses from the 3 previous years. And then there’s the question of reducing debt (as explicitly stated by Todd). And then there’s the question of settling with the “plaintiff” (as disclosed in the Offering Memorandum). So I think they will still be juggling for a while (speaking as an outsider with access only to publicly available information, the same as most other forum participants).
I completely understand that if a participant in this topic is actually waiting for a refund, he or she might well not give a crap about any of the foregoing and just wants the money.
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It’s not giving a crap or not giving a crap. When they flake out on a commitment to anyone and then ghost the person to avoid answering for their bad actions, you know that something there is seriously broken. No business can last long term that operates that way. And it’s not just one or a few people saying this about Purism. This is a recurring issue. No one at Purism takes responsibility for it. So we all should know that it will continue to happen in the future. The disrespect is terrible. It’s worse than the theft of people’s money because the product is tainted by the message that says “we have no ethics and will screw you over if we want to, based on our own whims”. Just look at the pattern here. It’s terrible.
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No, really, a person actually waiting for a refund might well not give a crap about any of that.
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Sure there are some people whom are very loud and passionate and in turn make more posts than the larger number of people making 1 or 2 posts complaining that they haven’t received a refund. There are also more posts from people defending purism than there are from people waiting on a refund.
Comparing volume of posts made by different groups does not shed light onto the number of people in those groups and is likely a meaningless metric.
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I think it matters because looking at volume of posts (hijacking topic after topic, “very loud and passionate”) could give a misleading impression regarding the true situation.
Of course neither of us can tell for sure what the true situation is because we don’t have the only relevant actual number.
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