TextBladeDenied

dabigkahuna said:

1. He ordered and wanted the TB.

2. Many people "hide" their identity just because they don't want their real name all over the internet. Same reason I use dabigkahuna. Not that I worry if someone happens to know who it really is, but I prefer not to just show who I am automatically.

3. That probably extended into not wanting his order canceled so he's extra careful about not revealing it.

4. I suspect he'd actually still like to get it.

1. True
2. True.
3. True.
4. Of course that is true. If the product exists and works, and given that I paid for it 4 years ago - ship it. If you cannot do that, return all the customer money until you are ready to ship. This is such a simple concept, there really can be no arguing with it. But you do anyway, because when it comes to the core facts of the matter, you are as dishonest in your representation of the facts as Waytools_Support is. A viable explanation for your behavior is that you want to keep the money.

ChrisTaylor said:
sorry about leaving out the critical word “less” from my question. What I’m having trouble understanding is why you would want to do business with a company for which you have no respect. 

I engaged in a transaction with Waytools in 2015. The terms of the transaction were agreed upon. Money. Keyboard. Done. Waytools subsequently modified the terms, numerous times, by delaying the date of shipment. Each time that date was not met. Waytool asserted all the while that orders would be processed in the order received. False. Waytools then upped the ante and offered a 'gift' in exchange for the wait, which like so many of the proposed delays, was at the time just a matter of weeks away. That proposal, like all others, was of course not honored. The 'do business' I did with Waytools was one transaction in 2015, and ever since then Waytools has engaged in a campaign of lies in order to buy time to finish a product they knew was not ready at the time they took my money. I am not 'doing business with a company for which I have no respect'. The business done is in the distant past. Respect was granted to them up front, and then lost by them over the subsequent 4 years. I did business with a company, which subsequently broke all terms of the transactional arrangement, and by not cancelling my order, all I am doing now is holding them to the terms they originally agreed to. Holding people to terms is not a complex concept to grasp. Hope this clarifies.

ChrisTaylor said:
You’ve now suggested that it is so you can sue them, if they don’t deliver the product. That will happen only if they go out of business, so what will be there to sue?

Its not that simple, as you likely well know, so there is really no point in getting into the weeds on it. Bottom line: as a customer whose money they hold, I have a claim. 

Observe how this company talks about its customers:

WayTools_Support said:

Dbk - we don’t doubt he bought one, which is why he hides his identity.
But we do see lots of evidence that he has no interest to use the product.  He’s keeps saying we’ve shipped zero, and will never ship any.
A real customer buys it because he wants to use the thing, not as pretext for suits or disparagement.

That is the most brilliant example of their delusional gaslighting nonsense said about me thus far. I engaged in a single transaction in 2015. They have lied and failed in every aspect of that transaction since then, and now they go backwards in time, and call into question my original intent in buying the product, prior to experiencing their 4 year campaign of lies? It that not remarkable? Anyone with a brain can see the logical fallacy in that nonsense. They want to question the intent of my original purchase at a time that precedes when they lied to everybody for a period of 4+ years. What kind of mental issues do you have to have to rationalize so illogically? Observe 'Waytools_Support' casting dispersion on my intentions behind purchasing his phantom product 4 years ago, while he holds my money and has never provided the product offered. That is the mind of Mark Knighton. In my opinion, he is a disturbed individual.

But I do appreciate these public attacks as they show a wider audience how he thinks and operates. Do you want to be his customer after seeing how he treats his current customers? Waytools despises the criticism and they will mangle logic and call upon their shill cohorts Kahuna and Colin to bury any critique in an ocean of words. They will attack any customer who criticizes their behavior. Because they want to keep the money. The money. The money.

These are people behaving like thugs. Read that nonsense above again. That is not a tech entrepreneur, or a professional, or a respectable CEO. That is total garbage from the paranoid mind of a scam artist.

ChrisTaylor said:
My understanding is that they are currently doing a significant firmware refactor and they want to have this in place prior to general release. This makes a lot of sense to me. Having two significantly different firmware branches out in the wild would complicate support. In addition, I suspect that the firmware changes are significant enough that there may be a non-trivial chance of users bricking their TextBlade when performing the update.

Both points are technical and highly debatable. I generally disagree with you, again without getting into the weeds. Regardless, if they cannot implement a firmware update routine that works or support a mere two versions of firmware on a single product line, then that is just demonstrative of them once again having absolutely no clue what they are doing, 4 years after the fact, which means they knew perfectly well they were not ready to ship 4 years ago, which means they lied when they said it was ready, which means they should not have been collecting money for orders. Here I go repeating myself again because it always comes back to the core facts at the outset of it all. No one can build a logical argument regarding the fundamental lie here. They did not have a working product. They knew they could not ship. They lied about it. They took the money anyway, and said it would ship anyway. 4 years ago. They have been lying ever since.

ChrisTaylor said:

TextBladeDenied later said:
If you return all of the money you collected for 4 years of worth of orders, I would have zero - repeat: zero - criticism of you.

I almost ignored this as hyperbole, but since you bothered to repeat it, I’ll take it at face value. You are saying:
1. I don’t want WayTools to force refund my order
2. I want WayTools to force refund everybody’s orders

Since WayTools provides a mechanism for customers to cancel their orders and receive a full refund, it sounds like your real problem is with all of the other customers who, like you, don’t want to cancel their orders. Can you see how this may seem self-contradictory to others?

You are correct that it was not hyperbole, and you have either slightly misunderstood or are attempting to twist what I am saying (though I do not read you as being a paid shill or manipulator in this discussion like the Waytools_support Kahuna and Colin characters).

Do you have a basic grasp of the ethics of this matter? They were wrong to collect the money for orders in the first place. They knew they could not ship. They lied to obtain money for a product they had no intention of shipping at the original deadline. Calling upon them to return the money now is simply calling for righting a wrong 4 years past. I did not say they should cancel orders, only that they should return the money. They have a database and an order queue. They can refund all customers, then send emails when they are ready to collect payment and ship, as they should have done 4 years ago. At this point, it would be reasonable to presume (or wildly guess) that it will take them at least another 4 years before they might ship the product, which is of course as ridiculous as the past 4 years they have not shipped the product. The fact is, at this point, no one has any idea if or when they will ever ship. Thus, any further extension of time granted to them to hold on to customer money is unreasonable and unacceptable.

Plenty of companies take orders from customers and collect when the product is ready to ship. That is the state which Waytools should return this situation to. Orders taken. Money to be collected when ready to ship. It is what they should have done at the outset instead of lying and perhaps committing fraud.

Plenty of companies take orders and collect money up front, and then ship at a stated deadline. There is nothing wrong with that so long as the deadline is met.  And plenty of companies take orders, collect money up front, experience an unexpected delay or two, communicate transparently at every step, rectify the situation, and then ship at a stated revised deadline. Not optimal, but reasonable people accommodate reasonable delays. This is the scenario the Kahuna character likes to pretend is applicable to Waytools after 4 years and dozens upon dozens of delays beyond which they no longer even pretend to have a stated ship date for the product. Ludicrous of course.

Waytools is in none of the above categories. They have never shipped. They do not even have a stated ship date at this point. They lie at every turn.

What do they have? They have all the customers money. 4 years. No product. They have the money. Not investor money. Customer money. What they have done is indisputably unethical. Fraud is a legal question that will require discovery and a day in court. That day is probably coming.
 
The bottom line is that it is all about the money. They really want to keep it, and they really do not want to be called out on it publicly. Observe them further staining their reputation with attacks upon the customers who paid them 4 years ago, in defense of the money they wish to keep in exchange for nothing.

dabigkahuna said:
Their insinuation is that by merely objecting to a false accusation, that somehow proves you are guilty! It really is amazing. Also stupid and evil.

Waytools has not objected to these indisputable facts: They collected money from (they claim) thousands of customers for a product that was declared ready to ship in 2015. The have not shipped that product. You can quibble about the definition of a 'lie' until you drop dead, but nobody aware of or involved in this debacle who is not a paid shill like Kahuna or Colin believes that Waytools has behaved transparently, or ethically, or truthfully. The most gracious assessment is that they are blatant liars who scammed customers into giving them money so they could attempt to develop a product which they have been unable to complete for 4 years. This is not a new trick. They simply could not get investors, so they scammed customers to fund development. They claim they do not need the customer money to continue this facade of finishing and releasing a functioning product, yet they keep the money and vigorously defend any assertion that they are unethical to hold the money without releasing the product. Kahuna gets very agitated whenever the money is mentioned, probably because he is living off it.

It does not matter how many words you throw at facts, the actions of Waytools are apparent. 4 years of evidence assures us no one will never receive a working product from this company in exchange for money. Ignore them, and ignore the rants of their obnoxious spokespeople Kahuna and Colin.

Money collected and residing in the Waytools bank. 4 years of lies about product readiness and ship dates. No product delivered. Your deflection and obfuscation of the core facts are readily apparent to any objective observer. Thank you for demonstrating the Waytools tactics all customers have endured since the beginning. It is illuminating to all.

Bad actors are always hurt and offended when accused. Bad actors are always insolent and defensive when criticized. Bad actors always have a core throng of enthusiastic defenders who are profiting in the scam. Everything WayTools_Support says and does fits the profile of a bad actor, and only two things will demonstrate otherwise. Return the money or ship the product. Nothing else is relevant here.