2 days ago the header read: “International Orders shipping soon”
Now a full blow refund to *some (not all).
It took GF two years to discover international regulations and/or limitations?
Something is not right.
That is not the case.
It is an additional 20 countries that they cannot ship to who will receive refunds… absolutely not the entirety of international orders.
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Not all. Just the countries that Glowforge has determined they can’t ship to. A fairly small number of orders, probably.
Your reading comprehension. This sucks but only a few countrys affected.
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Maybe he was affected in the cancellation. No offense to anyone here, but had I given out what essentially amounts to an interest free loan of that amount to a startup for two years, and got nothing in return, I’d be thinking class action.
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Possible and I do hate it for anyone effected.
I mean…with todays market, you’re looking at a potential loss of $1,000 on a $2,000 investment over two years. That’s not nothing.
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Although they are refunding an additional 5% - Quote below from email posted on Glowforge User Group Facebook page:
"Your original payment was in US Dollars, and we will refund you the full amount you paid us plus 5%. "
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My intention is not to dismiss your feelings on the matter, but really, a property of most scams is that they benefit the scammer at the expense of the scammee. Apart from borrowing money they didn’t need to borrow and paying it back with what some would some would say is below market rate interest, I’m don’t see how Glowforge would have gotten anything at all out of this hypothetical scam. I think they’d much rather have delivered the machines to their customers than take yet another hit on their brand.
I have all kinds of questions about how it got this far before they got around to telling people they couldn’t deliver, but I attribute it less to malice than to an institutional optimism that borders on delusional.
I’m self-centered and always make these posts about myself, so this one is no different. I once worked at a place where the owner was very much like this. Whenever the angry customers asked, he always thought it would be done in two weeks. As the head of engineering, I’d flip my lid because I thought we were several years away from shipping at that point, and we were probably doomed. He was an extreme optimist, who thought any situation could be resolved and couldn’t see failure even after it happened. I’m an extreme pessimist who thinks the slightest setback is the end of the world and needs to be talked back from the ledge on a regular basis. We were both wrong, and the truth was somewhere in between. I only realized later that any success we had was due to these forces being balanced out fairly well. I feel like Glowforge may be missing a person who stands up in the middle of the meeting and says “are you crazy, why are we taking orders for North Korea? We don’t even know how to ship to Vermont! We should cancel ALL the international orders. I have to lie down now, the next sound you hear is me weeping.” I’d apply for that position, but I’m pretty happy where I am, even on the days when the closest fro yo machine is out of order and I have to go all the way down the hall.
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Not here to discuss the theoretical framework of string theory.
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That’s a rather ambitious expected return
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Just because of poor research and regulatory compliance, does not make a scammer. Having seen several US based companies attempt to get their products into other countries and failed, I am surprised that Glowforge ignored those issues with their updates.
Making the claim (regardless of the *) that refund is in question is irresponsible. You give the impression that international orders won’t get their money back is inflammatory.
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I’m well aware that you’re pretty much just here to troll.
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I’m always impressed with the financial acumen of the people who complain about having their money locked up in Glowforge when it could be earning them triple-digit interest. If I had that kind of investment ability, I wouldn’t be waiting for a Glowforge, I’d buy one of those lasers you can use to engrave your face on the moon.
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I’d love to help you out. I see you think you’ve been scammed. Can you tell me more about your thinking on that? Like what lead you to that thought? Are you in one of those few countries that Glowforge can’t ship to? I can definitely understand your frustration if that’s the case. But, still, to say you think you’ve been scammed would simply not be correct by any means. You’ll be getting a full refund to go ahead and purchase a laser that’s legal in your country.
Anyway, I hope you can tell me more about where you’re coming from on this.
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really? :“apart from” for the past 2 years you could of easily obtained 8 percent each year return on a investment. So that would be a return over 16 percent! So that is a delta of 11 percent of the 5 percent offered! I would say that is a loss for the consumer and a gain for glowforge.
What part of the world? If you made the right call (easy in retrospect, not so easy prospectively) you could do that in the stock market - but just as easy to have lost it as well. As an investor with retirement within reasonable sight, I’d like to know of solid investments that easily beat historic performance like that. If you don’t want to share the strategy publicly, would you be willing to drop me a PM?
TIA!
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Not at all. That’s 25%. With today’s current stock prices, 25% ROI isn’t even close. My 401k is over 30% for the year.
If your ROI in the US stock markets is only 8%, you’re doing something very, very wrong.
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You really think that Dan & co. set up Glowforge as a front to take money from customers all around the world, put it in escrow, run the company off of venture capital for several years, return the money at 5% to a small number people in 20 specific countries, and profit off the 11% difference? Because that’s what “scam” means. Anyone who is not prepared to look like an idiot for making that assertion, should not accuse GF of scamming people by refunding their money.
The difference in quality between the best and worst threads on this forum is mind-boggling. Maybe it’s the pressure differential between them that is causing all of the crazy weather this year.
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