MacPadd Inventor Drinks With Wife, Brags About Education, Curses, But Does Not Provide Tracking Number
Some people should never go the entrepreneur route. Meet David Free, the man behind QMS, a company that sells and sometimes even ships an aluminum mousepad called the MacPadd. When the guys at TomsHardware.com started asking why theirs hadn't arrived, they discovered that Free does business his own way. Or sometimes not at all:
Free then exclaimed, "Get out of my f***ing life!" And hung up on us. By now it was becoming clear to us that we weren't going to receive the product we paid for.
Tuan Nguyen at Tom's Hardware ordered a MacPadd to review it on October 23rd. He subsequently tried repeatedly to contact MacPadd or QMS to inquire about the order, but he was ignored.
After going through the confirmation process and payment (done through PayPal), we received an automated response. The website also indicates that the product should ship to the US within "3 to 7 business days."
During the next 7 days following the initial order date, we contacted the vendor several times with no success. The business number constantly goes to a voicemail. An attempt to call the vendor on the 30th of October did not yield any success either. Leaving a voicemail to have a rep respond went unheard.
We never received a shipment confirmation, tracking email notification, or any other type of email to indicate that the product would be delayed, was unavailable, or was on back order.
Suffice to say, we were getting a bit worried.
After looking through the PayPal transaction record, we were able to find another business contact number listed by PayPal for QMS Inc. We called that several times. No answer either.
The only way Nguyen managed to get the owner to acknowledge him was by opening a dispute with through PayPal. But even that didn't resolve things, with Free first breaking promises to send a tracking number, then sending one that turned out to be for another customer's order, then eventually threatening to sue Nguyen and/or Tom's Hardware.
It gets crazier from there, and includes accusations of mental illness, vague threats, and evidence that others have complained about being ripped off by MacPadd.com. Eventually PayPal resolved the dispute in favor of Tom's Hardware and that was that. Well, except for the follow-up article Nguyen wrote to warn others away from the MacPadd, which drew more rants from Free, who signed up as a commenter on the tomshardware.com site to leave personal attacks.
When you buy something from an untested, small-time online vendor, always do a search for complaints first, both on Google and with the Better Business Bureau. Hopefully the experience that Tom's Hardware had with MacPadd.com will stick around online for a long time to warn future shoppers.
"Company to Avoid: QMS Inc./MacPadd.com" [Tom's Hardware]
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Comments:
I think Free was sniffing too much of the aluminum from his mouse pads.
Therapy. Get some.
Interesting, I signed up to comment on Consumerist because they posted a story about how my product ([www.gizfever.com]) never made it from my small-time website to the customer! What a coincidence!
Maybe he's got more business than he can handle and needs to discourage customers...
@proskills: ...when you should have just responded to the accusations by e-mailing the Consumerist, instead of posting to complain about it.
This jackhole sounds like a banker.
How DARE you want something in return for your money!
I avoid all of this by using a trackball instead of a mouse.
umm, wow. I've worked for/ managed /owned small internet/mail-order businesses for the past 18 years, the FIRST thing you learn is you DO NOT EVER LIE to the customer. They will *always* find out, and you will look very, very bad, and very very stupid (at best, and sleazy, or worse, at worst)
If you mess up, the only thing to do is
1) own up
2) apologize profusely
3) take immediate steps to resolve the issue
I've heard that a customer with a problem that gets resolved to their satisfaction will be twice as loyal as a customer who never had a problem with you at all: I don't know if that's true, but acting *as if* it's true has gotten me a lot of loyalty.
Obviously, the right thing to do was for Free to say 'I'm sorry, this hasn't shipped yet, I'll see that it gets out first thing tomorrow', but I guesse that was too much for his 'I'm the alpha-dude brain'.
Oi. With times as hard as they are, I'm treating every customer like they were the reincarnated king of Siam.. This guy says he has 8000 satisfied customers? One time, I assume? 80% of my 12k invoices are to the same 20-30% of my customer base. Yeah, we mostly wholsesale, but I can't believe the concept is so different.
Ok, I know I'm ranting, obviously, this is a subject close to me at this time.
@Persistence: What's wrong with registering to leave a comment? Companies do it all the time. ComcastCares, for example, even has a star.
Upon checking proskill's commenting history, it doesn't appear that he registered to leave a comment about the story anyway. Looks like he registered after the story appeared, and promptly joined the ranks of productive commenters.
@DangerMouth: plus, he screwed over a very well known reviewing website that was only doing him a favor by wanting to review his product. Slick.
Well that sucks the QMS is a lame company. I'd like an aluminum mousepad that's nice like the one pictured. I used to have one of the special optical SGI (or Sun?) pads, which served me nicely until the lacquer finish started peeling.
Looking at the picture and reading the title of the post, I thought I was in for a story about a feminine hygiene product. Turns out I was correct.
Wouldn't it be greener to NOT have a mouse pad, since most mice are optical and don't require them anyway unless you have a glass-top desk? I imagine that machining aluminum isn't exactly light in the energy department.
@Michael Belisle: ha, resistance is futile..
Or to put it another way: 'we are in your hed, subverting ur commentz'
And then that review is picked up by a very well known consumer issues site.
And he then tries to start his own blog to dispute it...which is now been deleted.
for me I use a fine textured desk where the texture is more random, it improves tracking and allows me to use the whole desk which is great for online gaming and photoshop
That inventor/businessman wrote his own review.
@ohnoes: The little "rubber" ring on the bottom of the apple mouses is pretty soft -- if your desk surface is at all rough, you'll see it wearing away.
@proskills: Sorry, as the resident webcam whore, I have to ask WTH are you talking about. I checked your comment history of ~100 comments, and saw none that addressed what ever it is you are talking about. Please post a link to this story which you joined Gawker to comment on, not including your first three comments which were on Gawker, and not Consumerist. Otherwise I'm gonna consider your comment spam. And that's coming from me, king of the self promoters!
@Persistence: Wow, indeed! Has this guy never heard that when you've dug yourself into a hole the first step is to STOP DIGGING!
@cowboyesfan: @dakotad555: Doesn't matter. I rule them all!
One Mouse to rule them all, One Mouse to find them, One Mouse to bring them all and in the darkness bind them!
@ohnoes: Having a mousepad for me helps me keep a small area of my desk clear...sort of a fenced in ara for the mouse to play in. If I didn't have a mousepad I would probably spend half the day trying to find my mouse.
Seriously though, I find that a mousepad will help improve the accuracy for photo and video editing. As Michael Belisle mentioned, SUN/Sparq used to have aluminum mousepads that were awesome and super accurate ack in the early 1990s (perhaps even before)
On reading the Tom's Hardware site, I found the tracking information interesting. Tom links to the tracking number he was given and points out that it is dated October 3, weeks before his order went in on October 23. In fact, its worse than he thinks. Canada Post uses the date format of year/month/day so that tracking number is actually from March 10, 2009. However, the parcel with the number does appear to be lost.
Later, Free says that Tom didn't pay for tracking and that there is no tracking on parcels from Canada to the States. This is possible if he sent it Small Packet at a lower rate. A tracked service costs more. However, if it was sent as Small Packet, he should have the customs copy which doubles as paperwork for a possible insurance claim. If he had sent it Small Packet, it would be easy enough to scan and email the copy which would prove what was sent where and when.
@ohnoes: It also protects the desk. I have a cheap laminated particle board desk and the laminate is all worn where I use my mouse.
@ohnoes: Nowadays, the main purpose of mousepads is to protect the desk itself from the mouse, especially on anything with a polish - theconstant movement of the mouse will ruin the shine within a year.
The business owner does devolve into jackass behavior, but really, Nguyen got slightly antsy here. Ordered on 10/23, he was advised it would take 3-7 BUSINESS days, but had already contacted the vendor "several" times by 10/30. That's not even outside the stated window yet. That would be after November 3rd.
@GitEmSteveDave_IsSlacking: Here's a mention of the sucky webcam on Gizmodo, about 6 months before proskill's first comment.
Later on in a followup article, Tuan Nguyen mentions that the QMS guy started up his own blog on Livejournal to bitch about "how unfairly" he was being treated. Apparently the comments he received were totally unfavorable, so he first removed the comments and then, realizing that his ruse wasn't going to work, deleted the whole blog.
This thing sorta reminds me of the dumbasses with the ebay RV debacle with the fake bee infestation. Except they, at least, had the excuse of ignorance about the Internet. Mr. Free seems like he has a combination of a shocking level of ignorance about how to provide basic customer service, and an incredible sense of arrogance.
I wonder what his next action will be? Any guesses?
@gStein_has joined the star bandwagon: Actually, I might do that. I have access to a mill and a sandblaster.
Apparently, this man claims is mouse pads are resistant to the H1N1 flue virus: [www.tomshardware.com]
QMS is a certifying body for companies seeking ISO9001 certification. They might not look too kindly on this bozo appropriating the name.
@Michael Belisle: But he's saying Consumerist ran a story about how he couldn't deliver that cam. I can't find anything like that.
@jenjen: The vendor was entirely unreachable and did not respond to any contact attempts, which usually sends up a few red flags.
@GitEmSteveDave_IsSlacking: I think it might have been some kind of Gawker in-joke. I haven't been this confused since someone tried to convince me that Dinosaur Comics is funny.
It's too bad, because the padd looks nice, and I do prefer really low profile mouse pads. But after reading this, shit, I will NEVER knowingly buy a product from this guy.
I've got nothing but respect for Tom's Hardware, and a positive review from them would have sold THOUSANDS of mousepads for them. The guy just threw away a small fortune.
3-7 Business days?
This is not a business, it is a FARKING broker.
He is outsourcing the fulfillment of the product to others and can not control their operations.
Take your business elsewhere. You will be happier.
One ad displayed in his ultra-lame videos uses the "Think Different" slogan. I wonder whether he has the right to use that.
Btw, according to this Facebook discussion page:
[www.facebook.com]
he is on the Board of Governors of some accountants' association.
![[www.gizfever.com]](http://www.gizfever.com/images/SnakeWebCamWithSucker5.jpg){kind=link}
I read this on Tom's Hardware and Gizmodo. All I can say is wow... this guy knows how to burn bridges.