Many 3D printing enthusiasts set up a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for a novel idea yet upon raising funds, they fail to serve those backers or give them updates on the progress on the idea. Here is one such idea / printer launched by QU-BD with the premise of building world’s cheapest 3D printer but later couldn’t serve the backers who placed order for that printer.
Last year in November, the California based company named QU-BD (an acronym for Quintessential Universal Building Device) started a Kickstarter campaign and managed to raise over $400, 000 from mere 1400 backers on an interesting proposition to launch world’s most affordable 3D printer. The Little Rock Company, Arkansas based company is yet to fulfill these back orders and has come up with a brand new 3D printer. The features of this printer are pretty much similar to the previous version from QU-BD but the only outstanding features is that the printer comes in bright neon colors.
A company representative of the company said, “We are still working through getting printers to all the Kickstarter backers, but we are also taking new orders and hope to be able to start delivering those orders by next month.”
Most often it happens that companies have reached the goal amount but have failed to send the product back to the customers. This also shows the lack of confidence of the company on its product. The final output of this is unsatisfied customers who in the course of time become quite angry. This is one of the responses of a backer who was frustrated of waiting for the printer to arrive. He said, “Ordered a printer, didn’t get it, didn’t get any email or correspondence regarding where it went. If you use their unadvertised ticket system on the website, you can get Paula to eventually answer your question. Paula is an inept customer service person, though, so expect issue resolution to go slowly and to be left in the dark. Paula told me after I complained that the printers weren’t being shipped because some of them broke in transit. Would have been nice to hear that prior to the estimated delivery window elapsed, right? I asked for a refund and she said “I’ll forward this to our accounting department” and closed the ticket. I guess it goes without saying that I haven’t heard from them in over two weeks. Don’t buy stuff from this company.”
On the brighter side of all this, there are customers who were the lucky few who have got an intimation of their printers. One such backer says, “I got mine in my mail yesterday. Time to start assembling it! I don’t know about their past business, but keep in mind, this was a Kickstarter campaign. They didn’t have a bunch in stock that they could start shipping as soon as the campaign ended. Kickstarter is NOT a store. Too many people seem to forget that. Yes, they needed more frequent communication and they were too optimistic on delivery times. Mistakes most companies make.”
Mixed responses are there for all the products that have entered the Kickstarter campaign. Hopefully this new 3D printer which is a pure reflection of the one produced by QU-BD, does not replicate the way in which QU-BD has let down its backers.
Source: http://www.gizmag.com/worlds-cheapest-3d-printer-moves-forward-qu-bd/32151/
