Don't buy ego-t atomizers from eastmall!

[EMRocks]

@coinmaster

Well, I'm glad you finally found your holy grail PV

For me, I quit tobacco before I even knew of Eastmall, even before I worked for V4L in 2008 (or was it 2009?). I quit on a "LoongTotem v9" clone from epuffer - my first PV. I spent like $250 on everything I got, and both batteries died within 2 weeks, and I was blatantly ignored and ultimately denied on a warranty claim, so I understand the frustration of defective items and bad customer service as much as anyone else here. That was when I ordered from V4L after seeing the Vapor King review from Leaford (it was actually an "upcoming reviews" preview video he made before the actual review). Steve and I hit it off right away, and after finding out that I was a web developer, he sent me to Chicago to meet up with him about building his website. He didn't have a website at the time and was taking orders on ecf via PayPal, ala "leave a note in PayPal detailing the product(s) you want".

That's how I became acquainted with David. He was the supplier for V4L at the time, and selling V4L all their hardware and liquid wholesale. David and I became friends, and after I left V4L, he started talking to me about building a website - the last two ended in disaster, and he was desperately seeking out someone who could do it right for the right price, and who could stick around full-time to keep expanding, improving, and maintaining it. This one still has some minor bugs, nothing that you'll probably notice from a user standpoint (mostly in the admin), but it's coming along.

We were going to launch it on the first of the year, but because the last website was down more often that it was up, we needed to just get it to a point where it was secure and workable enough for an emergency launch. It's still being worked on 8-10 hours daily, 5-6 days a week, but I'm the only one who's ever worked on it, so it's coming along slowly but surely. It is (mostly) a custom system, with a lot of classes (programming lingo) "borrowed" from other object-oriented PHP ecommerce systems, so that's why it took almost 7 months from announcement to launch (and I became REALLY quiet here on the forums during that time. 12-16 hour days 7 days per week weren't uncommon during the last 3 months before launch).

Sorry about rambling off on a tangent, but I kinda wanted to give a little info on my background and past experiences, and how I came to be here. I hope you decide to at least stick with us for your liquid and batteries if you choose to get your atties somewhere else. I'm trying really hard to monitor the quality and customer service, even though it's outside the scope of my duties, because I want to help EM exceed all of your expectations. 2012 is going to be Eastmall's best year, both for the customers and for the company, because I'm determined to make sure that it is (and I don't even make commissions, so it's not for personal gain).

 

[coinmaster]

Great reply Chris

You know, in all reality, I am aware that David Yang is an honest operator with the best interests of his customers as a focus. This is why I was frustrated with the EgoT issue. The fact that despite it being a faulty product, it remained on sale via the EM website. There's just no point in replacing faulty product with faulty product IMO, or to continue selling faulty product.

Here's how I would approach this if I was David:

1. Sell product
2. Receive feedback that product is faulty and/or not the original EgoT design
3. Check/test existing stock to ascertain the issue
4. If required, remove product from stock/website until issue is resolved (this would avoid many returns and warranty claims)
5. Advise existing customers via website notice
6. Contact supplier/manufacturer to ask why they're supplying faulty and defective product
7. Source satisfactory product
8. Re-stock

Seems quite simple to me

 

[EMRocks]

Great reply Chris

You know, in all reality, I am aware that David Yang is an honest operator with the best interests of his customers as a focus. This is why I was frustrated with the EgoT issue. The fact that despite it being a faulty product, it remained on sale via the EM website. There's just no point in replacing faulty product with faulty product IMO, or to continue selling faulty product.

Here's how I would approach this if I was David:

1. Sell product
2. Receive feedback that product is faulty and/or not the original EgoT design
3. Check/test existing stock to ascertain the issue
4. If required, remove product from stock/website until issue is resolved (this would avoid many returns and warranty claims)
5. Advise existing customers via website notice
6. Contact supplier/manufacturer to ask why they're supplying faulty and defective product
7. Source satisfactory product
8. Re-stock

Seems quite simple to me

I would agree here if it were actually a widespread thing and not just a few isolated cases. I can't really speak for David, but this is how I think he sees it: if we sold, say, 100 kits and 500 atomizers per month, and after the product was in the store for 4 months, we had complaints and returns from 5 or 6 people, plus maybe another 50 returns even (like 12 per month), that's a very small percentage in the scheme of things. You'd be talking maybe 50 out of every 2000 atomizers sold. That's 1 in 40, or about a 2.5% defect rate. It's true that one could argue that "well I ordered 10 and 9 of them were bad, so that's more like 90%", but that would be where they keep coming back with saying "it's a bad batch", because overall the return rate is still 2.5% based on combined sales.

All of these numbers are hypothetical, but you get the point. i do know for a fact that our rate of returns and complaints on these is way too low to pull the product -yet-, but David has been talking to the manufacturer (same factory that makes Janty and everyone else's eGo supplies) why at least some of our eGo atties are being reported as different. Maybe they thought they'd get one over on him and no one would notice. Maybe now that they know it's come to our attention, they'll start sending better ones. I'm still waiting to hear back from David on the verdict of this, although he's said that they're coming in better quality, but I'd like to know for sure if something was going on and what (not that it's my job to supervise factories, or that I think it's my place to assign myself authority over things, I just really want to see things improve. Even if it's over a 2.5% defect rate - let's get it down to 1%. Then, let's get it down to 0.5%).

You might want to try the Riva-T anyway. IMO a much better product than the eGo-T (just as the standard Riva hands down beats the standard eGo).

 

[runninlater]

EMRocks & Coinmaster,

I'm glad my post got some attention from the folks at Eastmall. I was truly appalled at the attitude I received while trying to claw my way through the warranty/return process.

I know that the EM return policy is "the customer gets to pay shipping both directions". I found that to be extremely unfair when the shipment was 100% failure.

After finally throwing my hands up and saying just refund the original purchase amount of $79.00, Selina emailed me and wanted to know why I thought is was fair that they pay the return shipping. (Really?)

My response was: If you hadn't shipped me junk in the first place I WOULDN'T EVEN BE TALKING TO YOU!!!!

Even considering the language gap, that response must have been understood. EM refunded my $79.00 plus the $9.60 for the return shipping.

I have a very hard time believing that the Ego-T atomizers I received are actually made by Joyetech. They were a similar design but different from any other Ego-T atomizer I've ever seen. They did not work. If they are made by the same manufacturer supplying other vendors than David is truly getting ripped off.

Hopefully quality control will improve and a U.S return depot would entice me to try EM products again.

 

[txtumbleweed]

I've got to agree the Riva-T is so much better than the ego-t anyways. I hear they are coming out with a Riva-T LR model do you know when it will be available? I like these just fine but so many people won't give them a try unless they are LR. I think if they tried them they would be surprised. Absolutely no leaks and very very good flavor and vapor.