Order and Shipping update from RS & Allied

[cjthebrave]

Upon request from RS, I've removed an RS employee's email address from some of these posts. It won't work as a shortcut.

Haha - so now they're not happy with simply burying heads in the sand!!
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
I fear I've placed my last order with RS !!

[Toirtín Súcraobh]

I am another frustrated and disappointed RS customer. What I can't understand is how so many people were able to order and receive more than one Pi before those who had been restricted to one had their order filled. I understand the One customer One Pi rule was changed sometime after I first registered my interest back in April, but surely it should only have been lifted after those who had no choice had been sorted out.
I registered my interest on April 10th. I was invited to order on June 22nd which I duly did. My credit card payment went through the same day. I heard nothing from RS until I eventually cracked and sent them an e-mail this week wondering where my unit was since the infamous 10 weeks were well and truly up. My order number is 991** so when I noticed that they claimed to have filled order number 101000 I was concerned. When I took a look here, I realized that I was by no means the only one. I e-mailed RS again asking why my order hadn't yet arrived since it was well past the current shipping batch. Here is the reply I received:

"Apologies for your frustrations with the despatches of your Raspberry Pi order. We encountered a problem at the depot during the dispatch of order numbers 95000 to 100000. Unfortunately your order was included in this and we did not pick, pack and dispatch your Pi. Unfortunately we did not discover the mistake in time and are now awaiting our latest batch of Raspberry Pi boards to arrive here at RS in order that we can despatch your board out to you as soon as they arrive. We are expecting to dispatch your Pi in the last week of September as soon as we get the stock into our warehouse. We sincerely apologise for the delay and any inconvenience caused

Thank you for your patience,

Raspberry Pi Team"

How can RS simply "not pick, pack and dispatch" my Pi. How many customers orders have they forgotten about like this? It beggars belief that that make such a fundamental mistake as not filling orders by the numbers. Primary school children would understand the concept of a first-come, first-served queue. RS's failure here is highlighted by the efficiency of Farnell who seem to have been able to manage to fulfill orders in a timely manner. I won't be using RS again, and I really hope the Foundation take on board our frustrations and deal with this supplier accordingly.

[cjthebrave]

"Apologies for your frustrations with the despatches of your Raspberry Pi order. We encountered a problem at the depot during the dispatch of order numbers 95000 to 100000. Unfortunately your order was included in this ...........

Interesting . . . . . .
I received the following e-mail :-

"We encountered a problem at the depot during the dispatch of orders 80000-85000 (your order ref.83xxx). Unfortunately your order was included in this and was not dispatched on time. The point at which we realised our mistake we were too late and are now awaiting the latest dispatch of Pi's to rectify our mistake. We are now expecting to dispatch your Pi by the end of the month at the latest. We sincerely apologise for the delay and any inconvenience caused,"

It seems there is a bigger problem that I first thought - anywhere between 80000 and 100000, your guess is as good as anybodies - though undoubtedly better than RS's - they really can't count, or these e-mails are to say the least 'mis-leading'
RS appear to have failed on around the last 20% of their initial 100000 orders looking at this.
Does anyone else have this or a similar mail with different numbers in it?
I really don't want to appear to be accusing RS of lying , surely they knew customers would compare e-mails, but I now suspect what I though was finally an honest admission of failure could actually be far from it, just another fabricated e-mail to quieten us down a bit longer !!
Any thoughts?
CJ

[H3pha3stus]

Well, Two days ago I finally gave up on RS and placed an order with Farnell (Element14) thinking that their wait time was surely gong to better than the remaining time I would still have to wait for RS, Yesterday my Pi from Farnell arrived.. Yes, That's right. Farnell was able to receive my order and dispatch the same day and have it to me within 24 hours.... Needless to say I have cancelled my order with RS...now the waiting game for a refund begins... I wonder how much interest they've gained on my money in 4 months which i ultimately have nothing to show for except wasted time..

I also think its ridiculous that RS has asked a user to remove a staff email address, Good on users for posting addresses that may work, because the provided address certainly doesn't.. and RS are not replying on these forums either.. clearly just trawling through looking for ways to ping users for their negative comments.. I am very tempted to bring these issues up with some variety of commerce commission to have RS's practices looked into as I am certain they must be breaching consumer rights..

[cjthebrave]

Yeah, I suspect with the correct expertise it could be shown that RS are in breach of "The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008" and their handling of what essentially has been a supply issue has been nothing short of shambolic. Shame, as from my experience, they excel at their core business. I suspect the Pi product has been project managed (if that's not a contradiction of terms) by someone with 'less experence' if thats the tactful way of putting it.

[rmwebs]

I still feel its a bit much that RS are not here explaining themselves. All we got was 1 post from them, with Liz saying 'be nice as she's a nice lady'.

Lets put aside the foundation aspect for a second here and be blunt: RS have been crap when it comes to customer care, and thats putting it in a 'forum friendly' manor.

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to support and recommend the Pi when the foundation seems either blissfully unaware, or unable/unwilling to act against something that can be rectified fairly easily.

Something as simple as RS providing someone on the end of an email address (that actually responds) would suffice, but even that isn't being offered.

With the deepest of respect to the foundation this has to be said - please sort RS out or at least tell customers you dont give a damn.

[JustPat]

RS, you're so stupid.

Let's see,

Mike@RS:

Last visited:
Wed Sep 05, 2012 11:10 am

BUT last post:
Wed Jun 27, 2012 12:16 pm

Soooo you're clearly visiting the site, seeing all the negative posts... yet no response.

Go ahead RS, keep your heads buried in the sand. See how that works out for you...

Upon request from RS, I've removed an RS employee's email address from some of these posts. It won't work as a shortcut.

Oh dear, well this doesn't look too good. Is it really that much trouble to assign one person on this mythical "Raspberry Pi Team at RS" to respond to a handful of intelligent questions once a day, a week, or even a month. Take a page from MCM's book RS and stop being lazy. Liz even alludes to the fact in some of her posts that she, personally, has asked RS to send someone over to answer some questions, and yet we get nothing. One of the top dogs of the foundation asks you to spend 10 minutes of your day answering questions on a forum, and you just ignore the request? What kind of a company does that? I don't know if you realize this or not RS, but you have lost way more money in potential customers than you have gained from refusing to hire someone to answer our questions. I would feel bad for you for having to deal with this, but I can't when you treat your customers this way.

[Dweeber]

"Apologies for your frustrations with the despatches of your Raspberry Pi order. We encountered a problem at the depot during the dispatch of order numbers 95000 to 100000. Unfortunately your order was included in this ...........

Interesting . . . . . .
I received the following e-mail :-

"We encountered a problem at the depot during the dispatch of orders 80000-85000 (your order ref.83xxx). Unfortunately your order was included in this and was not dispatched on time. The point at which we realised our mistake we were too late and are now awaiting the latest dispatch of Pi's to rectify our mistake.

Read this just before going to a boring meeting... so I was thinking about it the whole meeting...

If the numbers are anywhere correct, that more than $175k-$280k+ worth of pre-paid product that they have somehow lost track of in their system and didn't deliver.

[szaleniec]

I'm waiting for a credit card refund. Do you or anybody know which is the limit of days that I need to wait?. I cancelled on August 28.

I cancelled my order on August 2. and still waiting for my credit card refund.
First version was 14 working days, second - 25. And after 25 working days no money, no answer, no explanation from RS.

[iscroman]

Hi, I already received my refund. On September 03. week after the cancellation.

Send an email to:

S ha r o n.G l en @ r s - co m p o ne n ts . co m (without spaces).

Asking for your refund.

Regards.

I'm waiting for a credit card refund. Do you or anybody know which is the limit of days that I need to wait?. I cancelled on August 28.

I cancelled my order on August 2. and still waiting for my credit card refund.
First version was 14 working days, second - 25. And after 25 working days no money, no answer, no explanation from RS.

[denzil]

here is the email i recived from rs thursday , my reply is between the ** **
this is uk only just shows the contempt that rs are treating us all

( does anyone else think its funny that rs can ask the admin to remove email addresses but cant
respond to any questions !!)

the email

Good afternoon Denzil



Apologies for the delay in responding to your email – unfortunately I do take the time to investigate these issues as they are passed to me, and as a result there is often a delay before I am able to respond



I will take your concerns and issues you identified and answer them individually:



1. Informed at the shipping date of the delay

I understand your concern with this, and this is not how we wish to treat customers. The delay is due to the availability of the processor chip used on the Raspberry Pi. We were working right up to the point we sent the email to try to secure the relevant chips to satisfy our demand (your demand) but unfortunately we were unable to get the chips in time to manufacture the boards to ship to you

Not an ideal situation, and we are still trying to expedite deliveries to try to exceed our indicated dates to reduce the impact our customers are seeing

** Are you really trying to tell me that you could not have let customers know there was a problem before the shipping date , im sorry but that a load of rubbish , even if you were working up to the last minute trying to secure the chips , it would have still taken time for

Production to make the pi`s , so that would have led to a delay , so you should have informed your customers that this was the case when you knew , this is what I meant when I stated you have treated all us customers in a underhanded manner , it seems to me that

The plan was to keep “our” money in “your” bank account as long as possible after all if no one expect there money back for 3 weeks ( 14 working days=3 weeks) another 2 weeks and they will have there kit (well until you send another email telling us there is going to be another delay )**

2. Stocks of Raspberry Pi boards

Due to unexpected demand from Europe, Asia and America our supply has been heavily outweighed by demand. This means we have had to introduce the lead times we have given to enable us to build the boards and ship them to our customers

** So how comes cpc / farnels have stock and can deliver in 5 working day and don’t debit my account until it ships ( ive just order 10 from them for a project that will lead to at least 300 units) and why didn’t you stop taking order when you realised that the

Demand was out stripping you supply ( the word your looking for is greed !)**

3. Delay in responding

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. We are introducing measurement and control onto the team managing the inbox to identify if we approach anything like those delays, so we can manage resources to enable us to better deal with customer issues. I can only apologise your email took a little time to get to the first time around

For the delay in this response, well that is all my fault as I like to know all the facts before I reply, which can take a little time

**It always amazes me that when I do a sales inquire you reply with in 20 mins yet when there a problem it takes days to get a response !!! and im not the only one complaining about the lack of response ( have a look at the forums ,

the poor girl at the raspberry pi foundation has stop answering post about this , and the last time I looked you still hadn’t responded to her request for information ) the mushroom syndrome might be a fact at rs but us customers are sick of it .**

4. 14 day refund time

The Distance Selling Regulations are clear that we give a refund within 30 days of the cancellation request at the latest, and as soon as possible. As I am sure you can appreciate we have had a number of customers cancel their orders over time, and as a result we have endeavoured to keep pace with the refunds and try to perform inside the 14 day period. We are currently well within the 14 day period we quote to all our customers when they cancel and will continue to improve the delay our customers experience waiting for their credit

**The wording says it all “AS SOON AS POSSIBLE” and 14 working days is not as soon as possible . after all you didn’t have problems processing payments when you were taking our money did you .**



All in all I can only apologise for the experience you have received with your Raspberry Pi order with RS. We are working every day to improve our processes and procedures to give a better service to our customers, and thank you for your feedback that lets us analyse the issues our customers are seeing and let us put into place safeguards and controls to minimise the effects happening again

**This is why your company will never see another penny out of me ,or any company I work for , in fact I emailed all my engineers on Monday to inform them that any invoice from rs they send in for reimbursement will not be honoured

Due to the fact that we cant trust your company to be honest , if you can do this sort of thing with the pi`s , whats stopping you doing the same thing on tools , components and test equipment my engineers buy on a daily basis cpc

Can have the business , at least there honest with delivery times **



**I will be following this up with a personal letter to you md expressing my disappointment in the shabby way your company has dealt with this matter.**





Best regards



Simon Debenham

[rmwebs]

A well put email Simon!

I did have a thought.

Given the recent revision 2 and uk production announcement (all of which RS was not mentioned on, and Liz/Eben would not provide any answers to comments asking about RS) I'm wondering if the foundation is moving away from RS.

It would obviously be wrong for RS to be selling the revision 2 board with a dye saying 'Made in the UK' when it isn't. Unless they have a different Dye, then they surely wont be selling the rev2 board.

[cutterjohn]

A well put email Simon!

I did have a thought.

Given the recent revision 2 and uk production announcement (all of which RS was not mentioned on, and Liz/Eben would not provide any answers to comments asking about RS) I'm wondering if the foundation is moving away from RS.

It would obviously be wrong for RS to be selling the revision 2 board with a dye saying 'Made in the UK' when it isn't. Unless they have a different Dye, then they surely wont be selling the rev2 board.

Oh yes they can still mfg a rev2 board, but you're right about the made in UK thing, but that's simply the silkscreening on the PCB, easily changed/deleted when their PCBs are mfged.

It'll be interesting IF RS keep shipping the modified rev1 boards, but the rev2 look to save them a bit of money which is probably good as I'm sure that they're not exactly making a ton of $$$ of the pis, probably more along the lines of pocket change to them.

...but 14d for a refund?! That's preposterous! EVERY other company that I've gotten a refund from online has taken precisely 1d. Even getting refunds by snailmail usually took less than 14d as well!

[rmwebs]

A well put email Simon!

I did have a thought.

Given the recent revision 2 and uk production announcement (all of which RS was not mentioned on, and Liz/Eben would not provide any answers to comments asking about RS) I'm wondering if the foundation is moving away from RS.

It would obviously be wrong for RS to be selling the revision 2 board with a dye saying 'Made in the UK' when it isn't. Unless they have a different Dye, then they surely wont be selling the rev2 board.

Oh yes they can still mfg a rev2 board, but you're right about the made in UK thing, but that's simply the silkscreening on the PCB, easily changed/deleted when their PCBs are mfged.

It'll be interesting IF RS keep shipping the modified rev1 boards, but the rev2 look to save them a bit of money which is probably good as I'm sure that they're not exactly making a ton of $$$ of the pis, probably more along the lines of pocket change to them.

...but 14d for a refund?! That's preposterous! EVERY other company that I've gotten a refund from online has taken precisely 1d. Even getting refunds by snailmail usually took less than 14d as well!

Dont forget thats 14 business days! So actually its 3 weeks! Pretty piss poor IMO.

[bluesun]

The Raspberry Pi I ordered tuesday on eBay arrived yesterday. It is even a revision 2 board "Made in the UK" from Farnell / Element14.

Still waiting for my Pi ordered at RS on 21th june.....

[Pi-Scan]

Anyone applied for free case with your pi?

Since we al have to wait another 5 weeks excluded shipping time, and it's certainly not our fault.

I've sent them a mail regarding this and they said they would look into it..

[szaleniec]

...but 14d for a refund?! That's preposterous! EVERY other company that I've gotten a refund from online has taken precisely 1d. Even getting refunds by snailmail usually took less than 14d as well!

Dont forget thats 14 business days! So actually its 3 weeks! Pretty piss poor IMO.

I've been waiting 5 weeks so far and still no refund.

[cutterjohn]

...but 14d for a refund?! That's preposterous! EVERY other company that I've gotten a refund from online has taken precisely 1d. Even getting refunds by snailmail usually took less than 14d as well!

Dont forget thats 14 business days! So actually its 3 weeks! Pretty piss poor IMO.

I've been waiting 5 weeks so far and still no refund.

It boggles the mind. HTH do they manage to stay in business and/or retain customers for that matter? It's not as if they're the ONLY supplier of various electronic components/etc. for (primarily) industrial customers, just, apparently, the most incompetent.

[EDIT]
I AM just SO glad that Element 14 had a MUCH shorter est. delivery time frame v. RS AND that I didn't know about their dodgy shipping packaging ahead of time, but I guess mine must be one of the few that managed to be so well abused during shipment... so apparently it's not a problem.

And I really had wanted to order one from RS to see their packaging(the boxes/stuff might even be collectibles some day)... oh well, a r2 from Element 14 it is...
[/EDIT]

[W. H. Heydt]

I've been waiting 5 weeks so far and still no refund.

It boggles the mind. HTH do they manage to stay in business and/or retain customers for that matter? It's not as if they're the ONLY supplier of various electronic components/etc. for (primarily) industrial customers, just, apparently, the most incompetent.

I don't think that's a valid conclusion from the available data. If one isn't ordering a Pi (or any special items, like cases, that relate to a Pi), from what others have said, RS is an efficient and competent supplier.

What has happened with the Pi appears to be a convergence of acts and effects--a "perfect storm", as it were--that has caused RS to have severe issues with this one product and it's related support devices. And even then, not everyone has had problems with RS. The only reason it looks that way is that it is very likely that those for whom everything has gone smoothly--even if slowly--aren't here talking about it. After all, if you make an order and the product arrives on time (or maybe even a bit earlier than expected), why would come on a public forum to say anything?

[cjthebrave]

What has happened with the Pi appears to be a convergence of acts and effects--a "perfect storm", as it were

I concur with the sentiment regarding RS's other business, however 'Perfect Storm' or not, the company cannot be excused for it's total lack of customer focus and service, that is something they do have control over.
Not answering queries, and on the rare occasions that answers are forthcoming, making them seem less than convincing, together with their blatant ignorance of the irritation they have caused many thousands of customers cannot be excused.
To be enticed (politely) by the Foundation on more than one occasion to provide some kind of explanation and simply ignore it I would say is inexcusable, and the impact this may have on the perception of RS as a whole is, to put it bluntly, 'deserved' I'm afraid.

RS, it's time to come out of your hole and face the music !! People would hold you in much higher esteem if you simply put your hands up and said "yeah we cocked up" !! Then, once you've coughed to that, putting us clearly in the picture of what we can and cannot expect moving forward would be much appreciated, instead of this veil of part silence and part misleading information.

( And I know you're reading these posts too )

[hippy]

from what others have said, RS is an efficient and competent supplier.

In thirty-plus years I don't think I've heard any substantive complaint about RS. I've always considered them a reputable, competent and reliable company but they really do seem to have dropped the ball in handling the Pi.

Maybe it's because they are primarily a supplier to business, found themselves in at the deep-end, but they've had six months to get their act together and seem to have spectacularly failed in that.

I really don't know what to think. Something seems to have gone catastrophically wrong and I really do hope they can get that resolved. Hopefully it's not the case that there's not enough profit in it to provide the infrastructure and support needed or deserved or the future for RS in respect of Pi sales to the general public looks bleak.

[cwiggs]

from what others have said, RS is an efficient and competent supplier.

the future for RS in respect of Pi sales to the general public looks bleak.

Yea, my initial order was with Allied, never dealt with RS directly but remembered Allied from my old Knight Kit days. They'll not get more business from me.

[rmwebs]

from what others have said, RS is an efficient and competent supplier.

In thirty-plus years I don't think I've heard any substantive complaint about RS. I've always considered them a reputable, competent and reliable company but they really do seem to have dropped the ball in handling the Pi.

Maybe it's because they are primarily a supplier to business, found themselves in at the deep-end, but they've had six months to get their act together and seem to have spectacularly failed in that.

I really don't know what to think. Something seems to have gone catastrophically wrong and I really do hope they can get that resolved. Hopefully it's not the case that there's not enough profit in it to provide the infrastructure and support needed or deserved or the future for RS in respect of Pi sales to the general public looks bleak.

The problem is that they seemingly dont give a damn. They have made no effort at all to reach out. They ignore customers, give rude responses on the phone, etc. They deserve all the negative rep they get.

The foundation MUST make a formal comment. We've heard very little from them other than 'sorry' - obviously its NOT the foundations fault, responsibility, however they are the only ones that can seemingly help, and so far have been very quiet about the whole thing.

At this stage it seems (and I hope) that something may be happening in the background. I can only hope that the foundation pulls the license to RS as they clearly cant and wont cope.

[Burngate]

It's very difficult for an outsider to know what's going on inside RS, but my take on this is that at the moment RS are feeling royally screwed.

It was obvious to me from the start that they have been having difficulty with their e-mail system - note that several addresses were given out, to speed up communication with customers. Yet still customers are having difficulty contacting them. What their IT guys are doing who knows, but I would guess they're under a spam tsunami.

Then recently it seems they can't get SoCs. Why not is another unknown, but I can't see them just sitting back doing nothing - they'll have been spending their time rushing round trying to sort it. And the fact that they haven't yet sorted it means to me that it's a difficult problem.

Now comes rev2. Were RS consulted about it, were they even in the loop? Did Farnell start the rev2 off their own bat and tell the foundation they were going down that path, or did the foundation start it but leave RS out? We won't be told, but either way, at the moment RS are feeling royally screwed.

[Pi-Scan]

SO ARE WE!