Saturday, September 22, 2007

Three months has passed...

I almost forgot about it, but it has now been over three months since the Medison Celebrity was made available for purchase trough medisoncelebrity.com. Time for them to celebrate maybe? Or maybe not, since they haven't really sold any...
It doesn't seem like they want to give up though. Customers who has contacted Medison has received replies like:

"We are sorry, but just now you can't order any laptops because we are busy completing the delivery of the ones we have already sold.
Once that has been done, we will resume taking new orders.
Please check our website later for more information."

and

"At this time can't give a precise date for the delivery but we do ask you to be patient. We hope that you are satisfied with this reply, please don't hesitate to contact us if there are any other questions."

Sounds very convincing and trustworthy, doesn't it?

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Explanations regarding 2co

Just as last time that I wrote questions regarding 2co's acting in this affair, I feel that I get many comments about the blog entry from people that just have read the last few posts and argues about that 2co has already answered everything, that they have handled everything perfect, that I'm spreading misinformation and so on. So it's time for some explanations again.
Please note that this isn't directed towards 2co, this is just an explanation to the readers that don't want to spend several hours reading 2co's forums and the 70+ post on this blog, including discussions in the comments. I'll try to cover some of the reactions point by point.

Everyone who is worried can just cancel their orders!

I don't believe it to be the customers responsibility to investigate the legitimacy of a product sold by a reputable company like 2checkout (remember that they are Medisons reseller, not just payment provider). If a customer purchase a product, they should expect to get it delivered, or if it cannot be delivered get a cancellation notice in a reasonable time frame with an explanation.
Let's also remember that there is lots of people out there that doesn't read Swedish technews, this blog, 2co's forum or any other source that brings light on this issue. Many people have probably totally forgot about that they placed an order three months ago.

2co has already answered the questions, stop bugging them!

Yes and no. I took their statement about the canceled orders as just what they wrote, that it just was about the orders marked as shipped. But as you can read in the comments of my previous postings, on 2co's forums and on several news sites many understood it as all orders was canceled. Therefore I felt that a clarification on the matter was needed from 2co's side. And as it turned out, it was just as I suspected, and a clarification was obviously needed. I would also like to add that I'm totally satisfied with e's answer on the questions, and wonder why it was so hard to answer in a good way from the start.

The problem is not with 2co, they protect the customers!

Yes and no, again. I do agree that they protect the $150, but that is where their responsibility ends according to them, and that's what I don't agree with. If something is sent, and the buyer pays for shipping (as Valdi himself has said), 2co will not cover this extra cost. So imagine if 4Kg of papers are sent (I'm not claiming that this will happen, but Medison has at least shown that they can ship nothing and claim the opposite) from China to USA via UPS, it won't be very cheap. Also, 2co will according to their buyer's agreement not cover any warranty issues and as we know that it can take 3+ months for Medison to answer an e-mail, warranty service might be a hard thing to get from them.
I also don't believe that 2co's responsibility ends at the customers in this case. Valdi is using 2co and their statements ("...it is the opinion of 2CO's CEO that Medison is a legitimate enterprise...") as an argument for their legitimacy towards other partners. This is an issue because Valdi has clearly shown that he is good at one thing at least, and that is to make money disappear (intentional or not), and could lure these partners into losing invested money.

2co has handled this whole thing as they should.

No. 2co has made several statements that they wrote to gain trust from the buyers that they haven't lived up to. Let's take a couple of examples:

They wrote “The order form *will* be corrected. Unfortunately, my point team on resolving many inquiries was collectively unavailable but you'll see the some presentment changes and clarification made soon” about one month before stopping new orders, but it was never fixed.

They wrote "We will require tracking information in this case." on the question if Medison was required to supply tracking numbers on all orders marked as shipped. When the shipping notices were sent out without tracking information their answer changed to “We do not need a tracking number to do verifications this is done by telephone". After this, they even reported to blogs and media that customers had received laptops, just because they received some false reports on that.

They wrote “We've been really supportive and responsive to many questions but, at the end of the process, customers who ordered and have not already canceled will receive one of two communications from 2CO: a). We're canceling your order, or; b). Your order is ready to be shipped -- please reauthorize this sale”. As we all know, the customers that had their orders marked as shipped and charged never received any request for re-authorization. Their reply to this afterwards was that no re-authorization was needed, since shipping was free to Sweden. Not only didn't their first statement mention anything about that it was in regards to shipping, Valdi has clearly stated several times that shipping isn't free, even to Sweden!

Let 2co belive what they want!

Sure, they can believe what they want. Everyone can believe what they want. But, expect the things written above, there is more. To be able to trust a company doing business as a reseller like 2co, it's important that they have good rules towards the suppliers. 2co do have good rules, but do they make sure that the suppliers, Medison in this case, follow them? Let's see:

"Supplier shall maintain sufficient inventory to fulfill purchases by 2CO for resale to Customers in a timely manner. Supplier shall not rely on the existence of a particular Transaction to obtain funds or credit to enable Supplier to obtain the Product necessary to complete the Transaction."
Does anyone think that over three months is "a timely manner", if anything even gets shipped?

"Supplier owns or otherwise has the full right and authority to use and disseminate (1) all information, data, graphics, text, video, music, or other intellectual property which forms a part of its web site, or which is used by Supplier in its advertising and promotional efforts, and (2) the Products it supplies to 2CO (or to potential Customers)."
Medison did not have the right to use Clevo's pictures, apple's privacy policy, Tele 2, Microsoft or Deltaco's ads and logos.

"Supplier is in compliance with all applicable national, federal, state, and local laws, rules, regulations, requirements and/or other standards established by any governmental authority having jurisdiction to control such activities, including, without limitation, the Federal Trade Commission, and State and local consumer protection agencies; Supplier is also in compliance with the regulations of applicable credit card associations regarding the sale of Products over the Internet or other transactions where the credit or debit card utilized for the purchase is not present, which are in effect prior to the effective date of this Agreement, or which become effective during the term of this Agreement."
Medison does not comply with laws in Sweden and UK, from where they operate.

"Supplier shall at all times respond promptly to inquiries from 2CO on behalf of Customers or from Customers directly, and shall endeavor to resolve disputes with said Customer."
There is e-mails sent almost three months ago from customers that hasn't been answered.

"Supplier is expected to maintain a ready inventory of the Products it offers for sale to 2CO, or promptly notify 2CO that an order will not be fulfilled in a timely manner."
See above answers.

"Notifying 2CO that a Product has been shipped to a Customer prior to shipment having occurred."
This has already been covered by 2co.

You need to be more neutral!

Neutral about what? If there would have been any positive in this story, I would have written about it. But there hasn't been one single positive thing to report since all this started three months ago.


Your grammar sucks / You don't have the right to... / You're not a journalist / Keep to only posting news / and so on.

I'm not a journalist. I'm not a news agency. I don't pretend to be an authority of any kind.
I'm a blogger that writes about what I feel important, and as long as I don't spread any misinformation I don't see any problem. Don't like it? Don't read it!

Monday, September 17, 2007

2checkout still supports Medison

(This post in short: It's NOT over!)

As you might have read, I posted the following questions on 2co's forum some days ago (the full conversation can be found here):

The questions we need answers for at this moment, to settle some speculations at least, are the following:
* Are Medison still able to mark the open "authorized orders" as shipped, without any proof at all like last time?
* What will you require Medison to do to open up orders of them again, and what proofs of this will you require?
* How long are the deadline until you cancel all orders if the above isn't met?

These questions should be easy to answer and shouldn't violate anything or anyone. These questions are the ones that currently are in the customers and the general public's interest. Agreed?

kristin from 2co has now posted a reply:

"The questions you want answered are directly related to vendor status and that is confidential information. Since the orders erroneously marked shipped have been refunded there are no additional credit card orders in our system which need to be canceled.

2Checkout carries the liability in regard to this issue and the proofs we will require are also subject to negotiation between Medison and 2Checkout.

Your concern, as either a "potential vendor or customer" should end with the knowledge that you, as a consumer, are protected and that you, as a vendor, won't be the topic of conversation due to a self-appointed protector the the online shopping community who believes they should be privy to internal communications about your business, product or past.

2Checkout was founded to help the entrepreneur. We do business with a quite a few people with bad credit, who lost their merchant accounts due to excessive fraud or who simply want to dip their toes into the online selling community before diving in with long-term contracts, etc. That is no way is indicative of a lack of commitment toward protecting our consumers because we hold the fiscal responsibility. "Buyer beware" doesn't apply when 2Checkout is the middleman.

You've managed to skew that perspective around because we won't play into your desire to be the source of information regarding Medison and if customers or vendors choose to go elsewhere because of that I would hope they'd reconsider because you've done a great disservice in generating any type of doubts about the integrity of our business.


Finally, should Medison get the kinks worked out I'll personally be buying a laptop or two. Especially if it is sold via 2Checkout. It's a bargain."

Yes, that's right, instead of answering the questions, they go full out with a personal attack against me. Good work, that really shows how serious they are. :/
They also show that they, for some reason, still believes that the laptops just are some "kinks" away. Unbelievable.

The small answer we do get though, is that all orders except the few hundred that was marked as shipped still stands, and that the persons with those orders could have their cards charged without any delivery what so ever, and have to wait for a month for 2co to return the money as last time.

I posted the following reply:

Thanks for your reply. Can I take this answer as a confirmation that all other orders still are active? Would be great with a clarification on that, since many customers believe that everything is canceled from your previous replies, and it has also been reported that all orders has been canceled on news sites. You must agree on that it's important with proper information to the customers at least?
I would also like to say that I don't understand the part about "you've done a great disservice in generating any type of doubts about the integrity of our business". The only thing I have done is to ask questions in the public interest and provide you, other partners, media and customers with facts. If that creates doubts about your business it's really your own fault!


That will be my last try to communicate with them, they have clearly shown that they rather want people to spread rumors and speculate instead.

In other news, medison.se was down for some time earlier today with the message:

Account over bandwidth
Maximum bandwidth has been exceeded and this page has been temporarily disabled. Please go to your service manager to purchase more and reactivate.

Remember what Valdi wrote in the last press release, that they changed hosting provider to increase the availability of the sites? No comments from me necessary...

Digg my article

Saturday, September 15, 2007

So what now?

Yes, what now? Is the story over? What will happen next?
What we currently are waiting for is Valdi's press release that should come "soon" as he said last Thursday. Were also waiting on what action he will take with the now defunct order button on medisoncelebity.com, that hasn't been working since Wednesday. It wouldn't really surprise me if he set up an account with paypal, worldpay or Google checkout instead, or just claim that THEY chose to take down the order page until they have solved the "logistic problems" with current orders.

I'm also waiting on answers from 2checkout on the three following questions that should be answer without breaking any contracts or things like that:
  • Are Medison still able to mark the open "authorized orders" as shipped, without any proof at all like last time?
  • What will you require Medison to do to open up orders for them again, and what proofs of this will you require?
  • How long are the deadline until you cancel all orders if the above isn't met?

Anyway, I listened to Medisons press conference (the one from first of August). It's even more crazy when listening to it now in retrospective. As many people have requested it, I'm considering to transcribe some of the parts to English while waiting, if people still are interested in it. The audio files are over two hours, so it will probably take awhile, but I can do in parts and post it in sequels. I can give you a quick sample:

Journalist: - The computer has a Czech keyboard...
Valdi: - No, It hasn't. It, it has Czech keys yes, but it's not a Czech Keyboard.
Journalist : - But what are the definition?
Valdi: - Ehhh, no, this keyboard also have other... so... other keys except the Czech ones... that are on other keyboards. So it is not a Czech keyboard.

As a side note you can see from this photo taken at the press conference that it actually has a 100% Czech notebook keyboard layout.
So if you like me too do an English transcription, please give me a shout in the comments or e-mail me and I'll start work on it if the interest is high enough!

Thursday, September 13, 2007

"Answers" from 2co & Medison

Jnytt published a short notice today about the cancellation of orders like many other sites and newspapers. The difference i Jnytt's article is that they apparently got in contact with Valdi regarding the cancellations. He doesn't want to comment, but still says that "it's just a few persons that have chosen to cancel their orders, that has had their money returned". He also said that they will release a new press release "soon". This does not match what 2co has said at all.

2Checkout also posted a response to my last post, as usual in their "we answer, but doesn't really answer anything anyway"-way:

"All remaining orders are authorizations only and will resolve back into the customers account if they have not done so already. No funds have been taken from their cards. Customers may feel confident that 2Checkout has continually monitored this matter, and that certain measures have been taken regarding Medison's account."

As I understand this answer, they are continuing their support for Medison. I have replied with the following post:

"Do you still do business with Valdi/Medison? Do they still have the option to mark those orders as shipped without any details at all like they did, causing customers to be charged?If you plan to continue your support towards Medison/Valdi, what will your requirements be to open up for new orders?
And if you continue your support, why? There is at least four direct breaches towards your TOS..."

And as a direct result of their book-example of bad and inadequate communication, many newspapers and sites are reporting that 2co has canceled all Medison-orders, which isn't correct.

Edit:
Oh, and in an interview in Aftonbladet, Medisons "Swedish CEO" Robert Klanjac answers "no comments" to all questions! I don't think that guy ever has said anything useful regarding Medison.

In other news, two persons has been removed from Medisons management according to medison.se; Per Söderberg (Sales Manager) and Lauri Kuru (Press Relations) are no longer listed there. None of those persons has ever commented anything in regards of the Medison Celebrity.

"2CO has suspended accepting new orders"

2co has made the following statement on their forum:

"Due to the logistical problems currently preventing Medison Europe Limited from shipping their Celebrity laptop, and the backlog of current orders, 2CO has suspended accepting new orders at this time.
Some orders were inappropriately marked as shipped, in violation of 2CO's terms of service, and therefore the cardholders were billed. Affected orders will be automatically refunded within the next 48 hours unless the customer specifically requests to suspend the refund at this time. Affected customers have been contacted separately via email."

I'm still very perplexed by the wording of their answer. Seems like they are prepared to continue working with Medison and Valdi even after that he clearly has shown what he is capable of, just if they solve the "logistical problems". It also seems like that they won't cancel orders that are ordered but not not marked as shipped. Are they just waiting for those orders to get "inappropriately marked as shipped" too?

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Breaking news: 2co cancel Medison-orders!

Several persons have reported both on different forums and in e-mails to me that they have had their orders canceled by 2checkout, the payment provider Medison uses. The mail has been sent to the persons that got a shipping notice and had their credit cards charged three and a half weeks ago. The e-mail contains the following text:

"Dear 2Checkout customer, I thank you for your patience regarding your Medison Celebrity Laptop. I apologize, but due to certain logistical problems, your laptop will not be able to be delivered at this time. 2Checkout.com has issued you a full refund and you should see this on your statement within 5-7 days. 2Checkout.com will contact you and inform you when you may replace your order for your Medison Celebrity laptop."

This means that 2co confirms that these orders was marked as shipped in their system before any actual shipment was made. What surprises me most about this is that it seems like 2co will keep on having Medison as a supplier, even that this is a clear violation of their own Terms of service for suppliers. The terms clearly states that the suppliers account should be "immediately suspended":

"If 2CO ascertains that Supplier is allowing or conducting any of the following listed activities, the Account will be immediately suspended and funds for completed sales of products or services to 2CO will be withheld from Supplier pursuant to Section 13:
[...]
Prematurely Marking Products as Shipped to Customer: Notifying 2CO that a Product has been shipped to a Customer prior to shipment having occurred."

I'm getting more and more confused about 2co's actions each day, I wonder what they really are up too?

---

Update: As a reader noted in the comments, it is not currently possible to place any orders trough 2co currently, after the first page it gives an error. I of course ask 2co why this is, and if they actually have suspended the account after all!

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

medison.se suspended again!

I contacted Medisons new hosting company that hosts medison.se, and asked why the domain was down. Their answer is that it was due to misconfigured DNS-entries.
However they will not provide hosting for Medison at all due to everything surrounding this story, that it was a mistake from their side to accept them as a customer, and has suspended the hosting account. I wonder who Medison will contact now? I guess he's running out of cheap web hosts supporting .se-domains...

The full answer follows:

"Hej Tommy! Kontopaketet registrerades igår, och de har angivit fel namnservrar så därför fungerar ej deras sida.Vi kommer suspendera kontot ikväll och har kontaktat ägaren om detta. Kontot kommer sedan avslutas.

Vi anser inte att vi kan erbjuda webbplats för medison.se - vi känner väl till detta fall, men har tyvärr begått misstaget att skapa kontot trots allt - ibland blandar man ihop alla de olika domännamnen som förekommer.

Med vänlig hälsning *****

TT: "Valdi has no registered income"

TT has published yet another article regarding Medison. I'll publish it fully translated to English (Have used a machine translator in some parts, sorry if someting is unclear), because I don't think that any extra comments by me are necessary ;)

The debated computer firm Medison owner says that he can finance the project until the business goes around.

But the CEO, with 90 percents of the shares, had no registered income last year and lacks taxed fortune.
- I have lived on my wife. It is her that has supplied the family. Now, it's my turn, says Valdi Ivancic to TT. He does not want to say how much he or the four other owners that owns 10 percents has invested in the company. But total amount itself is according to Ivancic about a in the context very modest sum - about a half million Swedish crowns (about 73 500 USD).
This should, apart from other expenses, be enough to producing the upwards 300 000 portable computers that Medison says has been ordered from the company.


Agreements
- Because of that we have certain agreements with those that produce, assemble and distribute, we don't need to have much more money than that right now, says Ivancic.He states in other word that Medisons collaborative partners, whose identities are not disclosed, give the company credits. But he does not want to describe the contracts in detail. Neither Ivancic wants to tell how much Medison pays per produced computer, according to him only in consideration to the producer.

"Virtual" companies
Ivancic, who is CEO and majority owner in Medison, is nationally registered in Sweden. But the company itself, with the complete name Medison Europe Limited, is registered in Great Britain. A head office does not exist.

- The company is constructed virtually can one say. We are very few persons and we are on traveling foot permanently. Because of that, we sit and communicates a lot via internet and telephone, says Ivancic.
- That makes it difficult to say about the company is here or there.

Was started recently
Medison started the launch of their low cost computer last spring. But Medison Europe Limited was started as late as in the middle of July, according the British company register. According to Ivancic the choice of registering country depended on that the suffix "Ltd" in the name is more internationally accepted than the Swedish "AB".

Earlier have several other Medison-companies with connection to Ivancic, that has been registered in Sweden, been discontinued or has gone bankrupt.

The CEO states that he periodically since 2004 has been living in Brazil, where he been on paternity leave but also has been joint owner and counselor in different companies. He has however all the time been nationally registered in Sweden.

In the two last income-tax returns, those for year 2004 and 2005, he has all in all a declared income from service of just over 20 000 Swedish crowns (about 3000 USD).

New press release from Medison

IDG/Computer Sweden today published a new press release sent to them by Medison. Unfortunately it only seems to be written in Swedish this time:

"Medisons avsikter och datorer till alla
Den senaste tiden har Medison medvetet valt att lägga kraft på att leverera Medison Celebrity laptops till sina kunder. Vi har valt att under en period inte gå ut och bemöta rykten och en del lögner som skapat kritik mot företaget, enskilda personer i Medison och mot den produkt som Medison har. Några individer som skriver bloggar och i diskussionsforum har näst intill gått ut och skrivit att Medison skulle vara ett blufföretag, men även uppmuntrat sina läsare till ren förföljelse av nyckelpersoner i Medison.


Vi på Medison ser att det är svårt att sätta stopp för rykten och lögner skapade av personer som inte har någon insyn i Medison som bolag, vare sig vad gäller avtal, produkter eller betalningsförfaranden. En del av dessa individer väljer att sprida rykten och lögner för att skapa en stark kritik mot företaget Medison. De må göra det av ren avundsjuka eller med andra motiv i bakgrunden, men det kvarstår att dessa individer inte har någon som helst information om leveranser, betalningar eller huruvida Medison skulle vara ett blufföretag.
Ett sådant rykte, byggt på rena lögner, kom den gångna helgen då Medison hade ett tillfälligt stopp på sina sidor
www.medison.se och www.medisoncelebrity.com på Internet. Det har skrivits och spekulerats kring om Medisons ägare har tagit pengar som köpare ska ha betalt för en dator och försvunnit ut från Sverige och nu befinner sig på hemlig ort för att fly rättvisan. Medison svarar nu upp mot denna kritik och beklagar det olyckliga avbrottet på hemsidorna. Detta har vi ju sett kan drabba även riktigt stora företag så sent som i förra veckan. Medison har valt att omdirigera sina sidor på Internet så att vi kan ta emot många fler besökare till våra sidor. Vi har tidigare fått in önskemål om att lägga ner resurser på att öka tillgången till våra sidor på Internet då det under vissa perioder har varit svårt att tillgå dem för allmänheten och våra kunder. För att tillgodose detta önskemål valde således Medison att lägga sig på servrar som vi tror ska kunna svara upp emot den förväntade trafikökningen. Anledningen har alltså INTE varit att Medisons ägare på något vis skulle ha kommit över pengar för att lura några köpare.

Medison har istället inte fått en endaste krona in i bolaget av de beställningar av Medison Celebrity datorer som kommit in via vår hemsida. Pengar har reserverats på beställarens egna konto för att efter en leverans kunna betalas ut till vår amerikanska partner 2Checkout.com (2CO). Först när datorer levererats och 2CO har kunnat verifiera att våra kunder mottagit en Medison Celebrity dator, så har Medison en chans att få pengar överfört till bolagets egna kassa.Medison är ett seriöst företag och kommer att leverera datorer till dem som beställt en dator av oss. På grund av den stora efterfrågan på vår Medison Celebrity dator, även kallad folkdatorn eller tusen-kronors datorn, som kommit in på så kort tid, har vissa delar i logistikledet inte fungerat som de ska. Det innebär dock inte att vi inte kommer leverera eller att man inte kommer få den utlovade produkten för de pengar man betalat. Vi beklagar att så många har fått vänta lite längre än de, från början utlovade, 4-6 veckorna, men vi var ute redan den första augusti på en presskonferens och meddelade att det skulle kunna röja ytterligare ett par veckor på grund av just den stora efterfrågan som kom på datorn.

De som trots denna information känner en viss osäkerhet eller har ändrat sig har naturligtvis den möjligheten att avbryta sin beställning och då ha tillgång till sina pengar igen. I de få fall som det ska ha dragits några pengar via 2CO så kan även dessa pengar fås tillbaka. I samtliga fall uppmanar vi våra kunder att kontakta 2CO för att göra en sådan eventuell avbeställning.Medison har fått in stora orderingångar världen över och företaget förhandlar om exklusivitet med flera företag i flera länder. Vi har fått ett fantastiskt stort gensvar på så kort tid med en minimal organisation. Medison har för avsikt att fullfölja sina åtaganden gentemot sina kunder och framtida partners.

Vi på Medison uppmanar Er som följer Medison och det som skrivs om företaget eller nyckelpersonerna, att inte tro gå på rykten och lögner om att detta skulle vara en bluff. Vi är seriösa affärsmän och gör detta för att ge alla en jämlik möjlighet att få ett demokratiskt redskap som vår Celebrity laptop är. Vi erbjuder detta redskap för ett pris som tidigare var omöjligt att få som konsument. Vi tar vårt fulla ansvar och vi tar hand om våra konsumenter och blivande Celebrity-ägare. Vi kommer att leverera!

Valdi Ivancic

CEO & President

Medison Europe Limited"

Hopefully someone will translate it, or maybe Medison will do so themselves later. But it's the worst press release yet from them yet with loads of pure BS. I'll try to cover some of Valdis points:

"Some individuals that writes blogs and on forums have almost said that Medison is a scam company, but has also encouraged their readers to pure persecution of key persons in Medison." He goes on and writes that it's really hard for them to stop these rumors and speculations, because the persons that writes them doesn't have any insight in Medisons business, contracts, products, payment procedures, deliveries, or if Medison is a scam. The persons that write this do it because of "pure envy or other motives in the background".
Newsflash Valdi: It's not only on blogs and forums that you can read about that Medison might be a scam and is an unserious company. It's everywhere. Newspapers, serious business-sites and so on. And what about the "persecution"? I read loads of blogs and forums about this, but I haven't seen anything about anyone who encourages persecution of anyone in that way.
And of course people doesn't have insight in Medisons business, how could we? And why is it so hard to answer the accusations and rumors, just give us the information that give us anything trustworthy that can be checked with the sources.

After this, he writes about why they changed hosts and the speculations about that they would have shut down the sites and ran of with the money. He writes that thatisn’t the case, but the reason of changing hosting provider was because they have received requests from customers to "increase the availability" of the sites because customers have had problems reaching the sites during "certain periods". To meet this request, they choose to "put themselves on servers that they believe can cope with the expected traffic increase".
Oh, really? Where can we read about those accusations? Sounds quite interesting to read. I thought that the speculations were that their sites were disabled by their previous hosting provider due to one reason or another. And when would these problems have been? I check both sites daily, and never had a problem reaching them until this weekend when they changed hosting provider. And is the solution to this really to shut down the sites and make them inaccessible? As of this moment, medison.se is yet again unreachable, and pages are still missing from medisoncelebrity.com.

Valdi also goes on with the same story as usual about that the customers money are safe with 2co, and that the delay are because of "logistical problems". Seems like it's this story that 2co has bought without getting any facts. He also say that the computers are delayed, but doesn't mention any new date. They also negotiate with several companies in several different countries about "exclusivity", whatever he means with that. He ends with writing that people shouldn’t trust the lies and accusations about Medison, the rant about "democracy" and that they are a serious company that cares about their customers and that they will indeed deliver all computers. Oh please...

Monday, September 10, 2007

New article with Valdi-interview

TT (Swedens biggest news agency) has written a new article containing an interview with Valdi himself! The article are getting published by many major Swedish papers and sites, one of them SvD. A short summary:

  • Valdis "best guess" is that the first computers will arrive in "a couple of weeks". (Tommy: So what about the orders that already has been marked as shipped??)
  • The problem with delivering the computers at this stage is purely a "logistical problem" caused by the "big demand". (Tommy: About 7000 orders according to 2co. Is that really a big demand for Valdi, that earlier wrote in his CV that they were prospecting sales of 200 000 computers per month?)
  • Many of the computers has already been manufactured and assembled in different parts of the world. Valdi does not want to say where they were manufactured or where they are now.
  • Valdi says that their partners (that he doesn't want to mention, as usual) have understood the "seriousness" and are working on getting the computers to be delivered. (Tommy: Anyone surprised? Just in line with his earlier statements)
  • Medison do have some computers ready to be shipped, but they won't send them until a bigger part of the orders can be delivered, to silence critics that say that they only would deliver some computers and then run off with the money. (Tommy: Again, what about the orders already marked as shipped? Also, 2co has confirmed that this can't happen, so why bother?)
  • The reason they sell the computers so cheap is purely because of "democratic issues". If they would have done it to earn money they "would have done something else". (Tommy: So, first they say that they will earn money from only sell computers, then they change it to that they will earn money from ads and partnerships, and now they don't need to earn money at all?)
  • The article is summed up by the fact that Valdi has had many unsuccessful businesses earlier. (Tommy: I have covered this on the blog in details earlier)

The article is written in a quite negative way in total.

2co: "We cannot tell if anything has shipped"

For the first time in quite some time 2co has actually written an actual answer to a question on their forum:

"Some orders have been marked as shipped, but no tracking information has been received and therefore we cannot tell you if they have in fact been shipped."

and

"These are electronic funds and no interest can be gained by 2checkout, on the contrary, 2Checkout has to pay a fee to refund these orders."

I still find it very strange that they keep on trusting this company that abuse their system in this way, remember that these orders was marked as shipped over two weeks ago. Other than this, they keep on going with their mantra that the customers money are safe.

Sites (somewhat) back up

www.medisoncelebrity.com and www.medison.se are somewhat back up. medisoncelebrity.com are now hosted by Yahoo! and medison.se by ManuFrog. Even that the sites are "online", much of the content are still missing. On medison.se it just says "This site is under construction" with a Medison-logo, and lot of pages and graphics are missing from the site. One of the more funny things noted by readers is that trying to get to the product page you get a "404 not found" error message ;)

Anyway, I wonder how long the sites will be hosted by the new hosting providers, if the sites actually were suspended from Surftown...

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Medison's sites closed & more

Sorry for not posting earlier but I have been extremely busy the last few days with stuff going on in my "real life" so I had to prioritize that. Thanks for staying put though ;)

First of all, Medison's both sites seems to have been pulled from their host surftown. The following message has been floating around:

"Medison is changing webhotel for the websites www.medison.se andwww.medisoncelebrity.com.

We are told that the redelegation will take up to 48 hours before our websites will work again. We are doing our best to speed up the process.

During this time it will not be able to buy Medison Celebrity laptops and it will not be able to reach us on e-mails.

Temporarily e-mail addresses are being set up and will be posted in public asap.

Everyone who has ordered a Medison Celebrity laptop will receive a laptop. For checking your orders or cancel the order, please contact2CO on www.2checkout.com during these days.

Sincerely,
Valdi Ivancic
CEO & President
Medison Europe Limited"

I have not however been able to verify if this message really is from Valdi or not, but it seems like surftown has suspended the sites from their side. It also seems very strange to fix temporary e-mail addresses AFTER the site was taken down, if it was by them self.

In other news 2co first claimed in Swedish news that the first laptops actually had been received by customers, but they withdrew this statement later saying that it only was a story pulled by bloggers and customers trying to get more information regarding the matter.
Now 2co instead writes on their forum that they have given Medison a deadline before they cancel all orders & refund all customers. They have not however said when this deadline will be. They also write that they actually has seen one of the laptops, but most likely it's the same Clevo that was shown to Swedish press with scratched off serial number and Czech keyboard.

Sorry for the lack of links, I'm posting from a laptop with 3G modem and are a bit short of time, but links to all the news & posts can be found in the comments of my last post.

Saturday, September 1, 2007

The latest news: No news!

So, it's now the first of September in Sweden, and the first deliveries from Medison was supposed to been yesterday according to Valdi's last delay-notice. It's also one week since the first shipping notices was sent out, without any tracking numbers or information on when those orders should be delivered or from where they were sent. So what happens now? Seems like no one knows, or at least wants to talk about it.

IDG/PC För Alla wrote an article about it yesterday (Friday the 31st that is) where they sum it up and they also state that they have been in contact with several distributors and shipping partners since EMEA Services jumped the ship, but no one has any partnership with Medison. They have also talked with the service provider Infocare again, and they state that they still don't have any contract and it seems like there won't be any (surprised?). They have also tried to contact Valdi several times without any result.

And the last of yesterdays non-news is that 2co wrote an "answer" to my open letter that don't have any answers at all. Just some random BS not relating to my letter at all:

"This is to reiterate that 2Checkout is in continuous contact with Valdi in regards to Medison and their Celebrity laptops. On two occasions, we have met face to face with Valdi to address your concerns and to help solve certain logistical problems. If you have placed an order, be assured that no funds will be taken from your card unless the item has been marked shipped. If your order has been marked shipped, no funds will be released to Medison until you have received your laptop.
2Checkout would like to thank all of you that have been active in our forums in your search for information. We will continue to answer questions that fall outside of our privacy policy in the attempt to keep you as informed as we can.
It is in the best interest and a matter of integrity for 2Checkout.com to continue to protect it’s customers (you) and it’s vendors (in this case Valdi), in effect, you are all 2Checkout customers.
I would like to thank you all for your patience regarding these matters."


I don't understand why they even won't try to answer the most important questions, at all. Not the questions asked by me, or anyone else. They have written stuff like "We will continue to answer questions that fall outside of our privacy policy in the attempt to keep you as informed as we can." several times now, but haven't replied to any question at all with a valid answer since the shipping notices was sent out.

Feel free to create an account on their forum and ask for answers, it might help if they see that more people actually are interested in their actions and answers! The thread is located at http://www.2checkout.com/community/support/topic.php?id=309