Question about the Solidoodle company (Page 1 of 6)

I can tell you my experience: Bought a printer in April, paid printer plus shipment. Never got a printer. Asked for refund. They don't answer me in any channel I'm trying to reach them: Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Google groups, Linkedin, phone, mail. In each place I look I see customers complaining about the same: paid their money, dont get anything, and I see a similar pattern in all the cases: communication has stopped from their side a few weeks ago. Looks like they have a strategy that is answering in public Forums that they will continue the discussion in Private Messaging, but then they dont respond (check Facebook). I'm discussing with credit card chargeback, and submitting claims with different consumer protections entities (NY, FTC, fraud protection entities, etc). At least I want to assure other get aware and dont waist their money and time like a lot of us already did.

I will do, I'm new to the forum I thougth it was valid to share the issue with different groups involved in different discussions. thanks

It happen exactly the same to me. They have answered every email I sent in a professional way in less than 72 hours. Suddenly three weeks ago the company stopped answering. I identified in other forums customers (a lot) with the same situation. So its not about you. Its happening to all of us. I'm calling them daily, but they dont pick up the phone. I feel we are screwed, but we have the chance of making other people aware. Maybe they used to be a good company (that's the reason I decided to buy their printer, and trusted on them paying in advance for the printer). Looks like something changed in the last few months. I feel they ran out of funds or something like that. So maybe less employees, no funds to continue operating. What is amazing is that they dont answer at all. I never saw in my life such a "I dont care" attitude in a company.

This all sounds very unfortunate.
Like I said, my experiences have been decent with the press, lots of errors but all fixable after research and hardwork.
Hopefully the company does not sink..not looking too good tho.

I was concerned at the time that they were trying to grow too fast and change too much product at once. At the time they had the sd 2,3,4 . they kept the 4 and tried to add 3 new products at once. The workbench is an entirely new unit and the apprentice is a two headed version of the sd 3 with the print volume of a sd2 or something along these lines.

That was about the time I purchased my SD4 . I got  used one. I did purchase a power supply from them very fast service.

The good news in this is that 3d printer parts are generic enough that most of the parts can be purchased in a number of places Or replacements can be 3d printed.  The build platform is probably the one of the few parts that is not off the shelf . May be a little harder with the press as the frame and other parts are injection molded.

I hope they can recover but it hard to do once you get a bad rep.
tin

I did a little digging and found this in the public records;

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/ … ry_doc.xml

From what I can understand  from this form is that on 2015-07-28 Solidoodle switched from an LLC to a DE C-Corp. My guess is that  some new investors got in the picture and didn't like how LLCs handle taxation of their shares, but it could be because C-Corps are more protected legally than LLCs. Which leads me to wonder if Solidoodle knew they were going under so they switched there incorporation type to better protect the company from the inevitable customer backlash... Either way Solidoodle's revenue range is 1,000,001 - 5,000,000 so you'd think they could spend $10hr to pay for some customer service..

I just emailed a complaint form to the NYC consumer affairs dept. Not sure if they can help me. I'm in Seattle.
their form is at https://www.dos.ny.gov/consumerprotecti … ntform.asp if anyone else wants to complaint.

Meantime, looks like a have a perfectly good workbench - was running great until the motherboard went out - or if anyone has a motherboard to sell, let me know.
-Mark

My Press took around 6 months to be delivered. two weeks ago the extruder wiring went back an no one from Solidoodle replied to my email.

Mine in a nut shell:

Our experience has been a let down with the company, but not necessarily with the printer. We ordered during the preorder and received our Workbench in a few months. Most of our emails went un-replied during this time. Nothing was missing upon arrival, and they even managed to remember our education package(2 extra rolls of random colored ABS filament). The belts needed aligning and tensioning immediately and then doing a little calibration, but after that we started regular printing with the machine. I'm not saying it's 100% there yet, but we are getting great prints from ours. For example: http://www.thingiverse.com/make:163033
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:988445

Also this forum has been an irreplaceable source of information.

I can understand one company decides to provide less service. What I cant understand is that they get your money and then they never sent you the product for almost six months. And then you ask for a reimbursement and they dont answer your messages any more. I have ever seen such an irresponsible company in my life. To me that's technically fraud; dont see a difference between stealing your money and doing this. The funny thing is that every lie they said to me is on written. Mail by mail. And the funniest thing is that they continue selling their products and more consumers are paying and being promised about getting their machine in a few months.

You could confirm how bad it has become going around different places: Reddit, Facebook, etc. Always same pattern: you pay, they ask you to wait, they offer discount/filament to compensate delay, and after 5-6 months nothing. No Money, no printer. No answering to voicemail, mails, social media. I just got an answer last week offering one extra roll of filament. And then they discontinue the communication. That's not the way of treating a customer.

but a new clone cheap then search here for fix/upgrade to your specs. or buy an old model you like and do same.