Dotcomformat

ok, ive been biting my tongue for a while but it seems like i'm getting 
nowhere so this can go public. i apologize for the xpost but this topic 
has come up in several places recently. this also answers the question as 
to who one of my problem vendors was in my non-responsive vendor rant a 
few months ago.

last september i placed a small order for two lfo's and one dual 
quantizer. i was sent an invoice and i transferred 590 euro into the 
appropriate account.

after two months, i contacted cotk to check the status of my order. i was 
told that i didn't transfer the correct amount of money and that there was 
a 45 euro difference between what i sent and what my invoice was for.

"dear jon schatz.
your order is still sitting in our shelf.
you send only euro 545.00 into our account, but it has to be euro 590.00."

i asked why i wasn't notified of this and received no response. so i 
go to the bank and have the wire transfer traced to where it left the usa. 
i also checked my bank statement and the paperwork i filled out and 
requested a new reciept. all were for the correct amount. i offered these 
forms to kazike and he declined. he sent me a copy of his bank statement 
showing 545 euro were recieved. i asked him to verify wth his bank and i 
recieved no response.

what followed was two months of silence. i constantly emailed asking if 
there was another way to send the difference (if the first bank transfer 
didn't work i didn't want the same thing happening again). i offered 
paypal. no response. i paged on several mailing lists looking to contact 
kazike and got several responses with different email addresses to use but 
there was no response from any of them.

at some point i finally got tired of this and asked simply to cancel my 
order and to have kazike refund my money. no response. a week later i sent 
the same email and got a response from a different person explaining that 
they couldn't refund my money as they had already built my equipment:

"We cannot accept order cancellation after the order is placed and agreed 
by payment in advance."

(of course they're also claiming that i didn't pay in full so i'm not sure 
that by that logic i've ever paid in advance)

at this point, they also claimed i only sent 530 euro, not the 545 euro i was 
previously quoted!

"unfortunately it seems that you could not solve the problem that instead 
of the required 590,00 Euros only 530,00 has arrived here as we have 
proofed you by sending the copy of the transaction."

they offered to send me the quantizer and one lfo and to refund me the 
difference of the second lfo minus a 70 euro fee! (for comparison, it cost 
me $35 usd to do this transfer to their account) i found this 
unreasonable. i assume both modules are fairly popular and they'd have no 
problem selling them to another customer.

i told them the only acceptable solution was to refund my entire order and 
that's the last i've heard from them. so that's me down 590 euro (or 
is it 545 or is it 530) with nothing to show for it.

i've got email and bank documents proving all of this and i'd been 
planning to post it online and make it known, but i didn't have time 
because of travels and the hope that somehow i could work this out. at 
this point i don't believe this is possible so i'm sharing this. if anyone 
from cotk is reading this i'd love a response and would be glad to retract 
this if we can come to a reasonable solution, but $100 usd for the 
privilege of receiving a refund for an order that never shipped is not 
reasonable.

long story short: this is not a company i'd ever do business with again. 
be wary of dealing internationally like this, especially when your only 
payment option is a wire transfer.

thanks,

-jon
  -- 
"There are no differences but differences of degree between different degrees
of difference and no difference."
- James, William. "Subjective Effects of Nitrous Oxide." Mind. 1882; Vol 7.