1 (edited by magnuken 2013-05-29 13:13:18)

Topic: Will these devices never ever start to work again?

I have several Chumby-8 devices that i have used for newsfeeds, weatherforecasts and also for my securitycameras etc. Also I have one old small Chumby One, but the problem with all these Chumby devices are now that they are all completely useless!!!!!!!

One simple question:

Will these Chumby devices ever start to work as they where advertised to do when I bought them?

If not, so I think the only possibility for me to solve the situation is to sue the local Chumby seller into court in my country. In my country we have quite good legislation for false marketings as whit this Chumby company!

Re: Will these devices never ever start to work again?

magnuken wrote:

I have several Chumby-8 devices that i have used for newsfeeds, weatherforecasts and also for my securitycameras etc. Also I have one old small Chumby One, but the problem with all these Chumby devices are now that they are all completely useless!!!!!!!

One simple question:

Will these Chumby devices ever start to work as they where advertised to do when I bought them?

If not, so I think the only possibility for me to solve the situation is to sue the local Chumby seller into court in my country. In my country we have quite good legislation for false marketings as whit this Chumby company!

aside from the fact that they're far from useless, good luck with sueing a company that doesn't even exist anymore.

Cleaning up any loose bits and bytes.

Re: Will these devices never ever start to work again?

"Completely useless" is an exaggeration. They still do several of the things they were advertised as doing - tell the time, play internet radio and allow the setting of multiple alarms.
You could, I suppose, sue the local Chumby reseller in your country, if you wanted to (what country are you in, by the way?) It would be interesting to see how that worked out. However, if you think that this will work as a threat and somehow Duane will work faster as a result, then I think you are mistaken (Duane, please correct me if I am wrong on this).
Does your country require you to undertake a full scale legal action in a Court for consumer claims, or is there a more informal tribunal or similar for these?
In Australia, we have State-based tribunals that handle consumer claims. The process is less formal, with the idea being that consumers can handle it themselves without having to get a lawyer. Whilst this means that claims are easy and cheap to make, the downside (if you can call it that) is that the remedies are always quite modest and directly related to the actual loss suffered. For example, I am considering filing a complaint about a chain of stores that offered their 'VIP club' members a 6.5% discount. When I went to the store, they told me that the discount did not apply to the brand of goods I was purchasing. My actual loss is only about nine dollars. However, it's still worth making a complaint because it won't cost me anything; I'll probably get my nine dollars and, more importantly, they'll probably have to change their advertising to make it clear that some product lines are excluded from the discount. What I won't get is millions of dollars to compensate me for the pain and humiliation of not getting the discount.
How long ago did you buy your Chumbys? Here, they went off the local market a few years ago (can't remember exactly - anyone?) and that, in itself, would likely defeat any local consumer complaint because anyone who has one would have got several years of full-featured use out of it.

Re: Will these devices never ever start to work again?

I think all our Chumbys have outlasted their 1 year warranties.

I'd guess our Chumbys will never again work "as advertised". But neither will your analog TV or Polaroid camera. My Instamatic doesn't work but it would be silly to sue Kodak for stopping making film. But Blue Octy is doing a lot to keep our Chumbys somewhat functional.

On the other hand, I remember you bought some (Grey-market?) bargain Chumbys "new" from a website site in Finland about 7 months ago, long after the demise of Chumby. Those sellers may have been intentionally misleading customers. When you asked about the deal here on the forum, Doktor Jones did caution you in September:

”Just be aware that Chumby devices are no longer supported, so that would very much be an "as-is" purchase. ”

Re: Will these devices never ever start to work again?

I live in Finland and bought the device about 1,5 years ago and at that time the seller said nothing about the service going down and about a month ago they still sold the device at the original price with only a little mark saying that the company doesn't exist anymore. But with our laws it would be almost impossible to get any refund from the seller, so I'm just hoping that maybe someday the widgets would come back.