ThermicWaffle

I personally have no problem with EyeBuyDirect other than the blue light filtering (I actually bought a pair from them about 4 years ago). It is impossible to engage with an eyeglasses company that doesn't market blue light filters, but I think the benefits of the sponsorship outweigh the detriments. I think you guys should continue working with them as long as there are no promotions or graphics for blue light blocking in videos or elsewhere.


I know things at LMG haven't been pleasant the last few days, but I wanted to let you all know that you hard work doesn't go unnoticed. Thank you for your time in this matter!

Hey all,

First and foremost, we are sorry for the lack of responses and communication on our end here at the business team. We have been doing our best to vet newer sponsors on the sponsorship board. At the end of the day, we do want to do right by you, and that should start with getting the input and not ending with your input. 
 
And while we can’t address every complaint, and some definitely are more urgent than others, we do hope to continue to chime in with updates, thoughts, and reassurances for all of you. Starting with a few of the more poignant ones that were listed for us:
 
Secretlab
As you know, we work quite closely with Secretlab, we have quite a few of their chairs ourselves. While we have not experienced these quality issues on our end, we will most definitely follow up with them for a response on this matter. As for their support service, we take matters like this seriously, more so for close partners of ours. We will be inquiring about this as well and hopefully get back to everyone with their response soon. 
 
Volta
Thanks for the feedback, and sorry for not updating you folks sooner on this one. We will no longer be working with Volta.
 
ASUS
With ASUS being the size that they are, it takes some time for processes to be changed to ensure customers’ tickets are being actioned on. We’ve brought all concerns disclosed in the thread to our ASUS contacts and are waiting for a response on how they plan on resolving them. We’re sorry that the process of making changes takes longer than expected, but we will be keeping a close eye on things each week moving forward.
 
iFixit
Thanks for bringing these issues forward to us! We have already reached out to our contacts at iFixit and are awaiting their reply. 

eBay
Linus already chimed in on this one, so we won’t add too much more. In short, we had a vision for the way the video was supposed to go, and it just didn’t. Thanks for the suggestion on secret shopping refurb phones and possibly including eBay again to see whether the phones were cherry-picked on their end. In the end, we just wish we had made a better video.
 
EyeBuyDirect
In hindsight, promoting blue light filtering was not the best thing to talk about. Most glasses manufacturers do offer this as an option. So would you folks be okay with us continuing to use EyeBuyDirect if we pushed back and didn’t promote blue light blocking? They offer a good value for their product, but if the fact that they even offer blue light filtering is big enough of a turn-off, we will reassess this partnership on the whole.
 
HP
Overall our experiences with HP have actually been quite positive. And sometimes, it is easier for us to look into these types of one-off cases. We can’t always fix individual problems, as our contacts are often only at a business level. But we’ll try to look more into this if we can.
 
Best Buy
We understand the concern here, but several companies have offered programs similar to these throughout the last handful of decades. Whether that’s for BIPOC individuals, younger employees, or women in work environments, this isn’t as simple as Best Buy not hiring or giving management roles to white individuals. They have just internally seen that opportunities for certain groups of people have been lacking, and they have seen success in training and retaining those people over the last couple of years with the McKinsey program. The linked article seems to have the goal of driving individuals to boycott Best Buy as opposed to asking any real questions.
 
Thorum
Price complaint and Drop Shipping accusation: You can get a bootleg of anything for one-tenth of the price on Alibaba. This is not exclusive to Rings or Throum. The rings are not drop shipped. Regarding the fossils being used in the rings, I have previously addressed this on the forum with responses from their CEO and a couple of links to get more information.
 
The Ridge
It is a bit curious that they call their coupon a gift card. While we’ve definitely seen scummier business practices in a similar vein, I think this warrants us at least pointing it out and asking them to clean up some of the terminology at least.
 
 
Going forward, we’d like to do something akin to this every week or two just to update where certain conversations are at with different brands that pop up in this forum. And while we may not be able to solve every problem, we hope to use our reach and influence as a force for good.
 
Thanks again from all of us here on the business team.

GG
CP
JS
ST
SC
& Sveeno

Hi guys.
I have a complaint to make regarding your partnership with IFIXIT. 
 
On the first of January 2022 I identified a security vulnerability on the IFIXIT website. I can't go into details here for ethical reasons, but suffice it to say that the vulnerability is typically rated 'medium' severity and in this case, may allow a malicious third party to steal session information from a 'victims' browser. I reported the vulnerability via the email address provided in their vulnerability disclosure policy. I received no response. 
 
On the 26th of January 2022 I followed up with 'proof of concept' pictures that I had forgotten to add in the first email. No response to this either. 
 
On the 5th of February 2022 I sent a follow up email reminder. Still no response. 
 
On the 9th of April 2022 I followed up again. Still no response. 
 
I also attempted to contact them via twitter. They did respond to this. They linked me back to the disclosure policy. 
 
This issue not only demonstrates a lack of commitment to keeping the website users safe, but I lost out on the bug bounty payment they offer in their policy. 
 
For anyone reading this who is unfamiliar with how bad theft of session information can be. Ask Linus 😂. 
 
I didn't know this thread existed until today or I would have raised this sooner. I haven't checked in a while if the vulnerability still exists. At the time it affected Firefox users only from my testing. 
 
As a security researcher, I can't share the screenshots here on ethical grounds as they clearly identify an easily reproduceable bug. 
 
Happy to work with anyone from LMG to get this to the right people though. 
 
 
 
 

I'm gonna ignore the dumb arguments above, but I will state that it's been over a month since any LMG staffer replied to any complaint posted here.  I really hope that this valuable resource isn't abandoned, but the way things are right now it's certainly at least functionally on ice (whether intentional or not).
 
To summarize some of the stuff happening here since the last LMG post:
 
- Multiple issues with Secret Labs' chairs having armrest failures, and their support handling the issue in extremely poor/incompetent/malicious? ways.
- Volta withholding tracking information unless you sign up for marketing texts, also general product functionality/quality issues (including melting plugs).
- Asus warranty issues, lots of them; along with general quality issues.  It doesn't look like they learned their lesson after the motherboard warranty debacle.
- iFixit not responding to a security vulnerability disclosure (seems like process error rather than anything malicious, but hopefully someone at LMG can poke the correct people to get it fixed).  Also another person had issues with iFixit EU printing a shipping label wrong then blaming the carrier.
- eBay deceptive marketing? of their refurbished devices by comparing them to artificial "MSRP" prices rather than real-world New prices (which are very often around the same price as eBay's refurbished devices.)
- EyeBuyDirect selling fake "blue light filtering" glasses
- One person has had a multi-year Ultra Nightmare experience with HP
- Best Buy racist?  Allegedly excluding people from internal training programs based on their race.
- Thorum price complaints (~10x price compared to similar products from other sources), also some users complaining about them using real dinosaur fossils (though I think it was already addressed elsewhere in this thread that these fossils were not useful to scientists).
 
@LinusTech@CPotter I think much of the community (including myself) is hoping to see the silence broken and these issues resolved/looked into/at least acknowledged.  After all, what good is a sponsor complaints thread if those complaints are never seen?  I'm hoping things just got thrown off because of the craziness of LTX, but either way, I hope things can be gotten back on track now.

I've received no tracking information via email from volta just the screenshots I posted

Regarding the EyeBuyDirect sponsorship last week...

I want to clarify some facts about blue light and its effects on our eyes. Blue light is emitted by the sun and some screens, and it can alter our circadian rhythm if we are exposed to it at night. However, that is the only harm that blue light can cause. Contrary to what some (I'll get to how EyeBuyDirect plays into this part) companies claim, blue light does not cause macular degeneration, eye strain, or eye dryness. You would experience the same eye strain and eye dryness from reading a book for the same duration. Moreover, the “blue light filter” that EyeBuyDirect and others offer does not even filter blue light. It's snake oil. To filter blue light, you need a lens with a red/orange/yellow tint, which is the opposite of blue. As warm tinted lenses actually filter blue light, there is a benefit to wearing warm tinted lenses at night to avoid altering your circadian rhythm, but no benefit to the "blue light filter" that companies sell. We actually get more blue light from the sun than screens. If blue light has all these "potential harms", shouldn't we have experienced them in the past hundreds of thousands of years? There is no scientific evidence that blue light glasses prevent any “potential harms” of blue light, or that blue light is even harmful in the first place, except for displacing our circadian rhythm. CBC made an excellent video about this topic a few years ago: https://youtu.be/NkJY9bgLyBE .


EyeBuyDirect was clever to phrase it as “potential harms” in their advertisement, falling short of making a statement--but they know their audience. They know people will recall the false claims they heard about blue light and its alleged negative effects on the eyes. They know people will be afraid of these effects, and buy their product. The macular degeneration, eye fatigue, dryness, you can see why! For EyeBuyDirect, it's a win-win. They avoid legal trouble by using “potential” instead of making a direct claim, and they profit from the fears of consumers. If blue light was really harmful, why would they use such a vague word?


I urge LMG to cease all brand deals with EyeBuyDirect. They are using deceptive advertising to trick consumers into buying an unnecessary addon, based on claims with no evidence. Even if they are selling it based on speculation, I think LMG is better than promoting a sponsor based on speculation.

 

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