LMG Sponsor Complaints

[Rikere]

I'm rather disappointed to see LTT working with Volta again.

 

They've taken to using their Indiegogo page to spam backers. It looks like potentially the only way to turn off that spam is to disable IGG emails on campaign updates, there is no unsubscribe link:

 

And if their IGG page is any indication, they continue to fail to deliver for everyone, or ship failed units: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/giga-the-ultimate-universal-gan-charger/x/548182#/discussion

 

There's a post from five weeks ago, a guy with Contribution ID 1053 that's not got his order. They're into the 4000s.

 

When this issue first popped up, LTT said they'd not work with Volta until the issues were all resolved. I did eventually get my charger, but it looks like Volta themselves remain a very bad company.

[TrueNerdTastic]

On 2/28/2023 at 1:16 AM, mynameGeoff said:

The products we've used in-office have been their SD card readers, cables, and Gallium Nitride chargers as those were the products sent to us for our sponsor spots and sponsored videos and found no immediate problems after months of day-to-day use.

Did you go out and buy those products or did you test items specifically sent by the company? Cause those could be double or triple checked to make sure they are good instead of their normal QA.

[RagnarokDel]

I dont know that I would call it a complaint as much as a warning because I still love the shoes but here goes my point: I work in a large nursery, aka greenhouses  (You should tour one, one day, you would be shocked by the amount of tech in there) that produce flowers and veggies for large retailers. I work in the plantation sector and one of the tasks I have is doing the first watering after a cart is filled with pots before it is transported to it's growing location. As you can imagine some drops of water and water mist falls one my shoes (generally the toebox) so I need something that is waterproof. I am now at my second pair of Vessis and I want to be clear. I love the shoes.

 

They are comfy so when I walk 30k steps in a day, my feet are not swollen and they handle water pretty well.

That being said. they are not waterproof. They need to have time to dry out between uses otherwise water will sip through. Gore-tex does not do that until it's membrane is broken. Last year I had a pair of Vessis and this year I just bought the new stormbreakers in hopes it was a dud but it turns out to be a pattern (or I am extremely unlucky) after only 2 weeks of use I get wet socks. I have consistently gotten wet socks on the second half of the week. They have time to dry during the weekend so monday they are fine, tuesday they are fine and either by wednesday afternoon or by Thursday I get wet socks. It is contrary to their claim of 100% waterproofness. They perform better than 100% of non gore-tex/treated leather shoes but they are not 100% waterproof.

[mynameGeoff]

On 3/3/2023 at 11:01 AM, TheNerdTastic said:

Did you go out and buy those products or did you test items specifically sent by the company? Cause those could be double or triple checked to make sure they are good instead of their normal QA.

Both, actually.

 

A good amount of us in the office have bought their products for personal use after our recent sponsorship and haven't had any issues. Products like their charging cables and GaN chargers performed no different than the products we've received.

[niugneP]

What is with the Newegg sponsorship in the last few days on ShortCircuit? What have they done to correct their practices? Should we be expecting an Anker sponsorship next year once they're out of the news cycle?

[Ultraforce]

4 hours ago, niugneP said:

What is with the Newegg sponsorship in the last few days on ShortCircuit? What have they done to correct their practices? Should we be expecting an Anker sponsorship next year once they're out of the news cycle?

I don't believe LMG ever had Linus explicitly banned Newegg sponsorships the way they have with Anker.

[Erioch]

6 hours ago, niugneP said:

What is with the Newegg sponsorship in the last few days on ShortCircuit?

$$$

[Thatsoundood]

Hey there, 

I recently tried to purchase a Bambu lab p1p after your recent video on short circuit. I have been saving up and looking for a good option for a while and after doing a bit of research it seemed like this was the one. However, when I went to place the order there was an error with their payment processor saying that it couldn't verify my security code, though clearly it could as a payment authorization hit my card even though the order was never placed. When I tried again, it said that my card was declined. It was declined because it had already been charged the full amount so the money is no longer in the account. I have submitted a support ticket with them, but their response time is 3 days. Right now I am out almost $800, have nothing to show for it, and have to wait days until I can even get a response out of them. I am reaching out because I know you hold your sponsors to a higher standard, and my card is a visa so if this is happening to me there is a good chance it is happening to someone else. 

 

If i am not mistaken you all should have my email if you need more info from me.

 

Thanks!

[XNOR]

On 2/27/2023 at 7:16 PM, Msting said:

Jackery, based on this review video, 

seems to insist on "favorable" reviews before agreeing to send review units. Pretty bad practice for a major (and reputable) LTT supplier. I wonder if they only get away with this with "smaller" reviewers.

Has LTT had to sign such a contract?

I never understand this kind of behavior. Someone is going to out your dishonest behavior sooner or later, and now every single good review is questioned and presumed fake, even the real ones. Despite apparently having a decent product, they're eager to kill any trust people have in them.

 

Trust seems rather important for a battery product like theirs, as it could literally set your house on fire. If they lie about the reviews, do they cheat on their certifications too? How deep does the rabbit hole go?

[maroider]

Ridge Wallet/The Ridge has allegedly pressured a smaller YouTube creator into doing more ad integrations than they were contractually obligated to do, and withholding payment for said ad integrations. I can't claim to know how things usually work, but this seems a bit iffy.

The channel that uploaded this video is a secondary channel for BillsYT.

[Shahrad]

6 hours ago, maroider said:

Ridge Wallet/The Ridge has allegedly pressured a smaller YouTube creator into doing more ad integrations than they were contractually obligated to do, and withholding payment for said ad integrations. I can't claim to know how things usually work, but this seems a bit iffy.

The channel that uploaded this video is a secondary channel for BillsYT.

Hey!

Shahrad here from the business team.

 

Thanks for reaching out to us with this. We take any shady behavior by one of our sponsors very seriously

I watched the video and here is a couple of points in it that I wanna bring up:

• The lowballing: This happens to us as well, but honestly the solution is to say no to a lowball. This also depends on how much you want to work with a specific brand. Sometimes you take the lowball offer to be able to work with that brand. 
• The KPIs for a sponsorship: Usually before we sign up for a sponsorship deal, we explicitly clarify what the sponsor's Key Performance Indicators are, just so we're all on the same page before signing anything since each brand has a different idea of what a "good performing" ad spot is. In this case it looks like this wasn't discussed in advance, prior to booking this deal and that's where the confusion comes from. Ridge was looking for click through rates, but to Will's understanding, views were enough of a performance indicator. This happens to us sometimes as well where a sponsor is looking for guaranteed click through rates or conversion, but we refuse to work with them because we can't guarantee that they will see the performance that they expect. 
• The "Make Good": A "Make Good" is usually included in the contract as a peace of mind for the sponsor in case they don't see that performance that both parties agreed to on the contract. In case of an underperformance, if a Make Good is included in the contract, the content creator can negotiate with the sponsor regarding what can be done to try to make up the lack of performance to them. If a Make Good is not included in the contract, depending on how much you value your relationship with that particular sponsor, you can just say no to them. Again, in our case, I have done both of those things. Will could have also said no to them if a Make Good was not in the contract.
• The payment: Watching the video nothing seemed out of the norm. The payment terms are different for each sponsor but it normally ranges between 30-60 days from when the last deliverable content is live. In Will's case, it might have taken 3 months to receive payment because he never followed up with them. It's also a little clickbaity that he spent the first 10 minutes saying they didn't pay him for his work but then at the end of the video he says that he did in fact get paid.

Again, our experience with brands as a larger creator is not the same as the experience of some of the smaller channels, but from what I saw in the video, there was nothing shady that was going on. It just seemed like a case of miscommunication.

I know I just wrote out a whole essay lol but let me know if you have any questions and I'd be happy to answer!

TL;DR: This just seems like a case of miscommunication on both ends.

[ripersnifle]

Today's WAN show link for Ridge says:

 

Quote

 

Save 10% and Free Worldwide Shipping at The Ridge by using offer code WAN at https://www.ridge.com/LINUS

 

But this code doesn't work. It just says "You’re already getting the best offer!". 

 

They are currently running a (maybe 19%) discount sale. But with 20 dollars shipping it doesn't look like it is the best deal compared to what the WAN code supposedly offers. 

I'll probably just leave it there, was only thinking of buying if the price was right anyway (i.e. free shipping during the sale). Just letting you know the offer in your description doesn't exist. 

[maroider]

16 hours ago, Shahrad said:

Hey!

Shahrad here from the business team.

 

Thanks for reaching out to us with this. We take any shady behavior by one of our sponsors very seriously

I watched the video and here is a couple of points in it that I wanna bring up:

• The lowballing: This happens to us as well, but honestly the solution is to say no to a lowball. This also depends on how much you want to work with a specific brand. Sometimes you take the lowball offer to be able to work with that brand. 
• The KPIs for a sponsorship: Usually before we sign up for a sponsorship deal, we explicitly clarify what the sponsor's Key Performance Indicators are, just so we're all on the same page before signing anything since each brand has a different idea of what a "good performing" ad spot is. In this case it looks like this wasn't discussed in advance, prior to booking this deal and that's where the confusion comes from. Ridge was looking for click through rates, but to Will's understanding, views were enough of a performance indicator. This happens to us sometimes as well where a sponsor is looking for guaranteed click through rates or conversion, but we refuse to work with them because we can't guarantee that they will see the performance that they expect. 
• The "Make Good": A "Make Good" is usually included in the contract as a peace of mind for the sponsor in case they don't see that performance that both parties agreed to on the contract. In case of an underperformance, if a Make Good is included in the contract, the content creator can negotiate with the sponsor regarding what can be done to try to make up the lack of performance to them. If a Make Good is not included in the contract, depending on how much you value your relationship with that particular sponsor, you can just say no to them. Again, in our case, I have done both of those things. Will could have also said no to them if a Make Good was not in the contract.
• The payment: Watching the video nothing seemed out of the norm. The payment terms are different for each sponsor but it normally ranges between 30-60 days from when the last deliverable content is live. In Will's case, it might have taken 3 months to receive payment because he never followed up with them. It's also a little clickbaity that he spent the first 10 minutes saying they didn't pay him for his work but then at the end of the video he says that he did in fact get paid.

Again, our experience with brands as a larger creator is not the same as the experience of some of the smaller channels, but from what I saw in the video, there was nothing shady that was going on. It just seemed like a case of miscommunication.

I know I just wrote out a whole essay lol but let me know if you have any questions and I'd be happy to answer!

TL;DR: This just seems like a case of miscommunication on both ends.

With your added context, the whole affair does seem more reasonable. Thanks for the quick and detailed response 

[Venson]

On LTTs Framework update

, the sponsor is ugreen with the 9-in-1 USB C Docking Station and it looks very nice and quite what i was looking for (planning building something similar what linus has with remote workstations over fiber) and although very informative, there is a lot of confusion for me as the dock just states "USB-C" as input. But what standard? Is it USB4? Is it Thunderbold 3? 4? what exactly does that dock need to allow all inputs to be active?

[XZDX]

not that I want you to hire Louis Rossman or anything, but when someone like him puts out a video that discusses a company that Linus invested in, or has a fair discussion about something yall are doing, I wish it would be discussed more.

 

Not even just to advertise a specific channel, but to discuss community discussion in general.  Rossman be damned.

[TheLazurus24]

Just saying, the sponsorship from AnyDesk in the 7950X3D video just didn't sit well with me. The service was great, until they removed a lot of what made them great from the free tier and locked it behind a subscription. Aliases were the biggest thing I can think of that made it great, and now you can't even use them without coughing up the dough. 

[confuded]

11 hours ago, TheLazurus24 said:

Just saying, the sponsorship from AnyDesk in the 7950X3D video just didn't sit well with me. The service was great, until they removed a lot of what made them great from the free tier and locked it behind a subscription. Aliases were the biggest thing I can think of that made it great, and now you can't even use them without coughing up the dough. 

Just saw the sponsorship on the Ryzen 7950X3D review video.

 

The MSP I work for actually pays for Anydesk. For the past months 80% of our connection have been absolute dog crap - slow, unresponsive, errors on connection (Anynet error) and sometimes users won't even get an ID for 5 minutes.

 

Also I absolutely abhor their licensing model - you need to pay first for the users (i.e. PCs) that will have the software license and then for each concurrent connection (above the 1st one). Its so confusing. Every time someone looks at the new price model and asks me about it I have to explain to them that caveat. At least we are on the old licensing where it was 1:1.

It would have been so much simpler and cost effective (for the customer anyway) to pay for each user with no limit on the connections.

[Erioch]

I thought only scammers used AnyDesk.

[Danii]

3CX (Desktop Clients) has been Compromised:

https://www.3cx.com/blog/news/desktopapp-security-alert-updates/

 

I'm putting out some fires at my MSP right now, and I know there was a Sponsored Video from them not too long ago.

I love 3CX, and this security breach technically isn't their fault as it's a 3rd party library which contains the exploit to my understanding.

I'm not suggesting removing them from the sponsor pool, but perhaps a Shout-Out on this week's WAN Show would be appropriate to alert users if they are ignoring Windows Defender or their AVs as Windows Defender is already flagging the desktop clients.

[CPotter]

17 minutes ago, Danii said:

3CX (Desktop Clients) has been Compromised:

https://www.3cx.com/blog/news/desktopapp-security-alert-updates/

 

I'm putting out some fires at my MSP right now, and I know there was a Sponsored Video from them not too long ago.

I love 3CX, and this security breach technically isn't their fault as it's a 3rd party library which contains the exploit to my understanding.

I'm not suggesting removing them from the sponsor pool, but perhaps a Shout-Out on this week's WAN Show would be appropriate to alert users if they are ignoring Windows Defender or their AVs as Windows Defender is already flagging the desktop clients.

Thanks for flagging this, we'll let the teams know.

[FFLORO]

I've joined FreshBooks due to their 'no credit card required' policy. The first free month has passed, I've used it for all my invoices essentially recording the work that I've done - after that month, I had to choose a plan that fits me best, but the credit card was actually *required*. I've tried my debit cards from both Visa and Mastercard, but no luck. I don't have a credit card, don't want one, but now I've got access to my invoices locked as without a credit card I cannot continue with subscription. I'd say it's misleading at best, and a straight up lie at worst, as 'no credit card required' seem to have been applicable only for the free trial period? There's no way to even pay for a whole year upfront via paypal or anything, the credit card is indeed required.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, FFLORO said:

I've joined FreshBooks due to their 'no credit card required' policy. The first free month has passed, I've used it for all my invoices essentially recording the work that I've done - after that month, I had to choose a plan that fits me best, but the credit card was actually *required*. I've tried my debit cards from both Visa and Mastercard, but no luck. I don't have a credit card, don't want one, but now I've got access to my invoices locked as without a credit card I cannot continue with subscription. I'd say it's misleading at best, and a straight up lie at worst, as 'no credit card required' seem to have been applicable only for the free trial period? There's no way to even pay for a whole year upfront via paypal or anything, the credit card is indeed required.

While I have not tried this myself, I suspect the "no credit card required" part has to due with the trial aspect, not necessarily paying for the product if you want to keep using it post trial. Some software/services want you to enter a credit card number just to use the trial version, as they want bill you as soon as the trial period ends.

 

Maybe someone from the business team can clarify, but I suspect the "no credit card" required is to say that you can try it out without having to enter a card number and not worrying that you will be automatically billed once the trial period ends...especially if you do not want it. I do not think anything nefarious is happening in this situation, but that's just MHO.

[GuardEzio]

I think they are still a sponsor, not seen them for a few videos, but I'm throwing Pulseway here.

 

Good product, active support and interest in hearing what features the end user would like to see, would be very useful if it had more support for Linux infrastructure environments but I can understand why they have a primary focus on Windows. I can also, to a degree, forgive them for the headache I've had to go through each year to get the licenses through - they are very much built on a credit card subscription model, rather than the invoice model we have to use due to government regulations. 

 

However, what I cannot abide is how difficult they are making it for us to cancel our subscription to the service. From my initial request (2 months ago) for our subscription to be terminated, I have had two different reps asking for no less than four calls to go over my feedback for leaving Pulseway, of which I have already listed out in a (recorded) call and email, and every month had to reply the same cancelation request to them (with our finance team CC'd in to the reply to ensure we don't end up handing money over for something we don't want or need anymore) as they chase for payment for a subscription I have requested termination of multiple times over... 

[Modred189]

Mine, and similar services like PrivacyBee and PrivacyHawk are scams, and LTT should consider dropping them as a sponsor and here’s why:

 

Since the passing of certain recent laws (thinking CCPA, CPRA in California plus laws in Colorado, Virginia, Utah, Iowa and Connecticut, plus GDPR in the EU), consumers have been provided certain privacy rights. These include the rights to ask that their data be deleted, that they get a copy of their data, that their data be corrected, among others. 
 

This is good. The dolphins would agree.

 

However, receiving, processing and responding to these requests was a new thing for many companies. While early on, many companies did use email, essentially no company of any size does anymore. Why? In addition to the rights, these new laws imposed significant records keeping requirements related to these requests. And for that, e-mail sucks.  So dose using email for getting these requests to the right teams for processing.

 

As a result, more modern solutions have been implemented that allow for automated processing, workflow management, and better records keeping. No company of any meaningful size uses email. I’m the primary privacy attorney for a $25b US company, and we have not used email since late 2019. And we are NOT a tech company (we average about 250 requests a year).

 

However, these privacy companies are a scam. They KNOW no one uses email. But they charge their customers a LOT of money to do VERY little. Essentially, you provide them with access to your email account (!!!) and they blast every commercial domain they see with automated requests containing your email address. No information that is REQUIRED BY LAW to verify that the person making the request is actually who they say they are. WORSE, these companies are not the “agents” modern privacy law allows to submit requests on others’ behalf.

 

This means that if my team receives a request from, say, PrivacyBee, for Johnsmith@vroogle.com, my team will have no context for where in our business this person’s data may reside if it does, whether we HAVE to retain their data under some other law, what the user’s name is or if they are actually the ones submitting the request (again, a determination required BY LAW for each request) AND even if all that were provided, we are not permitted to process those requests because of how the law was written.

 

these companies use scare tactics to lure gullible people into spending a lot of money (PrivacyBee is $200/year, PrivacyHawk is $80) and all of these companies have corporate facing applications that they promise will help your team process requests from consumers using their products (and of course, not their competition). It’s extortion and is a clear conflict.

 

As a consumer it is worse. While you pay all that money, the majority of company interactions are not automated. Instead, you will get a bunch of emails from these companies directing you to resubmityour request using their online portals OR asking for additional information sufficient to process the request. You could have done that yourself!

 

So, please reconsider this sponsorship. It’s slimy and gross from multiple perspectives.

 

[DukeEDumper]

Hey, just wanted to put this out there how manscaped did me dirty. Bought a trimmer from them, then, they created an account for me and signed me up for a monthly subscription. Didn't even know till first box came as there was no email receipt for the monthly charge. Had to go into my auto created account, only possible by password reset as I had not made the account, and write them an email requesting a cancellation and to do a refund return for the first product they sent. They'll get back to me... In the mean time, next months product will be charged and sent tomorrow. Sorry, it's not you at LTT, it's them at manscaped. I've never had something like this happen before and I'm both appalled and shocked a company this big would do something like this. Just thought you should know about this. I even included the email ( which was in my spam box) that states basically "Hey, we signed you up, go make an account to customize your preference on what we'll send you, otherwise we'll just send you some random stuff."

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