LMG Sponsor Complaints

[dogwitch]

On 9/18/2022 at 11:15 AM, Sogehttechnik said:

Hi, I am a bit disappointed with LMG. I was thinking about buying the VOLTA Giga Charger on Indiegogo a few months ago. I wasn't sure if I should risk it but I bought a cable from them before and was very satisfied. Then I saw the Mac Address video which was sponsored by Volta Giga charger + an extra discount.

 

After that I ordered it. Since it is a pre-order I had absolutely no problem that it came MONTHS late. Last week I got it after more than half a year late. Unfortunately the quality is absolutely poor. The ports are inserted completely wrong and because of that the cables I plug in break with time. Customer support does not respond to requests. Such experiences are not individual cases. Under the discussion tab on Indigogo there are many people who have made the same experiences.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/giga-the-ultimate-universal-gan-charger/x/28437350#/discussion

I hope such stories move LMG not to promote Kickstarter or Indigogo Campania. You NEVER know what you'll get in the end and something like this shouldn't be advertised because it's not a finished product yet and LMG can't even read customer reviews.

 

 

 

the other casing is mass produce and use by other comapines.  now  q/a of the internal. yeah that on the company that design the internal thru.

[deepfry3]

Hey, first-time poster; joined to ask this. This entire year, in Australia at least, SecretLab has been advertising chairs as being discounted from a price I believe they've never actually sold at.

 

Take the Titan Evo 2022: In Sep '21 they announced prices were raising from starting at A$619 to A$679, then went on sale around a month later to A$644.
It's been 'on sale' since then, and the website often presents a countdown for when it will end, but it always just changes to another identical sale with a different theme. 

 

But, the price also silently raised again in Feb '22 to start at A$724, advertised as discounted from A$759. I don't think it's ever sold at A$759, and it's illegal (in my state) to advertise as discounted from a price you've never sold at.
I've asked SL support about this several times, including describing this as illegal and deceptive, and their response consistently ignores the issue and is always something like "we do have sales from time to time".

 

It's not about whatever the price is, to me. Permanently pretending to be on sale and refusing to acknowledge it is deliberately deceptive, and they don't seem to mind me suggesting it's unlawful.

Does anyone else see a problem with this as I do?

[justinboggs]

1 hour ago, deepfry3 said:

Hey, first-time poster; joined to ask this. This entire year, in Australia at least, SecretLab has been advertising chairs as being discounted from a price I believe they've never actually sold at.

 

Take the Titan Evo 2022: In Sep '21 they announced prices were raising from starting at A$619 to A$679, then went on sale around a month later to A$644.
It's been 'on sale' since then, and the website often presents a countdown for when it will end, but it always just changes to another identical sale with a different theme. 

 

But, the price also silently raised again in Feb '22 to start at A$724, advertised as discounted from A$759. I don't think it's ever sold at A$759, and it's illegal (in my state) to advertise as discounted from a price you've never sold at.
I've asked SL support about this several times, including describing this as illegal and deceptive, and their response consistently ignores the issue and is always something like "we do have sales from time to time".

 

It's not about whatever the price is, to me. Permanently pretending to be on sale and refusing to acknowledge it is deliberately deceptive, and they don't seem to mind me suggesting it's unlawful.

Does anyone else see a problem with this as I do?

OH yeah If they can't point to a single time they had it for that price in AUS then they are clearly breaking the law they at the very lest could have emailed you an prior ad for your market that showed that yes it was at the price once.

[yolosnail]

2 hours ago, deepfry3 said:

Hey, first-time poster; joined to ask this. This entire year, in Australia at least, SecretLab has been advertising chairs as being discounted from a price I believe they've never actually sold at.

 

Take the Titan Evo 2022: In Sep '21 they announced prices were raising from starting at A$619 to A$679, then went on sale around a month later to A$644.
It's been 'on sale' since then, and the website often presents a countdown for when it will end, but it always just changes to another identical sale with a different theme. 

 

But, the price also silently raised again in Feb '22 to start at A$724, advertised as discounted from A$759. I don't think it's ever sold at A$759, and it's illegal (in my state) to advertise as discounted from a price you've never sold at.
I've asked SL support about this several times, including describing this as illegal and deceptive, and their response consistently ignores the issue and is always something like "we do have sales from time to time".

 

It's not about whatever the price is, to me. Permanently pretending to be on sale and refusing to acknowledge it is deliberately deceptive, and they don't seem to mind me suggesting it's unlawful.

Does anyone else see a problem with this as I do?

That kinda reminds me of this which recently happened here in the UK

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/lidl/lidl-rapped-by-ad-watchdog-over-misleading-black-friday-savings-claims/669421.article

 

Basically if I brought out a chair and set the RRP/MSRP at £690, but everywhere sold it for £420. It would be misleading to put it on sale for £360 with a savings of £330, because you would only really be saving £60.

 

But on a more related note, I know that down under they have much stricter consumer rights than our already fairly strict rules, and I'm fairly sure we have a minimum amount of time it has to be sold at the higher price for them to advertise it as the 'was' price. However, I do believe there's a loophole, at least with retailers with multiple stores, in that it only has to be sold in one store at the higher price.

[deepfry3]

I'm not sure what the minimum amount of time is to sell at the original rate in Aus, if there is one. To meet a technicality, it wouldn't surprise me if SL did something like sell it at the higher rate once for an hour, or for a few minutes between sales.

 

If that was the case, I'm not sure why support would avoid answering the question, but in my mind it's still deliberately and unnecessarily deceptive. The lower "sale" rate is clearly the standard price they expect most consumers to purchase at, but their tactic is calling it a sale so customers always think now is the best time to buy.

Example - I just got a Facebook ad for SL literally saying saying "lowest prices of the year, now" for their Black Friday sale. This one is technically true since there's some specific chair designs cheaper than usual, but almost all of them remain the same price they have been all year.

 

For the standard models, they clearly never have to actually go on sale, because just calling the standard price a sale is obviously just as effective. Every interaction I've had with support about it, they've continued to turn a blind eye and act as though their current sale is a one-off limited time opportunity.

[Phantomistic]

On 5/20/2022 at 4:38 AM, PeachGr said:

Manscapped lawnmower 3.0 

I bought that, and it stopped working after 1 use. I contacted support and they be sent me a replacement that died after 2 weeks. Now the third died on my hands after about 6 months. I have used it normally, charged it at low wattage and I m really really careful on cleaning it with water. Arm I have 3 e waste products at home.

Also when you but it, there is a hidden subscription for about 10€ per month for a useless part (blades)

 

Photo of their waterproof. I ve washed it a few times in low pressure water from a sink. They did a good job keeping the water inside I guess

I hope someone at the company see this. I considered buying one but i will NOT now. Thank you for saving us some hard earned dollars.

[Ultraforce]

On 9/18/2022 at 11:15 AM, Sogehttechnik said:

Hi, I am a bit disappointed with LMG. I was thinking about buying the VOLTA Giga Charger on Indiegogo a few months ago. I wasn't sure if I should risk it but I bought a cable from them before and was very satisfied. Then I saw the Mac Address video which was sponsored by Volta Giga charger + an extra discount.

 

I believe after feedback related to issues from the whole thing with Volta that at least since April LMG is not working with Volta.

 

[The_Love_Spud]

I put a pretty long post regarding my concerns with the most recent Anker sponsored video in the associated thread. The short version is this: LMG would do well to avoid promoting AC power products (power strips, surge protectors, current taps) which aren't listed under the appropriate standards defined for those devices. In the referenced video the prominently featured Anker 615 and less prominently demonstrated PowerPort Cube fit under that description. I'd recommend my post above for further details, but suffice it to say that Anker consistently promotes AC power products which typically lack proper labeling for relevant standards (proper labeling is typically seen as those holographic metal foil labels or as an integral part of the case's injection molding to indicate a listing certificate number and/or the appropriate standards; see guidelines here). A likely reason for this lack of labeling is because Anker all to often also fails to have their device listed under relevant standards.

 

Good luck!
Jon

[Quackers101]

1 hour ago, that_dude said:

TL;DR Anker might deliver a (known) dangerous good .

any sponsors doing electronics or "health/food", jk but yes, that could suck.

[deepfry3]

On 9/21/2022 at 1:27 PM, justinboggs said:

OH yeah If they can't point to a single time they had it for that price in AUS then they are clearly breaking the law they at the very lest could have emailed you an prior ad for your market that showed that yes it was at the price once.

Update on this. Someone with 'Senior Customer Care Specialist' in their signature emailed me explaining again that freight/component prices have affected their ability to sell at their previous rate, but they do have sales from time to time for their customers to enjoy. I wasn't going to respond yet again since they clearly just don't care, but I received another email asking for further information to address the issue.

 

I said the following:

I've repeatedly suggested SecretLab is breaking the law by misleading customers on their website, and I've repeatedly said that responding with "we do have sales from time to time" is an absurd and unhelpful response.

I really don't know what else I can say to be any more clear. From your responses, either you know it's wrong and you're deliberately avoiding the issue, or you really don't see an issue with a consumer pointing out that you're breaking the law.

 

They still ignored it and just responded with the same freight/component prices thing. Crazy.

[roberestarkk]

This is not a complaint about the sponsor per-se, but just an observation/suggestion about how LTT talks about them...
For context, I just watched this video:

At the end of it, there's an ad for Privacy.com, which seems to be a fantastic service that I'd love to use.

However, it is very specifically limited to US Residents only.
A fact which is not communicated in the sponsorship spot at all, nor in-fact on the actual privacy.com homepage.
You only find this out either by getting suspicious at how useful it is and how unlikely it would be to actually work for you, and going combing in their support desk to find this article: https://support.privacy.com/hc/en-us/articles/360012046934-Who-can-use-Privacy-

Or even more annoyingly, by signing up (and probably ignoring the 'I accept the terms and conditions and am also a US Resident' text because who reads that anyway?) and trying to use it.

 

I'd love to see LTT be clear about this limitation of the sponsor, given that there are some (many?) of us viewers who are outside the US, and especially given that most if not all of the LTT employees also fall into this category.
No need to harp on it or anything, but a quick simple "If you're a US resident and ..." or "Currently available to US residents only" or something like that chucked into the read would (I feel), be a great way to be upfront with the viewers about it, but without detracting too much from the flow of the video.

[thexder1]

I have honestly been shocked by the Oracle sponsorships. Their business model has pretty much always been to lure companies in, then lock them in to make sure they can't leave and charge really high licensing prices. While this may not be enough in and of itself, they are well known in tech as one of the most hated companies. Also there are the recent bribery charges that they have been fined for by the SEC https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/27/oracle_fined_23_million_sec/

[PurpleCodes]

I think pulling the Oura sponsored SC was a mistake. I know there was the mispronunciation however I highly doubt that was the only reason why they wanted it pulled. When I watched the video every single comment I read was complaining about the subscription. Literally every single one. I don't remember reading a single comment that didn't mention the subscription. Also Linus has been using the run without a subscription and is grandfathered for life. With backpack delays, lack of a clear warranty, and now giving into sponsor pressure to remove was is essentially a bad review its getting difficult to trust LTT and their editorial process. 

[DEFIX133]

Not that you are currently working with logitech but I'm just leaving it here in case you might work with them in the future.

 

My complaint is not about there product, it's about how they handle it.

I work in a pretty well known computer store in my country (I live somewhere in europe).

Last weekend I found out via a customer with a dead mouse (not the problem I'm talking about, these things can happen) that logitechs serial numbers on the box does not match the serial numbers on the product.

Because we list every serialnumber that a customer buys in their account we know exactly when a customer bought that exact product from us or not.

This is a huge problem when a product needs to be fixed under warrenty.

We at the shop have no way to know if a logitech product was ever sold by us and/or when it was sold by us.

Our policy with logitech products is, luckily for the customer, to just believe the customer.

But I'm almost certain other shops won't be as easy with this.

Not sure what to do with this other than try to bring this to someone with an audience as big as yours.

I'm happy to clearify if anything is unclear, English is not my native language.

[gfaster]

First time poster here, I saw a recent video with sponsor Privacy.com as a sponsor and also happened to come across this HN post. The linked site details problems with Privacy.com's (ironically) privacy practices. I personally checked with the claims made by the site and all seem to be valid according to the privacy policy of privacy.com and Onfido, and other users also reported that Onfido was used as identity verification. I'm unsure if Privacy.com's required use of a service that shows flagrant disregard for privacy of particularly sensitive personal information disqualifies them as a potential sponsor for LTT, but this is definitely going to make me more carefully consider sponsorships for online services from LTT.

 

Relevant links:

Blog post

Privacy's privacy

Onfido's privacy

Onido's facial scan policy

[NastyFlytrap]

3 hours ago, gfaster said:

First time poster here, I saw a recent video with sponsor Privacy.com as a sponsor and also happened to come across this HN post. The linked site details problems with Privacy.com's (ironically) privacy practices. I personally checked with the claims made by the site and all seem to be valid according to the privacy policy of privacy.com and Onfido, and other users also reported that Onfido was used as identity verification. I'm unsure if Privacy.com's required use of a service that shows flagrant disregard for privacy of particularly sensitive personal information disqualifies them as a potential sponsor for LTT, but this is definitely going to make me more carefully consider sponsorships for online services from LTT.

 

Relevant links:

Blog post

Privacy's privacy

Onfido's privacy

Onido's facial scan policy

Im Honestly not even surprised that they are selling data.
They'd be stupid not to, considering how little people care about this, although, pissing on the people who do care about it is a bad business practice, i must say

[CPotter]

On 9/18/2022 at 8:15 AM, Sogehttechnik said:

Hi, I am a bit disappointed with LMG. I was thinking about buying the VOLTA Giga Charger on Indiegogo a few months ago. I wasn't sure if I should risk it but I bought a cable from them before and was very satisfied. Then I saw the Mac Address video which was sponsored by Volta Giga charger + an extra discount.

 

After that I ordered it. Since it is a pre-order I had absolutely no problem that it came MONTHS late. Last week I got it after more than half a year late. Unfortunately the quality is absolutely poor. The ports are inserted completely wrong and because of that the cables I plug in break with time. Customer support does not respond to requests. Such experiences are not individual cases. Under the discussion tab on Indigogo there are many people who have made the same experiences.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/giga-the-ultimate-universal-gan-charger/x/28437350#/discussion

I hope such stories move LMG not to promote Kickstarter or Indigogo Campania. You NEVER know what you'll get in the end and something like this shouldn't be advertised because it's not a finished product yet and LMG can't even read customer reviews.

 

 

 

Hey, I'm sorry you had this experience. We're no longer working with these folks because of stuff like this, but we had worked with them originally because they've shown success (BEFORE 2021/2022) with creating good products and shipping them through crowdfunding websites. I think our first partnership with them was in 2017 if I recall, and we did our best to validate everything they were doing.

 

Let me know if your issue got resolved.

 

On 9/28/2022 at 7:08 PM, roberestarkk said:

This is not a complaint about the sponsor per-se, but just an observation/suggestion about how LTT talks about them...
For context, I just watched this video:

At the end of it, there's an ad for Privacy.com, which seems to be a fantastic service that I'd love to use.

However, it is very specifically limited to US Residents only.
A fact which is not communicated in the sponsorship spot at all, nor in-fact on the actual privacy.com homepage.
You only find this out either by getting suspicious at how useful it is and how unlikely it would be to actually work for you, and going combing in their support desk to find this article: https://support.privacy.com/hc/en-us/articles/360012046934-Who-can-use-Privacy-

Or even more annoyingly, by signing up (and probably ignoring the 'I accept the terms and conditions and am also a US Resident' text because who reads that anyway?) and trying to use it.

 

I'd love to see LTT be clear about this limitation of the sponsor, given that there are some (many?) of us viewers who are outside the US, and especially given that most if not all of the LTT employees also fall into this category.
No need to harp on it or anything, but a quick simple "If you're a US resident and ..." or "Currently available to US residents only" or something like that chucked into the read would (I feel), be a great way to be upfront with the viewers about it, but without detracting too much from the flow of the video.

We try to do this in video descriptions but have failed with Privacy. I'll talk to the team and we'll try to update our description texts moving forward.

 

On 9/19/2022 at 12:51 PM, Nardella said:

Regarding the recent plex sponsorship. I am a happy user of plex and lifetime subscriber. I feel that the behaviour of plex in presenting the following:

https://www.plex.tv/blog/pro-week-day-1-linus/

Without disclosing on that page or in the relevant newsletter email, that they paid for services from Linus. Is distasteful at best. When watching LTT and its associated channels I am used to and greatly appreciate the complete, explicit, and unmissable, transparency whenever there is money involved. Having this missing in this context makes me uncomfortable and unhappy, while it may not be legally or even morally required that they provide this transparency, it would still be appreciated and its absence is unpleasant. I would appreciate it, if going forward, if any company pays LMG for something, that LMG requires that they provide significantly more transparency on their end should they do something like what plex is doing.

We do try to actively monitor things like this, we'll send this to our Plex contact.

[SchimmelGelenk]

 

Having Epic Games as an sponsor is not the end of the world, but I have concern about advertising Epic Games, since they have shown Anti-Consumer and Anti-Competition behavior in the past. (Some context)
 

tl;dr

• scamming kids with micro-transactions in Fortnite
• having connections to Tencent (Chinese company)
• paying games studios for exclusive deals (like PC Building Sim 2)
• thus does not try to compete fairly with other Stores (e.g Steam, GOG)

 

This may not be the concern of the average consumer, but it does impact the whole market of game sales.

[Hathos]

LTT advertised the Dbrand atomic grip case for the S22 Ultra in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5tcHp1kBmQ

 

I bought the case, received it in April of 2022, and it was the worst phone case that I've ever owned. It is too flimsy, which results in the phone literally falling out of it when held normally. It was so bad that Dbrand shortly after "killed it" per an email that they sent to me, trying to get me to buy the replacement.

All in all, this was a waste of money, and I am disappointed that LTT accepted this faulty product as a sponsor.

 

 

[Erioch]

1 hour ago, Hathos said:

LTT advertised the Dbrand atomic grip case for the S22 Ultra in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5tcHp1kBmQ

 

I bought the case, received it in April of 2022, and it was the worst phone case that I've ever owned. It is too flimsy, which results in the phone literally falling out of it when held normally. It was so bad that Dbrand shortly after "killed it" per an email that they sent to me, trying to get me to buy the replacement.

All in all, this was a waste of money, and I am disappointed that LTT accepted this faulty product as a sponsor.

 

 

Huh.  I have this case and they never contacted me about buying a replacement.  I guess I'm not worthy.

 

I do agree, though, it is flimsy AF.

[yolosnail]

15 hours ago, Erioch said:

Huh.  I have this case and they never contacted me about buying a replacement.  I guess I'm not worthy.

 

I do agree, though, it is flimsy AF.

After trying dozens of brands of cases, the one I've settled on is Spigen, specifically their Tough Armour series. The quality of them has been excellent, they're not too bulky for the amount of protection they offer, and the prices are very reasonable. I'm not very careful with my phone at all, and while the case is covered in scuffs, the phone is still immaculate.

 

 

Although, since I've got a flippy boi on the way, I'm going to have to change my ways. Taking the insurance out on it is probably going to turn out to be the right decision!

[Neroon]

On 10/12/2022 at 10:34 PM, SchimmelGelenk said:

tl;dr

• scamming kids with micro-transactions in Fortnite
• having connections to Tencent (Chinese company)
• paying games studios for exclusive deals (like PC Building Sim 2)
• thus does not try to compete fairly with other Stores (e.g Steam, GOG)

Scamming kids? Anything specific here, or just the dislike of microtransactions? Which I agree on are horrible, but they aren't doing anything that every other game company does. Sadly this has become the norm.

Tencent is a major shareholder, but not a majority shareholder, Tim Sweeney still is. Afaik there are no facts here that would need anyone to worry.

Right, because exclusive deals are obviously very rare in the gaming scene, it's not like Sony, MS and Nintendo do it all the time. Oh and on PC the average gamer has like 5 launchers installed due to so many exclusives. And considering the before mentioned Steam doesn't allow their Valve games on other PC launchers, why are you giving Epic crap for keeping PC Building Sim 2 exclusive? Oh and they didn't pay for exclusivity, they are the publisher.

 

Oh and exclusivity on PC is a load of shit anyway, and I don't even know why people complain about it. Sure I would like to have a completely neutral launcher for all my games, without needing Steam, Epic, Ubisoft, Battle.net etc etc etc, but that's not gonna happen, and never has been. We've always needed a ton of launchers and all that.

For some reason people think Steam have the right to games on their platform, even though they are and have been extremely abusive to developers, taking a massive cut. Valve is not your friend, don't think because you like their client and the Steamdeck is cheap, that they are the good guys. They are extremely controlling. And no, Epic ain't the good guy either, they all aren't.

[pythonmegapixel]

The thing that gets me with dbrand is that they stop making cases for a particular device long before that device has reached the end of its useful life. Not all of us want to get rid of our phone and buy a new one every couple of years, and frankly, given they are selling something which is meant to prolong the life of phones, that they seem to expect us to doesn't exactly inspire confidence in their product!

 

Also, their embracing-the-evil-megacorp-vibe marketing was funny for a bit, but honestly the novelty has worn off and it just feels crass and stupid now.

[Bablin190]

Not necessarily an issue with a specific sponsor but more of an issue with Linus being a little hypocritical of what he had said in the past. I’m sure this is not Linus’s fault but thought I should bring this to your attention. When I was watching the most recent video(

) I noticed that capital one shopping sponsored a portion of the video and not the video. And that on the WAN show(

) he talked about how he did not like it when a sponsor only sponsors a portion of the video. And just wanted this to be noted. 

[Old School Gamer]

On 6/19/2022 at 11:40 AM, cadabri said:

Glasswire

To be honest, not sure if they are so much an active sponsor any more but their website is a bit misleading with their subscription prices, listing them as "Buy" with no time period, and not making it clear that the price is a subscription. 

How is this not clear?