Framework and Freight Forwarding: don't ever leave your country, FW anon

[cab]

(long time lurker, first time poster, hi!)

Since Framework banned FF discussions on every single platform they own, including Reddit, I'll try my luck here.

 

tl;dr FW messed with me in a way that potentially affects all customers and their repairability promise

 

I live in Armenia, and that's not a place where corporations have good support coverage or ship there. Nevertheless, everyone ships through one or another freight forwarder, and nothing bad happens most of the times (other times you go and argue with customs, but well — that's a part of life.)

 

Not really suspecting anything, I've ordered my FW with 12th gen 2022, 22 of June. FF address came through, and some time later I've received my laptop without any damage to packaging, everything was really nice and smooth.

 

Fast forward about 11 months, and my fan broke. I wrote to support describing my problem, they were quick to answer, asked for a video of a broken fan and photo of its connector... and then declined to send me replacement fan due to initial order being to FF.

 

Quote

Upon checking, the shipping address indicated on your account is a known freight forwarding address. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide warranty replacement due to the initial shipping address showing freight forwarding.

 

I've rattled about it for a few weeks on Mastodon, discovered bans on their forum and Reddit, but okay.

High viscosity lube, and my broken fan became an undead broken fan (barely working, but okay).

Sure, they are not obliged to support me for free in my unsupported country.

 

Today I've got my salary, and decided to finally buy a replacement for my fan, and hinges for me and my friend. Obviously, you wouldn't want to limit who and from where wants to fix you laptop once they got it, don't you?

Nope, Framework thinks otherwise.
 

Quote

After an audit of our outstanding orders, it was determined that you entered false billing information, are utilizing a PO Box/Post Office delivery, or are utilizing a freight forwarder with the intent to ship our product to an unsupported country/region.

 

So, even if you are a citizen of a supported country and own a FW — beware of going to any unsupported country for long.

They won't even try being there for you.

 

I did a lot of research on FFs while whining, and nothing suggests that company can be liable for FFing their products knowingly (e.g system76 does that, lads just stick an invoice on a side of a box if you ask them — and they are in business for a long time).
They don't provide any explanation for actively banning FFs except «bad experience», and wall me and my friend from the only option we have to repair our laptops.

 

It's «buy it for me» services for me (expensive and less pretty), they don't have any way to detect them (I hope).

 

And now I am stuck with something less repairable than a Macbook — for that there's at least alibaba for parts. Would never imagined that when buying FW.

[SlayerOfHellWyrm]

So, as someone that works for a company that sells products globally, forwarders pose a pretty large issue. Products may not be sold in a region for various reasons, and the big ones that can cause issues are either import/export bans, or, issues with certifications within a specific country. 

This is why we ban forwarders, and if you actively tell us your order is going to a location to be forwarded off to say, Korea where we lack relevant certifications to offer the products there, we will cancel the order.

Why? The short answer is support is very difficult if not impossible. For instance, if you purchase the product and ship it to Korea and then have issues, we can't ship any sort of replacements products or parts to the region. Alternatively, if you have an issue with the product, and let's say there's a fire and property damage is resulted, what laws do you have backing you up at that point? Basically none, because the product was never supposed to be there in the first place. You would have no ground to stand on for consumer protection laws, or lacking a certification required for the reason when you actively worked to get the item in an unsupported region. This can also cause issues with liability and so it gets messy fast.

This is an oversimplification, but it should help get the point across that there are issues allowing stuff to be forwarded to regions if you don't operate in them. It get's really bad for us with some countries where they're on the US entity list and so black-listed from companies working with them and their supply chain companies can't work with them either. Since we work with a bunch of Defense contractors, there are entire countries we're not allowed to ever work with without losing those customers. 

No working with forwarders is pretty reasonable as a result, but, it needs to be made pretty clear. We make it clear on our site that PO boxes, APO (army post office) and forwarders are not allowed. Do customers sometimes order to say, a US office and ship it themselves to a country we're blacklisted with working with? Of course, and we can't support them with RMAs when that happens and have to explain why, but this is why we cancel orders if we know that's going to happen. 

[cab]

1 hour ago, SlayerOfHellWyrm said:

You would have no ground to stand on for consumer protection laws, or lacking a certification required for the reason when you actively worked to get the item in an unsupported region. This can also cause issues with liability and so it gets messy fast.

Can you please link me to relevant lawsuits, if it's not too much to ask? I've tried searching in US and found nothing, but I am not a lawyer)

Products will end up in unsupported regions, and I guess I am kinda-sorta-barely-okay with blocking big channels of that. The thing I oppose is blocking people from getting parts to repair those aforementioned products

 

And if FF happens to send illegal goods to embargo-ed country — FF is liable for that, and FFs really are trying to prevent that from happening.

1 hour ago, SlayerOfHellWyrm said:

Why? The short answer is support is very difficult if not impossible. For instance, if you purchase the product and ship it to Korea and then have issues, we can't ship any sort of replacements products or parts to the region. Alternatively, if you have an issue with the product, and let's say there's a fire and property damage is resulted, what laws do you have backing you up at that point?

I would like an option to opt out of this aggressive hand-holding.

 

I bought parts from rando forum thinkpad modders from China, and their warranty is «that really does look like our fault, will ship in a sec». No contracts, no customer protection, nothing, and yet I have good customer experience.

 

From Framework I've expected no less — to be true to their word, and just ship required parts to FF, at no additional costs to them other than warranty overhead I've already paid for my laptop.

 

If they are trying to optimize for customer experience — well, I guess me and my friend(who actually bought it in a supported country IIRC) — who already have their products — are outliers they've decided to write off as such.

[Angusticlavii]

If they dont support your region and you order anyway its pretty much your fault

[arcturuss]

1 hour ago, Angusticlavii said:

If they dont support your region and you order anyway its pretty much your fault

If you live in supported country, buy a framework laptop, and then move to unsupported country - is this still your fault?

[Qyygle]

6 hours ago, cab said:

Can you please link me to relevant lawsuits, if it's not too much to ask? I've tried searching in US and found nothing, but I am not a lawyer)

Products will end up in unsupported regions, and I guess I am kinda-sorta-barely-okay with blocking big channels of that. The thing I oppose is blocking people from getting parts to repair those aforementioned products

 

And if FF happens to send illegal goods to embargo-ed country — FF is liable for that, and FFs really are trying to prevent that from happening.

I would like an option to opt out of this aggressive hand-holding.

 

I bought parts from rando forum thinkpad modders from China, and their warranty is «that really does look like our fault, will ship in a sec». No contracts, no customer protection, nothing, and yet I have good customer experience.

 

From Framework I've expected no less — to be true to their word, and just ship required parts to FF, at no additional costs to them other than warranty overhead I've already paid for my laptop.

 

If they are trying to optimize for customer experience — well, I guess me and my friend(who actually bought it in a supported country IIRC) — who already have their products — are outliers they've decided to write off as such.

You've completely missed the point...

It doesn't matter if You're fine with the FF being liable or 'hand holding' as you're calling it, the laws of the county the company operates in dictate what they can and cannot do. 

 

The potential for violating things like embargos, tariffs, etc. are way too great in this case, especially when selling high tech/value products such as laptops. Uncle Sam doesn't care, especially if your excuse was, "oh, it was just because the customer really wanted it, so we needed to provide good service you see."

 

The rando thinkpad modder in China is obviously not going to care about this. The small company trying to disrupt an entire industry of established OEMs? They're definately going to care...

Use your head for a second here eh?

[cab]

8 minutes ago, Qyygle said:

You've completely missed the point...

It doesn't matter if You're fine with the FF being liable or 'hand holding' as you're calling it, the laws of the county the company operates in dictate what they can and cannot do. 

 

The potential for violating things like embargos, tariffs, etc. are way too great in this case, especially when selling high tech/value products such as laptops. Uncle Sam doesn't care, especially if your excuse was, "oh, it was just because the customer really wanted it, so we needed to provide good service you see."

 

The rando thinkpad modder in China is obviously not going to care about this. The small company trying to disrupt an entire industry of established OEMs? They're definately going to care...

Use your head for a second here eh?

It offsets the liability *enough* that even Amazon uses it — and they are so cheap that they would certainly prefer banning it in case of a potential lawsuit.
System76 is a directly comparable small-ish laptop OEM — and it provides instructions and help for FF.
There are no precedents of it being illegal AFAIK, so I guess that the reason is «caring for me».

And no need to be rude.

[Qyygle]

Nothing you've posted changes anything there. It's a level of liability deemed acceptable, and FW has decided that this is not ok for them.

System76 in no way provides instruction or help for FF, where does this show up on their site? They also do not manufacture their own hardware either. They partner with CLEVO and other generic chassis manufacturers to brand their systems, so they have a much smaller stake at hand.

 

If FW is nailed for violating government export regulations, they stand to lose a lot more than System76. Intel and AMD dropping their partnership with FW is a lot worse than 76 having some issues with getting CLEVO rebrands for a while.

Amazon is a laughable example. They're selling other peoples products, and they have no end of supply for people queing to send them more. 

[cab]

23 minutes ago, Qyygle said:

System76 in no way provides instruction or help for FF, where does this show up on their site?

https://system76.com/shipping and https://github.com/system76/launch/issues/37#issuecomment-863268957/

 

Regarding AMD partnerships: I can also order a Steam Deck through FF. Valve just says «You are on your own».

[NeonRainbow]

Just made an account to agree with the OP, and say how deeply disappointed I am. Just need a place to vent, I guess  I bought my Framework in a supported country, the US, but afterwards ended up traveling to several other countries. The one I'm currently in for a while is not supported, and, as luck would have it, that's where my fan decided to give out.

 

It's a known issue, my laptop is under warranty, and I have a US freight forwarding address. They acknowledged I need a replacement, but refused to cover it under warranty. Asked if I could just pay for it myself, and they said no. Asked if I could send the warranty replacement to my family, who still live at the original US residential address that the computer was shipped to, and they just totally ignored the question. 

 

So, now I'm stuck with a broken Framework and no official way to get the replacement part for it sent to me without getting someone in my family to receive the part and send it to the mail forwarder manually. I wasn't aware of all these provisions when I bought it in the US (or even if freight forwarding was banned then? Seems as if it might be a recent ban), and, frankly, I think it really undercuts their whole "right to repair" philosophy. It does seem, as OP said, that if you leave their territory you are pretty much screwed.

 

Honestly, if I'd just bought another ThinkPad, I probably could have had a replacement fan here and in my laptop by now. Of course, the old ThinkPad I'm currently writing on hasn't needed anything replaced in the 5 years I've had it, so haven't tested that theory!

 

Luckily, I managed to find a Framework fan kit on eBay. Apparently, somebody found a cosmetic defect on their fan assembly and Framework decided to send them a new one, so they sold off the defective one. That's what I'll be able to put in my computer. Not an official part from the store I thought was going to make my computer a sustainable investment, but a random part from eBay.

 

Anyway, this just makes me sad. I wanted to love Framework. I recommended it to people, talked about it with other nerds, answered questions from random people who saw me with it... but now I can't honestly say I feel good about this company. I feel abandoned and a little betrayed, and, despite having read all the official explanations about freight forwarding, including those above, I still can't completely wrap my head around why using a freight forwarder to send me a fan so I can use my computer again is the hill they've chosen to die on. 

 

I'll replace the fan with the very shady black market fan (:D) I acquired, and hopefully it'll work, but, honestly, I'm going back to ThinkPads. I'll either sell the Framework or wait for something big to break and just not replace it. As someone who travels a lot and knows a lot of people who travel, I'm going to actively recommend people not buy Framework machines if they move around a lot. 

[seanondemand]

This is classic “people needing to keep their expectations in check” shit. Framework is a brand new, small company, and you compare them with Lenovo, who literally has a support network to handle support for entire governments. You may not feel that it’s “fair”, or “what you paid for”, or “logical”; but it’s what you did pay for. They have freight forwarding policies in their T&C’s for the reason that a company their size can’t support the potential complications that come with that. If you want good after-purchase support, buy from a brand known for that. 
 

Live on the cutting edge, deal with cutting edge problems. 

[NeonRainbow]

Fair enough! Mostly what I want is for the company that markets itself by right-to-repair to not actively stop me from repairing my device at my own expense, but I do get that marketing is marketing at the end of the day and lawyers probably take precedence over "brand vibes"

[RJL]

>... actively stop me from repairing...

 

That thought doesn't even cross their mind. 1st, 2nd and 3rd they're trying to NOT die.

 

Any company that breaks rules that could cause Big Brother to take action that almost surely leads to closing, the end of the company, just for your convenience... Is grossly irresponsible and negligent.

 

Those huge corporations you mention that make your life so convenient are a different sort of animal, living in a different world under different rules. Or they are companies that are just not exposed to any meaningful risk for other reasons. Or they _are_ grossly negligent and irresponsible.

 

You ever heard the saying "don't gamble what you can't afford to lose"?  You think that's decent advice? Well, shipping through FF with records showing they know it's likely ending in a banned territory is a bet they can't afford to lose.