Resolving Issues With Elemental Designs - Page 2

When you now call there customer service line, the mailboxes are again full and of course nobody answers the phone or returns emails. Like I previously stated in earlier posts, I sent my amp in for repair and have had no contact since, at this point all I want back is the broken amp back. I will have it repaired outside of Elemental Designs and for that matter I need the plate back to just fill the hole on this subwoofer that sits so darkly in my living room.

Very Frustrated

well if they are in negotiations to be bought out (rescued), its quite possible the company buying them has put a gag order on them as a condition of purchase. Thats the only thing i can think of as to why the silence.

I just came across this thread trying to help out a friend. His sub had driver issues and had to be returned for repair about a month or so ago, they have his sub and now he can't contact anyone or get it back from them. This isn't looking good.

Does anyone even live in the Iowa area that would want to stop by their location and see what they have to say face to face, assuming the place isn't boarded up?

Or make a guerrilla liberation of owned product! Sub libre!

You guys should be calling, emailing, faxing the Iowa Attorney General's office NON STOP till you get an answer. If no one is calling or attempting to get ahold of him nothing is going to get done. If they keep getting non stop calls all day long they will move it to the front of the line. If you sent in a product and never received it back I would contact by phone an attorney in Iowa and ask what your options are. Thats what I would do first thing Monday. I would not wait around to "see what happens" exhaust every option you can thing of.

I am really saddened by these developments over at Elemental Designs, and I truly feel for all those that are having trouble getting product you've already paid for, or service and repairs. It just shouldn't be that hard, and you are right to be upset and wanting resolution

I am new to this forum. Ran across this thread trying to find out what was going on over at Elemental Designs when they shut the forum down.

I personally know Ben(founder of eD), Alex, Brett and many others that have worked over there for years. I usually go to their annual meet to catch up with some friends on their forum, but I didn't make it this year. I began to see all the complaining on the forum and talked to a couple forum members that were at the meet this year to get a feel for the situation. While I can't impart much wisdom with regard to these matters, it does sound like the crew over there has dwindled significantly.
I have owned many of eD's products over the years, and currently use a complete 5.1 system from them, as well as the sub in my vehicle - I have physically not been out to Newton to their shop in some time.
I live only about 45 miles away - and if I thought it would do any good, I'd drive over there and talk to them. But I think I would be a poor surrogate for airing out anyone else's issues with them.

The only thing I can say is that I don't believe any of these guys would ever intentionally deceive anyone. They have always been upfront with me and I have never had any problems with repairs or their service. It does, however seem odd that they are not responding promptly and are having such issues delivering on their promises. I don't know the extent of Ben's involvement anymore since he left to pursue other ventures a couple years ago.

Hang in there guys! I would suggest as well to take the formal measures that have been discussed in this thread to effect some communication and/or action from eD. In the end, it may be your only option.
Edited by czech123 - 8/20/12 at 7:32am

Would be grateful if you can drop by eD and checkout what happen over there. Whatever reputation they have had gone into the drain.

someone have somes new from Iowa Attorney General's office or something else !? :/

me too i'm afraid 2200$ USD paid 2 month ago and nothing

Thanks to Chu for looking out for our AVS members. His work was invaluable in AV321 scandal.

At one time the ED A900 was a performance champ.

Chu has saved member lots of money. Thank goodness I resisted the temptation to buy an ED product.

FYI: http://blog.edesignaudio.com/?p=1792

I sort of figured it was all over.

Too bad! Didn't have to go down this way.

I am not a customer of eD but I have followed their saga over the past month or two. What I am VERY curious about, if Alex is no longer with the company, is who was the person who was deleting all of the negative comments on their forum, banning new users, and pumping themselves up on Facebook. I can understand component shortages and issues, but what they were doing was down right deception. I would like to know what the rational was being their recent business practices. I'm willing to bet that if people didn't start going to the Attorney General that they would still be doing this and this is a last ditch effort to avoid criminal prosecution.

So what happens to those of us who paid ED months ago and haven't received anything yet?

Have you not contacted your credit card company and the Iowa Attorney Generals office?

Waiting for eD is fruitless and has been for months.

from the other thread.

I had contact Matt but still no email reply. This is BS trying to avoid prosecution.

They are closing the doors on Friday. If you have been waiting months for something, there is not much sense at this point in waiting for them to resolve your issue within 2 days when there is literally one person left in the company and not enough adequate parts materials. Pretty clear from Alex's open letter that Matt posted that parts and materials are simply not there to fullfill orders.

Again, contact Iowa Attorney Generals office and your credit card company ASAP. You can try and contact Matt, but it seems pretty pointless to me based on what we know.

Holy crap. Well, not like it was unexpected but still crazy to read it from the horses mouth. I was seriously considering pulling the trigger on a set of eD12's just about a month ago. Obviously glad I didn't, but really hope for those that have open orders (or repairs) reach amends as quickly as possible.

Although if it was simply a raw materials issue and not an issue of cash flow, those seeking refunds theoretically should have no issues I would presume.

What do you envision they would be prosecuted for? Running a business poorly? Not likely too much will happen, although it would be nice to see most of the wall street folk spend some time behind bars for crimes far more heinous; perhaps they take this sort of thing more seriously in Iowa, though. Seems like many here haven't dealt with a business going down the tubes. Might be interesting to know if they voluntarily filed for bankruptcy and if so whether it was chapter 7 or 11 although it doesn't sound like that is the case. Can be a lot of fun dealing with those that file bankruptcy, some of the rules can blow your mind as a creditor when you deal with the bankruptcy court. I've been there done that, not fun at all. I think in this case they just screwed their cash flow to the point they couldn't function and no one was dealing with it properly let alone handling customer relations better. I wouldn't expect a lot here as a consumer let alone creditor.

Depends. If the Iowa Attorney General finds evidence showing that eD processed payments and took money with no intent to ever provide the product and lied about product availability, shipping dates, etc there could be something there.

eD made a lot of promises they never kept and had no problem taking peoples money along the way, most likely knowing they could never fulfill the purchase request or fix warranty issues where claims were made. That is fraud.

Folks should be able to take them to small claims court too.

Proving those accusations and that there was intent to defraud to the point of taking it to criminal prosecution is a stretch I think. Maybe, but I'd just think not very likely. I don't know all the details as I've only tuned in recently after reading some rave comments about their HT speakers. Can't draw blood from a stone, sure you can go to small claims court and get a judgement but if there's no money in the bank account you're just wasting your time.

Does anyone know what type of organization eD was? That will determine to what extent those operating the business may be personally liable...

Well we know they stated that product was "in stock" on their website and folks paid money only to find out the product was not in stock (after eD processed their payment). eD took payments on products and promised shipping dates only to disappear with the money for some of these folks with no ability to contact them and resolve issues. eD also did not honor their warranty agreements. How is that not fraud?

If you bought a car at the car dealer and they took your money and said we will deliver the car to your house tomorrow and never delivered anything after repeated attempts to contact them, you don't think that is fraud?

The minute eD processed the payment and took the money, IMHO, they are liable to deliver the product or service. Especially over the last 6 months when these guys knew the ship was sinking but just kept on taking peoples money with no idea on how or when they would deliver the product. They have made numerous posts indicating there were issues with the company over the past year stating they are trying to fix things. They knew things were broken but kept taking money from people...

IMHO if they were not sure if they could deliver products they should not have taken the money. And if they could not honor a warranty they should not have offered one.

The AG can most certainly confiscate all their computers (personal and business) and paper records and determine if there was fraud. Then prosecute accordingly.

Don't get me wrong, I think people like this need to be held accountable. Whether the attorney general's office will prosecute as a full criminal case is another matter entirely over the moral issues involved. What you understand to have happened doesn't mean it will appear that way to the attorney general's office necessarily after they sort through the mess the best they can; especially when it's probably not a willful conspiracy but rather a bunch of bozos who probably more just aren't very good at running a business... Just because they can prosecute doesn't mean they will; they have to justify it in the bigger picture here with the time and expense to the taxpayers of Iowa (hopefully there's plenty of Iowans affected which would help). Like I said earlier, hopefully in Iowa this will be taken more seriously than say if this had happened here in California or someplace like New York, where this would be a very small blip on the radar for the state attorney general's office. Has this even made the news in Iowa? Of all that's going on, what's the total dollar amount involved? I'd have to think it's not that large comparatively...

I think if anyone will get anything out of it it will be the major creditors, as they are usually first in line, particularly the secured creditors who likely will only see a partial payment on what is owed them, could be pennies on the dollar (depending on remaining assets), other creditors usually get nada. I've been involved with small businesses (who were likely larger than eD) going out of business or filing bankruptcy....in one particularly bad case we had to give back to the court-appointed bankruptcy trustee a large payment we had pried out of the sticky hands of a business that was not doing well (and filed bankruptcy) and that payment went to the secured creditors. Doesn't sound fair, does it? It was legal....

Thanks Chu! Just contacted the AG's office by email; follow up telephone call for tomorrow. ED has over $1500 of my money. Frustrating that I may never see it or a speaker. The date of my order was about 30 days prior to Alex's open letter.