- Joined
- Jun 17, 2010
- Location
- Marietta, GA
EDIT: First and foremost, let me say that I DO NOT INTEND THIS TO BE A FLAME THREAD.
So, I just finished reading every post in every thread I could find at OCN (see reference section at bottom for threads) regarding the G-Vans fan controllers which look nearly identical to the Lamptron fan controllers. There was never really any finality brought to the issue, so I can't definitively state what all went down between the companies or who is in the right and wrong, but I'm going to do my best to give my summary of things here:
OCN user skyn3t received a G-Vans controller in place of the Lamptron controller which he ordered. He looked at it and was like "this isn't what I ordered, I don't know who this company is", so he shot an email to PPCs (the etailer he ordered the controller from). They told him the products were identical and initially refused a refund (not sure what came of that, it's irrelevant to the rest). He posted about this on the forum, which caused a bit of a stir.
The Lamptron Reps at the forum picked up on this, and put out a post to inform people what was going on (see Initial Thread in references). It came to light that PPCs and FrozenCPU were using the descriptions and images of the Lamptron products on the G-Vans controllers, which Lamptron didn't take too kindly to. It also came out that PPCs had transferred the awards that the Lamptron controllers had received to G-Vans, doing nothing more than a find-replace on Lamptron, the review sites weren't happy with this.
At this point, a pretty bit ****storm starts against the retailers and G-Vans...and seemingly rightly so. As I mentioned earlier, I can't comment on either company's legal right to produce/sell their wares, but using Lamptron marketing materials was bad business practice.
Basically, what I'm thinking at this point is that it's just going to be a bunch more pages of bashing against G-Vans and what not, but then the user FrozenCPU posts in the thread (he's the official rep for FCPU, not some random troll) and just attacks EVERYONE in what seemed like a pretty drunken post. Because of this, a lot of people were just immediately like "never buying from a company that represents themselves like this." Personally, I figured one post is no big thing, maybe it was a rough day or something. The posts then continued with FCPU doing nothing but attacking people and making allegations which he failed to backup or immediately backpedaled on. Notably, he claimed that Spawne32, the Lamptron rep, was not actually the Lamptron rep, but instead was the owner of Lamptron, a claim which was disproven (for the record, Spawne32 is here under the same name as the Lamptron rep for this forum).
G-Vans registered on the forum (and was unofficially verified as a rep) and posted a few things, which were almost entirely incomprehensible (this was one of the worse ones). He stated, as best I could tell, that he felt Lamptron owed him money for the controllers his factory had produced for them, but they claimed they had already paid for them, so he withheld them and sold them himself to recoup his losses. The pictures of the G-Vans controllers look to be much lower quality than what one would expect of Lamptron, who has a great reputation for quality. It was suggested that G-Vans was responsible for the face-plate and LCD displays, as those seem to be pretty much identical, even though the PCBs are different, imo this is along the lines of the truth.
Lamptron sent out a press release which didn't say much of anything (see Lamptron Official Statement in References), and everything pretty much wound down as G-Vans continued to be incomprehensible and FCPU continued to spit (drunken?) hate in every direction and all the threads got closed. The End.
TL;DR: The reason I am posting this is two-pronged. First, I wanted to make everyone aware of the G-Vans knockoffs, and alert people that they seem to be lower quality. Secondly, I would urge everyone to read FrozenCPU's comments in the threads and determine if that is a business which you feel you should support. Personally, I don't think I will order anything from them again, FCPU's post left an awful taste in my mouth. I do not expect him to just agree, I was expecting the opposing view point from them (they are in business to make money, ya know?), but the extreme lack of professionalism on his part was (imo: aptly) likened to Paul Christoforo (admittedly, it wasn't QUITE that extreme, but it was in the same ballpark).
References:
Initial Thread
G-Vans (partially incomprehensibly) response
Lamptron Official Statement
So, I just finished reading every post in every thread I could find at OCN (see reference section at bottom for threads) regarding the G-Vans fan controllers which look nearly identical to the Lamptron fan controllers. There was never really any finality brought to the issue, so I can't definitively state what all went down between the companies or who is in the right and wrong, but I'm going to do my best to give my summary of things here:
OCN user skyn3t received a G-Vans controller in place of the Lamptron controller which he ordered. He looked at it and was like "this isn't what I ordered, I don't know who this company is", so he shot an email to PPCs (the etailer he ordered the controller from). They told him the products were identical and initially refused a refund (not sure what came of that, it's irrelevant to the rest). He posted about this on the forum, which caused a bit of a stir.
The Lamptron Reps at the forum picked up on this, and put out a post to inform people what was going on (see Initial Thread in references). It came to light that PPCs and FrozenCPU were using the descriptions and images of the Lamptron products on the G-Vans controllers, which Lamptron didn't take too kindly to. It also came out that PPCs had transferred the awards that the Lamptron controllers had received to G-Vans, doing nothing more than a find-replace on Lamptron, the review sites weren't happy with this.
At this point, a pretty bit ****storm starts against the retailers and G-Vans...and seemingly rightly so. As I mentioned earlier, I can't comment on either company's legal right to produce/sell their wares, but using Lamptron marketing materials was bad business practice.
Basically, what I'm thinking at this point is that it's just going to be a bunch more pages of bashing against G-Vans and what not, but then the user FrozenCPU posts in the thread (he's the official rep for FCPU, not some random troll) and just attacks EVERYONE in what seemed like a pretty drunken post. Because of this, a lot of people were just immediately like "never buying from a company that represents themselves like this." Personally, I figured one post is no big thing, maybe it was a rough day or something. The posts then continued with FCPU doing nothing but attacking people and making allegations which he failed to backup or immediately backpedaled on. Notably, he claimed that Spawne32, the Lamptron rep, was not actually the Lamptron rep, but instead was the owner of Lamptron, a claim which was disproven (for the record, Spawne32 is here under the same name as the Lamptron rep for this forum).
G-Vans registered on the forum (and was unofficially verified as a rep) and posted a few things, which were almost entirely incomprehensible (this was one of the worse ones). He stated, as best I could tell, that he felt Lamptron owed him money for the controllers his factory had produced for them, but they claimed they had already paid for them, so he withheld them and sold them himself to recoup his losses. The pictures of the G-Vans controllers look to be much lower quality than what one would expect of Lamptron, who has a great reputation for quality. It was suggested that G-Vans was responsible for the face-plate and LCD displays, as those seem to be pretty much identical, even though the PCBs are different, imo this is along the lines of the truth.
Lamptron sent out a press release which didn't say much of anything (see Lamptron Official Statement in References), and everything pretty much wound down as G-Vans continued to be incomprehensible and FCPU continued to spit (drunken?) hate in every direction and all the threads got closed. The End.
TL;DR: The reason I am posting this is two-pronged. First, I wanted to make everyone aware of the G-Vans knockoffs, and alert people that they seem to be lower quality. Secondly, I would urge everyone to read FrozenCPU's comments in the threads and determine if that is a business which you feel you should support. Personally, I don't think I will order anything from them again, FCPU's post left an awful taste in my mouth. I do not expect him to just agree, I was expecting the opposing view point from them (they are in business to make money, ya know?), but the extreme lack of professionalism on his part was (imo: aptly) likened to Paul Christoforo (admittedly, it wasn't QUITE that extreme, but it was in the same ballpark).
References:
Initial Thread
G-Vans (partially incomprehensibly) response
Lamptron Official Statement
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