Yet another dissatisfied customer of Clay Cowgill @ multig..

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My wife ordered a Star Wars ESB multigame kit for me for Christmas in
early December from Clay.

Clay cashed our check in early December of 2004.

He continued to make promises of when he would deliver the product and
excuses for continually missing these commitments.

In March of 2005, Clay offered to return our money if we did not care
to continue to wait. We accepted. More excuses and missed commitments
and still no refund after 2 more months.

On April 27th, 2004 I again asked in writing to Clay, to send the
refund to us. Asking that I receive it within 7 days or I would pursue
other avenues. It has been 10 days since this request and no check was
in the mail today.

Clay has had our money for over 6 months and has provided no product
nor returned our money as he committed.

I have been collecting arcade games, juke boxes and Pinballs and other
related equipment for over 20 years and have never ran into such a
problem as with Clay. I have ordered from many vendors and hobbyists.


I take negative posting like this very seriously and would not do such
without basis. In fact this is the only negative posting I believe I
have ever made. I understand this is a hobby for him but keeping
people's money for over 6 months is beyond reproach.

I hope that my case is an isolated occurrence and others are not having
the same trouble with Clay.

Blake
 
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<blake_nylund@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1115489095.361211.157210@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> My wife ordered a Star Wars ESB multigame kit for me for Christmas in
> early December from Clay.
[...]

I've been doing this stuff online for going on 10 years now and just like
any other business there's going to be a transaction every now and then that
goes bad. In all honesty, at this point I just expect I'll never have
*100%* of my orders go off without a snag, so I'll just tell my side of the
story and go about my business as usual.

1) I conversed with Kelly in December and warned her prior to ordering that
is would be a long wait on an SW/ESB kit since I was already backlogged with
holiday orders and I was taking three weeks off at the end of the year for
vacation (making the leadtime up to 11-13 weeks). I offered my standard $25
"rush" service (to hand build a single kit for her over the weekend to get
it out before Christmas) which she declined.

2) By 3/5/05 I still didn't have a tested kit ready, so I offered a refund
and asked to what address she wanted me to sent it to. I received no reply
and I promply forgot about it.

3) About ~35 days later (4/11/05 to be exact) I received an email asking
where the refund is. I re-asked my question about where to send it to and
got the necessary information the next day. I got bogged down with taxes
and some business travel for the next couple weeks and didn't send it out
(that was clearly my fault).

4) By the end of April I had SW/ESB kits available and in stock, so I
re-extended an offer to send out a kit or refund at their option. Kelly
chose refund, so that's what I did.

Case closed as far as I'm concerned. No, it wasn't smooth or how Blake
wanted (and his 'legal action' threat didn't exactly motivate me to go out
of my way to expedite the refund check last week), but that's just how it
went this time.

-Clay
 
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Bummer - I'm sorry to hear this, and I fully understand your frustration.
I've only dealt with Clay a couple times and, to his defense, he never let
me down. The only remotely related issue I can think of was a (relatively
minimal) slow turn around for a kit (I can't even remember which one, but I
had more or less forgotten about it for almost a year before sending it back
to him so have absolutley NO room to complain myself). I fully expected him
to say "sorry, it's been too long", as most would have done (and fairly, I
might add), but Clay was true to his offer and sent me a new one.

I think testomonials (positive, megative, or "constructive") are a valuable
part of these newsgroups, and I just wanted to add my story to this one.
From what I've read/heard from others, Clay suffers from RLS (Real Life
Sydrome) like the rest of us and, though I'm not trying to get in the middle
of this dispute, because of that my "wait" was not a problem. And as far as
the quality of his work, I think it speaks for itself, and I am thankful
there are people out there who offer kits, etc, for these machines (My
SW/ESB kit is extremely cool, and have recommended it to others, and a
DK-JAMMA kit I got from him was 1st class as well).

I hope things find an agreeable resolution for you. I know at least one
other person who sells kits, and it's a pretty labor intensive thing - these
people aren't getting rish doing this, so I feel obligated to give them more
slack than some mail order company that deals in volumes.

<blake_nylund@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1115489095.361211.157210@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> My wife ordered a Star Wars ESB multigame kit for me for Christmas in
> early December from Clay.
>
> Clay cashed our check in early December of 2004.
>
> He continued to make promises of when he would deliver the product and
> excuses for continually missing these commitments.
>
> In March of 2005, Clay offered to return our money if we did not care
> to continue to wait. We accepted. More excuses and missed commitments
> and still no refund after 2 more months.
>
> On April 27th, 2004 I again asked in writing to Clay, to send the
> refund to us. Asking that I receive it within 7 days or I would pursue
> other avenues. It has been 10 days since this request and no check was
> in the mail today.
>
> Clay has had our money for over 6 months and has provided no product
> nor returned our money as he committed.
>
> I have been collecting arcade games, juke boxes and Pinballs and other
> related equipment for over 20 years and have never ran into such a
> problem as with Clay. I have ordered from many vendors and hobbyists.
>
>
> I take negative posting like this very seriously and would not do such
> without basis. In fact this is the only negative posting I believe I
> have ever made. I understand this is a hobby for him but keeping
> people's money for over 6 months is beyond reproach.
>
> I hope that my case is an isolated occurrence and others are not having
> the same trouble with Clay.
>
> Blake
>
 
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Hi Clay,

Glad to hear that you have finally decided to send a check. I
will post a message once I receive it and it clears.

Blake
 
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good things come to those who wait. I don't know anyone else who can do
what you do Clay. A couple of years ago I had to wait for a tempest multi
kit, I think it was three months, just about what you told me and it showed
and love it. If Clay don't have it built in stock please be patient, a man
of his word. We all have lives outside of our hobbies people. Keep up the
good work!!!

Trin
"Clay Cowgill" <c.cowgill@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:2eCdnSXQRYPisuDfRVn-qQ@comcast.com...
> <blake_nylund@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:1115489095.361211.157210@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>> My wife ordered a Star Wars ESB multigame kit for me for Christmas in
>> early December from Clay.
> [...]
>
> I've been doing this stuff online for going on 10 years now and just like
> any other business there's going to be a transaction every now and then
> that
> goes bad. In all honesty, at this point I just expect I'll never have
> *100%* of my orders go off without a snag, so I'll just tell my side of
> the
> story and go about my business as usual.
>
> 1) I conversed with Kelly in December and warned her prior to ordering
> that
> is would be a long wait on an SW/ESB kit since I was already backlogged
> with
> holiday orders and I was taking three weeks off at the end of the year for
> vacation (making the leadtime up to 11-13 weeks). I offered my standard
> $25
> "rush" service (to hand build a single kit for her over the weekend to get
> it out before Christmas) which she declined.
>
> 2) By 3/5/05 I still didn't have a tested kit ready, so I offered a refund
> and asked to what address she wanted me to sent it to. I received no
> reply
> and I promply forgot about it.
>
> 3) About ~35 days later (4/11/05 to be exact) I received an email asking
> where the refund is. I re-asked my question about where to send it to and
> got the necessary information the next day. I got bogged down with taxes
> and some business travel for the next couple weeks and didn't send it out
> (that was clearly my fault).
>
> 4) By the end of April I had SW/ESB kits available and in stock, so I
> re-extended an offer to send out a kit or refund at their option. Kelly
> chose refund, so that's what I did.
>
> Case closed as far as I'm concerned. No, it wasn't smooth or how Blake
> wanted (and his 'legal action' threat didn't exactly motivate me to go out
> of my way to expedite the refund check last week), but that's just how it
> went this time.
>
> -Clay
>
>
>
 
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Wow,
I would have jumped on the SWESB kit instead. I have one of them from
Clay and it is something else! Clay makes them in his "spare time" so
when he has something in limited suppy he really means it.
Glad to see the transaction end on a good note.



blake_nyl...@yahoo.com wrote:
> Hi Clay,
>
> Glad to hear that you have finally decided to send a check. I
> will post a message once I receive it and it clears.
>
> Blake
 
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(Probably not what the original author of this thread had in mind, but now
I'm getting a rush of questions and orders on the SW/ESB kits, so I'm going
to just post here and save some time since I'm just about out now...)

As of right now, I have exactly *five* circuit boards and parts sets left
for SW/ESB kits. Two of those are reserved by orders through email today.
That leaves three unspoken for.

I'm out of the original Xicor X2212 NOVRAMs (I've only had very slim success
with the ones MarkC sells), so these last few kits will ship *without* the
spare NOVRAM for ESB high-scores. (You can add your own; the locations on
the circuit board are marked and easy to solder.)

I'm not sure when I'll get more PCBs done (I only ordered 25 last time on a
"prototype" run and they lasted almost three years), so these might be it
for a while. After ~9 years I'll likely have to redesign the kit to
eliminate the bipolar PROMs and NOVRAMs which means new circuit boards and
manuals and everything else, so who knows when I'll get around to that. :-(

If you want one of the last few (and don't mind waiting more than a month
before I get time to work on them again!) email me to check if I still have
any unspoken for. If I still have any available I'll let you know and hold
your 'reservation' for 7 business days while you send payment. If I don't
have payment in seven days, I'll assume you changed your mind and offer the
kit to the next person in line.

Thanks,
-Clay
 
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Regardless of the timing and the facts, it would have been better to omit
the "yet another" from the header - while as Clay says not all deals go 100%
right, there are precious few people out there that can be described as
dissatisfied customers of Clays.
But anyway glad it all worked out, and I hope once you get your refund you
can find someone else to build that kit for you.

--
Art
<blake_nylund@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1115510874.588421.231970@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Hi Clay,
>
> Glad to hear that you have finally decided to send a check. I
> will post a message once I receive it and it clears.
>
> Blake
>
 
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Hello Clay,
I emailed You yesterday (and again today, since You posted that You
only had 3 left and I got no reply from my first email) asking about
purchasing a kit. Not to be pushy, but just in case You are not getting
my emails, I would love to buy one. Please contact me if You still have
one left to sell, thanks.
Curious George
 

Chris

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Clay, can you clarify what you mean by "very slim success" with MarkC's
X2212s? I received my ESB kit this past week (thanks!) and was going to
order some NOVRAMs from him to fill the empty spot, but if they have
issues...

-Chris

Clay Cowgill wrote:
>
> I'm out of the original Xicor X2212 NOVRAMs (I've only had very slim
success
> with the ones MarkC sells), so these last few kits will ship
*without* the
> spare NOVRAM for ESB high-scores. (You can add your own; the
locations on
> the circuit board are marked and easy to solder.)
>
>
> Thanks,
> -Clay
 
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Clay Cowgill <c.cowgill@comcast.net> wrote:
: I'm out of the original Xicor X2212 NOVRAMs (I've only had very slim success
: with the ones MarkC sells), so these last few kits will ship *without* the
: spare NOVRAM for ESB high-scores. (You can add your own; the locations on
: the circuit board are marked and easy to solder.)

Why not just modify the starwars roms to eliminate the bookkeeping, and
move the esb high score table into the freed-up ram space, so you
don't need a second set of x2212s?

--
Mark Spaeth mspaeth@mtl.mit.edu
50 Vassar St., #38.265 mspaeth@mit.edu
Cambridge, MA 02139
(617) 452-2354 http://rgvac.978.org/~mspaeth
 
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"Mark C. Spaeth" <mspaeth@plancherel.mit.edu> wrote in message
news:427e57b9$0$559$b45e6eb0@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu...
> Why not just modify the starwars roms to eliminate the bookkeeping, and
> move the esb high score table into the freed-up ram space, so you
> don't need a second set of x2212s?

Yeah, that's a good idea! I always figured somebody would miss the stats,
but probably not, now that I think about it...

OTOH, it might be even easier still to just stick a new Simtek or Ramtron
part on the daughterboard instead. Those old X2212's are going to run out
of store cycles at some point anyway.

-Clay
 
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"Chris" <gougeman@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1115578961.363114.202110@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Clay, can you clarify what you mean by "very slim success" with MarkC's
> X2212s? I received my ESB kit this past week (thanks!) and was going to
> order some NOVRAMs from him to fill the empty spot, but if they have
> issues...

Well, (and I mean this with no disrespect whatsoever to MarkC or his parts--
he's a good guy and he gets a lot of hard-to-find chips for really
reasonable prices) I kinda think that the X2212's Mark has were not made by
Xicor and are possibly/probably an X2212 "like" part that someone else put
out there or remarked or whatever...

A few reasons:

1) they're not marked like Xicor marked their parts when they were in
production
2) they're not marked like the "lifetime buy" parts Xicor did on their last
production run (I bought direct from them a "lifetime" supply (so I
thought!) when they EOL'd the X22C12 and Mark's are not like the ones I had)
3) they're pretty unreliable running on the SW/ESB multigame (probably 90%
fallout-- I quit using them)
4) some Ham radio guys (they're the ones I sold most of my original X2212's
to) have problems with them too and now specify "real Xicor" chips instead.

I have no doubt that there's something about my daughtercard design that
*makes* them not work well, but I also know that the "real" X22C12's I'd
been using for the last ~9 years functioned just fine.

So, I'd say to get Mark's parts, swap one onto a different board that
doesn't mind the difference (like Food Fight or FireFox or maybe a
non-multigamed Star Wars?) and put the (original) X2212 on the SW/ESB
daughterboard instead.

-Clay
 
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Clay Cowgill <c.cowgill@comcast.net> wrote:

: 1) they're not marked like Xicor marked their parts when they were in
: production

What are the differences in the markings ? You may recall I had NVRAM problems
when I bought my kit some years ago. I never got it working right, and keep
meaning to look at it, but if this is the reason I won't waste the time.


And, uh, how's the Sega multi-sound comming. :)

-Chris

--
==========================================================
Chris Candreva -- chris@westnet.com -- (914) 967-7816
WestNet Internet Services of Westchester
http://www.westnet.com/
 
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Got Check from Clay on Thursday 5/12/05. Thanks Clay.

Blake