Negative feedback thread for kcarcadegame

[thomas3184]

Same thing with Yaton right?

 

[jassin000]

Its 50/50 with KC, sometimes he really comes thru.
Other times you get the feeling you've been bated 'n switched (ie better looking machines in pictures/parts missing/undisclosed damage).

My Vewlix C came from him, and it was just about perfect when it arrived.

• One bent leg leveler on the right foot (20$ for two new/matching levelers)

The Diamond White on the other hand... It was pretty jacked up when it arrived.

• CP surround was busted/spot-weld pop'd (replaced for 550$ Taito Direct)
• The marquee holder was crushed (replaced for 120$ Taito Direct)
• The right side of the cab body was dented in (couldn't easily be repaired, left as-is)

 

[Cereth]

When KC has candies they sell out fast now, and if you ban him it just means it's harder for people here to know about them.

At the cost of his victims. And that’s the problem. Nobody should be gambling other peoples’ experience just so they have a better chance at something themselves. It’s not worth enabling him to abuse people just so someone gets a better chance at something they want. There’s no community in that, only greed.

 

[jassin000]

There’s no community in that, only greed.

Its pretty much how I've always felt about KC, he isn't part of our community/scene he only sells/deals to it.
Something like the LSD dealer in the parking lot of a Phish/Dead show... That doesn't listen to Phish/Dead (his stuff is never as good).

 

[imbord3rlin3]

Same thing with Yaton right?

Oh yeah

 

[mattsoft]

This is so painful to hear!

A couple of years ago me and another local buyer both bought cabs from KC. I got lucky, my cab was beautiful and complete. The other guy, well, the cab was damaged and missing parts. So with a sample size of 2, there's your 50/50.

I hope this works out for you, one way or the other.

 

[mrasmus]

At the end of the day, I'm fairly new around these parts -- I don't feel my voice is the most-informed to speak to "should he be banned", all I feel I have the place to do is tell my story, and my perspective as a relative outsider.

If I hadn't connected with some wonderful, helpful people through here, this whole thing would've been a much bigger headache from word one. Were I on the other side of this (watching someone get kinda screwed over), I know I'd feel a degree of annoyance that the community has to pick up the slack with this guy. Other people in my shoes... I definitely feel like there's plenty of people who would feel so burned by all of it that they would have just taken the return, and then said "Wow, owning a cab is super not worth all that hassle" and never tried to buy another.

I do feel like if I'd been able to go in person, almost all of the issues I've had here... wouldn't have been. I'm detail oriented enough, and did my homework (I'd been pouring over the user manual for months by the time my cab arrived) that I could've done an informed inspection and seen if anything was amiss or unacceptable. As long as it was loaded on my own truck, and I drove away with it, I likely would've had a positive ending. But it's definitely onerous on the buyer; it's like the old trope of a used car salesman. Tell you anything to get a sale, and leave you holding the bag if you missed anything about the cab during inspection. If he happens to get great-shape product in, you might end up with a great experience out the door -- but it'd almost be more credit to his suppliers than to him.

It's a hard problem to solve, but it definitely has potential to burn people who are just getting into the hobby, which could turn people away from the community just as they're trying to join it. IDK.

 

[GeeDee]

It's a hard problem to solve, but it definitely has potential to burn people who are just getting into the hobby, which could turn people away from the community just as they're trying to join it. IDK.

just as a quick aside, I know this isn't the entire point of your post, but I don't and never have liked the sentiment tossed around and hinted at now and again of cab ownership = "entry"/"acceptance" into said community. Just pointing out for any future readers that, imo, you don't have to spent $2k+ on a giant high-voltage piece of furniture to be part of "all this". Just chiming in and talking about games is good 'nuff for me. Some of the most helpful and detailed entry-level threads here are all about the nuts and bolts of mame setups for crts.

tl;dr Playing Games > Owning Stuff, 247/365.

*steps down from soapbox*

 

[mrasmus]

just as a quick aside, I know this isn't the entire point of your post, but I don't and never have liked the sentiment tossed around and hinted at now and again of cab ownership = "entry"/"acceptance" into said community. Just pointing out for any future readers that, imo, you don't have to spent $2k+ on a giant high-voltage piece of furniture to be part of "all this". Just chiming in and talking about games is good 'nuff for me. Some of the most helpful and detailed entry-level threads here are all about the nuts and bolts of mame setups for crts.

tl;dr Playing Games > Owning Stuff, 247/365.

*steps down from soapbox*

Oh for sure, 100% -- I didn't get that feeling at all from the community whatsoever. It's just a natural point of moving from lurker -> more active member for some people, I think (myself included), and there's a degree of bonding with other cab owners as you learn from each other and talk about the intricacies of dealing with operating these things. Didn't want to imply that the community was unwelcoming in any way, just that... buying hardware is kind of a sea-change point of like, interest and engagement with this hobby. I could just see getting burned and having to return your first cab purchase easily spoiling someone's vibes towards the whole thing.

 

[RealMFnG]

Your at stage 3 right now brutha.

You need to get to stage 5.

My recommendation: file the claim. In the whole scheme of things, it is a few hundred bucks you lose in return freight. Which is far less than the despair you'll face in losing your mind trying resurrect that POS you were sent. Even if return freight is a B-I-G loss, it is far less than a total loss or even losing a small piece of your mind. As for KC being banned, it's warranted. Still not going to be the last story this community will ever hear of someone else who found KC through here or some other channel getting done dirty up the access panel. Nor was your story the first. You did your part in this saga and others hopefully will learn from you. But at this point, laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep, and you weep alone. Get to that 5th stage, then you can put the things in motion so you can get yourself to where you want to be.

Has nothing to do with the community. You could have just as easily found KC through some other channel (who is to say you didn't?). Unlike KC, the community will help get you to where you want to be. Caveat emptor, brutha.

 

[Kagaden]

I don't know... these threads come up a couple times a year - and considering the volume he does I think the service he provides is pretty valuable overall to the community. It's definitely not perfect, but KC is a wholesale liquidator. I don't even know if he likes what he's selling, or checks it when it arrives - I think he relies that it was shipped to him properly and simply moves it.

For mrasmus, KC's cabs generally don't come with locks, at least none of them from the 4 that I've purchased (2 separate orders). I was in a similar position earlier this year on my second order, missing a metal electrical panel (marquee backside) for one of my PRas3's - and I know how you feel. I got a lot of texts of "tomorrow" "next week" "later" "when I have time" from him when shipping it out to me and was frustrated and didn't feel like a priority at all. I considered doing a dispute - but relaxed considering how 1. Few importers there are, I don't want to burn bridges over something minor... and 2. The world situation makes containers and freight doubly crazy to work with right now. Yes, he's running a business, but I can only imagine the stress doing this for guys like Cereth and KC and shit inevitably goes wrong. Sometimes, it's patience and being a good and understanding customer that's needed. KC can make this difficult to do because he can be pushy - he told me he's been ripped off many times by buyers and I think that can show up in his behavior in text/remote. That said, he did eventually come through and shipped the panel to me. I gave him a lot of room and space and understanding (but followed up 2-3x a week on weekdays) throughout and that seemed to work. I don't think his intention is to rip anyone off - but his warehouse is massive and I think he could use some help with customer service stuff that's waiting like your speaker. the shipment you need is really is a minor fix that doesn't need to be escalated to this level - but that's where we are and I don't blame you, being in that position made me feel like dispute was the only leverage I had left.

I hope you get your parts man, returning such a nice cab would be a heartache after you've loved it. KC is a guy who likes to do high volume business his way on his time, and unfortunately there aren't too many additional options to be picky. I haven't seen any evidence he's delibrately ripping people off. I honestly think he does have difficulty with the QC & CS side of his business in general. I try to keep in mind that he's a wholesale liquidator when dealing with him, and a one man show for seemingly hundreds of cabs and orders a month.

Cereth's much more of a safe bet to purchase from if you're looking for an eye for detail and white glove. Highly recommend him for your next purchase~

 

[Cereth]

In the whole scheme of things, it is a few hundred bucks you lose in return freight. Which is far less than the despair you'll face in losing your mind trying resurrect that POS you were sent. Even if return freight is a B-I-G loss, it is far less than a total loss or even losing a small piece of your mind.

I already ordered the missing parts for @mrasmus and one other KC buyer who got shorted on parts. I'm giving them said parts for free if KC doesn't follow through. I much prefer people get what they bought than have to go through the hassle/loss of sending something back. It won't be the same in the end, the sour experience is still there, but like many have said, there's limited importers right now, and it's better that everyone is able to get what they want than being restricted to just the one or two people they trust. We can't handle it all. In the last 6 weeks I've sold over 50 CHUNITHM, and I still have demand. I can't take up KC's slack on that unless I HAVE to. Plus, any cab that gets sent back to KC is just going to bite someone else on the ass instead. Better to just fix the actual problem with the cab now than push it off on someone else.

 

[Aurich]

At the cost of his victims. And that’s the problem. Nobody should be gambling other peoples’ experience just so they have a better chance at something themselves. It’s not worth enabling him to abuse people just so someone gets a better chance at something they want. There’s no community in that, only greed.

I feel your point of view, and I'm not defending what happened, just being honest with how I see things. I don't think it's really about 'greed' though, that's a bit too harsh for what I think is going on.

You don't want to sell candies. Frankly if you did and could get them I'd be happy to send people to you instead. But you don't. None of my cabs came from KC (directly at least) but candies are my interest, and what people in my circle want, and we just deal with the realities of that market. It's not a piece of the hobby for those afraid to fix things.

Right now you take what you can get. The supply is pretty dry, and you can't be too choosy unless you're very patient. I know people who've gotten them from KC in recent times and were glad to have an option. So that's just my perspective on things.

I'm not saying the buyer beware part doesn't suck, just ... buyer beware.

 

[mrasmus]

Your at stage 3 right now brutha.

<snip>

You need to get to stage 5.

My recommendation: file the claim. In the whole scheme of things, it is a few hundred bucks you lose in return freight. Which is far less than the despair you'll face in losing your mind trying resurrect that POS you were sent. Even if return freight is a B-I-G loss, it is far less than a total loss or even losing a small piece of your mind. As for KC being banned, it's warranted. Still not going to be the last story this community will ever hear of someone else who found KC through here or some other channel getting done dirty up the access panel. Nor was your story the first. You did your part in this saga and others hopefully will learn from you. But at this point, laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep, and you weep alone. Get to that 5th stage, then you can put the things in motion so you can get yourself to where you want to be.

Has nothing to do with the community. You could have just as easily found KC through some other channel (who is to say you didn't?). Unlike KC, the community will help get you to where you want to be. Caveat emptor, brutha.

I mean, I'm to say I didn't? I found him on here. But what does reflect poorly on the community is when people start doing the "I told you so", or "don't complain so much" stuff at people who are just documenting when someone doesn't hold up their end of a bargain, and misrepresents product for remote sales. There is no way to safely be an informed buyer in a remote sale with him, at the end of the day.

But also, with respect, I don't know that you read my thread in whole, or may have missed some parts of it; at the end of the day, I actually do stand to lose more by a return/refund than by keeping the cab; the game is working, and working well. It's a bit of a project cab right now, but I was prepared for that -- I didn't expect to be getting a pristine item, I wasn't going in totally naive by any stretch I don't think. Returning the cab would leave me whole only in a monetary sense for the transactions themselves (and maybe slightly under, if he reneged on reimbursing certain things). I have already invested my time, spent a day off (lost wages, he obviously can't refund that) to receive the cab, and would need to arrange more time off to meet with his freight guy to ship it back out -- so I'd be out two day's work, just in freight coordination alone, and be left with nothing except most of my accrued costs back. Plus the time I've spent getting the cab restored to working condition.

So I disagree with your math, basically. Going and buying a cab from another, more reputable seller, after such a return, would leave me with a more complete cab, but at a drastically higher net cost due to the losses incurred on this one. Luckily, I'm already in talks with such another seller (thanks, Cereth) about sourcing the parts that I've been mostly treating as unobtanium, so my cab very well may end up with all its bits after all, even if KC never comes through. The idea that my cab will be whole doesn't change the fact that KC sold misrepresented goods.

I've already told him I'm not taking the return; my dispute moved to a claim, and he filed a return offer to resolve it, which I'm rejecting, as I've informed him. After that, yesterday, he confirmed shipment to me of something -- we'll see if it's the right parts, or if it's something entirely different (if I open that box and find another Left speaker I'm just gonna laugh so hard). The great irony is, if he did ship the right shit out, like... that means he met my original ask, from before the dispute even started, back when I was dealing with him as a good-faith actor. A month of "soon" and "next week" texts had left me a bit on edge, but when I replied to the latest, noncommittal "soon" with "Hey, could we get it shipped out by the weekend" he refused to respond, and that's why I escalated. He could've sent a text message saying "Yeah, I'll have it out Friday" and the funds would never have been frozen, and things would have been mostly good in my book. Who knows, maybe all I had to do was say "You've said that a few times, and I need you to commit to a date or I'm gonna have to go to PayPal", and he would've been more responsive, who knows?

As for the locks thing, Kagaden... look, "all my cabs from him came without locks" doesn't excuse the fact that they are a component that a buyer should reasonably expect would be on a cab. "Complete" but "you have to hold the doors closed with tape" ain't "complete". If he had, say, at the top of his thread, a disclosure saying "none of my cabs come with locks", that would be one thing. But "Sold as-is" doesn't relinquish him of the responsibility to represent the thing accurately, and he represented that it was "complete". He coulda said "complete, no locks" and I wouldn't have even tried to negotiate a discount for that. Hell, I probably would've tacked on his $50 set, under those conditions. I'm just glad that it had its plates and linkages, still.

 

[GeeDee]

I think he relies that it was shipped to him properly and simply moves it.

I really, really, Really don't want to get involved in this part of the convo, and I won't to any massive degree, but just so the thought is out there: Do you guys really think he has Zero Say in shipping a container full of cabs half disassembled and on their sides?

I don't know the full story nor the details, but I highly, highly doubt it's the jp exporters first idea to ship the cabs in this kind of way when every other importer hasn't had the kind of negative feedback KC has. You can literally watch any of Ceriths YT videos or GndZeros facebook videos to see how cabs are packed into containers and arrive prior to unload (again, valuable transparency imo!), and they sure as hell aren't packed in there like this. The fact that he would even be confident enough to post this damning pic in his own thread as an ad and expect them to sell (and they have!) is hilarious. Poor decisions are being made with KCs containers, especially in this batch, far before things reach stateside.

 

[mrasmus]

I feel your point of view, and I'm not defending what happened, just being honest with how I see things. I don't think it's really about 'greed' though, that's a bit too harsh for what I think is going on.

You don't want to sell candies. Frankly if you did and could get them I'd be happy to send people to you instead. But you don't. None of my cabs came from KC (directly at least) but candies are my interest, and what people in my circle want, and we just deal with the realities of that market. It's not a piece of the hobby for those afraid to fix things.

Right now you take what you can get. The supply is pretty dry, and you can't be too choosy unless you're very patient. I know people who've gotten them from KC in recent times and were glad to have an option. So that's just my perspective on things.

I'm not saying the buyer beware part doesn't suck, just ... buyer beware.

I legit think there might be a market for a KC middle-man. Somebody who knows their shit, is local, and takes a few hundred dollars' commission on going to KC's warehouse, inspecting/testing the condition of whatever cab is being bought, and making sure the right cab gets on the truck to any particular buyer. Would save people the hassle of this kind of issue, and would save KC from the headaches caused by his own QC.

 

[Kagaden]

I really, really, Really don't want to get involved in this part of the convo, and I won't to any massive degree, but just so the thought is out there: Do you guys really think he has Zero Say in shipping a container full of cabs half disassembled and on their sides?

I don't know the full story nor the details, but I highly, highly doubt it's the jp exporters first idea to ship the cabs in this kind of way when every other importer hasn't had the kind of negative feedback KC has. You can literally watch any of Ceriths YT videos or GndZeros facebook videos to see how cabs are packed into containers and arrive prior to unload (again, valuable transparency imo!), and they sure as hell aren't packed in there like this. The fact that he would even be confident enough to post this damning pic in his own thread as an ad and expect them to sell (and they have!) is hilarious. Poor decisions are being made with KCs containers, especially in this batch, far before things reach stateside.

No, I didn't say that he has zero say in what's shipped to him.

I said based on the size of his operation and him being a one man show, I don't think he does any Quality Control when they arrive. So if the distributor fucked up, that get's passed on.

Those are two very different things.

 

[mrasmus]

I really, really, Really don't want to get involved in this part of the convo, and I won't to any massive degree, but just so the thought is out there: Do you guys really think he has Zero Say in shipping a container full of cabs half disassembled and on their sides?

<snip>

Those pics were why I honestly believed that my screws could be somewhere in the machine for the longest time -- if his distributor tossed them in the coin bucket, they could've wandered pretty easily. But I did a very thorough look, and the coin bucket is a fairly enclosed box, so... no.

I do wonder how much less issue I would've had if I'd let him deliver the cab fully-constructed. Would he have noticed the missing panels? Would he have noticed the mismatched speakers? Hard to say.

 

[GeeDee]

No, I didn't say that he has zero say in what's shipped to him.

I said based on the size of his operation and him being a one man show, I don't think he does any Quality Control when they arrive. So if the distributor fucked up, that get's passed on.

Those are two very different things.

You're misreading the post.

The point is that the pic he posted should have been a sign that, maybe, possibly, perhaps, the shoddy way in which KCs cabs are shipped is ALSO kcs decision.

Why are none of the cabs in the other importers unload videos like this? Don't give KC a pass and point the finger at the exporters; there are poor decisions being made on how he wants his cabs shipped, and based on how the other importers receive their cabs, it's a fair assumption to say that the cabs being shipped in this poor state is his decision.

 

[Kagaden]

I legit think there might be a market for a KC middle-man. Somebody who knows their shit, is local, and takes a few hundred dollars' commission on going to KC's warehouse, inspecting/testing the condition of whatever cab is being bought, and making sure the right cab gets on the truck to any particular buyer. Would save people the hassle of this kind of issue, and would save KC from the headaches caused by his own QC.

Totally agree, this would improve the situation a lot imo!