Site questions as to why specific vendors are not allowed
Thread Starter
Former Vendor of MBWorld
Joined: Aug 2009
Posts: 84
Likes: 0
From: Raleigh, NC
2009 - C63 Black/Black
Site questions as to why specific vendors are not allowed
It's nice to see evo taking same smack since they deleted my posts about MHP and the sales we were having. *So much for fair competitiveness among tuners.*
Brad- *Why isn't evo banned since customers complained about your product and did not get the claimed gaines? *Does being the moderator have something to do with it? *Sounds all too familiar...
You know what we should do? *We should have a tuner showdown and see what vendor has the best ecu flash...
Brad are you game?*
Brad- *Why isn't evo banned since customers complained about your product and did not get the claimed gaines? *Does being the moderator have something to do with it? *Sounds all too familiar...
You know what we should do? *We should have a tuner showdown and see what vendor has the best ecu flash...
Brad are you game?*
MBWorld Founder
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 2,599
Likes: 7
From: Scottsdale (aka The Surface of the Sun)
Jim,
MHP is banned by IB - the owners of the site. You know this as I have had multiple phone calls with you about it and told you who to appeal to. Seems it fell on deaf ears, which is too bad. The decision did not come from any of the admins or moderators (although everyone of us agrees it was the right decision).
We have done tuner shoot outs before and I would never back down from one again.
Every company has some unhappy customers as you and I spoke about on the phone. However, anyone due a refudn from evosport has gotten it, plus more. In fact, if you read Mthis post you will see that we not only offered to give him the refund (which we did) we offered to pay for his dyno time and the shipping. Certainly seems that is going above and beyond, don't you think. You told me you could not even get a refund at all from two of our competitors.
We had TWO customers who were sent a V1 tune when they should have gotten a V2 tune. They were both addressed professionally and taken care of. Certainly does not paint the picture that YOU are trying to, does it. Trying to skew the facts and create flame wars, animosity and further cynicism on this site and in the market will not will you many supporters, just an FYI.
No vendor is ever banned form having customers unhappy, as I told you. It comes down to issues of legitimacy, fraud, IP theft, etc. As I told you, only two vendors have ever been banned from this site for these issues.
As you noticed there are a heck of a lot of vendors on this site that aren't evosport, but I guess you want to be one of those that just blindly blames "the man" and refuses to actually look at facts.
It is sad, as based on the phone conversations that we had had, I believed you were better than this.
Thanks
Brad
PS - this discussion is OFF TOPIC for this thread. This thread is not about why MHP is not here - there are MANY threads on that. Keep on topic.
MHP is banned by IB - the owners of the site. You know this as I have had multiple phone calls with you about it and told you who to appeal to. Seems it fell on deaf ears, which is too bad. The decision did not come from any of the admins or moderators (although everyone of us agrees it was the right decision).
We have done tuner shoot outs before and I would never back down from one again.
Every company has some unhappy customers as you and I spoke about on the phone. However, anyone due a refudn from evosport has gotten it, plus more. In fact, if you read Mthis post you will see that we not only offered to give him the refund (which we did) we offered to pay for his dyno time and the shipping. Certainly seems that is going above and beyond, don't you think. You told me you could not even get a refund at all from two of our competitors.
We had TWO customers who were sent a V1 tune when they should have gotten a V2 tune. They were both addressed professionally and taken care of. Certainly does not paint the picture that YOU are trying to, does it. Trying to skew the facts and create flame wars, animosity and further cynicism on this site and in the market will not will you many supporters, just an FYI.
No vendor is ever banned form having customers unhappy, as I told you. It comes down to issues of legitimacy, fraud, IP theft, etc. As I told you, only two vendors have ever been banned from this site for these issues.
As you noticed there are a heck of a lot of vendors on this site that aren't evosport, but I guess you want to be one of those that just blindly blames "the man" and refuses to actually look at facts.
It is sad, as based on the phone conversations that we had had, I believed you were better than this.
Thanks
Brad
PS - this discussion is OFF TOPIC for this thread. This thread is not about why MHP is not here - there are MANY threads on that. Keep on topic.
MBWorld Fanatic!
Joined: Jun 2007
Posts: 2,949
Likes: 0
From: Philadelphia, PA
2008 A8L, 2002 996TT X50, 2009 X5
Brad, well said, and it is all quite a bit off-topic for this thread. One thing about MBWorld, is that a sponsor, any sponsor, that decides to sell product through the site... if they ever decide to terminate their sponsorship (for whatever reason) they show up as "Banned." TVTDesign is "Banned," VRP is "Banned," etc etc. A decision as simple as not renewing sponsorship dues results in a vendor-status that has a decidedly negative connotation.
Question for you - if a vendor/sponsor carries a third-party non-sponsor's product, how is that addressed? Case-by-case by IB? For example, c63beastdriver allegedly is a vendor/sponsor, and apparently a dealer for MHP product. Other vendors/sponsors are dealers for Renntech (who doesn't directly sponsor this forum), Carlsson (ditto), etc.
Question for you - if a vendor/sponsor carries a third-party non-sponsor's product, how is that addressed? Case-by-case by IB? For example, c63beastdriver allegedly is a vendor/sponsor, and apparently a dealer for MHP product. Other vendors/sponsors are dealers for Renntech (who doesn't directly sponsor this forum), Carlsson (ditto), etc.
Thread Starter
Former Vendor of MBWorld
Joined: Aug 2009
Posts: 84
Likes: 0
From: Raleigh, NC
2009 - C63 Black/Black
Brad I think what you should mention is that non of your claims, "issues of legitimacy, fraud, IP theft" are just that! They were just claims and that was it. Certainly no reason for someone to be banned...
MBWorld Founder
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 2,599
Likes: 7
From: Scottsdale (aka The Surface of the Sun)
you posted sale information for a brand that the site owner specifically prohibited from being posted. You also spammed all the forums with the same message. Both against the rules. Just because you pay that does not mean you get to be above the rules.
this is a good idea, to come up with a tag that allows users to know the difference between a non-renewing sponsor and a banned one. I will take it up with IB.
IB has specifically not allowed MHP and/or 360Forged/ADV1 to be sold on this site due to the issues that were discovered.
Believe what you want Jim!
Do you really think IB (who is a huge company) would carelessly take such a position?
thanks
Brad
Brad, well said, and it is all quite a bit off-topic for this thread. One thing about MBWorld, is that a sponsor, any sponsor, that decides to sell product through the site... if they ever decide to terminate their sponsorship (for whatever reason) they show up as "Banned." TVTDesign is "Banned," VRP is "Banned," etc etc. A decision as simple as not renewing sponsorship dues results in a vendor-status that has a decidedly negative connotation.
Question for you - if a vendor/sponsor carries a third-party non-sponsor's product, how is that addressed? Case-by-case by IB? For example, c63beastdriver allegedly is a vendor/sponsor, and apparently a dealer for MHP product. Other vendors/sponsors are dealers for Renntech (who doesn't directly sponsor this forum), Carlsson (ditto), etc.
Do you really think IB (who is a huge company) would carelessly take such a position?
thanks
Brad
Administrator
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 15,769
Likes: 37
From: www.Traben-Trarbach.de
MPG+ ROLFCOPTER
As Brad stated you have a valid point. But please keep in mind that we, staff, have uncovered numerous former sponsors continuing to try and sell their wares once their sponsorship ran out. TVT, for example, has created numerous forum names trying to sell items. Would you say that it is fair that they continue to benefit from a previous setup but don't want to support at the same time?
Trending Topics
Former Vendor of MBWorld
Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 3,193
Likes: 3
From: Glendale Arizona
C55,SL55,C63
If some how Kleemann or RENNtech products got banned (hypothetically) half the MBwolrd sponsors would jump ship. When a company starts loosing thousands of dollars from lost Kleemann or Renntech vendors... Things could get hairy.. I could see where big vendors are given some special treatment... So would IB be willing to ban their products if few members felt they had been taken? Why hasn't Vadim been banned, from the countless complaints from members getting ripped off?
if the failed is leveled, Why does EVOsport get sales promo's and product development project threads "Sticky'ed" so easy?
Link to 360 forged thread https://mbworld.org/forums/c63-amg-w...ck-wheels.html
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MBWorld Founder
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 2,599
Likes: 7
From: Scottsdale (aka The Surface of the Sun)
Nobody is allowed to sell those wheels, i see you sent a link, and I will show IB and they will stop it.
The problems with the two vendors in specific where unique and Internet Brands decided that specific action was warranted. Any further questions, please feel free to discuss it with them.
thanks
Brad
PS - I just looked at that link, and it is from 6 months ago! lol
The problems with the two vendors in specific where unique and Internet Brands decided that specific action was warranted. Any further questions, please feel free to discuss it with them.
thanks
Brad
PS - I just looked at that link, and it is from 6 months ago! lol
Junior Member
Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 60
Likes: 0
when not riding the bus
Jim - I sent this to you via e-mail regarding some of the questions you had posed to me, hopefully this note (in conjunction with other e-mails and phonecalls I have had with you) helps to clarify.
Some users have made some questions here whereby my response to you can perhaps help answer.
If any user has further inquiries, they are welcome to post them here, or contact me directly.
I will do my best to answer them in an upfront manner as possible.
Happy New Year to you all,
Adrian
Some users have made some questions here whereby my response to you can perhaps help answer.
360 Forged
The company 360Forged were removed as a vendor.
They are now under ownership by a new parent company (Forged Distributing) with whom we have had great experiences in the past (they have sponsored a number of our sites as “modular concepts”), and we successfully were able to get the people out of the business that were causing issues with our users in conjunction with getting all of our users outstanding customer service issues resolved. Since this new ownership, I am yet to see a new complaint regarding them, and to the best of my knowledge all of the outstanding customer service issues under the prior ownership have been addressed. If you, or other users find this not to be the case, you are welcome to forward the issues to me, I can forward them to Forged Distributings management, and if they are unable to resolve the issues in an appropriate manner, we can reassess their sponsorship of MBworld (and some of our other forums)
Kleeman/Renntech issues
As for other items with other businesses, I have not been made aware of legitimate customer service issues with Renntech or Kleeman, if you (or other users) furnish me with details surrounding these businesses that indicate they are acting in an untoward manner we can happily re-asses their sponsorship of MBWorld.
To the best of my knowledge the only claims which have been made against these 2 companies by our users were by you over the phone when we had a discussion approximately 2 weeks ago.
If I recall correctly, you felt that the claims that both these companies made for their products were exaggerated (in terms of the performance they achieved), and you felt slighted that these companies didn’t offer you a refund when you reported these issues to them. I believe I mentioned to you that as a mechanical engineer, and a former engine calibrator I am quite intimately familiar with how erroneous results can be from a rolling road dyno, and that perhaps the results you experienced were more indicative of all the variables at play when testing a car in such a manner than the fact that these products don’t meet their claimed performance targets.
EvoSport utilizing MBWorld
EvoSport (and other vendors) purchase the right to utilize “stickies” and other such threads as a form of advertising, it is not something that is exclusive to one company, it is available to all sponsors should they purchase the right to it, in fact even non-sponsors are welcome to utilize it too: http://postrelease.com/
As you (and other users) may be aware, EvoSport are the former owners (and creators) of MBWorld, and Brad and Simon, representatives from EvoSport, remain as administrators of the site (with support from Internet Brands as is necessary). Our experience is that both Brad and Simon did a wonderful job creating the MBWorld community, and they do a wonderful job supporting the community to this day. We are very grateful for their support in this manner, and for building such a wonderful community for Mercedes Benz owners to utilize/research/participate.
Despite Brad and Simon’s obvious business affiliation, our experience has been that they have been overtly transparent in their business practices, and happily “co-exist” as a sponsor of the site in conjunction with a number of their competitors.
Posting on MBWorld
Concern with you posting that thread: I would like to clarify, when I initially reached out to you Jim regarding that thread you linked below, we don’t have an issue with you raising questions about us, or about our business – no one is above reproach, and I believe you interpreted that I was reaching out to you because you were asking questions about Internet Brands and MBWorld that we were uncomfortable answering, this is not the case, we welcome any feedback/questions, good, bad or indifferent. We do have an issue with how you went about this however (and this was another concern with Andy as well). When you have my e-mail and phone number, and a direct route for feedback about the site, I was curious as to why you felt it was most appropriate to start a thread on the site publicly denigrating us and our sponsors (a practice that violates the guidelines)? Despite you posting in such a manner and this denigration, I feel our sites moderators and admins have been as “upfront” and transparent as possible with you about answering your inquiries, and they haven’t removed any of your comments.
You made a claim in an e-mail over the weekend about myself and Brad removing posts on MBWorld so that (in your words) “others cannot see what is really going on”, I can say that I don’t (as a rule) delete posts on MBWorld unless is a very clear violation of our guidelines (Spam for example), in fact I barely get an opportunity to login to the site. I am not in a position speak for Brad, however I can happily state that if this was the case that it was a practice that was being undertaken:
1. It would be extremely out of character, as mentioned above we have had a wonderful experience with Brad as an admin on the site, and above all both Brad and Simon have been incredibly transparent in their activities.
2. Separately it would come as quite a shock that if this was occurring that this would be the first I am hearing of it (it is the first I am hearing of it). While I mentioned I don’t have an active presence on the site to monitor feedback, my experience is that if a moderator or an admin is accused of utilizing their capacity for any ill-gotten means I hear about it (via e-mail or a phone call) very quickly.
If you have any issues with the way that the site is run/moderated, you have my details and you are more than welcome to contact me with details.
MHP
MHP, as discussed via e-mail/phone, we don’t allow the marketing of their products on the site. This is for a number of reasons (some of which I discussed with you), you make mention that you felt some of our reasoning’s for us dissolving our relationship with MHP were unfounded – this, I understand and agree with. While we retain the right to dissolve any business agreement with anyone as we see fit, likewise as a private website we are welcome to disallow access to any individual as we deem necessary, both practices we (as a general rule) try to avoid undertaking unless we feel that retaining someone’s business or their access to the website would significantly negatively impact the community in any way/shape/form. MHP fell into this category. While we do not have the capacity to verify many of the claims/comments/conjecture that surrounded MHP as a lot of the claims surrounded issues outside of our website, they were numerous and serious and led us to a point whereby we felt that it was not in the best interest of the community to allow them to advertise. This was in conjunction with a number of other concerns with Andy and his participation on MBWorld (his continual violation of MBWorld’s guidelines), he would utilize MBWorld as a platform to disparage other vendors (a practice that seems not only unprofessional, but against MBWorld’s terms of use), when we would contact him privately to address these concerns he would then make false accusations elsewhere on the Internet. This was in addition to other concerns that we had with our own business relationship with Andy. All these items culminated in the decision that it would not be in our best interest to continue to allow Andy to market his products on our website.
We have neither a competing interest against Andy, nor a personal grudge, and we wish him the best in his business, but our interactions with him led us to a position whereby we were unable to come to a sustainable agreement regarding his participation on the site and we suggested he find alternative solutions to market his products.
Your sponsorship of MBWorld
As requested by you on the weekend, your sponsorship is being canceled. This may take some days to process over the holidays however.
Best,
Adrian
The company 360Forged were removed as a vendor.
They are now under ownership by a new parent company (Forged Distributing) with whom we have had great experiences in the past (they have sponsored a number of our sites as “modular concepts”), and we successfully were able to get the people out of the business that were causing issues with our users in conjunction with getting all of our users outstanding customer service issues resolved. Since this new ownership, I am yet to see a new complaint regarding them, and to the best of my knowledge all of the outstanding customer service issues under the prior ownership have been addressed. If you, or other users find this not to be the case, you are welcome to forward the issues to me, I can forward them to Forged Distributings management, and if they are unable to resolve the issues in an appropriate manner, we can reassess their sponsorship of MBworld (and some of our other forums)
Kleeman/Renntech issues
As for other items with other businesses, I have not been made aware of legitimate customer service issues with Renntech or Kleeman, if you (or other users) furnish me with details surrounding these businesses that indicate they are acting in an untoward manner we can happily re-asses their sponsorship of MBWorld.
To the best of my knowledge the only claims which have been made against these 2 companies by our users were by you over the phone when we had a discussion approximately 2 weeks ago.
If I recall correctly, you felt that the claims that both these companies made for their products were exaggerated (in terms of the performance they achieved), and you felt slighted that these companies didn’t offer you a refund when you reported these issues to them. I believe I mentioned to you that as a mechanical engineer, and a former engine calibrator I am quite intimately familiar with how erroneous results can be from a rolling road dyno, and that perhaps the results you experienced were more indicative of all the variables at play when testing a car in such a manner than the fact that these products don’t meet their claimed performance targets.
EvoSport utilizing MBWorld
EvoSport (and other vendors) purchase the right to utilize “stickies” and other such threads as a form of advertising, it is not something that is exclusive to one company, it is available to all sponsors should they purchase the right to it, in fact even non-sponsors are welcome to utilize it too: http://postrelease.com/
As you (and other users) may be aware, EvoSport are the former owners (and creators) of MBWorld, and Brad and Simon, representatives from EvoSport, remain as administrators of the site (with support from Internet Brands as is necessary). Our experience is that both Brad and Simon did a wonderful job creating the MBWorld community, and they do a wonderful job supporting the community to this day. We are very grateful for their support in this manner, and for building such a wonderful community for Mercedes Benz owners to utilize/research/participate.
Despite Brad and Simon’s obvious business affiliation, our experience has been that they have been overtly transparent in their business practices, and happily “co-exist” as a sponsor of the site in conjunction with a number of their competitors.
Posting on MBWorld
Concern with you posting that thread: I would like to clarify, when I initially reached out to you Jim regarding that thread you linked below, we don’t have an issue with you raising questions about us, or about our business – no one is above reproach, and I believe you interpreted that I was reaching out to you because you were asking questions about Internet Brands and MBWorld that we were uncomfortable answering, this is not the case, we welcome any feedback/questions, good, bad or indifferent. We do have an issue with how you went about this however (and this was another concern with Andy as well). When you have my e-mail and phone number, and a direct route for feedback about the site, I was curious as to why you felt it was most appropriate to start a thread on the site publicly denigrating us and our sponsors (a practice that violates the guidelines)? Despite you posting in such a manner and this denigration, I feel our sites moderators and admins have been as “upfront” and transparent as possible with you about answering your inquiries, and they haven’t removed any of your comments.
You made a claim in an e-mail over the weekend about myself and Brad removing posts on MBWorld so that (in your words) “others cannot see what is really going on”, I can say that I don’t (as a rule) delete posts on MBWorld unless is a very clear violation of our guidelines (Spam for example), in fact I barely get an opportunity to login to the site. I am not in a position speak for Brad, however I can happily state that if this was the case that it was a practice that was being undertaken:
1. It would be extremely out of character, as mentioned above we have had a wonderful experience with Brad as an admin on the site, and above all both Brad and Simon have been incredibly transparent in their activities.
2. Separately it would come as quite a shock that if this was occurring that this would be the first I am hearing of it (it is the first I am hearing of it). While I mentioned I don’t have an active presence on the site to monitor feedback, my experience is that if a moderator or an admin is accused of utilizing their capacity for any ill-gotten means I hear about it (via e-mail or a phone call) very quickly.
If you have any issues with the way that the site is run/moderated, you have my details and you are more than welcome to contact me with details.
MHP
MHP, as discussed via e-mail/phone, we don’t allow the marketing of their products on the site. This is for a number of reasons (some of which I discussed with you), you make mention that you felt some of our reasoning’s for us dissolving our relationship with MHP were unfounded – this, I understand and agree with. While we retain the right to dissolve any business agreement with anyone as we see fit, likewise as a private website we are welcome to disallow access to any individual as we deem necessary, both practices we (as a general rule) try to avoid undertaking unless we feel that retaining someone’s business or their access to the website would significantly negatively impact the community in any way/shape/form. MHP fell into this category. While we do not have the capacity to verify many of the claims/comments/conjecture that surrounded MHP as a lot of the claims surrounded issues outside of our website, they were numerous and serious and led us to a point whereby we felt that it was not in the best interest of the community to allow them to advertise. This was in conjunction with a number of other concerns with Andy and his participation on MBWorld (his continual violation of MBWorld’s guidelines), he would utilize MBWorld as a platform to disparage other vendors (a practice that seems not only unprofessional, but against MBWorld’s terms of use), when we would contact him privately to address these concerns he would then make false accusations elsewhere on the Internet. This was in addition to other concerns that we had with our own business relationship with Andy. All these items culminated in the decision that it would not be in our best interest to continue to allow Andy to market his products on our website.
We have neither a competing interest against Andy, nor a personal grudge, and we wish him the best in his business, but our interactions with him led us to a position whereby we were unable to come to a sustainable agreement regarding his participation on the site and we suggested he find alternative solutions to market his products.
Your sponsorship of MBWorld
As requested by you on the weekend, your sponsorship is being canceled. This may take some days to process over the holidays however.
Best,
Adrian
I will do my best to answer them in an upfront manner as possible.
Happy New Year to you all,
Adrian
Last edited by IB Adrian; Dec 28, 2009 at 05:08 PM.
MBWorld Founder
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 1,539
Likes: 8
From: Los Angeles, CA
2020 GT R Pro, 2019 GT3 RS, 2018 GT3 Touring
Brad- *Why isn't evo banned since customers complained about your product and did not get the claimed gaines? *Does being the moderator have something to do with it? *Sounds all too familiar...
You know what we should do? *We should have a tuner showdown and see what vendor has the best ecu flash...
Brad are you game?*
Brad are you game?*
.
