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Posted
13 hours ago, FinRider said:

There are two sides to every story and not every situation is the same, so we should not generalize this to every consumer and situation.

I have full understanding of what LockSong is doing but I may not agree to how they have implemented this. The good news is that they are working with consumers on a case by case basis to resolve their locking issues on "illegally" imported goods.

I have yet to see the following situation:

  1. Someone buys a KS wheel with the "P" designation in the serialnumber from china and self-imports the wheel to EU/US
  2. Said person pays all import duties and VAT
  3. Said person gets wheel locked remotely by KS
  4. Said person show proof of duty & VAT payments 

Most situations skip step 2 and 4 in this scenario, thus they have taken a risk of buying a geo-locked wheel and in my book they can blame themselves for doing a grey import of a device that was ment for another market only. The responsibility is on the reseller, and you can always get a refund if your device is locked.

I have a similar situation with my Toyota Prius that I legally imported from the US to EU. The navigation system in the car needs a map update as it only has the north american map from the factory. Toyota Europe refuses to sell me the map update as the car was not bought in Europe. I think it is shitty practice, but I can not 100% blame them for their policy. This situation is VERY similar.

Manufacturers get away with this because they have a product that the consumer wants. I do not think LockSongs practices will have a long lasting effect on the consumer behavior.

 

 

 

Yes agree, their implementation is punitive to the innocent consumer (who unknowingly or naively purchases their product from an online retailer from China/USA/France/UK/Spain/Or any other location for that matter) then have their product completely stop working one day.

Kingsong should fix their distribution network and sales channels, instead of punishing their failure to do so... on the consumers, who are have no knowledge of such trade/sales policies/disputes, they just merely want a product to enjoy for the life of the product.

By punishing end users/consumers, it will spread decent upon the company and its products. It makes consumers feel they have been cheated and have become the middleman of a proxy trade war / proxy distribution war / proxy sales channel war. The consumer becomes the victim and suffers from such actions. While the sales channel is left unpunished, and the manufacturer gains a bad reputation for being unfair to consumers for blaming and punishing them for their corporate problems and lack of control over their distribution network / sales channel.

By fixing their distribution network and sales channels, they will protect product sales territories with their distributors and retaiilers, while keeping sales channels happy and more importantly consumers happy (and they will spread the news of such products and good business practices... hence Gotway, Inmotion, Ninebot and Veteran have all preserved their good name and good will since they have NOT applied such bad business practices, despite them also experiencing such distribution network and sales channel challenges as Kingsong).

Kingsong really needs to make smarter business decisions moving forward from this point. Lots of damage done to their name and will loose plenty of future sales as the threat of Briking a very expensive toy is always looming over consumers head, and the betrayal of consumer confidence to this brand.

As the saying goes... the punishment does not fit the crime.... especially when the crime was committed by the manufacturer's sales channel/distribution network... NOT the consumer, yet its the consumer that got punished.

Gotway, Inmotion, Ninebot and Veteran, its your time to really take things up a notch and take the lion share of the market now! .... Kingsong is paving the way for you. This opportunity rarely happens in the business world. Make smart moves and one of you guys will take the market amidst the vacuum created by Kingsong, as consumers look for good products backed by good companies! Good Luck!
 

  • Like 2
Posted

I have ordered a Gotway RS from AliExpress (not currently available from local distributors) and I noticed that the store on AliExpress has various EUC brands listed, including Kingsong.  In the AliExpress store under Kingsong there are no EUCs at all - it seems that they have a section for KS but have completely stopped selling them, I didn't know why until I read this thread.

Luckily I didn't want to buy a Kingsong wheel anyway. When I look at the battery/range compared to the price, KS seems to be sorely lacking compared to others.  I'm sure they are good in many ways, but they just don't seem to be good value IMO.

  • Like 1
Posted
1 hour ago, KiwiMark said:

I have ordered a Gotway RS from AliExpress (not currently available from local distributors) and I noticed that the store on AliExpress has various EUC brands listed, including Kingsong.  In the AliExpress store under Kingsong there are no EUCs at all - it seems that they have a section for KS but have completely stopped selling them, I didn't know why until I read this thread.

Luckily I didn't want to buy a Kingsong wheel anyway. When I look at the battery/range compared to the price, KS seems to be sorely lacking compared to others.  I'm sure they are good in many ways, but they just don't seem to be good value IMO.

This is good news! The difference is 'refinement'. Previous KS wheels were at the top of their classes in refinement. Its kind of the same reason you spend more on a lexus than a toyota. Same basic features, but... NOT the same. Specs are only PART of the story. Grats on the Gotway. Gotway is solid and a good bang for the buck, altho 'refined' isnt really their target.

  • 1 month later...
Posted
On 9/28/2020 at 6:15 AM, ShanesPlanet said:

This is good news! The difference is 'refinement'. Previous KS wheels were at the top of their classes in refinement. Its kind of the same reason you spend more on a lexus than a toyota. Same basic features, but... NOT the same. Specs are only PART of the story. Grats on the Gotway. Gotway is solid and a good bang for the buck, altho 'refined' isnt really their target.

Gotway ? solid ? 

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

This is the joke of the year... Except the Nikola (with pastic shell like inmotion), screws and shell are easily destroyed with simple shock...

  • Like 1
Posted (edited)
7 hours ago, MrP-MrF said:

Gotway ? solid ? 

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

This is the joke of the year... Except the Nikola (with pastic shell like inmotion), screws and shell are easily destroyed with simple shock...

my bad, as in SOLID wheel. I was commenting more on the overall wheel, not focusing on the shell alone. If it wasnt an overall 'solid' wheel, I doubt it would be one of the regs for the nyc crowd. TBH, the shell quality and lack of waterproofing has been a main reason I dont onw a gotway...yet! My standards are slowly lowering to the euc standards tho.

Edited by ShanesPlanet
  • Like 1
  • 1 month later...
Posted

Thanks @null  

Since the wheel it self does not have GPS, has any one tried the VPN and fake geo-location method mentioned in this thread?  With Android, both are relatively easy hack.   

  • Like 1
Posted
1 hour ago, Corn Flake said:

Thanks @null  

Since the wheel it self does not have GPS, has any one tried the VPN and fake geo-location method mentioned in this thread?  With Android, both are relatively easy hack.   

I agree, it should work. Pretty expensive gamble tho. If a person has the ability to buy a legit wheel (like us in the usa), I would be VERY leery of risking it to save a few $$. Get the spoofing to work and avoid the ks app like the plague and you prolly be okay. Give it a try Corn, order a wheel from abroad and let us know how it goes :)

Posted

While spoofing the GPS location might save your wheel from getting locked, it won’t enable speed settings, calibration or updating the FW on EUCW or DarknessBot. Those apps check for the letter ”P” in the actual serial number.

  • Like 3
Posted
8 minutes ago, mrelwood said:

While spoofing the GPS location might save your wheel from getting locked, it won’t enable speed settings, calibration or updating the FW on EUCW or DarknessBot. Those apps check for the letter ”P” in the actual serial number.

Doh, thats a damn good bit of info there. Thanks!

  • Like 1
Posted

The solution is simple, just avoid unicycles that you don’t have control over. when you are the legit owner and paid money for it - WTF you can’t use it.

WTF someone leaves the back door to remotely lock your property?

  • Like 3
Posted
1 hour ago, Svenbo said:

I wanted to buy a new wheel soon, but after reading this it surely won't be a a kingsong.

I hope they lose a lot of costumers with doing sh*t like this.

And I hope all people who got their wheels locked will find a way to work arround this problem.

I own KS16X from https://www.1radwerkstatt.de/ everything OK is european official distributor. Excelent services and my RMA (left brake light not work) they fix free and fast.  This locksong is about EUC from china market.

Shure anything retrospectively aplicated is totaly FAIL to trust company.

I am not on Kingsong "side" if you buy legal official disributor you have 2 years full warranty by Germany LAW then no problem.

Ks16X i can recommended is great EUC if you are under 100Kg and not ride in or after RAIN.

Posted (edited)

It's a good thing we have choices on what we buy and who we buy from! As with most controversial practices, there are myriad sides to the story... I'm not a personal fan of disabling products at all, but also understand there is likely more to the story.

One can spin it as a move to protect their authorized dealer network intended to ensure that their dealers provide good service to us, if somebody is stiffing the customer than maybe they lose their franchise. I wouldn't think this is the case here, but it can be spun that way. If the dealers have to race to the bottom with price, they have to cut somewhere—reducing service level to zero like the non-authorized source becomes viable.

One could imagine that wheels with 'P' in their serial number carry additional surveillance capabilities that are not legal outside of the People's Republic. To me, that's Plausible. Unacceptable to me, so it's a good thing I don't live there. But I certainly wouldn't want discover I have purchased such a product cuz it would be 'locked for me' and out the door pronto. Is your wheel spying on you? (trick question, silly. of course it is!)

It is even possible that a wheel built for export has more attention to safety/quality than do the items intended for domestic consumption and the liability concern is a factor in preventing their use outside of China. Again, that's an overly generous view of the situation that I don't expect to be true but liability and the specter of mandatory warranty coverage could be costly. If you look at automobiles, it's very difficult to use a car in the US that doesn't meet certain safety and emissions standards... the manufacturer can't remotely lock your car (well, Tesla certainly can), but it might not be possible to buy a license for it or get insurance and that effectively prevents its use as a car. Might as well be locked… if you can't drive it it's a showroom bauble.

Anyway, now that the situation is public knowledge we can accept or reject their policy decision with our pocketbooks. And we should, it's our only lever.

Edited by Tawpie
  • Like 1
Posted (edited)
19 hours ago, Tawpie said:

It's a good thing we have choices on what we buy and who we buy from! As with most controversial practices, there are myriad sides to the story... I'm not a personal fan of disabling products at all, but also understand there is likely more to the story.

One can spin it as a move to protect their authorized dealer network intended to ensure that their dealers provide good service to us, if somebody is stiffing the customer than maybe they lose their franchise. I wouldn't think this is the case here, but it can be spun that way. If the dealers have to race to the bottom with price, they have to cut somewhere—reducing service level to zero like the non-authorized source becomes viable.

One could imagine that wheels with 'P' in their serial number carry additional surveillance capabilities that are not legal outside of the People's Republic. To me, that's Plausible. Unacceptable to me, so it's a good thing I don't live there. But I certainly wouldn't want discover I have purchased such a product cuz it would be 'locked for me' and out the door pronto. Is your wheel spying on you? (trick question, silly. of course it is!)

It is even possible that a wheel built for export has more attention to safety/quality than do the items intended for domestic consumption and the liability concern is a factor in preventing their use outside of China. Again, that's an overly generous view of the situation that I don't expect to be true but liability and the specter of mandatory warranty coverage could be costly. If you look at automobiles, it's very difficult to use a car in the US that doesn't meet certain safety and emissions standards... the manufacturer can't remotely lock your car (well, Tesla certainly can), but it might not be possible to buy a license for it or get insurance and that effectively prevents its use as a car. Might as well be locked… if you can't drive it it's a showroom bauble.

Anyway, now that the situation is public knowledge we can accept or reject their policy decision with our pocketbooks. And we should, it's our only lever.

This is an old thread that has been beaten to an inch of its death a couple of times already but simply won't die.

I have a hard time understanding the logic where the company should be completely abandoned just because some people do not want to play by the rules (violate laws and regulations). The facts are simple and indisputable.

  1. LockSong has (at least) 2 types of wheels, one aimed for the Peoples Republic of China (domestic market) and one for export. The wheels for export have been designated with the letter "P" in the serial number.
  2. LockSong has repeatedly released their policy that wheels intended for the domestic market used outside of its designated area will be "locked" if found to violate their policy.
  3. International dealers only sell the wheels intended for export ("P" wheels) --> Buy locally
  4. Chinese online retailers sell either the wheel ment for the domestic market or the export wheel. --> buyer beware
  5. If you buy a wheel directly from China, you are supposed to pay import duties and applicable VAT for the wheel. The Chinese online sellers circumvent this for the consumer by shipping the wheels from their international warehouse. You as a consumer are thus aiding and abetting the grey import of these wheels.

So if you really want to save a couple hundred €$ then by all mean, buy from Ali, Chicway etc. You will not enjoy the local/regional warranty (as mandated by law) and you will run the risk of getting your wheel remotely bricked.

And I have yet to see someone with a bricked kingsong wheel show proof of paid duties and VAT.

I truly wish we had European / North American manufacturer of EUC's so that we can support our own economies instead of fueling the Chinese... but that is a pipe-dream. Plus if we ever were to get this, then the price of the wheels would be vastly different than what we have today.

 

 

Edited by FinRider
  • Like 1
Posted
1 hour ago, FinRider said:

The wheels for export have been designated with the letter "P" in the serial number.

Tiny correction: Wheels with "P" in their serial number are for domestic China and are subject to locking outside the PRC unless you can provide proof of purchase from an authorized dealer and have proper export paperwork. With proper documentation, KS will add your wheel to a whitelist and unlock it. Wheels authorized for export do not have a "P".

  • Like 1
  • 1 month later...
Posted
On 1/29/2021 at 12:53 AM, Svenbo said:

No one would ever imagine a car manufacturer would do somethink like this, but for EUCs people here are defending practices like this... Both are just ways of transport and IMO if I buy one I want to be able to use it in every country I am going to visit.

I love that example.  Locking mobility device because it moves across boarder!!  

Knowing how Chinese company works, I wouldn't be surprised KS will simply start supplying their Chinese Ali seller with international version of the same wheel.  

  • 2 months later...
Posted (edited)
On 3/15/2021 at 9:43 AM, Corn Flake said:

I love that example.  Locking mobility device because it moves across boarder!!  

Knowing how Chinese company works, I wouldn't be surprised KS will simply start supplying their Chinese Ali seller with international version of the same wheel.  

There currently is Aliexpress sellers, saying it's the EU version, many sellers, and also chicway. 

Some don't mention KingSong on the title, but you can find by searching electric unicycle 

Edited by Jean eRide.ie Community

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