WARNING KINGSONG PRODUCTS

[MrP-MrF]

5 hours ago, Jack King Song said:

Never said they couldn't, but the fact is that usually these sellers are more well connected in the community and have more of an obligation, where Aliexpress is almost anonymous with no obligation of any sort. 

Well @Jack King Song it depends of the local dealer. 

Let me tell you my experience for purchasing the S18. I've bought all my wheels at KS local shop. His provider is Kingsong Europe - High'tems. 

When i wanted to buy an S18 WHITE, he refuses. That was not possible. Crazy that a seller don't want my money...

It was possible through any other European supplier. I had to go talk to Tina Wong who told me that I can't go through another dealer.
You should know that you can buy in Europe anywhere. It is a rule a law, free movement of goods. As a EUROPE customer, if I buy from an official dealer, I can choose France, Poland, Italy ... whatever. But apparently not for you.
Eventually, after discussions with Tina (who was asked to take my order by tina to KS europe), this official seller agree to take my order BUT asking for an excess cost, which has been discussed for days. It was very painful for me and for my local store.
Following this story, seeing how difficult it is to discuss with them, I no longer want to go through this Kingsong Europe High Tems dealer after this order if one day i buy again KS Wheel.

In addition, you are blocking the wheels of 2020. What would be correct is to say "dear customers, we have warned you, from AUGUST 15, 2020, no more exceptions. So you do not block anyone for lack of information.

[FinRider]

49 minutes ago, Meulebeest said:

Could not agree more, certainly in today's global economy and transparency (through the internet).
And indeed the main differentiators of Points of Sale should be as you say, which made the name of resellers like Ecodrift or Ewheels or ...
An informed person would know that there is a huge price difference, personally from a purchase perspective I can't help but feeling cheated (in the EU).

The key phrase in your statement here is your last sentence. This is also something that we all need to take into consideration in this discussion. EU retailers have to pay VAT and import duties. Aliexpress sellers circumvent this requirement, so customers who are buying directly from china in this manner are actually the ones cheating the EU, not the other way around!

US buyers have been getting their products locally cheaper because of a weak dollar and because the ship,ents came in through hongkong, ie circumventing the trade duties imposed by the US - China trade war. Also, the listed prices in the US are pre-VAT (sales tax), so we can not really compare the website listed prices between the continents. Someone earlier posted the calculations, and in the end the relative costs are the same, different systems just collect money in a different way.
 

KS locking wheels is purely a measure to protect their distributors who are the ones complaining as they loose business. For KS it probably does not make much of a difference to their bottom line if an aliexpress seller buys a wheel from them or if a eu/us distributor buys one.

i would love to hear the opinion from the forum sellers how they see this. I know in the US they have excellent service where the distributor adds a high-speed charger to the wheels they sell. A nice added value. In eu we get 2 years by law mandated warranty, another nice added value.

i am a firm believer that buying through the proper channels (locally) is the best and safest bet in the long run.

The original issue still exists though, which is the customer relations nightmare that KingSong has created with this mess by locking wheels. I reiterate that the situation is salvagable,  ut it would require KS to get their act together, update their polocies and issue a firm and honest apology. I don’t think further explanatilns are required, just fix the situation and continue to do proper healthy business. Issue warnings in regard to service & support for people,who want to buy cheaper online and deflect all service and support issues to the retailer. Thats the only way to do healthy business.

[FinRider]

11 minutes ago, Antec said:

Some of the bigger Ali sellers have actual high street shops, quite fancy ones, they sell all kinds of PEVs, so chances of them closing is small.

if you have a decent relationship with them, they do take care of you.

What i want to know is, the announcement just made about wheels purchased in 2020 from China will be locked and deemed useless.

Should this announcement not have been made in 2019? and not in August of 2020?

Surely the policy should start as of now, so all wheels purchased January to July should be safe?

 

This is a flawed argument. No wheels should be locked. You will end up in a situation where you could Buy a used wheel, download the ”official manufacturer app” and get your wheel rendered useless. Many first time EUC buyers get 2nd hand wheels and maybe the seller only used 3rd party apps which do not lock the wheels. 
 

ks simply needs to. Void this policy. Period.

[FinRider]

9 minutes ago, MrP-MrF said:

Well @Jack King Song it depends of the local dealer. 

Let me tell you my experience for purchasing the S18. I've bought all my wheels at KS local shop. His provider is Kingsong Europe - High'tems. 

When i wanted to buy an S18 WHITE, he refuses. That was not possible. Crazy that a seller don't want my money...

It was possible through any other European supplier. I had to go talk to Tina Wong who told me that I can't go through another dealer.
You should know that you can buy in Europe anywhere. It is a rule a law, free movement of goods. As a EUROPE customer, if I buy from an official dealer, I can choose France, Poland, Italy ... whatever. But apparently not for you.
Eventually, after discussions with Tina (who was asked to take my order by tina to KS europe), this official seller agree to take my order BUT asking for an excess cost, which has been discussed for days. It was very painful for me and for my local store.
Following this story, seeing how difficult it is to discuss with them, I no longer want to go through this Kingsong Europe High Tems dealer after this order if one day i buy again KS Wheel.

In addition, you are blocking the wheels of 2020. What would be correct is to say "dear customers, we have warned you, from AUGUST 15, 2020, no more exceptions. So you do not block anyone for lack of information.

Sorry to spam so may responses to this thread. I like KS wheels and I would love to have them stay in business for the long term. However, we need to distinguish between KS and their Official dealers”.

it is 100% right by the dealer, be it official or unofficial to refuse to sell a product. Like you mentioned, there are several distributors for KS in europe and you are technically free to order the wheel from whomever you wish.  
 

maybe the distributor had pre-purchased a stock of black wheels and want to sell those before taking orders for a white one? Remember, distributors have payment terms with the manuacturer as well. I agree that it can be frustrating. The seller should have tried to convince you to buy what was available (black wheel), which he probably did. If you insist that you want a white one, then the seller should have taken the order, with payment in full up-front, and ordered the wheel for you from ks china. Delivery terms would probably have been up to 2-3 months, depending on when this happened in the pre/ release schedule of the wheel.

The excess costs would arise from you wanting a specific model instead of what was / had been ordered for stock. Perfectly normal business practice. We are muddling the borders between reseller and manufacturer and we need to keep the story straight.

[Skecys]

The only thing wrong with the situation is that we did not know about it yet (officially). Kingsong should put out an official notice. Have people's locked wheels, bought PRIOR to this notice, unlocked and enforce the policy from now on, problem solved.

You can still buy from Aliexpress, simply ask for the serial number before you buy. It will be interesting to see if this is going to have an effect on KS prices on Ali. 

I second the motion for transparency. It would be great to know why Kingsong decided to do this, the reasoning behind it. Are the Chinese models inferior? Are international models simply marked up? (although, if the latter, we will probably never know )

Side note; if you actually talk to "official" EU sellers they will usually give you a way better deal then what they advertise.

[Planemo]

KS can do what they like. I dont have issue with that as I will just take my business elsewhere. I do fully understand the reasons for price differences, grey import non-warranties and KS wanting to protect their official dealers from being undercut by bedroom online merchants who historically have an awful aftersales and KS might not want their name tarnished by said crappy sellers.

I guess the real blame lies with the sellers. They shouldnt be selling wheels if they are going to brick in the country they are being shipped to. I think the KS warning about this should have come earlier though, I wonder how many people outside of china have recieved/ordered KS wheels in the last few months without knowing. I wonder if even the sellers knew. I wouldnt be surprised though if we suddenly see KS wheels being dropped by Ali sellers when the sellers get wind of this.

[Zopper]

12 minutes ago, Planemo said:

KS can do what they like. I dont have issue with that as I will just take my business elsewhere.

Only aassuming they are upfront about it. But even then I have a right to say that I refuse this and move such companies down in my list (but I still might buy from them, if other things outweight it). But as far as I know, this public acknowledging came AFTER the affected wheels have been sold. Which is morally unacceptable and if KS was in my country and not China, it would be likely breach some laws. And it also means that I won't even consider buying KS, new or used. 

 

19 minutes ago, Planemo said:

I guess the real blame lies with the sellers. They shouldnt be selling wheels if they are going to brick in the country they are being shipped to.

No. Once you buy it, you own it and can do whatever you can with it. Ride it, beat it with a hammer, disassemble and make your own copy (as long as you won't distribute it (at leat in sensible, customer-respecting countries, not in the Corporate States of America with DMCA)). Or sell it further, anywhere you want to (where it is legal to sell, of course). Remove anything from this list and you are not an owner anymore - you have just rented it and the real owner is the manufacturer.

[Chriull]

25 minutes ago, Planemo said:

I wouldnt be surprised though if we suddenly see KS wheels being dropped by Ali sellers when the sellers get wind of this.

Should be the only sound consequence - they'd just loose money going on...

Aliexpress should acknowledge these wheels as "dead on arrival" and refund the customers - so full loss for the sellers.

... or they find some way to circumvent this locking mechanism - so KS will improve this and we'll get many new future posts regarding this matters...

But imho hacked devices should be refunded by aliexpress, too?

[Meulebeest]

41 minutes ago, FinRider said:

US buyers have been getting their products locally cheaper because of a weak dollar and because the ship,ents came in through hongkong, ie circumventing the trade duties imposed by the US - China trade war. Also, the listed prices in the US are pre-VAT (sales tax), so we can not really compare the website listed prices between the continents. Someone earlier posted the calculations, and in the end the relative costs are the same, different systems just collect money in a different way.

This is the part where we have a different opinion.
It is also the addition of an European distributor (not a point of sales) in the middle between manufacturer and Point of Sales (who takes a mark-up + VAT) which also weighs into price, the calculation argument was to demonstrate this. It is not only taxes that make the difference + the "extended" 2y warranty (which does not apply to all components: battery).

Personally, I look at the information and arguments of Influencers: like @Marty Backe, @Kuji Rolls, @Hsiang, @evX_Mick, ... and opinions expressed on throughout this forum.
A local kingsong roadshow / banner / hyped or margin driven commercial story or scented flyer [] does NOT contribute in my purchase decision.
[Yes, I am one of those people that bought a Tesla, without a dealership, without the can-I-touch-it, without knowing it's delivery date, ...]
And as there are not many channels (also early adopter / niche market), a lot of people chose an alternative path to the local reseller.

Have a look in the full thread here on what has been exchanged already, but in order to go beyond educated guesses and opinions [based on own knowledge applied to this discussion], we should have open book on the buying process / difference [that is wishful thinking ].
What would be the difference between the acquisition ppu (price-per-unit) of my local dealer and ecodrift for example, and what would be the breakdown that lead to that price.

To be clear [and apparently I need to repeat it], I am in for a value added - compensated by margin for those in the sales channel, and I am not convinced this is the case throughout.
Hence my statement: "... personally from a purchase perspective I can't help but feeling cheated (in the EU). ...", not the eluded tax evasion.

[Meulebeest]

31 minutes ago, Chriull said:

Should be the only sound consequence - they'd just loose money going on...

Aliexpress should acknowledge these wheels as "dead on arrival" and refund the customers - so full loss for the sellers.

They will, but the question is whether will be a momentum, now that the news is out (directly noticeable in sales), or a long term effect, more sales to the competitors (and less noticeable, also other factor weigh in).

31 minutes ago, Chriull said:

... or they find some way to circumvent this locking mechanism - so KS will improve this and we'll get many new future posts regarding this matters...

Indeed, flashback to the Ninebot Z stories, hack in order to replace your blown-out mainboard (or speed settings).

 

But apparently we all agree this GeoLocking is a bad thing :-)

(the principle alone,  or Tesla locking all cars because of ... )

Edited August 12, 2020 by Meulebeest

[Antec]

I do not know the ins and outs of the forum and who sponsors what

but when will the Admin of this forum have a serious word with Kingsong Rep on here and the future of the promoting the brand on this forum?

We should not allow this malpratice to continue.

maybe as a collective we can get them to remove this nonsense policy, they don't quite realise how many sales they are going to lose after this.

 

Edited August 12, 2020 by Antec
typo

[NOSFET Electric Dreams]

3 minutes ago, Antec said:

I do not know the ins and outs of the forum and who sponsors what

but when will the Admin of this forum have a serious word with Kingsong Rep on here and the future of the promoting the brand on this forum?

We should not allow this mispratice to continue.

maybe as a collective we can get them to remove this nonsense policy, they don't quite realise how many sales they are going to lose after this.

 

I'm in constant communication with admins. 
 

I appreciate everyones passionate response and I've shared these with my upper level management. 

[Antec]

1 minute ago, Jack King Song said:

I'm in constant communication with admins. 
 

I appreciate everyones passionate response and I've shared these with my upper level management. 

Thank you, this is a step in the right direction.

[MrP-MrF]

2 hours ago, FinRider said:

it is 100% right by the dealer, be it official or unofficial to refuse to sell a product. Like you mentioned, there are several distributors for KS in europe and you are technically free to order the wheel from whomever you wish.  

Nope. Tina Wong said that i HAD to go through KS Europe (who sells in France en in Belgium), and not another dealer. For this, this is against European Law, like i said before...

 

 

2 hours ago, FinRider said:

maybe the distributor had pre-purchased a stock of black wheels and want to sell those before taking orders for a white one? Remember, distributors have payment terms with the manuacturer as well. I agree that it can be frustrating. The seller should have tried to convince you to buy what was available (black wheel), which he probably did. If you insist that you want a white one, then the seller should have taken the order, with payment in full up-front, and ordered the wheel for you from ks china. Delivery terms would probably have been up to 2-3 months, depending on when this happened in the pre/ release schedule of the wheel.

Well, they didn't want to refund me, and indeed, there was a pre-order stock already made. But I said I got it and was ready to wait for the second batch delivery / next order, and therefore a few months.
The reason is that he didn't want to make a new color benchmark (and probably spend the money to order 2/3 of white shell replacements, which must cost 1 billion euros ...)
In addition they wanted to cheat me by making me pay a very huge extra. Fortunately, my local shop fighted for me.

This supplier was just not brave and taking the lead. Other official European suppliers could do this without any problem. So as said, for me considering the communication and the name of customer respect in addition to this blocking policy, I think this is my last KS wheel.
 

[FinRider]

WARNING: Boring math exercise follows.

I saw the calculations earlier, but decided to research a bit and see what the actually costs cycle is with Duty & Tax applied. The Distributor needs to make money so a 30% margin is probably to be expected for them to cover the warranty, support and service costs.

KS wholesale price - 8180 yuan (includes shipping to EUR/US) (€1000 / $1178 with todays exchange rate)

EU distributor - 6% import duty, 20% VAT (ranges between countries, but 20% seems to be the average)

1000 x 1,06 x 1,20 = €1272 

30% margin = €1817 (for comparison to the US with EUR / USD exchange rates this would be $2140)

US distributor - 25% duty, sales tax 0 - 10%, average is about 8% or so. 

1178 x 1,25 x 1,08 =  $1590 

30% margin = $2271

The US system is a bit more complicated though, as they have been able to circumvent the import duty by having the devices shipped via Hong Kong, which up until recently had a 0% duty. Top this off with buyers buying out of state (online), for which they do not pay any sales tax, so in reality the US pricing is based on the pure transfer price with no added costs.

$1178 + 30% margin = $1683

Aliexpress seller - 0% duty, 0% sales tax, same 30% margin, they probably operate on a smaller margin though as they do not properly support their products, so it is possible to buy them way cheaper.

€1300 and $1683 - 30% margin (prices differ due to the yuan to EUR and USD exchange rates)

To summarize this in a table: Actual EU prices is what is listed online, I know many have been getting these for 2K, so the increase % falls right in line with the US prices: 10.1% increase from simulation to real S18. Sorry to all the non us/eur people out there, I did not want to blow this completely out of proportion to take every territory/currency into account.

 

I guess the gist of this math exercise was to prove that KS makes the same amount of money wether they sell it locally in china or abroad. This proves to me that the whole issue is with KS "defending" their international distributors by implementing measures that hurt the consumer for no business gain at all. I may have some assumptions incorrect in my calculations as I am not privy to the margins & transfer costs for EUC's.

 

[UniVehje]

1 hour ago, Meulebeest said:

It is also the addition of an European distributor (not a point of sales) in the middle between manufacturer and Point of Sales (who takes a mark-up + VAT) which also weighs into price, the calculation argument was to demonstrate this. It is not only taxes that make the difference + the "extended" 2y warranty (which does not apply to all components: battery).

Please look at the calculations above. I don't know why you try to prove a middle man in the EU but the math is just not there. The prices the resellers in US and EU are getting is generally very similar. And Ali sellers skip the VAT unless something's changed recently. A two year warranty + VAT explain the price differences pretty well. And it's always up to the seller to decide how to price the items. There's no point in selling for anything less than you can. It's up to the consumer to find and ask for better deals. 

And I happen to know a little about a few European resellers and I'm pretty sure they are dealing directly with Kingsong in China, there's no European middle man. 

[Zopper]

5 minutes ago, FinRider said:

The Distributor needs to make money so a 30% margin is probably to be expected for them to cover the warranty, support and service costs.

Thanks for the math, I like posts like this. :-) One note, though. I don't see anywhere the warranty difference: in the USA, the warranty is 1 year. In the EU, it is 2 years. So if we include the double warranty as another 5-10% to the margin, we get even closer to the actual price (with 10% more, it would be 2120€ which is about the actual price).

[StuartL]

At the risk of going off-topic... where are people finding KingSong wheels on AliExpress (or equivalent) at such high discounts?  Even wheels that aren't being region locked (e.g. the V11) don't seem to be *that* much cheaper on AliExpress and if you factor in the chance of 20% duty being charged on import I can't find an AliExpress deal that's worth risking for other vendors and I can't find any modern King Song wheels on AE at all...?

[Feynman]

a

Edited August 12, 2020 by Feynman
wrong thread

[FinRider]

2 minutes ago, StuartL said:

At the risk of going off-topic... where are people finding KingSong wheels on AliExpress (or equivalent) at such high discounts?  Even wheels that aren't being region locked (e.g. the V11) don't seem to be *that* much cheaper on AliExpress and if you factor in the chance of 20% duty being charged on import I can't find an AliExpress deal that's worth risking for other vendors and I can't find any modern King Song wheels on AE at all...?

https://www.chicway.shop/c/kingsong_0119

I know its not Ali, as the products on Ali come and go. Point is, directly from china without a local middleman.

 

[Antec]

8 minutes ago, StuartL said:

At the risk of going off-topic... where are people finding KingSong wheels on AliExpress (or equivalent) at such high discounts?  Even wheels that aren't being region locked (e.g. the V11) don't seem to be *that* much cheaper on AliExpress and if you factor in the chance of 20% duty being charged on import I can't find an AliExpress deal that's worth risking for other vendors and I can't find any modern King Song wheels on AE at all...?

depends on the shop and stock, as most will take your order and order a fresh EUC from the factory. adds a few days on to the order time.

Most will send on a train to Poland and then gets picked up by UPS so anyone in the EU will not get any duty.

[meriwald]

On 8/11/2020 at 1:32 AM, mrelwood said:

I reached out to @Jack King Song, who asked for the serial number for my remotely locked 16S and he was able to remotely unlock (whitelist?) the wheel in 33 hours. He did read my question about why it got locked in the first place, but decided not to reply.

For a spare wheel like mine, 33h may be tolerable, but I would never ever take a risk like that for my main wheel.

KS is shooting themselves in the leg, big time.

He was the one replying you on kingsong international in the first place

so you reached to the same person both times just firsts time they act like kingsong and second time like kingsong that being slapped by community. 

Im so glad they got scared off and step back and you have your wheel again 

but imagine we didn’t have this forum or other platform and this issue just stayed between you and kingsong - it would never being solved  

 

Edited August 12, 2020 by meriwald

[Planemo]

48 minutes ago, Zopper said:

But even then I have a right to say that I refuse this and move such companies down in my list

Lol, they haven't so much 'moved down' my list, they have fallen well off the bottom of the page.

48 minutes ago, Zopper said:

But as far as I know, this public acknowledging came AFTER the affected wheels have been sold.

They did, which is why I said 'I think the warning should have come earlier'.

48 minutes ago, Zopper said:

and if KS was in my country and not China, it would be likely breach some laws.

It would breach laws in a lot of countries. I wont lose any sleep over it. I jusy wont buy KS. A lot of shit happens differently in different countries, its the way the world is.

48 minutes ago, Zopper said:

No. Once you buy it, you own it and can do whatever you can with it.

If one chooses to buy something over the internet 1000's of miles away from an Ali or backstreet seller in China then all risks are on them IMO. If the wheel is DOA or bricked remotely, thats an issue between the seller and buyer. It shouldnt have been sold in the first place in the case of the latter. Thats the sellers issue, not KS, and a refund in full inc all shipping fees should be issued.

(FYI, I have bought all my wheels from Ali and have accepted the associated risks).

[meriwald]

On 8/11/2020 at 7:23 AM, StuartL said:

It would be interesting to get an official statement from King Song on this (@Jack King Song?) as there's a lot of people (myself included) about to drop a bunch of cash on a suspension wheel and this could be an influencing factor.  It's encouraging that @mrelwood got his issue fixed but it's unclear why that case is different to @Vulkov's case.

For those who consider this business practice unacceptable I'd like to point out that it's entirely normal for any global manufacturer to take a similar approach to pricing.  When undertaking global manufacture of any product you always know that some markets are more lucrative than others and you price your products accordingly. This means that in some markets you may be making very little margin but in others you're making a higher margin.  Some of this is basic economics and some of this is the increased costs of doing business overseas:

* You might not be able to sell the product at a higher price in one market but you still need to make a certain amount of money to make the business viable, so you sell it at the maximum price you think each market will suffer so that you're still running a viable business.

* The costs of doing international business should not be understated.  International certifications (FCC, EC, EMC etc) do not come cheap and require massive admin overhead to maintain and document for shipping.  Shipping itself has a huge resource cost, especially for dangerous goods (which lithium batteries are).  All of these costs have to come from somewhere and it's unfair for the Chinese market to suffer these additional costs.  Indeed it's likely that KingSong wouldn't be able to sell to the Chinese market if they priced the international costs into the Chinese products.

* It's likely that wheels bought through AliExpress (or alternatives) aren't considering some of these international shipping matters and may not be declaring things correctly on invoices.  Wheels may be listed without the batteries or the customs invoice may have an incorrect value.  Wheels may not have the correct product identification stickers (FCC/CE, etc).  These common behaviours are not exactly moral and may result in customs delays, customs bills or your wheel simply being confiscated on arrival.

When you buy a Chinese product internationally you are getting the benefits of KingSong's international market without compensating KingSong financially for that sale.  I can understand why they're frustrated.

Don't get me wrong, this post is intended to speculate as to King Song's perspective.  I don't think it's right that the consumer is the one who suffers a locked wheel and appreciate that @Jack King Song has arranged for at least one wheel to be unlocked.

There is no way you can justify 1300$ price difference with all those reasons 

kingSong cares about dealers more than about customer and believe me dealers are super ok with that. I was just speaking about this issue in the chat of major dealer from Russia and owner was all hands for banning wheels , they end up deleting the whole tread , trying to silence all this.

not the first time I see kingsong and their affiliates trying to silence revealing conversations about their “ brand”

good that community is strong and we can stand for each other when companies are failing to do so

[FinRider]

5 minutes ago, Planemo said:

If one chooses to buy something over the internet 1000's of miles away from an Ali or backstreet seller in China then all risks are on them IMO. If the wheel is DOA or bricked remotely, thats an issue between the seller and buyer. It shouldnt have been sold in the first place in the case of the latter. Thats the sellers issue, not KS, and a refund in full inc all shipping fees should be issued.

(FYI, I have bought all my wheels from Ali and have accepted the associated risks).

This is all true. If one can live with the risk buying from Ali / other China seller in order to save a couple hundred, then by all means, you have the right to do this. KS locking wheels remotely is not really an issue in this case, as an experienced & knowledgeable rider will avoid the offical KS app to mitigate the risk of having their EUC locked. 

The problem is more for the non-educated buyers who pick up their wheels 2nd hand. If the seller is not 100% forthcoming on the origins of the wheel... heck, the buyer might not even understand to ask this question, then the risk of him getting his wheel locked when he goes and installs the official KS app. Consumer laws in Europe would in this case protect the seller, as the wheel was fully functional at the time of sale and not DOA.

My math (with certain assumptions) proves that KS makes the same amount of money regardless whom the consumer buys the product from. I sum this up to piss-poor channel management, where the KS reps need to have the customers (end user) back instead of protecting their distribution network. In the end, if I want to buy a KS wheel, then it is because of the quality, features and specs of the wheel, not because I might have a relationship with a certain reseller.

KingSong just needs to man up, apologize to the community (& unlock all affected wheels ASAP), implement a better more long lasting policy (no more wheel locking) and tell their distributors to suck it up.

To me, the few hundreds I could save (yeah I know, up to 25% can be saved) is not worth the hassle if I ever would need warranty service. To each their own I guess.