Hello everyone,
I've been following this project closely in the past few weeks, and frankly I couldn't wait to get my hands on a RasPi yesterday when I read the blogpost stating that orders would be open worldwide tomorrow (today, that is) for everyone who had previously registered. I cannot emphasize enough on how disappointed and let down I feel tonight reading through your forums, blogposts and excuses, from you general lack of seriousness (and, might I say, fairness).
At first I naively thought that anyone that registered, that had put their emails into that webform, would have gotten an email that morning with an ordering link, allowing anyone to place orders while supplies lasted. Silly old me. Instead, you chose to separately send links via email to select individuals, in chronological order from february to now. I personally counted at least 5 people on the Raspberry Pi forums that had one or more spare order links, just laying there, because they registered multiple times on both websites so that they wouldn't be left out.
Those orders could have been used by other people, you know.
It seems to me that the most fair way you could have arranged a sale like this is just send a link to everyone at a preset time, and just let us order until you didn't have any more supplies!
But let's suppose I agree with you for one moment. It was an administrative decision of yours, after all, we are in no position to question it.
For all those who actually succeeded in ordering, only to find out that they would yet again be delayed, I ask, why wasn't this scheduled? What, did EU regulations just pop-in overnight? Perhaps the government emailed you an hour ago saying that it would take another week for the RasPi to get tested and approved? No, I don't think so. European law is the same as it ever was, you know.
But most of all, what I find most discouraging and hurtful is your complete, utter lack of seriousness. The fact that I myself had to research all these facts, read up off-topic threads to gather these critical pieces of information. The fact that you failed to send me one email saying that you were sorry, that due to supply limiting this was what you would do. Tell me, would it have been hard? To mail a message to everyone stating the nature of the situation? I am telling you from the bottom of my heart, I would have dealt with it all, because I honestly know what a hard job it is to deal with all these separate people and try to make all of them happy. But that isn't an excuse for what happened this week.
Since I registered, the only email I got from you is the automated confirmation link. Nothing else. Not the ordering link that you promised, not even the weekly update regarding the state of things!
That's the origin of my frustration, and I seriously think I'm not the only one. I find it unacceptable that under these circumstances you still haven't sent an email to your customers excusing yourselves. That's the least that you can do for us. If we can't order yet, at least tell us why. Don't make us waste our time to find out what is up.