Atari Rage - Bad experience

[nama]

Yes, I have read the thread about him being sick. And I think I have had great patience. I have been waiting THREE months for someone from Atari Rage (Sal Kjmann?) to ship me a composite adaptor

 

See this thread:

http://www.atariage....__fromsearch__1

 

I ordered and payed for this on September 25th. A tiny assembly of parts that can fit in an envelope and arrive Internationally within less than a week. I have emailed Atari Rage about 8 times and have 3 replies and nothing but excuses.

 

#1 "You should get it sometime next week"

 

#2 "Customs rejected it. Stupid me I put Atari cart as the contents of the package instead of Atari Circuit upgrade"

 

#3 Finally and email from his 'fiance'

"He is in the hospital from a allergic reaction to black mold found in our house and has pneumonia"

 

Finally I received a google checkout email saying that the item had shipped...but that was nearly a month ago!

 

I feel I have been give a total run around from this company. Just a bunch of excuses for why I haven't received my item. What annoys me even more is that it's probably $5 worth of parts and shipping that he charges $30 for. I knew it was over priced when I payed for it, but at the time I didn't really feel like building one up with a perf board (my bad).

 

Kjmann, if you are listening...Please refund my money or ship my item.

Edited December 26, 2011 by Tempest

[Mclaneinc]

I feel your pain and I cannot comment on what excuses you have had but as you know he's supposed to be very very poorly, I have no reason to doubt him or his fiance who has posted a response via a user on here.

 

While I don't know why it wasn't sent initially I doubt it was a deliberate slight at you, if he is as sick as has been said then I don't want to kick a man while he's down, I can't imagine that they have any thought about anything other than him getting better.

 

I truly understand your annoyance and your wish to vent, I doubt there's one of us who would not be pissed at this happening to them, its easy for some to say its only 30 dollars but its more the point of the honourably made order than cash.

 

I hope it gets sorted asap, if you run a business the last thing you want to do is p*ss off customers.

 

If you can, sort it out Sal...

[Shawn Jefferson]

Why "Atari Rage" ?

[flashjazzcat]

Why "Atari Rage" ?

Pre-empting customer feedback, presumably.

[Marius]

I really understand your, and all other frustrations people can have in this kind of cases. (And yes I have had my share with other sellers).

 

But then again: why bothering me (and others) with your personal problem with KJmann?

 

Why using abusive, uncensored language (s*cks)?

 

I have never had any problem at all with Kjmann. I know him as a very decent and trustful person. I can not remember I ever started a topic about my opinion about Kjmann, so why do you do such a thing?

 

I hope the solution is near; and I think when someones health is in serious trouble, things will go wrong always. I do not believe Kjmann is trying to rip you off.

[nama]

But then again: why bothering me (and others) with your personal problem with KJmann?

 

Why using abusive, uncensored language (s*cks)?

 

 

Firstly, thanks for the replies.

I do indeed hope to resolve this problem, but after many emails it may be a lost cause.

 

Marius1976, if you are offended by the word 'sucks' (not s*cks'. It's not a swear word you know. You don't need to put that asterix in there as I'm pretty sure it won't be flagged.) then the internet must be a scary place. I can think of a thousand more insulting things to say. It is however my personal opinion of a company that has taken my money and wasted my time.

To answer your questions. I wasn't aware that I was 'bothering' you. I can't remember forcing you to read this thread. But thanks to your reply it keeps this thread topical and assures more people will read it. I was however 'bothering' those who would be interested in hearing my experiences with Atari Rage and find the information invaluable. Personally I would be very happy to read someones thread giving factual information on their experience, good or bad, with companies such as Atari Rage. Information like this would be invaluable if I was thinking of having dealings with said company.

Edited December 25, 2011 by nama

[Tempest]

Please keep this topic civil and stick to the facts.

[nama]

For the sake of harmony, I asked Tempest to change the title of the thread. Sorry if it offended some people.

[qix_maniac]

I'm guilty of road rage sometimes...however I did order 3 cartridges from him last week and they arrived before X-mas, probably because my lucky # is 3

.

.

.

 

....just think of it as buying something on ebay "sold as is" and chuck it up as a loss when it does not work, it's only money

Edited December 26, 2011 by qix_maniac

[mimo]

Atari rage is an attempt to get back at Atari age users that gave him a hard time for selling bootleg games , or new homebrew stuff without the authors consent/knowledge.

 

Oh and you are out by a factor if ten for the cost of parts

Edited December 26, 2011 by mimo

[AtariBrian]

i would be upset to. pretty obvious there is a reason your not getting what you ordered. he should just refund your money right away.

[atarian63]

I like Kjmann, had great results with him and appreciate havinghim in the Atari "community" hope he gets well soon!

Soory you are having a problem. No way is he trying to rip you off!

[Atari8bitCarts]

Why is he shipping to others, but not full-filling previous paid items? Again, his website stated months ago, long before he became sick, that he was selling it off and that the name changed. So you can pretty much figure out this was in the works for some time, at least enough time to plan a transition.

Maybe this order was "lost" during that transition, but I find it odd that he isn't responding to email for this order? Maybe see if PayPal will put pressure on him?

 

I'm really surprised that Video61, Lance, would get involved with such a controversial business. Lance always prided himself on getting the permissions, through buying out right or purchasing inventory/parts direct from Atari, on goods.

Edited December 26, 2011 by chrislynn5

[qix_maniac]

gee wiz you took my comment as serious?

 

this thread is boring...someone should start a more interesting thread like "what was the rarest cartridge you acquired in 2011?!!!"

 

...now that would be a fun topic

[kogden]

I too had a bad experience with KJmann to the point where I had to sick PayPal on him after asking for refunds several times over a month. He lied about shipping the product twice and once PayPal got involved he hurried up and shipped it (despite instructions for him NOT to ship and give me my money back). He missed 2 firm ship dates he promised and I wanted my money back. He refused.

 

Sal has a serious problem being truthful. Illness is just a lame excuse. He treats people like this all the time apparently and apologists seem to come out of the woodwork from various posts I've seen here. He may be talented, but he is NOT trust-worthy and will happily lie to pacify you. Instead of the customs excuse he tried to claim half the shipment of power suppies he received were DOA. He is very quick to come up with stories pointing the finger at suppliers to shift blame.

 

Doesn't matter if he's sick. He's a cheat and a perfect example of some of the slime vendors we had to deal with back in the day. Being sick doesn't cause outright lying and dishonesty.

 

Anyway, this is all I'm going to say on this. Vote with your wallet, take your business to someone reputable. You're better off on eBay than dealing with KJmann.

 

And the reason I'm saying this is because I feel dishonest folks doing business with the community need to be outed so noone else has to go through the same pain and hassle.

Edited December 26, 2011 by kogden

[AtariBrian]

AMEN KOGDEN

[Mclaneinc]

I think threads like this are fair game, its good to see both praise and bad feedback about suppliers out there, it does now seem that Sal despite being ill has been a bit lax at dealing with customers, if a customer has been let down a few times and asks for a refund then just give it to them, its decent business practice.

 

I've never dealt with Sal on an order basis but I have seen over the times people posting not so happy things but in this case I came to understand that Sal was very ill but upon reviewing this and the posts re his illness I noticed one that confirmed his illness and said he had just sent that person a new composition, now this made me wonder how a person able to write a tune wasn't able to deal with the business at hand. Maybe doing the post office runs were out but I presume he had help anyway.

 

I wish Sal well if he's ill, I for one fully understand how illness can destroy a persons life but I also think that when you chose to run a business then you for logical reasons do it as perfectly as you can, when it gets to the point that you are failing to do the most basic part of the deal then its time to call it a day, reputation is every thing in this line, if you get known for late deliveries, being always out of stock of items in a catalogue and refusing refunds when they apply then this DOES get around, especially on the internet and it has a serious knock on effect.

 

When it gets to this line of customer annoyance there (unless these guys are all liars, which I doubt) is only one thing to do, stop trading until its all fixed or not worth carrying on.

 

What right have I to make a judgement?

 

10 years of managing a Maplin Electronics shop, 10 years of dealing with a foot thick out of stock list of basic electronic components, 10 years of attending buying meetings knowing that a good 50% of what would be in the new catalogue would not actually come available for 6 months of that yearly catalogue life. The number of times I'd get called out from the office to deal with a really annoyed customer because half his order was out of stock, not only in the shop but in the warehouse. The number of customers we lost to more expensive but stocked shops and companies all because the owners wanted to source at a price and refuse to purchase at a 1p difference because it was all about maximising profits yet leaving the shop bare of the most basic used components.

 

Not once did they bend the 1p of a 60p item which cost them 5p to buy.

 

Maplin survived because of its size and a new board that took over and changed the buying policy, sadly they also changed the nature of the shops, items were now in Tandy style bulk bags, if you wanted a capacitor you had to buy a lucky bag of them, they now more look like a toy shop...

Edited December 27, 2011 by Mclaneinc

[sloopy]

I too had a bad experience with KJmann to the point where I had to sick PayPal on him after asking for refunds several times over a month. He lied about shipping the product twice and once PayPal got involved he hurried up and shipped it (despite instructions for him NOT to ship and give me my money back). He missed 2 firm ship dates he promised and I wanted my money back. He refused.

 

Sal has a serious problem being truthful. Illness is just a lame excuse. He treats people like this all the time apparently and apologists seem to come out of the woodwork from various posts I've seen here. He may be talented, but he is NOT trust-worthy and will happily lie to pacify you. Instead of the customs excuse he tried to claim half the shipment of power suppies he received were DOA. He is very quick to come up with stories pointing the finger at suppliers to shift blame.

 

Doesn't matter if he's sick. He's a cheat and a perfect example of some of the slime vendors we had to deal with back in the day. Being sick doesn't cause outright lying and dishonesty.

 

Anyway, this is all I'm going to say on this. Vote with your wallet, take your business to someone reputable. You're better off on eBay than dealing with KJmann.

 

And the reason I'm saying this is because I feel dishonest folks doing business with the community need to be outed so noone else has to go through the same pain and hassle.

 

I would have to agree on the issue of being sick, and not getting things done... if you are sick and not getting things done for months at a time, then maybe it is time sell the business or stop doing business...

 

I have never commented on the issue of Sal selling multi-carts with games, and will continue to not make an public opinion on it.

 

My main issue with Sal, is the saying he is going to ship on date X and then two three weeks later nothing is still recv'd... I personally have only recv'ed one thing from Sal, and the third or fouth ship date i was given, was actually real...

 

Last week I became very ill, and since i was already behind due to issues with family, this has only made it worse... Compound this with the fact my primary computer died that weekend before. (which was made exponentially worse as my primary machine uses linux and my backup drive is in XFS, which there is no drive to read this fs type in windows :'/ ) but, I am still not 100%, but i am working anyway as I cant afford to lose anymore time at my day job, and I dont want to fall anymore behind with my (well your ;') Atari stuff...

 

But that being said, having come from a family with diabetes, I do hope Sal's health improves, if not for his business and the Atari community, but for his own self...

 

And i hope Lances customer service skills are much more inline with what the Atari community and what is generally expected as 'Good Service'...

 

sloopy.

[Tin_Lunchbox]

I too had a bad experience with KJmann to the point where I had to sick PayPal on him after asking for refunds several times over a month. [text clipped for brevity] Sal has a serious problem being truthful. Illness is just a lame excuse. [text clipped for brevity]

 

I ordered an order of like eight softwares from him and got it all very quickly. I admire the accomplishments of Tempest Xtreem and Space Harrier and so on. You may have had another experience (some have, undeniably) or you might be like one of those people who takes 13 out of 15 items back to Wal*Mart or Target just 'cause he can and the sleeves were too long or the dog drooled on the MP3 player. There's no reason for you to be calling satisfied customers "apologists."

 

In no way do I doubt those who have reasonably described their problems with orders with KJMann. It's fair game for dissatisfied customers to criticize their experiences with him here. He runs a business.

 

Folks can describe the problems with their transactions without making personal attacks on the man. Just stick to the facts and don't be all arrogant and insulting about it.

[kogden]

 

I ordered an order of like eight softwares from him and got it all very quickly. I admire the accomplishments of Tempest Xtreem and Space Harrier and so on. You may have had another experience (some have, undeniably) or you might be like one of those people who takes 13 out of 15 items back to Wal*Mart or Target just 'cause he can and the sleeves were too long or the dog drooled on the MP3 player. There's no reason for you to be calling satisfied customers "apologists."

 

Congratulations, you're one he didn't screw over or forget about. No, generally I don't return squat unless it's downright broken and I can't repair it. Especially to Walmart, it's a 30 minute drive away. I never said the games he contributed to sucked. He is a talented guy, just a dishonest talented guy who likes to pull excuses and BS out of his a$$ rather than admit he hasn't been on the ball.

 

What I was upset with him about was blatant deception and lies which he fed me. I'm not the only person he's done this to, in fact, if you look through the archives there's probably more complaints about him than any other vendor of Atari goods in recent history.

 

I understand delays, even expect them, especially with the RAM upgrades and such sold by folks on here (which are awesome BTW). I'm really understanding and laid back when I'm not deceived and kept in the loop. I'm not making personal attacks.

 

In no way do I doubt those who have reasonably described their problems with orders with KJMann. It's fair game for dissatisfied customers to criticize their experiences with him here. He runs a business.

 

Only if you have a very loose definition of business. I run a small business. If I handled ONE customer the way he's handled quite a few my business would RAPIDLY go under and my children would likely starve.

 

The only reason he gets any business is he shows up as one of the first sites selling atari gear when you do a google search. For every 1 loud dissatisfied customer there's probably 10 more that are silent.

 

Folks can describe the problems with their transactions without making personal attacks on the man. Just stick to the facts and don't be all arrogant and insulting about it.

 

I am sticking to the facts. Sorry if you find the facts insulting. Sal has issues with the truth.......FACT. He prefers to attempt to pacify people with complicated lies about overseas suppliers then really tell them what's going on..... FACT. He only ships once a week and regularly misses THAT..... FACT. He refused to give my money back after missing 3 tuesday ship dates.....FACT. He also refused to provide tracking information after claiming it shipped....FACT. He didn't ACTUALLY ship until I got PayPal on him.....FACT. I told him for 2 days straight by VOICE to NOT ship and refund my money....FACT. He deliberately tried to delay things further....FACT.

 

The only reason I didn't ship the product back to him was because I was afraid he would claim it never showed up further delaying my refund so I kept it. He treated me like this after I spent $150 with him. Wouldn't have made me as angry if it was $20 but this was $150.

 

Anyway, I'm seriously done talking about Sal now....just thinking about it makes me grind my teeth.

 

--Kevin

[NML32]

@kogden very well put and you're not alone. I also feel Sal AKA KJMANN is a man of many excuses.

[Shawn Jefferson]

So Lance is taking over kjmann's stock and business? Most of the stuff kjmann was/is selling was simply the Atarimax flashcart with games from the Atarimax forums and other Atari software flashed to the cart.

 

I want to publically state that Video61 does not have my permission to sell my code from the Atarimax forums. This includes the work i did on Ultima II, Ultima III, and Temple of Apshai Trilogy to get those games to save to flashcart.

 

 

[JCat]

Hello and Happy New Year. I haven't been around for quite some time, but I am glad I found this topic. Early in the year, I was on one of my Atari 8-bit highs, and decided to really get involved with my retro hobby by purchasing a system. I was using emulators for quite some time which are great, but I wanted to play around with hardware via Ape Interface. After a lot of research (unfortunately, not enough) I decided to give kjmann a shot and purchase one of his upgraded "XL systems with the extra ram and pre-installed S-Video output; I paid with PayPal. Ten days went by and I didn't hear a thing from kjmann .. was waiting for at least some kind of update? I sent a few emails and never received a reply. I finally sent an email asking that the order be canceled, and I finally got a reply. He said he was sorry but could not cancel as the money was already spent to buy new inventory for his store, and "the system is probably in the mail already". I then asked for a tracking number, and received no reply. After a few days later and multiple tracking number requests, I finally got the tracking number. It arrived approximation 20 days after payment. I don't mind waiting, but at least be upfront about any delays - I was left guessing.. Well, it turned out this beefed up XL was actually a retrofitted 600XL. The original pic on his site made it look like an 800XL or 1200XL, as the 600XL's smaller footprint is easy to distinguish. OK, well, I figured, with the ram upgrade and S-Video output, I'll live with this model. Well, add salt to the wounds, the S-Video output was horrendous. It had horrible vertical bands, and I tried it on four different TV sets and two monitors. The weird part was, upon turning on the unit, I would get anywhere from 10 seconds to a minute of a clean signal, which would give way to vertical bands and remain that way until I turned the unit off.

 

I emailed Sal and he was quick to respond with various things to try but nothing really worked. I even tried a new power supply I had around the house which had the same specs, and no differences. The final response was something like ' I wish could be of more help -- it works on my TV fine'.

 

Well, at least the company that supplies the A.P.E interface came through with fast shipping.. but the XL fiasco from jkmann was a lesson in frustration and disappointment. I was going to post my opinion back in May, but saw no other complaints and figured maybe I was being unreasonable expecting more. Today I decided to visit the forum and do a search on jkmann again, and sure enough, this topic shows up. I should have simply taken it up with PayPal, so that was very stupid on my part. Oh well, live and learn

Edited January 2, 2012 by JCat

[Mclaneinc]

I think its fair to say that Sal has been running a business beyond his abilities and if what is said is true on here with no reason to doubt it, nigh on illegally. He's broken just about every moral and legal rule in the business owners manual, items not as described, items not sent but money taken, items sent faulty, refusal of refunds etc etc etc..

 

I'm sure Sal is a lovely guy but a business man, no..

 

I think these peeved customers have been very gracious in all honesty, for me $150 dollars is a HUGE amount, its a hell of a lot of saving on my part as I don't work due to illness, if I had entrusted Sal's business with my $150 and I had the outcome these people have had I'd be livid and extremely hurt, If I had been sent an incorrect non working item after all that I'd be sweating blood and not just write it off.

 

People have to put a little bit more value of their hard earned / saved cash.

 

Its only $20 but times that enough and its a nice days NON work..

 

Some of Sal's close friends should be passing on these remarks if only to get a last apology from him to his shoddily dealt punters.

Edited January 2, 2012 by Mclaneinc

[nama]

Well, it seems that I'm not the only one who has had bad experience with Atari Rage. In fact it seems quite common. I wish I had known this before giving him my money and wasting my time worrying and sending multiple email.

 

What first tipped my off that something was wrong was his comment that customs had rejected the envelope because he had put Atari cart as the contents of the package instead of Atari circuit upgrade. Those must be some seriously retro savvy customs guys.

 

Anyway, still nothing in the mail as of Jan 7th.