This is a long story, but informative in the eyes of one person.
Of course like anything you read here this is my opinion.
So my story begins back sometime mid 2009. One of the guys I used to play online games with told me about an electronic cigarette he purchased from a kiosk in his local mall. I was interested in the idea of a device that could deliver nicotine without combustion. He was pretty ...... that it wasn't good quality, but what is when you buy it from the mall. So I started reading online about "electronic cigarettes". I ended up finding a site that had a free trial. I think it was the green cig or some ..... I ordered one and it seemed really cool but was very limited. The carts had foil over them and wicked like ..... After realizing my failure to read the fine print and seen a crazy charge on my credit card for this pile of semi-working non-quality tested piece of .... I was on the phone. Long story short I got a refund minus shipping.
I was not satisfied that, that pile of Chinese crap was the best I could get. After more reading I found totallywicked-eliquid.com and purchased a 510 starter kit. I got it in the mail and was excited. Nice professional packaging. Keep in mind this was around October 2009. The batteries were great, the liquid for a newb was great. I was hooked! I needed to find out more. I started ordering from rockymountainvapor.com the coffee VG was the best I have ever had at the time. I started doing direct drips and loved it.
I moved onto more online ordering and found great vendors like Jason from electronicstix.com and Chris from cigtechs.com. They offered this little slice of heaven called RATH juice. 100% VG vibrant flavored, clouds of vaping goodness. To me this was the pinnacle of liquid. Then December of 2009 came and I hurt my back so bad that I needed lumbar spinal fusion. Long story short the doctor told me to stop nicotine (I was a long time smoker/chewer prior to vaping).
Fast forward so after surgery and being out of work on long term disability. Money was tight as with many people, the economy sucks. My wife was a smoker and I ended up going back to cigarettes.. We got into the roll your own smokes. I could roll a whole carton for 17 bucks. Yep 17 bucks for 200 cigarettes. I was bored of it though. I ran across my old stuff and my interest in vaping reemerged.
I was out of juice except this PG liquid I got from zigcigs.com and was not a fan of PG. I quickly started looking online for more RATH juice and found out he did some grimey .... to alot of people. RATH juice was out. God I loved that mtn dewey and waffle juice so much.
This is were the point of this long post comes in. I just wanted to lay a little ground work that I knew what I was doing etc etc.
I placed to orders, one order to a prior vendor (good reputation) and one order to a new vendor. At this time I won't say who they are because I think this point should apply to all vendors now a days.
I received one order fairly fast because the person was only about 45 minutes maximum from me but didn't do local pickups. I cleaned my old atomizers and even went as far on one of them to debridge and dewick it. I drop in some liquid that was supposed to be coffee and it tasted like crap. Ok so maybe I didn't get that atty as clean as it needed to be. I grabbed the new atty I had in the order and blew out the primer and burned it etc etc. Drip drip yep taste like crap. At this point I am pretty ...... (see above about limited income and not working). I just wasted 20 bucks on crap that wasn't even checked for quality. I email the vendor and nicely state that there was an issue with the juice.
This was a portion of the email
"the coffee I got from you is pretty bad... not much coffee flavor at all don't get me wrong lots of sweet and tons of vapor just a nasty taste with the sweet... what can we do about this? I haven't used to much of it but have used it on the new atty from you also on a brigeless wickless direct drip old atty I had"
"coffee we can swap out for another flavor if you like. let me know.."
Ok cool so the vendor is being good about keeping customers and will work it out. Keep in mind I already placed one order with this vendor.
my reply:
"Thanks for the fast reply! I really hate to complain seeing as I have only made 2 orders from you and all. But yeah the coffee taste a little funky. I guess some ry4 24 mg would be the closest match to the coffee."
Long story short days pass and no mail. Had I misunderstood and needed to return the old juice? I had no idea so i shoot out another email. Long story short something somehow was lost in translation we will say.
Now we rewind to the other vendor who sent out some juice and I received it in between all this going on. Once again, all excited new juice and this was mtn dew! I even watched videos of the reviews on youtube! People claimed "it was just like opening a can and vaping the can"! I was EXCITED!! Repeat process clean out attys and drip drip drip puff puff puff...... WHAT THE .... IS THIS? Watered down sprite?? It made me nauseous to even vape the stuff?!?! I was really ...... off... what are the chances 2 vendors 2 bad juices? All I could think was 40 dollars wasted.... really just like I wadded up 40 bucks and flushed down the toilet. I contacted the new vendor politely relaying my disappointment.
This was the response:
" I am so sorry for the problems. I have been testing out a new nicotine base over the last 2 weeks and not sure its gonna work for me over here!
I am sending out a new bottle in the morning. please keep that bottle and vape it the best you can till you get this new bottle!"
Ok now to the point of this GIANT POST. Guys the vaping world isn't like walmart we can't just go make an exchange or refund. Please Please Please for the love of god quality check your products!
I mean at the very least when you are mixing chemicals it could be dangerous? Do we really really know vaping only after a few years being marketed?
We need vendors to be the rule of being excellent not the exception!
Lets take a look at what Toyota went through when they didn't check and recheck their product. Let's not do the same thing in the vaping world and drive away customers or worse have the FDA come in because vendors started killing people or something because of a bad business model of saving money or poor product.
You know as I write this there is a chance these vendors could recognize who they are based on the emails and choose not to do business with me again. That is fine if they choose to do that. But I was respectful enough not to name them.
I love the idea of vaping and the electronic cigarette or personal vaporizer whatever you want to call it. It is better then cigarettes. Let's keep it safe!
Thanks for reading my post!!
Mike
Of course like anything you read here this is my opinion.
So my story begins back sometime mid 2009. One of the guys I used to play online games with told me about an electronic cigarette he purchased from a kiosk in his local mall. I was interested in the idea of a device that could deliver nicotine without combustion. He was pretty ...... that it wasn't good quality, but what is when you buy it from the mall. So I started reading online about "electronic cigarettes". I ended up finding a site that had a free trial. I think it was the green cig or some ..... I ordered one and it seemed really cool but was very limited. The carts had foil over them and wicked like ..... After realizing my failure to read the fine print and seen a crazy charge on my credit card for this pile of semi-working non-quality tested piece of .... I was on the phone. Long story short I got a refund minus shipping.
I was not satisfied that, that pile of Chinese crap was the best I could get. After more reading I found totallywicked-eliquid.com and purchased a 510 starter kit. I got it in the mail and was excited. Nice professional packaging. Keep in mind this was around October 2009. The batteries were great, the liquid for a newb was great. I was hooked! I needed to find out more. I started ordering from rockymountainvapor.com the coffee VG was the best I have ever had at the time. I started doing direct drips and loved it.
I moved onto more online ordering and found great vendors like Jason from electronicstix.com and Chris from cigtechs.com. They offered this little slice of heaven called RATH juice. 100% VG vibrant flavored, clouds of vaping goodness. To me this was the pinnacle of liquid. Then December of 2009 came and I hurt my back so bad that I needed lumbar spinal fusion. Long story short the doctor told me to stop nicotine (I was a long time smoker/chewer prior to vaping).
Fast forward so after surgery and being out of work on long term disability. Money was tight as with many people, the economy sucks. My wife was a smoker and I ended up going back to cigarettes.. We got into the roll your own smokes. I could roll a whole carton for 17 bucks. Yep 17 bucks for 200 cigarettes. I was bored of it though. I ran across my old stuff and my interest in vaping reemerged.
I was out of juice except this PG liquid I got from zigcigs.com and was not a fan of PG. I quickly started looking online for more RATH juice and found out he did some grimey .... to alot of people. RATH juice was out. God I loved that mtn dewey and waffle juice so much.
This is were the point of this long post comes in. I just wanted to lay a little ground work that I knew what I was doing etc etc.
I placed to orders, one order to a prior vendor (good reputation) and one order to a new vendor. At this time I won't say who they are because I think this point should apply to all vendors now a days.
I received one order fairly fast because the person was only about 45 minutes maximum from me but didn't do local pickups. I cleaned my old atomizers and even went as far on one of them to debridge and dewick it. I drop in some liquid that was supposed to be coffee and it tasted like crap. Ok so maybe I didn't get that atty as clean as it needed to be. I grabbed the new atty I had in the order and blew out the primer and burned it etc etc. Drip drip yep taste like crap. At this point I am pretty ...... (see above about limited income and not working). I just wasted 20 bucks on crap that wasn't even checked for quality. I email the vendor and nicely state that there was an issue with the juice.
This was a portion of the email
"the coffee I got from you is pretty bad... not much coffee flavor at all don't get me wrong lots of sweet and tons of vapor just a nasty taste with the sweet... what can we do about this? I haven't used to much of it but have used it on the new atty from you also on a brigeless wickless direct drip old atty I had"
"coffee we can swap out for another flavor if you like. let me know.."
Ok cool so the vendor is being good about keeping customers and will work it out. Keep in mind I already placed one order with this vendor.
my reply:
"Thanks for the fast reply! I really hate to complain seeing as I have only made 2 orders from you and all. But yeah the coffee taste a little funky. I guess some ry4 24 mg would be the closest match to the coffee."
Long story short days pass and no mail. Had I misunderstood and needed to return the old juice? I had no idea so i shoot out another email. Long story short something somehow was lost in translation we will say.
Now we rewind to the other vendor who sent out some juice and I received it in between all this going on. Once again, all excited new juice and this was mtn dew! I even watched videos of the reviews on youtube! People claimed "it was just like opening a can and vaping the can"! I was EXCITED!! Repeat process clean out attys and drip drip drip puff puff puff...... WHAT THE .... IS THIS? Watered down sprite?? It made me nauseous to even vape the stuff?!?! I was really ...... off... what are the chances 2 vendors 2 bad juices? All I could think was 40 dollars wasted.... really just like I wadded up 40 bucks and flushed down the toilet. I contacted the new vendor politely relaying my disappointment.
This was the response:
" I am so sorry for the problems. I have been testing out a new nicotine base over the last 2 weeks and not sure its gonna work for me over here!
I am sending out a new bottle in the morning. please keep that bottle and vape it the best you can till you get this new bottle!"
Ok now to the point of this GIANT POST. Guys the vaping world isn't like walmart we can't just go make an exchange or refund. Please Please Please for the love of god quality check your products!
I mean at the very least when you are mixing chemicals it could be dangerous? Do we really really know vaping only after a few years being marketed?
We need vendors to be the rule of being excellent not the exception!
Lets take a look at what Toyota went through when they didn't check and recheck their product. Let's not do the same thing in the vaping world and drive away customers or worse have the FDA come in because vendors started killing people or something because of a bad business model of saving money or poor product.
You know as I write this there is a chance these vendors could recognize who they are based on the emails and choose not to do business with me again. That is fine if they choose to do that. But I was respectful enough not to name them.
I love the idea of vaping and the electronic cigarette or personal vaporizer whatever you want to call it. It is better then cigarettes. Let's keep it safe!
Thanks for reading my post!!
Mike