Their customer support is really bad. I'm wondering how many employees are currently working at the company? They claim to be an official distributor of Black Arrow product in the US but it seems like the business is not yet well organized. I really don't like when someone just ignores me emails. Especially someone who I paid my money for any reason. A customer who pays money pre-ordering something is supposed to be a bit nervous - because the money has gone but the purchased product is still yet to come.
My story. I made two orders and paid for both of them by wire. The interval between payments was three weeks. They got the first payments and didn't get the second one. Both payments were made by a template - they are absolutelly the same except for order numbers. I wrote several emails (actually about a dozen) and even got several very short replys. They claimed that they haven't got my wire yet. I requested a SWIFT-document at my bank that proofs my payment and sent it to minersource. No response in one business day.
A good customer support is a key to a successfull business, guys.
Interesting points that you raised there vilgem. I completely agree that as a consumer, preorders are supposed to incite a bit of nervousness. You are essentially funding a project with the hope that any deadlines that a company is working towards will be met successfully and that you'll receive the products you pay for.
That was my gripe before, where it seemed the company was happy to raise capital from preorder sales, but providing what could only be considered 'minimal' customer support at best. The first part of this isn't a problem, as preorder sales exist all the world over. However, if I were to pay a fair amount of money for a preorder, the least I would expect would be a reply to a string of about a dozen emails (which still to this day, haven't been replied to). This isn't a problem for me any more, as I have contacted them by phone.
I don't think Minersource are a bad company to deal with. The impression I've had after speaking to them on the phone, is that they are a small company with a handful of employees. Great for them, but they may not have been prepared for the unprecedented amount of business that they have received. This may well explain why lots of emails aren't being replied to.
Either way, any successful business needs to provide adequate customer support. I don't think they're at this point yet, but hopefully this is a lesson learnt for them. I hope that I'll be able to give Minersource more business in future, but this will depend on how quickly my preorder is turned around.