Back in late February I purchased a Tandy Color Computer (CoCo) 3. I’ve long felt it to be a rather interesting machine and I’d never owned a CoCo before. I found a system unit in great condition on eBay, bundled with a few cartridges. I also grabbed an RGB-to-s-video adapter so that I could view 80-column text and high-res graphics clearly on a spare display in my computer room. To really put the system through its paces, however, a floppy drive system is typically required, but they’re not so easy to find and, well, who wants to become more dependent on floppy disks, right now?
Luckily, I did some searching and found that there are a couple of SD card reader options out there that let you emulate physical storage volumes with flash memory. The Drive Pak from Roger Taylor of Roger Taylor Software looked like a good option, and so I ordered, paying $89.00 (plus shipping and handling) to Taylor through PayPal on March 6, 2011.
Ten days later, I checked in via email to request a status on the shipping of the unit, and Taylor promptly replied, indicating that he was waiting on a batch of cases, which might not arrive for two weeks. I checked back in on April 12 and was told that the cases still were not in-hand and that there were many orders before mine. The next I checked in was months later, on August 10th, when Taylor sent me the following response:
It’ll be a little bit longer. I’m still backed up but occasionally I have to interleave come ebay orders to raise the funds to buy more of the uDrive modules from Australia. I have to order in bulk or I’d completely go belly up like I almost did before. I did receive a new batch of cases from my machinist and have plenty of boards, so it’s just a matter of me catching up on orders and not running out of the other key parts….I’m making the paks daily, so hang in there; it’s coming.
That’s the last I inquired specifically about the unit I purchased, now 10 months ago.
Taylor runs the the www.tandycolorcomputer.com website, www.colorcomputer.net, and used to run www.coco3.com. He’s also active on the CoCoList listserv, and has made a few posts there over the course of the year indicating that he is moving as fast as he can, and guaranteeing that anyone who has ordered and paid for a unit will receive it – at some point.
Heading into December, I still really wanted the device. My CoCo 3 has been just sitting there, sadly gathering dust. Taylor mentioned that he sometimes sells the units on eBay here and there to help fund the overall process, so I searched eBay and saw an active auction of his for the same device I ordered nine months earlier. The auction showed two units available. I swallowed hard and, on December 8th, did a BuyItNow, paying $89.00 again for another unit. I did not make any indication that I had ordered earlier, fearing he would think I intended to immediately ask for a refund for the original, which was not my plan. My plan was to, whenever I received the first unit (if ever), sell it on eBay, myself, to recoup my funds.
I messaged Taylor through eBay the following day to ask if the item had shipped, and he responded with the following:
These items were late going out and I apologize. I didn’t know I was out of ACIA chips that go in the pack! PLEASE hang in there a few more days and it will arrive safely.
So, the big shock here comes in noting that he is selling an item on eBay, marked as “Available,” when it does not actually exist. Also, his message is a bit ambiguous as to whether the unit has shipped or not.
I followed up with lengthy messages of concern on December 29, January 3, and January 9 … and have received neither any further response from him nor the second unit I purchased (nor the first, for that matter).
It was my intent, in deciding to publicize this situation as a cautionary heads-up to readers who might one day do business with Roger Taylor, to demand a refund for both units from him. But, instead, I am going to periodically update this post, letting people know how Taylor has chosen to handle the matter. He owes me two units — let’s see when I get them. That may be of more value to members of the CoCo community out there, in the long run.
I have left negative feedback on the eBay auction in question…and I still want the units I paid for.
Outrageous!
Excuse me, but who the fuck are you!?
Roger Taylor is a well-known and well-respected member of our community, and you have come to the wrong address on our CoCo mailing list slandering him like that!
I am sorry for your bad experiences. I personally and many other among us have had many good dealings with Roger. Yes, on occassion there were delays, but for good reasons always. The worst you could say about Roger is that he sometimes overstretches himself and takes more than he can handle. But he is no scammer, as you seem to be implying.
I am a long-time retro computer enthusiast and collector. I run this blog and TouchArcade, the iOS gaming news site.
I have not sought to slander anyone in my post blog post about my experiences in connection with Roger Taylor. I sought to share my experiences and, based on those, urge users to beware of dealing with the man. I tried to be very thorough so as to let the situation speak for itself.
I greatly appreciate the work of people like Taylor, and I have gladly purchased similar products from individuals far and wide to enhance my retro computing experience. I was eager to get a Drive Pak and start exploring the CoCo, one of the clearly most powerful 8-bit computers around.
I was not highly perturbed by the delays that stretched into months — obviously — as I was willing to purchase a second unit, without canceling the first. Based on what he indicated in his August email to me, some of the units get sold on eBay to fund the overall process — that made sense to me. It was when I heard that the unit that was listed as “Available” was actually not yet assembled at the time of purchase – on eBay – that I finally became upset at his actions. His lack of response to my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th inquiry into the eBay item along with the item not having come to me in over a month (the eBay stated delivery time was December 16th) seemed a clear indication that something was not right. The situation surrounding the second unit I purchased is much more concerning than the nearly year-long wait I am still enduring for the first unit.
I have not reported Talyor to eBay as one having sold a unit that did not exist, and I don’t intend to. But several, hearing the story, have urged me to do just that.
Whatever respect and friendship you have for Roger Taylor has little to do with my experience. I assure you nothing that I have accounted in my post has been exaggerated or falsified.
I find it difficult to believe that most reading the account would not at least take issue and feel concern surrounding the eBay item situation.
I realize that Taylor left coco3.com some months back, and have not only been emailing that old address, but several others that he has used over the past year to communicate with me, as well as the internal eBay messaging system for messages concerning the eBay item.
In the end, I still am anxious to play with this CoCo 3, try out OS-9 / NitrOS, and numerous games that a few highschool friends of long ago used to tell me about. I still want the devices!
I hope this better explains the intent of my post, if it was somehow cloudy before?
Sorry, but if someone advertises something on eBay marked as available, then it should be ready to ship upon receipt of payment. End of story. If not, then it is a scam, regardless of his intentions.
LOL who the fuck is Fedor Steerman? Roger Taylor is well know but hardly well respected. More like well avoided by those who do know him.
Fedor has been on the CoCo list quite a while and is quite knowledgeable about the machine. Who are you exactly? (Before you ask, I’m mainly a lurker on the list as I cannot even touch my several CoCos that are in a different country. :( )
Roger, I think, has bit off more than he can chew. Considering his actions in the past, I think he will come good on the deal but not in the time frame that he or yourself wants. I also believe that he does things a certain way, HIS way, and won’t hear of alternatives. That also helps some of his downfall on this situation.
Your experience is quite typical of those who have the misfortune to deal with Roger Taylor.
He may have good intentions, but time after time he is completely unable to follow through with them and end up leaving his customers in the lurch.
It is amazing to me that anyone still defends this guy after he has done so much damage to our small coco community, but there are those who will be behind Roger till the end I suppose. So… prepare for some very outspoken individuals to take great offense that you dared mentioned a few facts about your experience with Mr. Taylor.
In the past, negative remarks have been filtered and deleted from from coco forums (many of which Mr. Taylor himself controlled). I am glad you are able to provide an independent and uncensored voice of truth about what it is like to deal with this guy.
Awful – hope he comes clean…
only 1 year, consider yourself lucky. I am waiting now 2 years and a few months for my last order from roger taylor!! i think it is a joke, his business.
Now wait just a dog-gone minute. Roger is continuing the great Coco tradition, usually home-grown products built at a hobbyist’s pace. There is no off-shoring, he’s not getting rich off this, so maybe he has a real job somewhere that takes time too, besides a family. The only thing that was off-shored were the products when they came from Radio Shack, and the Rom cartridges had limits in performance too, except the last generation (Coco 3 only) were an improvement.
So just understand where he’s at.
You are completely missing the point. If someone takes your money in exchange for a service or product, without any indication prior to the transaction it could take months or years to deliver is certainly no way to instill trust. Without question, this practice is completely unacceptable.
Roger Taylor is too busy working on the next Duran Duran album. ;)
Roger has without doubt contributed much to the CoCo community, and I am quite sure that his intentions are sincere. To me, the real test would be whether he provides refunds in a timely fashion to those who, having run out of patience, request them. Since you have been commendably patient and have not requested one, I’d give Roger the strong benefit of the doubt.
I would agree, though, that it is certainly inappropriate to list an item as available on eBay when there may be months of delay involved before delivery. Warning of this possibility should have accompanied the item description.
Aside from knowing what I believe is an operating mode understood by all eBay sellers, the indication I received from Taylor, mentioned in the post above, strengthened my expectation that grabbing one of the interleaved eBay units was my way to a quick Drive Pak (and, consequently, finally a usable CoCo 3).
“…I have to interleave [s]ome ebay orders to raise the funds to buy more of the uDrive modules from Australia. I have to order in bulk…”
I’ve seen this happen before when people sell stuff out of their home. They get used to the money coming it and even though they know they can’t provide the service any longer they still want the money. It’s greed is what it is, they figure they can just keep stringing you along while they figure out how to get rid of you. Once thing you can do is complain to ebay and his account will be banned, and complay to paypal (if you payed this way) and they will lock his account and get the money back for you.
Unless he has a good reason for his f up I’d say he’s just trying to keep his account fat and has no plans on any refunds.
I had the same ebay experience with Roger but I did file a complaint and got a refund from ebay. I gave Roger fair warning that I really wanted the drive pak and didn’t want to file against him. I told him how much I appreciated his work for the coco community and that rather than me file a complaint, that he should refund me himself if he couldn’t deliver before ebay’s time limit for me to file. Unfortunately he never responded. I’d still buy the thing if Roger would contact me and tell me he’s got one ready to go. I understand that this is a hobby thing and Roger probably doesn’t make any money on this, but you can’t sell stuff that you don’t have without warning people that its going to take a while to build. You also need to communicate clearly, which Roger has not done with me.
Blake, if you ever get both of yours, let me know and I’ll buy one from you.
I also warned Roger that I was going to take action. I warned him twice, I believe. I got no response to either warning.
A truthful and unbiased account of events from a man who is now out $200 and has nothing to show for it. How can anyone give him a hard time about sharing his experience? How can anyone defend the man or company that took his money? Some of these comments are just insane.
I for one appreciate the warning and applaud your patience in this situation. I would have reported this thief to ebay!
I appreciate your perspective. I am just telling my story, here.
Been waiting at least a year waiting on my order. Don’t really expect to ever see it, but since my coco hobby is the indulgence of the childhood wishes of a now reasonably well off middle-aged dude (me) I’m not sweating it (too much). I just feel sorry for those for whom the money is a real hit.
just a comment on: “(and, consequently, finally a usable CoCo 3)”
Please don’t let this one bad experience stop you from exploring the CoCo! There are plenty of other options available.
DriveWire is completely free, it provides disk drives and much more, in fact much more capability than the Drive Pak does. I sent you a private email regarding this..
https://sites.google.com/site/drivewire4/
Cloud-9 is a reputable company that sells CoCo hardware and offers a drive controller which has many features that the Drive Pak does not have, not to mention *much* better performance, for about the same cost:
http://www.cloud9tech.com/
It is unfortunate that your introduction to the CoCo has gone so poorly, but if you give it another chance with another storage option, I think you will have a much better experience.
As a member of the CoCo Community myself, I am truly dismayed at some of these responses to Blake’s blog post from other CoCo users. Anyone with a lick of sense and some objectivity could immediately see what the crux of the issue was (misrepresentation of product availability). Yes, it may be uncomfortable for people in our community to think that someone amongst us would do something like this, but beating up the messenger is not the answer.
Still, everyone has an instinct for self-preservation, and it escapes me why Roger would choose to screw, of all people, a guy who runs a major vintage computing blog website, and who could write an article that would be seen by thousands of readers.
To those of you who are on the outside of this community, please know that not all of us in the CoCo Community blindly defend Roger Taylor. On the contrary, I myself have NO LOVE LOST for Roger, but that’s a long, sordid story that many in the CoCo Community have already heard more than once, and I won’t get into it here.
I’m a long time member of the maltedmedia coco listserv, and I have purchased items from Roger in the past. Yes, I’ve had to wait. Yes, I had to email him, asking what was going on. But each time I did so, and even when I ordered, I knew what I was getting into, and that it could be months or longer until I got the product, but I knew I would get it. I respect Roger, and everything he does for the community. It’s a shoestring operation, and if you followed the list or archive at all, you would know just how backed up he is. He isn’t selling these things to the “general public”, but more to the hard-core CoCo community, the guys like me who’ve been there since the early-1980s or earlier, who used to go and have chats around the computers and printers at the local Radio Shack in the mall. Back when ComputerLand was “the place” to be if you were into Apple computers. Back when you typed in code from magazines. Back when having a floppy drive was still considered something. Our community is very small, and we’re (mostly) very understanding. Ten months? A year? Have more patience, you’ll get it eventually.
I wanted to amend my previous comment; according to others, you have “cred” in the retro world, and looking at your site, that seems to be the case. I understand that you aren’t trying to bad-mouth Roger, but I hope you understand that this is way things are with his operation. Perhaps 10-12 months or more is a long time, and not getting replies; well, this happened with me as well, but I was just patient, and didn’t bug him much – maybe once every couple of months or so. I did eventually get what I was owed, even if it did take longer than I expected. I’m sorry this hasn’t worked out for you. Hopefully, there’s a good reason for it, beyond being “at the back of the line”…
I have slightly adjusted my closing comment, fwiw, to leave more in the hands of the reader.
It would appear that Roger has no current eBay listings, at least
under the eBay name (cocotower) that was used for Blake’s purchase.
It is interesting to note that Roger’s eBay feedback for the last 12
months consists of 43 positives, 0 neutrals, and 2 negatives. The 2
negatives are the two most recent feedbacks, both in January, one
being from Blake. So one can hope the present unfortunate situation
is a temporary one.
I wish Roger the best in getting himself out from under whatever
problems he may currently be experiencing.
Roger Taylor sells his stuff on a web-shop and on eBay – so he is running a business! And this kind of bad communication with customers or the very long waiting-time are bad habits for a good businessman! Not every customer knows Mr. Taylor and his contributions to the community. If so long waiting times are possible Mr. Taylor should give a clear advice for the customer in his shop or an ebay. Indipendent from his role in the coco-community he is businessman and should act so!
I am sorry for your bad experience. I had the opposite one with Roger. I purchased a drive pak in August from eBay and received it in 4-5 days. I have enjoyed using it and I am sure you will too when you finally get it. Something must be going on with him right now.
Well that makes me even angrier. He sent you a drive pak while I’ve been waiting in line about a month longer than Mr. Patterson has?
Mr. Ayers advises me to have more patience. What good is patience if I’m dead of old age when it finally arrives? I’m 57 and in good health BTW. It’s way too late for me to seek a refund through PayPal. Am I supposed to keep needling him with emails in order to get results?
It’s pretty obvious that Mr. Taylor was selling (and sometimes even actually shipping) units on Ebay despite having standing orders that had already paid him directly many months prior.
If I saw somebody selling an item on ebay when I had already paid for one, and supposedly there were none in stock, I’d be pretty pissed off too. He’s basically selling the ones you guys already paid for a second time on ebay!
Good luck with that…. if you ever actually want to use your CoCo, I’d be looking at the other options available. They are better than the drivepak anyway.
Ordered 2 Drivepaks on the 13 July 2010, plus bought Jewelled to help with funds. Also donated $50 to the “drivepak fund”. Still no drivepaks
Wow. So sorry to hear.
Yeah, clearly the guy has no integrity.
I bought 2 drivepaks from Roger when he did the $50 sale on Memorial Day weekend, 2010 and I’m still waiting for them. He has not responded to my last couple of emails (sent in December). Prior to that, he was responding as others have reported, promising that the paks would be shipped, and when confronted about selling paks on ebay, said he was using those sales to buy parts. He claimed that the sale was attempting to use the paks as a loss leader in order to sell games on microSD cards and said that he was losing about $40 on each pak sold during the sale. I requested a refund and he said the pak would be shipping soon (a refund would make more sense, then he wouldn’t lose money).
In early October, he claimed I was number 2 or 3 on his list, and that he intended to have all the pre-orders filled by February. That was the last response I received from him.
At this point I agree, don’t even buy from him on eBay. Up til January it appeared he did have paks built and ready to ship as listed on eBay but obviously that’s no longer the case as this blog and his negative feedback suggests. I’m really suspecting that either something has happened to Roger or that he’s intentionally disappeared from the community and those of us who have paid but not received our orders are screwed.
Sorry to call you out in a public forum, Roger, but you leave us no other choice.
As to Cloud 9, about a year before I ordered Roger’s microSD drive pak, I ordered a SuperIDE from them. I eventually received it, but it took about 10 months and a few emails to Mark Marlette in which he made a few (possibly legitimate) excuses, so I can’t give them a perfect rating either.
I suspect maybe we should post some URLs to Roger’s ebay auctions here to help others track the situation.