LMAO some of us put money down with a warranty that covered playfield defects, after taking our money then changed the terms of the warranty and now will not refund deposits.

So tell me how that is right? Buy our game or lose your deposit. LOL

Most times you will get charged the fees when using a credit card to buy a game so its more expensive to do so.

Am Ex does have a very legit extended warranty plan that comes with having a card (not sure if its just higher end cards, gold, platinum etc).

i can tell you from personal experience that Am Ex will have your back on big purchases, its a process but it can work.

They would go after the dealer though and not JJP... your beef would be with whoever sold you the game.

At 10-15K, for me, it becomes a problem for the distributor because I am filing that chargeback.
I’m paying the distributor, not the manufacturer.

I didn't buy a JJP specifically because I knew these issues existed. A LOT of people didn't know in the beginning though and bought. Whats more, JJP's own warranty wording states that these issues should be covered, but once word got out about these issues they changed the warranty. Thats shitty.

Yes. In fact some distros have stopped selling certain brands because of constant issues with customers. Distros have a lot more leverage on the manufacturers than us. They can threaten all kinds of things until a company gets their act together. I'm sorry but your stance here is just ludicrous. I do understand the "not wanting to hurt distros" stance, but everything else is poppycock. I don't want to hurt distros either but if thats the arm that has to twist to get some things taken care of...its something I wouldn't blame somebody for doing.

We know. Read the posts though.

This is really all you need to know about JJP.

I spoke to a distributor (the pinball company) a few months ago who said they stopped carrying JJP because of all the issues. I have never dealt with that distributor before and had only stopped by while on a road trip to see what (used) machines they had. I think they only sell NIB sterns now.

I can say from experience ( non pinball, but large purchases) that 1 call to AMEX is all it takes...they don't play around, and customer always first...

If I'm a distro and I'm getting swcrewed because of customer chargebacks because the manufacturer of the product I'm selling is putting out trash, then I'm gonna be pretty freakin angry at the manufacturer, and I'm gonna push for change or drop their product line. Its pretty simple and trust me when I say this is not unusual in distributing, whether pinball or other products.

Think back to the 90's when B/W would do something that pissed off their big European (German?) distributor. They would bend over backwards to try and keep them happy.

Important to note that you are talking about Am Ex and their higher end cards...

Regular credit card companies arent going to have the same benefits or service.

Am Ex is great but you pay for it.... your regular bank credit card isnt going to do shit for you.

JJP already dipped their toe in the water with direct sales of GnR's...don't think for a minute they wouldn't pull the rug out from under their distributor partners the rest of the way and go direct sales only if it meant making an extra buck.

In uk it doesn’t matter who the financial institution is, you are covered regardless under the consumer credit act.

Not going to happen... their sales model is great for them.

They sell to dealers and the dealers get all the headaches and make the least amount of money.

You think they want every JJP buyer calling them direct with some issue??

Doesn't really matter if they don't answer the phone or return the email. Also, didn't Barry just chide a customer over not contacting support directly? What purpose does the distributor serve then?

Same in the netherlands . No matter what JJP rules are .my distro have to give me 2 year warranty on the machine. Mostly pcb stuff I think . And when on 1st of April JJP send these forms with their games to exclude any PF damage my distro now excluded all playfield damage warranty also , He just says you know of the issues and I can’t help you with those. You buy or you stay out. Or take it up with JJP themselves

So fair enough

I'm not a fan of the distros either, but I don't see why they should take the hit because a customer knowingly bought a product that they might have an issue with. The distros need to keep selling them, that is literally their business. If they just stop selling JJPs, they lose the customers who were going to buy and they lose JJP. And if JJP fixes all their issues before the next big game, they lose all that business too.

The distros want these issues to go away, but they can't risk their livelihood on taking that stance. The game buyers can take that stance no problem. There is no reason for them to buy the game other than it looks pretty and they want it.

Their service was bad before that. It was known they had problems. You believed them. You took the risk. They are wrong. But so are you.

Question, not owning any of these machines, nor keeping up with these current builders, does JJP manufacture i.e. print their own boards or do they contract them out to manufactures that specialize in PCB printing?
It may be the outsourced PCB MFG that is only offering the limited warranty, thus JJP would extend the same length of time?

Thus this may all be just barking up the wrong tree.

Maybe this was covered already in 9 pages, I've not investigated it that thoroughly, as again, no horse in this race.

Did you get them from Jersey Jack or Chitown Jack? There's a big difference now.

Yep. If you despise warranties and love multi balls, they're perfect though.

What if you bought nib from an original buyer on Pinside Market, and who may have bought it from an unlicensed JJP dealer???

You better set up a truth table and start filling in the squares... or how many buying scenarios are you going to cover here? (Just poking a little fun)

Because the distro knowingly sold a product fraught with issues? And not all buyers know beforehand. Many are blissfully unaware of pinside until their playfield starts falling apart.

"It makes money" is not a blanket license to do as you please without repercussion. Well, it usually is, but it shouldn't be.

The distro also sold a product knowing that not all their buyers cared. The chipping and pooling doesn't affect the game play. That is an issue the people who care. If you want to hurt them, don't buy from the distro. Then they are suck with stock they can't sell. But that isn't what happened. People bought them anyway. Bought them all. I'm not saying the distros are without blame. What I am saying is it isn't fair to burn them for a buyer's decision.

What you are basically saying is "This guy sold me a product that might have problems. I knew it might have problems when I bought it, but I did it anyway. But, he shouldn't have sold it to me, so it is his fault."

And it is possible not all buyers knew ahead of time, but most did. And for the ones who didn't, why should they be exempt? They made a $10,000K purchase without researching quality issues?

To state it again, I think JJP is bad here. I don't like the distro model. But the way to fix this is to stop buying the machines. Not to buy the machine and complain later. And definitely not to charge back to the middle man who didn't build your bad machine or deny your warranty claim.

Let's be real. Spooky communicates better, but they've done similar things and also don't really fix stuff. Not defending JJP's inexcusable responses, but those saying Spooky is the new belle of the ball are crazy. When spooky had similar p/f issues, they too sent out washers until their supplier fixed the clearcoat issues (yes, at least the supplier did fix it). On their last games, Spooky went with thinner playfields that caused all sorts of issues (switches not registering, flippers not working well) and left their customers to fix/tweak everything themselves, claiming everything worked fine in their testing and throwing Pinball Life under the bus. BS. They've said they're using the same thinner playfields in the new games with no explanation of why they changed. Pinball Life had to fix the bushings for Spooky's poor decision making and lack of solution (yes, thank god for Pinball Life). People are just willing to give Spooky a pass and expect to fix a lot of stuff themselves.

They sold out their next game despite terrible quality and customer support. JJP probably will too.

If a manufacturer claims the issue is fixed, and it is not, that is 100% the manufacturers fault. Stop blaming the customer.

Why? Why is the customer off the hook? If there is no proof the issue is fixed, why would anyone believe them? If this were some real world problem, I'd agree. But this isn't food, or medicine, or something people need. This isn't a regulated industry like that. This is an expensive toy. It is real easy to not buy it. To wait and see that the problems are solved. But buyers didn't want to do that. They wanted to take the risk. Why shouldn't they suffer from the risk? Pinball isn't an investment. There is no guarantee money won't be lost. And these machines aren't worthless. People still want them. They can still be played. They can still be sold.

Sell the machine. Take the loss of the risk that was made. Don't make the same mistake again.

At what point is the risk not worth the reward. We all have a different line. They moved the line, changed the terms and should let people back out or stay under the new terms. Yours line seems very short.

People were not and are not being given opportunity to sign up and agree to this hey we don't warranty playfields. Fair is fair

I had a board go out in my GNR, they sent me a brand new board within 3 days. The new board works perfectly, and no issues since. Everyone always wants to dwell on the negative, or a story from one perspective. I'm not saying other people haven't had a different experience only sharing my experience.

My distributor didn’t charge a fee to use my card but his games are typically marked up $500 over msrp so theres that

Yeah, my line is basically non-existent. There is no chance of me buying a NIB JJP.

Changing the warranty is shitty, but putting down a deposit on something you haven't seen is a risk. That is what a deposit is. "I am putting down this money because I want to buy it when it is available. I want to make sure I get one so I am putting down this money to hold it even though I haven't actually seen what I am buying." That is accepting a risk when you give them the money. If you didn't want the risk, you didn't have to put down the money. You didn't need to buy the machine. You wanted it, that's fine. But you bought something without seeing it. That is a risk.

But then you don’t buy the machine- barely anybody does because they took out some mech- and then 5 years later it’s selling for $30k? The pinball consumer just cannot win.
I think people need to grasp the new age of pinball. Buy the CE, leave it in the box, watch the manufacturers gameplay video for years. Didn’t somebody pay $20k to unbox a Data East JP after 20 years? Imagine a pin people actually want to play? GnR CE NIB will be $100k in 10 years. Who’ll be crying about posts then? They’re not toys! Nobody’s modding a Picasso people! (A car analogy would be better here- but…)

I hate posts where people put “I’m joking” but apparently humor has a wide spectrum and can be missed entirely so- I’m joking.. GnR CE will be worth $300k!!
For the record, I do not condone pinball investing or manufacturers that shirk responsibility. JJP- those shirkers.

^^^^^^^This^^^^^^

Dude...between Wonka and GNR we were all shown this magic new Mirco playfield technology that was supposed to fix all the playfield issues. Buyers had no reason not to think issues were going to be solved. Distributors have all the leverage against manufacturers. How many times have you heard the story that it took going to a distributor to get somebodies issue taken care of? It happens constantly. If distros are getting burned because of JJP's bad quality, they are the ones who can force JJP's hand.

So you don't or can't see how JJP changing the warranty has changed the amount of risk? FYI I actually played the game before I ordered it.

If your stance is that new playfields were shown and everyone thought it should be fine, how is the distro at fault at all? Why is it ok to fuck them now? Yes, they have the leverage to push back to JJP. So call them. Make it clear to them you won't buy any more JJP. Get lots of people to do that.

But how is it ok at all to burn them? Not liking the distro model is not a reason to hurt them to get your way. JJP is the problem.

They did change the amount of risk, but the risk was already there. The $1000 was what was risked. Once the purchase was made, the risk went up. And the option was to walk away losing $1000. Not that much in this hobby, certainly not if preordering a $10,000+ machine. Sure it sucks, but then you have none of these problems.

I meant I won’t be in any JJP threads except this one If anyone’s interested these will be for sale in the parking lot at Expo this year !Enjoy the day fellas .

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All I'm saying is that distros are a lot more capable of turning up the heat on JJP than consumers are. If the distros start feeling the fire, they won't stand for it.

I agree on this. The distributors don't have to do a stand off but they Can opt to stop selling the product. Yes JJP can just go direct but as it sits with OEM support at this time that would crush them. Their buyers (the distributors) are the only ones that can Actually effect change.

Distributors took the money. Distributors will return the money.
When you sell me a defective widget I take it up with you. You take it up with your supplier, and so on up the chain.

It sounds like you want the distributors to make the profit without taking the risk?

No. What I am saying is distributors shouldn't be punished for risks the buyers took. The distros took the risk when they bought from JJP. They get burned when people don't buy them. I don't think it is fair to buy from them knowing the risk and when you don't like it to burn them. I'll say it again, distributors are not the enemy here. They are the middlemen. If you bought direct from JJP, by all means charge that shit back. Had the distributor knowingly lied to you, I'd be one your side. But everyone knew the risks here.

People here aren't actually arguing that the distros are at fault. People are arguing that making the distros hurt will then hurt JJP. I think that is a very shitty thing to do.

You are talking in generalities. I am talking in specifics. The customer shouldn't always assume the risk. But in this instance, of an expensive toy from a company with known issues, the buyers knew the risk and made the purchase anyway. There is a reason carguments don't work. The markets aren't the same, the sizes of the companies aren't the same, the stakes aren't the same. If you buy a knew car, there is a knowledge that it will be highly tested and if something goes wrong, the car companies will have to correct it. Pinball isn't like that. The buyer assumes the risk because pinballs are fragile, mechanical toys. Things go wrong. Machines have wear. Machines break. Sometimes you lose money. That's how it goes.

My observation is Distributors are caught between operators who don't give a crap and consumers who do. If a distributor drops a manufacturer due to poor playfield cosmetic quality, he can no longer sell that brand of machines to his operator customers who could care less about cosmetic defects. So you can see, depending on the distributors customer mix, they may or may not want to bust the manufacturers balls. I think this is the biggest reason we don't see much action from JJP or the distributors on cosmetic pf defects. But I think Pinside is a consumer echo chamber that amplifies the angst against manufacturers and the radio silence from JJP comes from this customer duality that the distributors now have to navigate.

Or I could be full of crap.

Carguments can be a bit off here as a car is a vehicle and a life protecting safety device. You expect that to be tested and certified. Nobody is testing a pinball machine for 35mph impact damage to crash test dummies.

a good distributor would take the faulty game back and then take this crap up with JJP

The entire industry is!!!

Basically, we've taken pinball - a 100 year old industry - and completely changed the parameters overnight. Until 10 years ago, it was still basically an operator/commercial business, and the consumers never really cared about this minutia that drives home buyers absolutely insane. As long as it coined up and worked they were happy, and if it didn't, they were used to making small adjustments here and there. I'd guess "warranty claims" - if they even existed - were few and far between, and quickly and easily taken care of by distributors. Nobody was demanding new playfields or cabinet decals in 1995.

Now of course, it's suddenly a home item for a niche but still rapidly growing crowd, and nobody knows how to deal with it. Home buyers are far more demanding and exacting than commercial buyers (and their dads, and their grandads) ever were. At the same time the industry has completely shifted its focus on who they are marketing to - when was the last time you saw a pinball promo touting it's "earning power" or the many "industry firsts that keep players paying?" It's been years.

I don't know how it's gonna shake out but it's been a rocky road and I don't see it getting smoother. Home consumers want an "appliance" akin to a toaster or VCR, and pinball just ain't never gonna be that - it's ALWAYS gonna be far less reliable and consistent and complicated than the other consumer goods people are used to buying while being far more expensive. Can't blame the industry for going where the money is but we are in uncharted waters here!

Meh...don't buy your argument. I imagine 80% of JJP games are going into homes, not arcades. It's much simpler...the distributors have little reason to bust JJP's balls since they aren't being hurt. Many of us are on the record of avoiding NIB JJP purchases...unless that list grows considerably, there is still more than enough demand. Until JJP and their distributors are hurting, nothing will change. Again, this has been going on for YEARS! If it were more minor timeframe on a specific title, it would be easier to cur JJP more slack.

exactly. distros know the JJP track record and still decide to sell this crap then they will have to deal with the problems as well.

Dam your posts are more impressive each day. 100% agreed.