I am looking forward to joining the empeg/rio community. The support for the empeg / Rio Car demonstrated by Hugo and Rob from empeg, Tim E. at Sonic Blue, Tony F. and everyone else who has contributed to the empeg community, is impressive.

I ordered the "instock" Rio Car from the Sonic Blue online store on March 2nd. After three business days, I called about shipping details for my "completed - priority 10:30 next day" order on March 6th. I had to re-order my Rio Car for reasons unexplained over the phone. Even after "re-ordering" on March 6th, I have just learned that my order still hasn't been shipped as of March 8th and no tracking number was available.

I hope Sonic Blue will ship the Rio Car soon. I have been told they had 192 in stock. I've heard that the lady who handles credit card authorizations had to attend to a sick child this week. I don't think I should have to call a sincere Product Manager just to get my very own Rio Car.

I'm not sure that the Rio Car should be promoted as a premium in-car mp3 player available to a mass market. In my experience, it didn't ship as advertised the first time. I won't ship as advertised even after re-ordering. As my second week waiting for my "instock" Rio Car begins, I think I would have been more comfortable ordering a an in-car computer designed to play mp3s that was so unique that you had to join a queue just to get one, the FM tuner module wasn't even available yet, voice recognition was an intended application and software was "still in development". Perhaps I would have been more comfortable ordering (and waiting for) an empeg. Then I wouldn't be inclined to "call back tomorrow" for shipping details everytime I enquire about my "priority - 10:30 am next day" shipment.

I understand what your saying here with Sonic Blue. I ordered the Rio Car with Overnight Priority early Wednesday morning. I called them after getting no confermation letter for my FedEX tracking number. When calling them I found out the order (after my money had already been removed from my account) was canceled due to an Invalid Address. They failed to call me and verify my address. So pretty much, I have a charge that's out there, until 72 hours from the caneling of the order, so I can reorder the product. It's sad. I really wanted it soon :P. I guess I'll actually call them to setup the order on Friday or Saturday so I can get it some time next week.

Oh well, I just want my eMpeg.

Later!
Damien

Wow, this is, to put it mildly, surprising.

I hope it's just growing pains, and it's not indicative of how things are "going to be" under Rio. Nothing like this was ever reported when the players were shipping from Empeg. These are the first two reports of that kind of trouble. (Past shipping problems were either the fault of the carrier, the fault of customs, or were resolved very quickly and correctly by the Empeg staff.)

Please keep us informed of how this works out, I'm sure we're all interested in how Rio ends up handling it.

___________
Tony Fabris

Damien,
I'm so sorry to hear that you're having problems with your order. I will follow up with this tomorrow AM and figure out what is going on. I don't have direct access to your phone number (dang big companies...) so if you'd be so kind as to email it to me ([email protected]), I'll give you a call when I find out.

Thanks and I'm sorry we've kept you waiting.

Best regards,
Tim

Tim and Tony,

Thanks a lot for your support on this. I'm in contact with some people over at Sonic Blue to get this taken care of, hopefully. Also, I just e-mailed tim with my contact information to try and get this taken care of. Hopefully I can get that Rio Car/eMpeg in my grubby little hands soon.

Thanks!
Damien

Hopefully I can get that Rio Car/eMpeg in my grubby little hands soon.

By the way, it's just empeg. All one word. Two syllables. It's not eMpeg e-Mpeg or anything involving the "E" being a separate syllable. That'd just be evil.

___________
Tony Fabris

hahha, thanks for the tip. I actually knew that, I just have this horrible problem of doing that. I guess it's a 2 year old habit (since I've been wanting one of these things). I'll stop saying 'eMpeg' now. empeg. Okay there.

Damien

Edited by xanatos on 09/03/01 08:35 PM.

In reply to:

---

By the way, it's just empeg. All one word. Two syllables. It's not eMpeg e-Mpeg or anything involving the "E" being a separate syllable. That'd just be evil.

---

Of course, wouldn't it be cool if it were an E-M peg.. then the special features could include shutting down the electronics of the car that just cut you off with a precise targeted electro-magnetic pulse... hehe

-Tom

Reg #2845: Mark 1 #00173, Mark 2 #119

Well good news. The lady I was in contact at Sonic Blue came through, and just contacted me to let me know that everything should be coming out soon. Thanks Tim for your support and help on this. Hopefully this is all just growing pains and other empeg and Rio Car enthusiasts won't have to go through everything I just went through. I just can't wait to get my hands on the player.

Oh, and it would be great if Overnight really was overnight hehe, not overnight + 24 to 48 hours processing. :)

Thanks again,
Damien

Hadn't thought of that permutation. Cute.

I'd say it was funny, except on Wednesday there was a road-rage related fatality near my home, where somebody cut someone else off, and someone got mad and tried to pass over a double-yellow, and... well, it was a bit of a mess.

Still, I agree, there are times when I wish I could EMP other drivers. Thank God we can't. Sort of like the bit in "The Dilbert Future" where Scott talks about why the future won't be like Star Trek. If we had phasers that could stun people, incompetent fast food employees would be dropping like flies.

___________
Tony Fabris

Woo hoo! It went out and I have my FedEX tracking number. It's always great when you get a Customer Service person that really wants to help. Too bad I didn't get that type of service in the first place. Well, I'm happy, and I'll have the empeg in my hands tomorrow or monday. I'll keep ya all updated on how the Rio Car is packaged and upload pictures and stuff up to a page.

Damien

...would still sound as sweet!

After an e-store order that didn't ship as expected and a telephone re-order through Sonic Blue Customer Service, I am pleased to report that my Rio Car arrived!

Importing a Rio Car from the U.S. to Canada may be a little different than it was when shipped by empeg in the U.K. For one thing, FedEx doesn't appear to charge a brokerage fee from the USA!

If there's an interest, I can describe what to expect when shipping a Rio Car to Canada. In the meantime, I'll be reviewing this bbs to get my Rio Car road ready!

With thanks to those here and at Sonic Blue who work to get the product to the people,

Adrian

Congrats Adrian!
Looks like you'll be rocking on the road soon enough...
I can't wait to get back home in a few weeks myself and get my player into my car, the install is scheduled for the 4th of April. I'll be sure to look you up when I get back to TO next summer....John

Technoweenie
12 GB Blue / Red MK2

At least there was one benefit to NAFTA.

Glenn