I have an honest question that I'd love to hear some feedback on, particularly from the empeg folk.

On December 31st I ordered a Fitbit. I ordered it with the full knowledge that it was an incredibly popular device, and that it was on backorder. At the time of my order, my order page stated that they expected my Fitbit to ship at the end of January. At mid-January, that date was changed to mid-February. At the start of February, that date was changed to February 28th.

Around March 12th, the date was still February 28th, two of my emails in that time period had gone unanswered, the company had stopped posting on their own forums, and the company had no phone number other than a public relations number. The next day, an employee finally posted to their forums that there had been a manufacturing delay that he didn't know the cause of, and said that they would soon have a better idea of when our orders would be shipped.

A few days ago, my expected order date was finally changed from 2/28 to April 1.

Now, I was actually being fairly patient at first. I only started slightly grousing when it became quite clear that they would be missing their 2/28 date. I then started outright complaining during the second week of March, in which I had no way in knowing what was going on. I understand that manufacturing delays happen, and I can't really complain because they fortunately haven't taken my money yet. What I have been complaining about is the real lack of customer service when it would have been so easy to simply post a message on their own official forums.


This leads me to my question (sorry for the long rant). What do you think is the problem? I honestly don't know myself, and I'm trying to understand it. Do they have an incredibly unreliable manufacturer? I would have thought that the company would know exactly how many units were being made and how long those would take to ship. Manufacturing delays aside, how can they be off by well more than a month?