Little Bif Of Honesty

[Gizmo]

Hi guys

I want to take this opportunity to thank all you guys for supporting and growing with this forum. It's with this in mind that I feel compelled to reveal that Stroodlepuff and I are the owners of Vape King. We should have been honest about this from the start however, we were silly.

Reason we did not mention this when we started the forum is that we did not want people to think we created the forum simply to market and punt Vape King. That was not our intention in the slightest, I felt there was a gap for a local community forum for vaper by vapers of which we wanted to give all the authorized local retailers a channel to market their products to local vapers. This forum was created for the sole purpose of creating the Vaping community in South Africa.

We have wanted to come clean about this for a while however have not been able to work up the courage for fear of being judged and seen as dishonest and untrustworthy, We assure you that it was neither mine or stroodlepuffs aim to be dishonest - it was a decision which was not properly thought through and we apologize. We hope you guys can understand this. From now on VapeKing related questions and product updates will be going through us.

 

[ET]

i r's mortally offended and it will take at least one chocolate to make me not upset again

but in all seriousness now, i have no issues with any of this. you've done an awesome job on the website and all the continued improvements/etc. i haven't noticed either of you punting vapeking stuff, guess this just means no more reviews for you

 

[Sharrivz]

haha well we sent a private message to Derick and Melinda before posting this and they said that they knew the whole time So who knows maybe there will be more reviews in the future

What chocolate is your favourite and can you collect - not sure if posting a chocolate is a good idea lol

Will this image of one suffice?

 

[Melinda]

Well I think the review Giz did was very nice and professional so see no need to stop asking him to do reviews ...

 

[Tom]

but in all seriousness now, i have no issues with any of this. you've done an awesome job on the website and all the continued improvements/etc. i haven't noticed either of you punting vapeking stuff, guess this just means no more reviews for you

being still a "noob vaper" here, btw when will I be upgraded...., but I can sign this. At least from what I could read in this time.

 

[Derick]

It's all good We kinda figured it out a few weeks ago

Well I can see the reviews being of benefit to both of us now, we must just carry the same products

 

[devdev]

Yes, and if you are offering to change me from Noob Vaper to Grandmaster Puff I am sure I could be persuaded to look past this

Honestly, I am just a vape consumer, and I don't see a problem. If I was a trader competing for the same market share then yes I would say the situation had the potential to possibly be a conflict of interest - if you had been forcing Vape King down everyone's throats, but that being said it's not like there is a 900 pixel Vape King banner on every page or something.

Thanks for being honest! I will support any person who puts their hard earned coin at risk by bringing specialty products into the country for my pleasure

 

[TylerD]

I thought I recognised you stoodle! Thought it might have been your sister or so. Hehehe!
All good guys!
See, now I will support you even more now that I know!

 

[Nooby]

Na no biggy guys... thanks for letting us know though

 

[ET]

well since i am 700 km's away i'll make do with the image nomnomnom

 

[vaalboy]

It doesn't bother me one iota and rather commend you for creating a great board.

Thanks for the honesty though.

 

[Riaz]

i dont have an issue with anything of this, and i dont see it making any difference to any of us or this forum.

thanks for coming clean tho.

vape on!!!

 

[Andre]

Well, I for one think it was grossly dishonest, totally unethical and borders on corruption if not that. Remember in the Shoutbox when VapeKing came to the rescue of Stroodlepuff with a battery - and she gets to keep it! I am totally disgusted.

 

[Gizmo]

@Matthee. Like I said we truely sorry if this has upset some people. The VapeKing account will not be used here to post in the future.

 

[Space_Cowboy]

Respect for plucking up the courage to come clean And also for wanting to start something for "the greater good" rather than a "marketing outlet", no disrespect in any way intended.

I don't have any issues with this either. Not that it makes much difference but imo I think you guys have contributed more to the forum as Stroodlepuff and Gizmo than doing marketing for Vape King anyway, besides the fact that you guys started the forum in the first place so even if you did punt Vape King all the time I think it's your right to do so.

A wise man once said: "Vape ON!"

 

[Gizmo]

I refuse to market vapeking excessively on this forum as thats where i feel its unethical. Hence why I have not placed banners or in your face pop-ups. We also hardly posted a lot as vapeking. I have tried to make sure that this is a forum for vapers by vapers not a cheap way to market.

I will also never allow google adword adverts on the forum like ECF does. I cant stand that. Any marketing you will see is from respectable etailers. I am also not charging for banner space at the moment and doubt i will anytime soon. This I am not evening doing for extra revenue.

 

[devdev]

 

[RIEFY]

Its all good guys. You gave us a forum which is awesome

Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk HD

 

[Andre]

@Matthee. Like I said we truely sorry if this has upset some people. The VapeKing account will not be used here to post in the future.

That might be so, but fact is you will be the owner and controller of a forum with customers, potential customers and competitors as members, which forum you began under false pretenses, in the process effectively terminating the SA subforum on ECF. What do you mean the VapeKing account will not be used to post here? You have just posted on your new eliquids. You just cannot be the owner (and administrator) of both the forum and of VapeKing. And have the audacity to invite other suppliers in. If I were a supplier I would certainly have taken legal steps against you. There is just no way that this can continue peacefully. At one or other time the patent conflict of interest will come to the boil. The only way to untie this knot will be to have either the one or the other, but not both. Or have a VapeKing forum for VapeKing customers as many international vendors have.

 

[Gizmo]

Well @Matthee I don't know what to say. I think you being a tad unfair. But anyway.

Just want to also let you know that there is another massive traffic forum in the IT world called carbonite.co.za which is owned by a retailer prophecy.co.za and I am a registered retailer there. Never have they been sued nor have they been noncompetitive to other retailers on a forum which is owned by another retailer.

 

[JB1987]

Thanks for the honesty, was perhaps a tad upset at first but you did give as a fantastic forum which I thoroughly enjoy. Honesty is always the best route. I'll definitely pop in to the shop next week for some more iClear 16's and perhaps something a bit more expensive

P.S. I thought you looked bloody familiar!

 

[Riaz]

@Matthee i think competition is good

this forum is not a skyblue forum just for skyblue customers.

and if they dont have an issue with gizmo and what he did, why should anyone else?

gizmo has, and still is probably the most dedicated person to this forum, and i believe he did it for the betterment of local vapers and not to market his company.

 

[Gizmo]

Haha JB1987. It was not supposed to be a secret but anyway

Looking forward to seeing you again. We still need to get this vape lounge working nicely so customers can come taste some juice, relax, chit-chat. That's our ultimate aim

 

[Zodiac]

Respect for letting us know, respect for the forum, and even more respect for bringing us Five pawns


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[RawRam_cpt]

Ag don't be silly. I judge everyone anyway.

At least you didn't say that your names aren't really Gizmo and Stroodlepuff, THAT would be devastating.

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