Now that the cat is out of the bag, I might as well add my 32 cents. I suspect this post will all but guarantee that I will never receive a refund. But if Chan truly is a man of his word, he will still honor my request... even when I tell the uncomfortable truth. Let's find out, shall we?
TL;DR
- Girand Michel Chan King runs Pachanko Labs.
- It is highly likely this company is insolvent.
- It is highly likely that Mr. King has committed fraud.
- If you have an open order with Pachanko Labs that has not yet been filled, I urge you to file a dispute with your payment processor immediately!
- If you were affected, please add your experiences and information to this thread so others may benefit.
DISCLAIMER: I refrained from making a similar post over a year ago because I didn't want to hurt Chan's business or my chances of getting a refund (mostly the latter, if I'm honest). I was selfish and should have warned others' sooner. Please accept my sincerest apology and consider the following offer as penance for not coming forward earlier; I will build a music server for anyone affected by this AT COST (just buy the parts and ship them to me. Then, I will built it, tweak it and ship it - easy peazy!). I don't possess the knowledge or experience of someone like Chan. However, I can probably achieve approx. 50-70% of what he, or another legit vendor, can do. Alternatively, I'd be glad to offer some free enterprise IT consulting (multi-vendor networking, virtualization, security, zero trust, branch/campus/data center architecture, cloud, etc.) as this is what I do for a living working for a fortune 200 multinational. I will also be happy to begin recording and tracking all unfulfilled order information with Pachanko Labs. Again, I apologize to the community for not coming forward sooner. I really should have.
With all of that out of the way, let's get to the pile on.
Unfortunately, I had a similar experience as
@ralda when dealing with Chan and Pachanko Labs. I ordered a custom power supply approx. 2 years ago, then requested a refund approx. 1 year ago (after it became clear that Chan was either unwilling or unable to deliver what I ordered). To this day, I haven't received a single euro in return. Throughout my dealings with Chan, I received all sorts of lies and excuses as to why he couldn't deliver my order or refund my money. His emails usually stated his desire to make things right, but his actions always told a very different tale. Consequently, I DO NOT recommend buying a stick of bubblegum from Chan, or Pachanko Labs, until all of his existing customers are made whole.
Unfortunately, I've witnessed similar scenarios play out with other vendors and I am less than optimistic that any of us will ever see a dime.
I have now been on the unfortunate end of three different "situations" like this and learned they are usually caused by very smart engineers being either horrendously bad businesspeople or straight up con artists. The fatal mistake is often continuing to extract funds, assets or value from a business without first ensuring it's solvency. Eventually, they dig themselves in so deep they need fresh capital from new orders just to buy enough materials to fulfill previous orders (or to pay reoccurring debt for things like gas/petrol, electricity, supplies, webhosting, etc.). Obviously, this is an unsustainable business model and the whole thing eventually collapses like a house of cards. At this point, I'm pretty sure that is what is happening here.
So... if you have an order with Pachanko Labs that is still awaiting fulfillment, I recommend contacting PayPal, or your credit card company, to file a dispute or issue a chargeback. Again, experience has taught me that filing a dispute/chargeback is the best chance you have of getting your money back. Your time to file is often limited, so do it NOW! I also learned that filing disputes/chargebacks is usually the fastest way to stop a business from continuing to take orders and money from unsuspecting new customers, as this forces payment processors to stop processing transactions for the business to limit their own exposure (fun fact: PayPal is not an actual financial institution and therefore not subject to the same regulations as regular banks. You are 100% at the mercy of their ToS and have almost zero legal recourse, regardless of the circumstances. Speaking both legally and ideologically, using PayPal is akin to paying a random hot dog vendor 3.49% to broker a transaction. Credit cards are the only legally protected means of consumer fraud protection in the US. The more you know!).
Something else I learned is that light always scatters the cockroaches. So, perhaps it is time to find out if Chan really is a down-on-his-luck audio engineer that just so happens to be terrible at running a business...or if he is a legit con artist. Or both. I suggest we pool our notes and information publicly, then see what scatters:
- Ordered a custom power supply for a DIY Taiko server for €4,089 in June 2023
- Order was placed directly through Chan's website (I reside in the USA).
- Ordered a second custom PS for €2,300 in September 2023.
- Received countless lies and excuses.
- Requested a refund in April 2024.
- Received countless lies and excuses.
- Still no honey or money.
- I can obviously prove all of this with emails, payment receipts, etc. But I'd rather not spend time redacting things, unless it can legitimately help someone in a court of law. PM me if you need it.
The point is to hopefully separate fact from fiction and either prove or disprove fraud. It is obvious that Chan has been lying to some of us for years. But fraud is different than lies and delay tactics. Lying to people about trivial things can be forgotten. Defrauding people cannot. Unfortunately, the latter is looking more and more likely by the minute.
I hope this post will inspire others to come forward, just as OP's did for me. If you have been similarly screwed over by Chan and/or Pachanko Labs, please consider contributing to this thread and include what you ordered, sums, dates, and circumstances. If you feel more comfortable PM'ing, please do so. I will keep all information obtained strictly confidential.
