Warthog64

Quick correction: I thought my order on Fulcrum still said processing. Turns out it now says cancelled. I guess he's finally getting around to addressing things, and everything still shows out of stock.

PayPal came through. The refund posted to my card a short time ago - it came directly from PayPal. At least that's overwith. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones in that regard. It truly is a shame that Chris couldn't get his you know what together on this. Funny thing is my Fulcrum order continues to say "processing". I guess he didn't get the memo, of which I sent several. I'm now looking for a "other than Fulcrum" replacement for my aging Precision Flight Controls (PFC) Cirrus yoke. The Cirrus has been the best yoke I've had, and has been good to me, but has very small pitch movement. It has limited buttons and no eight way hat, but it still works quite well and remains very smooth. Mastering pitch on it is a challenge due to the small movement of that axis, which is why I'm looking for something else. I'm seriouslly looking at the Yoko the Yoke+. Seems to be every bit as good as a PFC in build quality, only a little bit cheaper. Only problem is I'm having trouble nailing down what the pitch axis range of motion is, which seems quite large in videos (though not as great as the Fulcrum was promised to be). Either way it looks like it's better than the PFC Cirrus. Anybody out there have experience with Yoko?

So an update on my personal battle for a refund. Initially PayPal told me that I was getting a refund within 30 days. That time frame has long since come and gone. Contacted PayPal this morning and was told Fulcrum has attempted to issue an "eCheck" on more than one occasion but has been turned down by his bank due to insufficient funds. PayPal is now issuing me a refund directly from PayPal, which is suppose to post in 3 to 5 days, with Fulcrum now owing PayPal the amount that PayPal will refund me. I'll let ya know when the refund comes through directly from PayPal. I noticed on Fulcrum's site that he's no longer taking orders and everything is sold out. My personal Fulcrum account still lists my order as "processing", even though I requested an order cancellation and a refund twice from Fulcrum. He's in trouble with PayPal (fruad division is on the case now) so I'm almost certain he's in trouble financially as well. For those of you still waiting on order fulfillment, it's your perogitive to continue to hold out hope of getting your stuff, but I wouldn't wait any longer. Good luck to you.

Hm, so if I understand your statement correctly, Chris is using money from one purchasers order to fulfill the earlier order of someone else? Is he using my money to supply previous orders? That just sounds wrong to me in so many ways. I'll say this, he is failing to supply me with a product he clearly states on his website would be shipped out 4ish weeks after ordering. If he didn't have proper financial backing BEFORE starting this endeavor than he shouldn't have proceeded at all. I've sent him two emails and two website support inquires cancelling the order (of course, no reply at all, not even an acknowledgement that he received them). Heck, my order status still reflects "processing", if you can believe that. I can tell you that PayPal is not happy with him. They still say I'm getting a full refund back to my Visa card, but it keeps getting delayed for some reason. The latest is 5 - 7 days, possibly 30 days (dependent on how fast things move). PayPal is less than forthcoming on where the refund is coming from (i.e. is it PayPal refunding my money, or waiting for him to do it?) I'll give it the 30 days, but after that I'm starting a case with Visa. His business practice is appalling, not to mention his comunication skills. Ray, if you are the only one that can communicate with this guy, than please inform him that a fair number of people are pretty doggone ticked off at this point. He needs to get it together and refund those of us that have requested it......now!

Well, I may have spoken too soon in regards to my refund from PayPal for my cancelled Fulcrum Yoke order. Originally they told me I'd be getting a refund in 3 - 5 business days back onto my credit card. That was last Saturday, 7/29/23. I checked with PayPal yesterday and received a reply today on the status of the refund. This is what I was told directly from PayPal: I reviewed this for you and I see that refund was issued for the payment however the seller issued the refund as eCheck. And the eCheck was declined by their bank. Not to worry I have escalated this to our concerned team. They will reverse the funds from their end by taking it from the seller's PayPal account. Our team will get back to you via email within 35-42 hours regarding the same. I also received this from PayPal a short time ago: The seller's account is marked for further investigation on their selling practices and necessary actions including permanent deactivation of the account will be taken on finding any unethical practices. It seems PayPal is not happy with Fulcrum Sim. Is it just me or does this sound like a bad omen?

Well, yesterday I pursued a refund via PayPal. I just couldn't overcome that bad feeling in the pit of my stomach that something was amiss. Since they didn't even blink, so to speak, about refunding my card the total amount, I can only conclude that PayPal is possibly having issues with Fulcrum Sim as well. I should have my refund credit hit my card in 3 - 5 days. It's too bad, though, that all this could have been avoided by Mr. Tutthill if he'd just taken a common sense approach to his business practice, and improved his communication skills. I do wish him all the best, and hope he gets things under control. For those of you that have the yoke (or throttle, etc), I hope the wait you've endured was worth it, and that your're enjoying the product. All the best.

I may have been a little harsh with that last comment, but since I don't know the guy, and he's ghosting me and several others, what else are we to think? If others have had great customer response from him, that's terrific. I have not. But that doesn't excuse him from simply checking his emails/support submissioins/forum posts, and then providing a little communication to folks that have had zero correspondence from him concerning their orders. Heck, I never even got a "Hey, thanks for ordering one of our yokes, here is some info on what you can expect". If he's a victim of his own success, like Mr. Atwood said, close the books for new orders until you're caught up and have sufficient supply to move forward. Seems like common sense. As for me, he's lost my trust. I'm out and will be pursuing a cancellation of my order and a refund to my credit card, one way or the other. You just don't treat customers this way.

Nope. I sure haven't. I've heard absolutely nothing. I've sent them two correspondence (which I'm sure you've already read about), and I just sent out a cancel order requests, one via the web site support page, and one via email. I've heard nothing. In the cancel order request I stated I'd be ok to continue the order IF they could ship the unit in three weeks, which gives them an additional week and a half past their stated four weeks. I've heard nothing from them. I'm not cool with this silence. It's unprofessional, unbusiness like, discourteous to customers, and just flat out rude, so I'm starting a PayPal dispute (PayPal charged my card right off the bat). I was going to wait until the four weeks were up, but this ghosting of customer concerns is just flat out wrong. As Han Solo would say, "I've got a bad feeling about this". I guess he got his money and doesn't much care if folks have been on order hold for eight months?

Yikes is right. My current yoke is similiar to that. It's a Precision Flight Controls Cirrus from 2008. It's very smooth and precise, for yokes that don't have Hall Effect sensors. Unfortunately it doesn't have much in the way of travel on either the pitch or roll access. Roll is around 160ish degrees, and pitch is very small at no more than 2 inches from center in either direction. That's one of the reasons I wanted the Fulcrum. Anyway, didn't mean to highjack this post on merits of other yokes.

I hope not. It doesn't take much to shoot out a blanket email to all wailting customers. If he truly wants to get the product into the mainstream than he'll start talking to folks, otherwise many customers will start asking for refunds and/or contacting their credit card companies for charge backs (is there a PayPal alternative for that?). Like I said, I'll still give him the benefit of the doubt and wait the four weeks (I'm early in the game since lots of guys have been waiting far longer than I). All of this does not look good for a company that is apparently striving to get out a superior product (from what I've read/watched anyway). If they wish to keep a reputable reputation, than he'll start communicating. In the end I hope the product quality doesn't suffer. I'd rather wait a little longer than receive a subpar piece of equipment. Maybe I should have gone with Yoko???

While I'm perfectly willing to wait the stated 4 weeks (as shown on the Fulcrum Yoke web page), I find it disturbing that Chris at Fulcrum s not returning order status inquires I've made from the support section of the website or from direct emails to [email protected] . With the lack of correspondence from Chris, and all the apparent issues that many people are having with orders, I'm not ashamed to say I'm concerned with what might be going on. I placed my order on July 8th (order #3162), at which time PayPal immediately charged my credit card. It's a tidy sum considering exchange rates to U.S. dollars. I'm not used to having charges go through so quickly whithout the product shipping. In the U.S., typically we don't get charged until the product has or is in the process of shipping. Not sure what happens in the U.K. Chris, if your listening and reading, be advised that a little communication with your customers would go a long way in quelling fears of any potential scam going on. Just let us know how things are going. Like I said, I'll give them the four weeks, but if it goes much more than that I'll have to pursue cancelling the order, one way or the other. And by the way, if the four week target is not a true projection of when customers will get the yoke, than either remove it from the web site or update it so that we know the truth about things.