I wanted to post this, and I am going to be copying this to all of my social media as well as my YouTube channel, to warn everyone that I can to NOT buy a CSIO Technologies shifter for your truck simulator.
As promised, I used funds from the kind donations of my viewer audience to buy a shifter in order to improve the truck simulation experience on my YouTube live streaming. For the first couple of weeks, in anticipation of this wonderful tool, I was very excited. However … that was way back on June 7th. I still have NOT received the shifter. In fact my account says it is still “processing”. CSIO has VERY carefully made sure that there is NO way to contact them except via an automated “support ticket” system on their web site, so there is no way to verify that they even received my order let alone received my support tickets. I have NEVER seen a business, online or otherwise, have less than 2 ways to contact. Here’s my experience:
June 7th … Placed order #6270 for a left hand drive shifter to fit the Logitech G70. The order went into “processing status” and my card was, of course, charged right away (on these types of things you’d think they would do what every other company does and charge the card when the bloody thing ships).
June 13th … I sent a support ticket just to ask for an ETA and to verify my order was received. No reply was ever given. My ticket was purposefully ignored. It posted, so the owner got it, but I was completely ignored without so much as an “f___ you” in response.
July 9th … I sent another support ticket asking if the guy was even still doing business. Again, he received it, and I was again completely ignored.
July 18th … Tough decision but I made the choice of disputing the charge with PayPal. I figured even if i DO receive the shifter, then what happens if I have a tech issue with the shifter? I’d be screwed because the guy at CSIO can and WILL completely ignore me anyway, so at this point I do not even WANT the shifter any more.
August 2nd – The dispute came back failed because PayPal in their infinite wisdom attached my dispute to some “0” amount pre-charge. I am still shaking my head at that one. I re-opened the claim over the phone this time and made sure they have it on the right charge.
As of this moment, August 17th, CSIO still has my money, are completely ignoring ALL attempts of contact, and have not even done anything with this supposed shifter that they supposedly sell. I gave in and trusted this because of the fact that famous streamers like Squirrel are using the same shifter. However, it appears that this is the key here … famous. You ONLY get attention from this company if you are famous online, which reels in little guys like me for a VERY well thought out scam. So much for trusting my favorite streamers.
Buyers beware … unless you are a famous online streamer, do NOT buy from CSIO. if you ARE a famous streamer, you will get absolute red carpet treatment, so that when folks like me post warning like this, there will be hope that no one will believe me, mainly because all of the “credible” famous streamers got a completely different experience. I admit, that’s a VERY well thought out scam. Nice work, CSIO, but I am still going to speak out and warn whoever WILL believe me … after all I have this thing about protecting the little guy. I don;t care about the rich guys out there who are famous. But I do want to at least try to help folks like myself who might actually fall for this as a result of those same streams.
By the way … this is NOTHING against famous streamers. It’s not their fault they get treated differently and thus have this “illusion” that companies like CSIO are somehow legitimate.