Remember Hybridgear.net? It appears that they've been reincarnated as PCMW - UPDATED

^^ ditto
(10 chars)

 

But isn't that what lawyers do?

 

Nah, psychiatrists mess with your head. Lawyers mess with your wallets!

 

No, that's not quite it either...I think I've got it, though:

Psychiatrists mess with YOUR head so they can mess with your wallet.

Lawyers mess with the JURY'S heads so they can mess with your wallet!

 

I stand corrected. Seems like everybody is out to mess with my wallet, not just the lawyers and psychiatrists alone.

 

Just waiting to see if anyone would notice - how's this?

 

now this is much nicer!

 

much better

 

Hello everyone. Glad to see hybridgear is finally being investigated ! Thanks for contacting me Shyster I am amazed at all your research. Now I am gonna begin to "peruse" this novel of a thread !

 

You are most welcome; glad to see you could join us.

 

As for those wondering about the transition...

My purchase was of a Hybridgear EvoX (more commonly the clevo d900t). This purchase was made in June of 2005 and aside from a few missing disks (which were eventually sent to me), I was satisfied. Hybridgear had lackluster customer support, yet they were friendly and had basic knowledge of most issues. Towards the later half of the year, and exponentially increasing in early 2006, the company phone lines would lead straight to voice mail. In the spring of 2006, while attempting to make a customer service call I heard a busy tone over the line. I called back and reached Matt a few times. Yet during this period Matt gave limited answers to what was happening to the company, and did not bother with my technical issues. Eventually, during the summer the phone number was fully disconnected. Of course I checked digital phone books and other means of trying to locate the group, but as the website was fully taken down, their phone was disconnected, and their email addresses removed, communication was not possible. I was never contacted by anyone from hybridgear nor sent any form of repayment, even though I spent over $3000 on the machine (which is now fully broken) and also paid about $300 for the three year warranty. So when my laptop's raid array failed, and I was unable to fix it, my machine, which technically was still under their warranty, died.

Side note: In the fall of 2005 Hybridgear's website changed, as they claimed their new name was "Futuretop Hybridgear" , and at this point customer service was for the most part good.

As for their laptops , the quality of the machine was quite poor. Initially screws were missing, and thermal cooling was minimal. I had to maintain these problems myself. The customer service sounded to be around college aged, no older than thirty most likely. While some of the technicians seemed adequately trained, I do not believe any were A+ certified, nor experts on laptops. There were a few instances actually where I would receive poor service, as in yelling and "sorry cant help *click*" .

PS. To justify my claims of the group being comprised of college students, if you google their old address, which I no longer have, they were actually located near Texas AM

 

Let me just point out that as I understand it, the D900T had heat issues; poor thermal cooling wouldn't have been the fault of hybridgear.

 

True but when they added my gpu they failed to plug in the fan. It nearly overheated. When I checked the thermal cooling paste, they had a sub-minimal layer applied*, and since they custom built the system it would be their fault, not clevos.

* Paste did not fully cover the cores, nor did it resemble higher quality paste (such as arctic silver)

 

I don't think age has to do with it, at least I myself will be confident to work as a technician.

 

I expect Everyone to play nice.​

 

No I know lol. Just mean that even the owner (Matt) didnt seem to old. While I run my own computer repair service now, at 17, one reason for the companie's failure might be the combination of school and/or immaturity. IDK just my 2 cents

 

Well it's a viewpoint that seems to be borne out by the evidence to hand. Thanks for sharing the details of your experience.

 

No problem, hopefully it can be put to good use ! : )

 

@mtf612, so what happened to your laptop? Did you throw it away, or were you able to repair it? Did you try a new hard drive?

 

Now that, that would be the fault of HybridGear.

I wish to point out at this point of time, that HybridGear and PCMW are different companies that are owned by the same individual. Additionally, I would like to remind readers that mtf612 is referring to his experience with HybridGear, not PCMW.

 

Well the laptop does boot, and i could easily get it working but it isnt worth it. I dont game anymore and I am going to college next year so i needed something light (hence my xps 1330) . Since the raid 0 failed after one drive died, all of my data was lost, and even if I shipped the drives off to drivesaver or some other company, the data might not be recovered (and i would be out another thousand bucks! ) . Chances are Ill put new drives in with an OS and than make a driver disk that actually works , and send it off to the eBay farm.

Failed to mention that since Hybridgear was out of business, they were no help in finding Vista drivers. Then again neither was clevo, but they are attainable !

 

No, but I will call you inaccurate. Hybridgear was never a "company" - it was the name under which Matt O'Bryne did business in his individual capacity; i.e., as a sole proprietor. That is why, as I have been at pains to point out, that $73,000 debt for back rent is Matt's personal debt, not a debt owed by some other entity from which Matt has the benefit of corporate limited liability.

In addition, while PCMW is a separate legal persona separate and apart from Matt, and while his debts are not PCMW's ipso facto, there are legal doctrines available to "pierce" the corporate veil in appropriate circumstances, including those where an individual transfers a going business lock, stock, and barrel to a corporation he controls in order to try and avoid the businesses debts - unless there was an explicit written agreement, for example, pursuant to which only certain assets were transferred for adequate consideration, and no debts were assumed, then in many circumstances, the outstanding debts of the sole proprietorship will automatically be treated as having been assumed by the corporation to which the sole proprietorship transfers its business. Keep in mind, too, that California is more aggressive than many states in piercing the corporate veil.

So, you erroneously stated Hybridgear was a company when it never was, and even so, there are arguments that neither are they separate businesses, by whomever operated.

 

Hi,

Personally I wouldn't be so worried about the $73,000 in personal dept of Mr. O'Bryan. Although it may seem a huge value for some, it not for a business running normally. If he doesn't have the money at his disposal at the moment there are other ways to pay the dept such as using a loan.

The main concern as a potential customer would be to know how healthy is PCMW business to face risks and issues (such as customer support etc etc). This wouldn't be a concern if Mr. O'Bryan credibility and ethics wasn't in question due to facts presented that show inconsistent business skills, fluctuating from good to very bad. Something very important to establish customer confidence, especially over the Internet

One side note: At least in Portugal whatever company can have several brands. For instance, a company can have two shops with totally different brands targeted to different customer profiles (high end, low end, gamers etc etc). That is not by itself an indication of any malpractice. So I wouldn't use the phrase "operating with two different names" as in my view carry a negative denotations that IMHO that the facts don't establish.

Stay cool,

Trance
PS: If I was a former HybridGear customer that needed support and did not had it I would contact the company right away and report back. Maybe not everything is lost. Just an idea.

 

The main concern for new customers is that PCMW might just run off again and you lose your warranty!

 

Well that concern for me could only be satisfied as I stated. Otherwise I would buy from someone else.

Trance

 

Shyster,

I know its not your duty or obligation but i suggest you contact PCMW directly (email prefferably) and obtain more information. PCMW doesnt seem to be responding at all even though they are aware of these discrepancies.

Nothing better than to iron this whole thing out..

 

I dunno DFT, but I don't think you've worked through the math, so let's do it now, and let's not forget about income taxes, shall we?

Ok, so, here is the end-result we need to reach: we need to get net cash of $73,000 into the hands of the shareholder of a corporation that engages in the trade or business of reselling computers from its sole location in California, USA.

The goal is to figure out what sorts of sales levels, i.e., gross revenues, we need to meet that result.


Well, first, the cash that ends up in the shareholder's hands is from operations, and thus is a "dividend" and is taxable to the shareholder for both state and federal purposes. For federal purposes, let's assume these are qualified dividends that get taxed at the cap gains rate of 15%. California has a graduated personal income tax that hits 9.3% for 2008 once income exceeds about $45,000. So, let's approximate and assume that we're looking at an effective state tax rate of 9%. Of course, the state taxes are deductible, but only against ordinary income, not against capital gain (which is what qualified dividends get treated as), so I'm going to calculate without netting out state taxes for federal purposes. That means that we need to gross our $73,000 net up to account for a 24% combined tax rate. To do that, we divide by (1 - 0.24), and get $96,052.

That means that the corporation has to have $96,052 left over in net cash from operations after paying everybody else, including paying corporate income tax at 35% to Uncle Sam and at 8.84% to Auntie California, in order to distribute the necessary dividend out to the shareholder. That means that we have to gross up again to account for another 43.84% income tax, so we divide $96,052 by (1 - 43.84%) and get $219,098.

That is the total net profit, before income taxes, the corporation must have retained from operations in order to make a dividend to its shareholder that, after tax on the dividend, will leave a net amount of $73,000.

However, profit margins in the computer reseller industry are not that big. I've seen figures of 0.5% net profit margin bandied about. I'm going to be a little more generous and assume that our hero is good enough that it can manage a 5% profit margin - i.e., net profit after payment of all expenses other than income taxes, is 5%.

That means that, in order to have $219,098 of pre-tax net profit left over, our little corporation must have gross revenues of $4,381,963.

That's right campers, gross revenues of about $4.5 Million in order to get a dividend to the shareholder that, after individual income tax, will leave a net amount of $73,000.

If you think that that's going to be a piece of cake for a little start-up like PCMW, you're sadly mistaken.

Interestingly enough, when you bid on a government program, even something small potatoes, you usually have to disclose all sorts of basic data about your business. In 2007 Sager Notebooks put in a bid to supply some notebooks to a government agency and, as a result, had to disclose certain facts about itself, including its annual revenues. Of course, like a lot of government contracts, this one is public, and a summary of it can be found here: http://209.85.215.104/search?q=cach...ebook+annual-revenue&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

That record shows that for 2007 Sager, which not only sells directly, but supplies numerous resellers as well, had gross revenues for 2007 of approximately $40,000,000.

That's right, about $40 Million. In other words, you are taking the position that PCMW right now generates gross revenues equal to 10% of those generated by Sager, even though PCMW is a reseller, not an OEM/distributor like Sager (PCMW buys from Eurocom, apparently, as Eurocom is one of the three N.A. Clevo importers).

Not likely to happen.

Bit

 

Fair enough. I will set up a separate webmail address solely for the purpose, and will attempt contact through email. I will not be doing so via telephone because I cannot maintain a reliable chain of extrinsic evidence for such communication.

Failing substantive email contact, I will attempt one contact by registered mail, return receipt requested.

Failing that, and here I'm going to be a little harsh, failing to get any substantive response from a written letter sent registered mail, RRR, will in my mind constitute an admission that the facts and speculation are substantially true.

EDIT: Here is the webmail account I have set up for this purpose: [email protected] (please do me a favor and don't pummel that address with mail ).

 

Don't waste your time. Do you really think he will respond to whatever you ask him ?

Let's face it, you are not the police or some government regulatory agency or anyone whom he might be obliged to co-operate with.

If you were his lawyer, would you advise him to respond to such approaches?

 

You are forgeting two things:

1) He has a salary.

2) He as an investor probably the company owns him money.

I dont know a thing about US taxation. I can only speak about Portugal. I'll say it euros.

Say you have a 7% gross margin over a laptop. Let's say that on average each lappy is sold at 1800€ including VAT ($2.850). 7% of that is 126 €. Let's say he sell 10 lappies a day (2520 lappies a year) on average on a month with 21 work days. That makes a gross ovalue of 26460€ a month. Let's say that each employee cost the company €2600 before any tax and he has 4. That makes 10400€ in human resources a month. Let's put a value of 6000€ ($9500 a month for all other expenses (rent, electricity, water etc etc, I don't know the price of fuel and electricity in the US but I bet it is much cheaper then in Portugal, the same goes for rent and housing).

Then we have per month:

26460 - 16400 = 10060.

Let's say covering over all warranties cost the company 3000€ a month. We have 7060 € per month in "extra" cash per month.

So in the end of a year the company well have €84.720 to share or invest.

So the question is, how many lappies he is selling on average per day and what is the average price. That is his main concern I believe. Unfortunately this thread does not help

Indeed by this calculation even if he sells on average 5 per day, his business is still viable. If you look at the end result, he can still rise his salary (say double) to meet his loan to cover up is dept over say three years. If he eventually needs a loan.

Anything less then that, at a 7% margin, the company IMHO the company can't grow IMHO. We just don't know.

So your millions based result don't make sense to me. So I can only think maybe I'm doing something very wrong but I don't see how. Granted the 10 laps a day is ambitious, but even 5 a day is not bad. Anything less ... well I would need to diversify.

Trance
PS: Again I don't know much about US law. My figures are based only in Portuguese experience.

 

When it comes to U.S. taxation I don't forget much. If you'd like, when I have the free time to play with Excel, I'll sketch out all of the different variations, including (1) drawing a reasonable salary in addition to taking any necessary dividends, and (2) status as an S-corporation instead of a C-corporation, which status results in the corporation being treated as basically a pass-through entity and not as a separately taxed entity under subchapter C of the Internal Revenue Code.

Also, 7% margin off of gross revenues is, I think, too high. Perhaps one of the government statistical agencies will have some more useful numbers; I will look if/when/as I have the time.

Finally, keep in mind the fact that this scenario presents very favorable facts for piercing the corporate veil, in which case the $73,000 debt will become the corporation's debt as well.

 

Do I really think he'll respond? No; if he wasn't willing to at least enter an appearance in the civil case against him, and if he hasn't been willing to state his case here (where the rules of evidence are more forgiving than in court), I don't expect him to respond to me. That was precisely the point of my stating that, in the absence of any reply, I will take silence as being tantamount to an admission that the evidence offered, and the direct inferences drawn therefrom, are substantially correct.

If I were his lawyer, I would have advised him so much differently from the beginning that, at this point, such speculation is fruitless; however, if we had gotten to this pass in any event, I would have to evaluate the pros and cons from the perspective of the goodwill of his current business - in a selling industry, goodwill is one of your main assets, so one should be very hesitant before permitting that goodwill to be impaired without attempting to repair it. At the very least, I would want to gauge the extent to which there are unhappy customers out there who still have valid warranty agreements with Hybridgear, and if the financial burden wasn't too great, I would certainly have advised taking some sort of a pro-active stance to accomodate those open warranties by, perhaps, offering more limited ongoing warranty coverage through the current business so that customers who suffer a catastrophic loss due to defects in the equipment can get adequate replacements.

 

@Shyster,

"If you'd like, when I have the free time to play with Excel"

Myself I would love as it would give me opportunity to learn about how hardware business works in the US within the context of this thread.

Trance

 

Why would they need a lawyer? These people are customers not litigants suing PCMW

Customers and consumers have the right to know of the companys foundation. Its hard to trust a company that has something to hide.

No investor in the right mind would put money on a company that has inherent risks. (figuratively)

I am all for consumer protection, as i myself have been a victim and endured through the hassles. Zelig96 Since your from Australia, id like to warn you not to buy from this store or your nightmares will really come true.

 

To my previous post I add. If the speculated value of 84.720€ is actually the value after all expenses including investments. Then it is considered profit for the next year. This gets taxed at a maximum of 27,5% in Portugal.

So we have 84.720€ - 21180€ = 63540€.

This is in contrast with your values, where the amount of tax the company payes to state seam to slice up to 67% the gross profit. Too high I believe but again I don't know the US taxation system.

Anyway, yes, the the annual sales value can go up to a couple of millions of dollars to meet the stated value. But that corresponds to 5 to 10 laptops being sold a day at an average price calculated over their products that are pricy due to the nature of their market, nevertheless not as expensive as others in the same maket.

Again the question is, how many laptop they sell on average per day at what price.

Have fun

Trance

 

Wow, that's a leap.

That being the case, you should seek a response. That way, when he doesn't respond, you will have your "admission" - and the carve up will be complete.

 

@Zelig96,

I thought about that specific requirement initially as a lot of remarks in the opening post seamed highly speculative (actually "stalked" Shyster about that). After reading this I changed my mind. Just the becouse some speculation is in this scenario justified. I say speculation as we just know what is documented, we can only guess the motives or the impact those events have or not on PCMW business (customers et al) that can be probably none but ....

In other words, seeking a formal or informal remark from PCMW becomes a personal choice IMHO . This since the amount of information/documentation posted fully justifies the concerns. Is up to PCMW if it see fit to refute or not the information/documentation available to the public or correct any speculation derived from the concerns at hand.

Yes I agree with you that this can only be complete with PCMW taking action over the concerns as anything else becomes irrelevant by doing so. IMHO the opportunity to do so, does not need to be given by anyone in particular as explained above. Furthermore, it does not necessarly need to be done through this thread as I suspect that any positive action would appear here one way or another.

Just my opinion.

Trance
PS: Hints, hints all over the place

 

anyone called PCMW for m860tu shipping date? haven't heard anything lately.

 

they told me second week of august. But i'm expecting it around the time that everyone else get's theirs. Roughly end august - don't really care as long as it gets here by the end of august.

 

I contacted the sales rep that sold me the system yesterday and he said they are looking at mid next week. Not holding my breath though. Will post if it is indeed available then.

 

Rumor has it that the 860TU has been delayed 10 more days.

 

Just recieved my order confirmation now for my nexus (M860tu) from kobalt with an expected delivery date to me of the 15th.
Maybe its just sager that are delayed an extra 10 days.

 

According to Donald laptops with the WSXGA+ appear to be on schedule (if there ever was a schedule) with about a week's delay for WUXGA laptops.

 

Well, I don`t believe all the rumors

 

who keeps on making these rumours? and PS, time to change eleron again.

 

Already done

 

Your kidding---right?

 

Can you stop with the euro thing?

You see, here in the United States of America we use the Almighty Dollar.

This isn't the US II aka eu.

 

why is he kidding.... I've personally only had GREAT experiences with them, as I have written about earlier in this thread. Bear in mind had this thread been up BEFORE i bought my system, I actually might not have bought from them. HOWEVER, im GLAD it didn't come up. Cause i got a very competitive price that others would not match at the time and they always pick up for fast customer service. and, up until this thread, maybe still, they were getting a WHOOLEE LOTTTAA sales. Threads were popping up everday by people buying from them. and deathwing is right zen., the ratings for them are pretty good. That is not to say they can't crash and burn like hybrid, however, right now they sure as heck aren't.

oh yea... can this thread end already lol

 

I'm glad you're glad with your system.
But I don't see that they've improved anything for the better. They keep on lying about everything; about who they are, about what things they will offer in their laptops, about their release dates, about their ridiculous 500$ discounts, etcetera etcetera.
So I don't see any reason why you would trust about something like warranties or helping you.

But good luck to you nonetheless

P.S. They never crashed and burned. They just disappeared. More like a personal choice than necessity.

This is an online forum; it's international. So there's no reason why he shouldn't use euros