As cool as of an idea as it is I was disappointed with my first Valleyschwag Care Package. The cause of my disappoint I think is based on the fact that Valleyschwag has become so successful so quick.
When I signed up I was expecting to get to get schwag from “The Companies” from around the valley but my package mostly consisted of schwag from Rubyred Labs. Now don’t get me wrong, the stuff was cool, but I just do not see how these guys are going to be able to pull it off month after month when they are relying on getting free schwag from companies to distribute.
The other thing that kind of irked me is that they want you to be come a Valleyschwag Deputy if you want to get the good stuff. Basically a deputy is a person that they feel stands out and so gets on the “the good list”. I think it would have been better to just send out the rare stuff randomly and let the “look what I got” posts come in naturally.
So for now I have fired off an e-mail on how to cancel. I have been charged for the the second month already so we will see how they handle that.
P.S. It seems that I am not the only one that was disappointed -
P.P.S. – It really did not take long to find the posts above. There are more out there, I just wanted to have a good reference.
6 responses so far ↓
motherduce // June 13, 2006 at 9:10 am |
They ended up cancelling the Deputy idea, as they put it up to a vote by the subscribers. And you are wrong about the package being mostly RubyRed Labs stuff…all they added was their t-shirt (at least in my package). Everything else was from other companies.
Sorry you are disappointed. It’s definitely not for everyone. I’m a bit concerned about how big their subscription level gets, and what it will do to our packages, but maybe they’ll cap the subscriptions.
Anyhow, I’m enjoying it for now.
danmasters // June 13, 2006 at 9:58 am |
It is good that they cancelled the deputy thing.
In regards to the RubyRed schwag – I got a gang of it – A shirt, a key chain (or necklace), and several stickers. I felt like it was heavily weighted towards RubyRed. One thing from them would have been cool but I had the feeling that they ran out stuff from other companies so they threw in their stuff.
I really do not see how they can continue by relying new companies starting up and freebies.
Still no word from their customer service in regards to my cancellation…
Thor Muller // June 13, 2006 at 12:36 pm |
Hi Dan,
I’m sorry you were disappointed–this makes us sad. It’s certainly not for lack of effort, as we’re working ’round the clock to get the schwag out there.
We’ve refunded your payment for the June issue, of course.
I do want to address your comment about Rubyred schwag. Only the t-shirt was from Rubyred. There is no Rubyred keychain, and no Rubyred stickers were distributed. There were, however, Movable Type keychains, and Riya stickers (as well as others). Perhaps all these Web 2.0 logos look the same…
danmasters // June 13, 2006 at 12:43 pm |
Thor,
Thanks for the refund and the reply.
I will take a closer look at the stickers and the keychain – my apologize for the mix up.
I wish you guys the best of luck in your venture.
Dan Masters » Valleyschwag = Cool Peoples // June 13, 2006 at 1:08 pm |
[...] I have to say that the Valleyschag people are cool, real cool, this is why – they refunded my cash but they also responded to my previous post – Canceling My Subscription to Valleyschwag. [...]
Jasonrobotops // December 19, 2006 at 10:26 am |
Valleyschwag was really disappointing. I tried it for a couple of months, their third month was running pretty late. The only thing I kept from the experience was a RubyRed pin.
By the time I cancelled, I had paid over thirty dollars for a two tshirts, a pencil, a button, goatsecs stickers, and some other unwanted junk. “WHY NOT JUST USE THE MONEY TO BUY STUFF I ACTUALLY WANT?” I asked myself.
I have nothing against the IDEA, just the execution. I would want better items, on time, and more of them.