Bangle.js 2 price increases

[gfwilliams]

Hi everyone!

I'm sorry to say that I've had to raise the prices on Bangle.js 2. It was £64+tax, and it's now £83+tax

I've been trying hard to keep the price the same - it hasn't changed since I first put it on the website 3.5 years ago, even though the cost to me has risen 25% since the initial batch.

However earlier this year, the manufacturer of these watches (SMA) had their email compromised by hackers for 2 months. During this period the 5000pc order of Bangle.js (the biggest I had ever made) was completed and I was due to make the balance payment. With complete access to SMA's email account, the hackers were able to pretty convincingly get me to pay money into the wrong account with signed, company stamped documents showing the new account to pay into, direct from SMA's own email servers.

The bank haven't been able to recover the money, UK police won't even bother to investigate, and the Chinese police likely won't manage to get any money back. To make matters worse, SMA have been untrustworthy too and manipulated the situation, and while I've been seriously considering legal action against SMA in China, I don't believe the chances of success are good enough to warrant the costs. While I now finally have some of the watches en-route to me, right now they're costing me twice the usual price.

I've lowered my margins significantly, but at the end of the day I have to pass some of that loss on to you, my customers.

Hopefully most of you here already have a Bangle.js 2 though, so this won't affect you too much!

[dronesflier]

Oh, that's terrible! I hope that it works out...

[dashavoo]

That's fair. I've just ordered a replacement for my broken one. Sorry to hear all the trouble you've been through. It sounds like an incredibly stressful situation.

[gfwilliams]

Thanks! Yes, it's been tricky the last few months, but hopefully soon I'll be in a position where I can move on and try not to think about it too much!

[Persvicx]

Should I buy directly from the espurino site or from adafruit if I'm in the USA?

[gfwilliams]

I'd say use Adafruit - while obviously they do take some of the profit, they are an official distributor and it'll be a lot faster for you to get it from them.

[Persvicx]

Thank you

[RKBoss6]

Oh no! I'm sorry, hopefully you can recover those costs...