Bebi Electronics

[ssanzone]

anyone know whats up with these guys?

i placed an order last week and have been trying to get an order / shipping status.

the payment was made (via paypal) and today i noticed a nitice about the company being closed.

http://www.bebi-electronics.com/shippinginfo.html

it isnt dated and i dont know what to think.

anyone with insight?

-s

[Paul Elliott]

Bebi is defunct. See this thread. I have no idea what this means for your order.

[ssanzone]

crap and crap and crap.

anyone have a recommend a product of equal quality. design and price for LED lighting?

-steve

[Tim R.]

You should be able to get you money back with Paypal.

Maybe the combination of quality, design and price is why they are now defunct. I do not see any specs on their website. What exactly are you looking for?

Good suppliers of marine grade LEDs are Sailorssolutions.com and Marinebeam.com. Their products are expensive but you get what you pay for.

[misfits]

That's the pits.
I just saw one of the ads in the latest edition in a sailing mag.
Talk about being ethical...

[Amnesia II]

Originally Posted by misfits

That's the pits.
I just saw one of the ads in the latest edition in a sailing mag.
Talk about being ethical...

Please don't rush to be so critical of Bebi....we don't know the background to their closure! I met them in Savu savu, Fiji last year at the ramshackle waterside shed they worked in. They lived on their old yacht in the creek...a lovely helpful couple with their young daughter....they were trying to build a cottage industry offering employment to locals making LED lights....you will see how basic the designs were!

Who knows whats happened!? Fiji is quite unstable politically...anything might have gone wrong for them!

[Target9000]

They are pretty up front about what happened in their message.

[Vasco]

Originally Posted by misfits

That's the pits.
I just saw one of the ads in the latest edition in a sailing mag.
Talk about being ethical...

Ads have to be placed well before sending the issue to printing. It is not uncommon to see ads of recently defunct businesses in magazines. I have dealt with Bebi for a couple of years and have nothing but good to say about how they treated their customers. It's unfortunate how things ended but I wish them well and hope they start up someplace else where the business environment might be a bit friendlier.

[misfits]

I understand that advertising is sold months in advance. If the company is closed then the ads should be pulled from the magazines by either the owners or the magazines itself.

I'm sure the folks that started this company are very nice people & sounds like the problems that have lead to this situation have been created by others.

The ethical part for me is IF the company is closed then why has someone taken this poor chaps money? That's not right anywhere on the planet that I'm aware of.

[ssanzone]

as i think about it, i am surprised that the payment went thru.

as i have ordered with them b4, i went direct to the product page and skipped the main page with the closing announcement and paypal will reimburse me in full in 10 days.

the bebi stuff was made with many bulbs set in a local wood that has a similar look to mahogany and under $50 a piece. really nice stuff at a great price. $700 had me set for the all the LEDs except the nav station.

grrr. lighting is so expensive (and ugly).

-s

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by ssanzone

grrr. lighting is so expensive (and ugly).

Sorry to hear about your problems. They have always been an ethical business with great customer service so hopefully you should get a full refund.

I agree that it is hard to find nice looking led lights.
The electronics for internal lights are very easy these days. For internal "fluorescent type" lights a couple of Cree LEDs produce a wonderful bright white light. Much better than anything commercially available.

The difficulty is the housing. If you are handy building a nice wooden housing should not be too difficult.


Give the DIY option some thought you can make exactly what you want and fit it with emitters that are much better than anything commercially available.

This is a reading light I made out of a couple scrap pieces of timber.

[colemj]

Originally Posted by ssanzone

as i think about it, i am surprised that the payment went thru.

Paypal simply takes money from your account and puts it into another's. It is probably less of a case of Bebi "taking payments" than it is a case of them not having closed down their Paypal account before you sent them money.

They would have taken your payment only if they actually transferred the money out of their Paypal account to an independent bank account.

I have tried to cancel a Paypal account - it takes forever and Paypal tries to keep you stuck in it.

Mark

[Jim Cate]

What a bloody shame! I have been very happy with the products that I purchased from them and felt that their service was exemplary. I also thought that what they were doing for the villagers there in Fawn Harbour was great.

We hugely enjoyed our cruising in Fiji, spent considerable time being involved with a village on Kandavu over a period of three years, and loved the Fijian people that we got to know personally. It is so sad to see what their corrupt government/military has done.

We've known several people who did start-up businesses in Pacific Island nations. In time, they have all given up for reasons similar to those posted by Bebi. Sad commentary on life in our times.

I hope that Michael and Kendra were not fiscally ruined by this debacle and that they find a new home and (hopefully) return to the LED marketplace.

Cheers,

Jim

[Target9000]

As a side note, we had a pending order and emailed/placed hold with paypal. In the early hours of the morning (our time), Kendra did respond and apparently our order has shipped. So egg on our face for putting a hold with Paypal. So there may be some hope for the OP yet. I know things must be pretty chaotic for them at the moment and this is the third order we've made.

[ssanzone]

target,

how recently did your order ship?

i placed my order last week and have been trying to get an order status from them since without response.

there is a finesse with fabricating wood that really takes time to get it right. i may not have another option but i think fabricating 15 fixtures would take a brutally long time.

the shopping / window shopping continues while i consider my options.

-s