RayfromTX Gone..? Huh..?

Sorry Will, but in my limited experience, the sales rep matters a lot. I have found this to be true when shopping locally and also on Alibaba.
I can go to a car dealer one day and get a guy who only wants to SELL me what gives him the best commission .... and go a different day and get a REP who is willing to listen to me and help me find what I am looking for.
Going to that 50 year old hardware store with knowledgeable people is a much better experience than going to that big box store where you will probably get a teenager who knows less than you do.

When I bought my first battery (pre-built), I had a TON of question for the vendor. I got lucky and got a REP that was willing to answer all those questions and find the information if they didn't know the answer. Messages were always answered promptly and accurately .... I ended up getting exactly what I wanted and has worked flawlessly so far.
When I was ready to purchase more cells to build my own pack ... I tried contacting that person and found that they had moved on from that company. The new REP was absolutely terrible ... long delays and my questions were never completely answered ... So, I went with another vendor who had been recommended on here ... That purchase ended up going well.

Maybe that first vendor was just a poor vendor and I got lucky with the REP I got .... but the REP made a huge difference.

Your situation is much different than a newbie looking to do their first or even 2nd purchase .... a little TLC and hand holding may be required for the newbie.

Bob B said:

Sorry Will, but in my limited experience, the sales rep matters a lot. I have found this to be true when shopping locally and also on Alibaba.
I can go to a car dealer one day and get a guy who only wants to SELL me what gives him the best commission .... and go a different day and get a REP who is willing to listen to me and help me find what I am looking for.
Going to that 50 year old hardware store with knowledgeable people is a much better experience than going to that big box store where you will probably get a teenager who knows less than you do.

When I bought my first battery (pre-built), I had a TON of question for the vendor. I got lucky and got a REP that was willing to answer all those questions and find the information if they didn't know the answer. Messages were always answered promptly and accurately .... I ended up getting exactly what I wanted and has worked flawlessly so far.
When I was ready to purchase more cells to build my own pack ... I tried contacting that person and found that they had moved on from that company. The new REP was absolutely terrible ... long delays and my questions were never completely answered ... So, I went with another vendor who had been recommended on here ... That purchase ended up going well.

Maybe that first vendor was just a poor vendor and I got lucky with the REP I got .... but the REP made a huge difference.

Your situation is much different than a newbie looking to do their first or even 2nd purchase .... a little TLC and hand holding may be required for the newbie.

Click to expand...

Then build another forum to review/discuss these sales reps. You can have a yelp review site for lifepo4 sales reps, in a sense. I am not going to allow it here and I do not want to have any affiliation with your forum when you build one. I do not want to have any bias or loyalty to any cell distributor or sales rep.

Currently if someone I recommend screws up, I drop their affiliate program and find/build a better one with another distributor.

While not everyone agrees with the rules, one thing I can greatly appreciate is the steadfast commitment to the rules even by the forum owner, and it's operators/administration. This keeps everything very clear and the ability for little personal interpretation as possible. And this i can commend! So many things these days are left vague, perhaps by design and intention.

BuffaloTrace said:

While not everyone agrees with the rules, one thing I can greatly appreciate is the steadfast commitment to the rules even by the forum owner, and it's operators/administration. This keeps everything very clear and the ability for little personal interpretation as possible. And this i can commend! So many things these days are left vague, perhaps by design and intention.

Click to expand...

Thank you! I really need this forum to be the best on the internet for unbiased information. So many message boards are filled with ads and biased information and I cannot stand it.

But I have to reiterate that I did think ray from Texas was a spam profile because there was a misspelling in his email and the person he recommended was recently banned. No profile picture. And recommending personal emails. I really like Ray's videos, and I feel bad that I thought his profile was spam. Will work on this more, and send out a warning instead. I spam clean a lot of accounts daily, and his profile fit the bill. I thought someone was impersonating him. I need to be more strict with verification and get people to verify with real world identification. I'll do that next time.

Really have to thank the mods here for keeping the forum going. It would not be possible without them. I'm so glad we now have a platform to share everything we think about various products and help each other. It's fantastic!

Will Prowse said:

Seriously? If that was the case, every rep at signature solar and these other companies would have a profile. The only reason the cell resellers are trying to make a personal connection with you guys is so they can push more sales and get a commission.

Anyone can fulfill an order at these companies, there is no need for a sales rep recommendation here. I can call any of these companies and make an order without issue. We can review the companies all day long too without pushing it through an individual making a comission.

Click to expand...

not super serious about the completeness, mainly to communicate that clearly labeled corporate accounts make it more obvious to me when financial motivations are at hand.

anyways kind regards intended; very grateful for the existing efforts to keep corporate strategies out of the play area so to speak.

as you say well, contacting a specific representative should be unnecessary to have a normal exchange ?

Will Prowse said:

have a problem when a forum member is posting "tell her I sent you" and getting a kickback. Any affiliate links or referrals should not be allowed anywhere on this forum.

Click to expand...

this bothered me, and ray still makes helpful content. it upsets me when silent kickbacks are motivating advice here.

thanks for removing commercial content like afilliate links and commission seeking behavior.

it clearly takes effort?

curiouscarbon said:

this bothered me, and ray still makes helpful content. it upsets me when silent kickbacks are motivating advice here.

thanks for removing commercial content like afilliate links and commission seeking behavior.

it clearly takes effort?

Click to expand...

he's not getting a kickback.

and agree, kickbacks shouldnt be allowed, gives a bad inscentive, and in my mind we're here to help one and another, but maybe i'm just a bit naive.


i do however suggest a list of known good companies to deal with , too many folks have been burned by getting bad cells.
affiliate links should never be allowed in that list, nor specific reps.
i reffer to jenny often, simply because i have dealt with her on a couple occassions and she helped me well and honest, and i have no experience with the other reps.
no affiliation, no business dealings outside my own purchases with any that i regularly mention, just my own experience

in this case, there seemed to be a commission for youtube referrals, but it seemed ambiguous to me what meaning referrals made on this forum bear in the context of that arrangement.

Will Prowse said:

Then build another forum to review/discuss these sales reps. You can have a yelp review site for lifepo4 sales reps, in a sense. I am not going to allow it here and I do not want to have any affiliation with your forum when you build one. I do not want to have any bias or loyalty to any cell distributor or sales rep.

Currently if someone I recommend screws up, I drop their affiliate program and find/build a better one with another distributor.

Click to expand...

I'm not questioning that you are doing the right thing for this forum .... and I don't have any concept of the amount of work involved in keeping the forum spam free ..... I applaud your success in doing that.

It's just that one of the things I have always done is try to reward those who do business the right way with my future business and to recommend them to others .... They are getting more and more difficult to find and it just seems logical to me to recommend them to others.
I can understand, however, that you wouldn't want this forum to be held responsible for the recommendation made by forum members .... when there are possible affiliate relationships, there is no doubt that shouldn't be allowed.
Along the same line is recommendations for a particular BMS, charge controller, inverter .... etc.
It's quite a tight rope walk to keep things clean and yet help others navigate the mine field.

Will Prowse said:

Keep in mind these rules also limit me more than anyone else. If any of this is allowed, I will become the largest sales rep of them all. I don't want that. I don't want to compete with you guys. If referral of sales reps is allowed, I will try to dominate like I do on my YouTube videos. I will work 24/7 to have the most transparent and useful information around, and will stand by my recommendations. I'm telling you right now, we should not have that on this forum. Or else I will take advantage of it and post "tell them I sent you" constantly. I want this forum to be for education only. It should be for everyone, and free of ads. No exceptions.

Click to expand...

Your honesty is very admirable. I see both sides of this argument as being very valid.
It would be nice to have reliable feedback on vendors based on buyers experiences but unfortunately the business world has gone to hell and there seems to be no limit on what people will do in the name of the almighty dollar.
Like everything else only a few people would abuse the system but unfortunately everyone has to be kept in line to prevent the few from abusing an open system.

robby said:

Your honesty is very admirable. I see both sides of this argument as being very valid.
It would be nice to have reliable feedback on vendors based on buyers experiences but unfortunately the business world has gone to hell and there seems to be no limit on what people will do in the name of the almighty dollar.
Like everything else only a few people would abuse the system but unfortunately everyone has to be kept in line to prevent the few from abusing an open system.

Click to expand...

and i do believe there's a high level of self regulation here too , where users report questionable behavior or motives.
that being said, i.know how much work running a forum is

I regret being the Catalyst for this discussion. I have always been uncomfortable with self promotion or being the center of attention. I have spent most of my life trying to learn and share what I’ve learned with others. Discussion forums have been a big part of that. I’m grateful for all that I have learned from the members on this forum and I’m glad that I can read their posts once again. Happy Easter y’all.

RayfromTX said:

I regret being the Catalyst for this discussion.

Click to expand...

Don't be. Better to have the discussion and clearly set the rules/clarify the rules now.

Ray posted a video in my opinion referring to this thread that you guys may want to see:


So I responded to the youtube video with this comment:

Hey Ray, seems like a lot of this has to do with our discussion on the forum. I would like to respond with my experience. I work with many of these companies and they will all try to establish a "relationship" to push more sales. This happens constantly. This is why my channel has zero loyalty to these distributors. Jenny does not make the cells, she sells them. There are multiple distributors of these fantastic cells, and all of them sweet talk me. But I ignore my experience. I always take the word of my viewers over anything. If a company treats me well, but my viewers make any complaints, I will tell everyone about it.

These distributors can be considered mail forwarding warehouses for Chinese suppliers. That's it. They do not have a say in how the cells are manufactured, and use investor capital to decrease pricing with large volume orders. That's it. Nothing more.

For my channel, I don't give any special treatment to any sales rep or company. I have been let down over and over again, and I do not trust them. I don't care how nice they are to me, they are not to be trusted. Ever.

By the way, I think Jenny is great from my experience. And Amy and all the others. And luckily, I haven't heard anyone complain about them yet. But. I have not met them, and they also sent me those photos in her wedding dress etc, and I don't trust it till I see it in person. These sales reps are trained to act in this way, and I will not believe who they are till I meet them in person.

Super cool house!!! I love it! Please post more about it. Your other videos are much appreciated as well, and the battery videos.

Click to expand...

If anyone disagrees with me let me know. I deal with at least 30+ of these companies constantly, so I think this information is relevant and helpful.

Personally I like working with the Chinese. The Americans are worse. They will sweet talk you till you make a review video saying their product is garbage, then instantly become angry and hate you.

If you bash a Chinese product, they say "sorry sorry, we will fix it now". And sure enough, they do. The Americans take a year or more to update their products. It's pretty silly. I'm sure you guys know who I'm talking about.

@Will Prowse I don't take issue with most of your policy on this stuff, although I personally wish the vendors were still allowed here. As for the discussion with @RayfromTX about his video and individual sales people, I really do agree with Ray. I think it goes way beyond this particular hobby, and really has little to do with Chinese vs U.S. (or any other) vendors. My personal experience in my job and in my personal life has relied quite a bit on personal trust in individuals that I work with, and - at least I hope - I have given people reason to know they could trust me.

I do agree that it the company / vendor drives much of how good or bad a purchase experience can be, but we mostly only have interaction with one person. If that person doesn't see any reason to dig in after the sale and help resolve problems, your success relies on your luck and ability to elevate the issue. Even if you do elevate the issue, if the sales rep is not motivated they can still submarine the whole thing.

I don't even think it is just altruism either. I think there are some sales people that seem to recognize that if they really work hard to develop a trusting relationship with their customers it will get them more customers. Amy Wan @ Luyuan and Jenny Wu @ Docan are two good examples in my experience. I have no idea if they are really nice people, but their interactions with me have been very courteous and they have chased things down for me that they really didn't need to. So I am more inclined to recommend them, and to make my next purchase with one of them.

It may be just me, but I also don't think there is room for sexist suggestions that we only develop these trusting relationships with women because we are guys. I mean.... come on.

It's pretty common in industry to develop relationships with particular sales people. It's how a lot of the procurement departments function - you have a good sales person, you meet them a couple of times a year (before COVID), wine and dine, keep everyone happy and the expectations on point. I can't imaging having to deal with different sales people all the time when buying raw material or electronic components for the devices we make...

I understand both points of view, even though I don't necessarily agree with both points.

upnorthandpersonal said:

It's pretty common in industry to develop relationships with particular sales people. It's how a lot of the procurement departments function - you have a good sales person, you meet them a couple of times a year (before COVID), wine and dine, keep everyone happy and the expectations on point. I can't imaging having to deal with different sales people all the time when buying raw material or electronic components for the devices we make...

I understand both points of view, even though I don't necessarily agree with both points.

Click to expand...

Sort of off topic but wanted to say Thank You for jumping in(to the frying pan) as a Moderator.

Horsefly said:

@Will Prowse I don't take issue with most of your policy on this stuff, although I personally wish the vendors were still allowed here. As for the discussion with @RayfromTX about his video and individual sales people, I really do agree with Ray. I think it goes way beyond this particular hobby, and really has little to do with Chinese vs U.S. (or any other) vendors. My personal experience in my job and in my personal life has relied quite a bit on personal trust in individuals that I work with, and - at least I hope - I have given people reason to know they could trust me.

I do agree that it the company / vendor drives much of how good or bad a purchase experience can be, but we mostly only have interaction with one person. If that person doesn't see any reason to dig in after the sale and help resolve problems, your success relies on your luck and ability to elevate the issue. Even if you do elevate the issue, if the sales rep is not motivated they can still submarine the whole thing.

I don't even think it is just altruism either. I think there are some sales people that seem to recognize that if they really work hard to develop a trusting relationship with their customers it will get them more customers. Amy Wan @ Luyuan and Jenny Wu @ Docan are two good examples in my experience. I have no idea if they are really nice people, but their interactions with me have been very courteous and they have chased things down for me that they really didn't need to. So I am more inclined to recommend them, and to make my next purchase with one of them.

It may be just me, but I also don't think there is room for sexist suggestions that we only develop these trusting relationships with women because we are guys. I mean.... come on.

Click to expand...

Sexist suggestions? How so? Have you met any of these sales rep in real life? Companies use sex for advertising all the time to push more sales. Case in point is pharmaceutical reps, who I know personally. You have to be blind not to see this in action every single day. Post a video of you with one of these sales reps in the flesh. Personally, I do not trust any of these companies or sales reps, even if I have a good experience. Trust is not required here. If someone else has a bad experience, I will not disregard it because of mine. That is unfair and not logical.

I see that you want vendors present on the forum still. How about Ray and yourself and others create a message board or review site for these sales reps and vendors. Pay the hosting fees and manage it, and make $0 for your efforts. This forum is my way to help others for education, not pushing cells from china. I do not care about personal connections with some random sales rep. And these companies are mail forwarding companies in essence. The only person I care about are forum members, and their ability to access unbiased useful information, and that is it. I do not care about these companies the slightest, and there will be many more to come.

Keep in mind that if a companies head engineer wishes to post here with useful information about their product, they are free to do so. That is fantastic. And it would help their sales a lot. Having random sales reps who fill orders and make a commission, will not be allowed. Plain and simple.

I cannot believe how much trust and connection some people have to these random lifepo4 cell distributors. They are doing a fantastic job getting people to like them, that is for sure. If I were to think this way, my channel would fail, and I would be criticized to death. I would be seen as ignorant the moment someone has a problem. I am constantly trying to find something wrong with these companies or the products. Even if I really like a company, I am constantly looking for people making complaints about them. I do not care what the sales reps tell me, I listen to the actual customer. Just because I personally have a good experience does not mean the company is to be trusted.

@Will Prowse - I seemed to have touched a nerve, and I didn't intend to. I'm really sorry for that. I certainly don't want a different message board. Like I said, I am fine with your policy. I really do appreciate that you have set this forum up and keep it going. This is - by far - the best place I've found for virtually any of the topics that I am interested in for solar. Absolutely the best.

WYtreasure said:

Sort of off topic but wanted to say Thank You for jumping in(to the frying pan) as a Moderator.

Click to expand...

Maybe I should refrain from this though... I'm sure a lot of people don't agree with many of my opinions, and as a (newly minted) mod I probably should be more careful - none of what I say should be considered an endorsement for anything, one way or another.

upnorthandpersonal said:

Maybe I should refrain from this though... I'm sure a lot of people don't agree with many of my opinions, and as a (newly minted) mod I probably should be more careful - none of what I say should be considered an endorsement for anything, one way or another.

Click to expand...

Like I said "INTO THE FRYING PAN". Good luck.

With respect to commerce, I enjoy the non-commercial aspect of this ad-free forum. Ads, commercials, and commercial enticements are a reason I'm hesitant towards most forums as I just hate commercials, always have and always will. I understand it comes with the territory on some platforms and I take the hits while using them with the knowledge that the content I receive outweighs my perceived negatives in ads.

I suppose the line is drawn at whether this is a commercial or non commercial platform, and from what I've seen and what little time I've been around reading the forum (<3 years), that this is a non commercial private forum funded by private monies and donated time from the administrators/managers.

While I also enjoyed the "commercial" vendor section, I completely understand that it did not really mix with the nature and intent of the message board.

The suggestion that a separate forum board, exclusively pertaining to any and all vendors of various sorts, but paid for privately, would seem to fill the need of the people wanting the information/products "sold" to them. But commercial dealings have the intent to make money, and unfortunately it can be challenging to do such a thing when the enticement of money is involved.

That being said, there's nothing like doing the leg work oneself of finding vendors, and talking through messages with these distributors to really get the gist of what's going on. Anyone not willing to do that and take the recommendation of a stranger on a forum, is just being lazy, and really has no grounds to blame anyone but themselves and work it out with the vendor if things go south. This may seem harsh, but just because someone else has a good experience does not mean you will. None of the private purchase experience and recommendations are taken away from this forum anyway.

This is a DIY forum after all, one may be willing to truly "DIY" down to even the purchase of the most critical component.

upnorthandpersonal said:

Maybe I should refrain from this though... I'm sure a lot of people don't agree with many of my opinions, and as a (newly minted) mod I probably should be more careful - none of what I say should be considered an endorsement for anything, one way or another.

Click to expand...

My view on modrrating is this...

What I post in the forum has NOTHING to do with my status as a mod.

Agree, disagree, insult whatever. Zero topic posts from me are moderator related.

My mod posts are in private message.
That way, anybody can feel comfortable disagreeing with me no punishment will be forthcoming.

Heck, I can be a jerk sometimes... I get mad, I lean one way or the other on tons of topics... I have seen what happens when moderation dips into personal views... it ain't pretty...