OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Seems like it was just a bonehead screw up and a shocking blindspot to the needs of thousands of Gambler customers worldwide. The owner of Gambler is a member of this forum. Maybe he will explain the reason he thought it was a good idea to invalidate these three rubbers.

$220 X 3

28) GAMBLER
001 Wraith In
002 Shadow In
003 Reflectoid In

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My whole set-up costs less than a sheet of Butterfly Dignics

I just remember now.I gave a friend of mine 2 sheets of Pogo about a year ago.He liked them a lot . He is currently using Pogo in his league.I have to warn him about the rubber not being able to be used after Dec 019 . Thank you Notbob for posting the information in the forum .

I don't think he will be happy and neither will many Pogo and Reflectoid users all over the world .This is betrayal ,folks !!

I'm sure there are many players who use BOTH Pogo and Reflectoid on their blade since they were major products of Zeropong and others. A lot of innocent players getting thrown under the bus here. Very unfair.

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My whole set-up costs less than a sheet of Butterfly Dignics

We at Zeropong are not trying to "stab our customers in the back" or "throw them under the bus" with our decision to allow Shadow, Wraith, and Reflectoid to drop from the ITTF list. We are not currently selling these 3 rubbers, and we are not implying in any way that they will still be on the ITTF list in the future. Here is some background on the situation:

In the past, several of our Gambler rubbers, including Reflectoid, were made at the 729 factory. We were having tremendous problems keeping any of these in stock, with wait times frequently being over 9 months on orders, with many delays. Additionally, we have been having quality issues with both 729 and DHS products, resulting in unhappy customers and returns. This is an impossible and impractical way to do business, and one we are no longer willing to accept. Our customers deserve a quality product that will be readily available, and if it does run out of stock, it should have a clear, reasonable time that it will be back in stock.

We are now focusing on our own Gambler brand of table tennis products. We have our own facility in China, including research, development, and manufacturing. It was mentioned that we will be using a premium Japanese sponge on our new product line, and this is correct! We are VERY excited about this, and we have some amazing changes and upgrades coming to Zeropong/Gambler in 2020! We will be announcing these changes in the beginning of the new year on social media and on our website. For those of you missing Reflectoid, we are considering adding a similar defensive rubber back into the Gambler lineup in the future.

Also, keep an eye on our Facebook, we'll be having another coupon on there soon - and if you are on the East Coast, we have the Gambler Competitor Open coming up 10/25-10/27 in NC with $1000's in prizes given out for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, including Gambler Bounties and a Hardbat Tournament - hope to see you there!

You have very valid reasons to discontinue those products. No one disputes that. The problem is because you wouldn't spend $220 to renew the ITTF approval, many thousands of players will now have to needlessly rip perfectly good Gambler products off their blades in two months to stay tournament legal. And any supplies they have stocked up on suddenly become useless.

I can't believe you don't see any responsibility to provide ongoing support for customers who have purchased your products.

I totally don't mind that these products aren't available for sale anymore. But customers do have a reasonable expectation to be able to use products they have already purchased as intended. That's why Butterfly and others keep discontinued products on the LARC for years.

Yes, yes, I know. Your response will be "Go buy Butterfly products then."

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My whole set-up costs less than a sheet of Butterfly Dignics

I agree that it's extremely cheap not to re-certify the rubbers but is this a real issue for the majority Gambler/Pogo users on this forum?

Not sure how it works in the US but racket inspection is a very rare occurrence here in Sweden even at the elite levels other than at pro tour events and nationals. I know people playing with rubbers that never would pass a racket inspection in division 1 (this is our 3rd division approx USATT 2300+ level) due to boosting/seriously old antis/sun treated pips etc.

That might be so, and it's probably very similar in AU and USA, but the great majority of players want to play with legal equipment on principle, because they feel like they're cheating, or open themselves up to complaints, if they don't use legal rubbers. So keeping the rubbers ITTF approved is very important to them.

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So, If we have not (Gambler) sold these many thousands of sheets of reflectoid where do you think they came from?

Right! A hostile factory in China has molds we paid for and are selling the rubber, so paying 220$ so a hostile factory can sell my rubbers is not the most fantastic business model.

We may re-design reflectoid under a different name however it is a horrible selling rubber, we won't even make the approval fees back.

Haters gonna hate, gotta love the forums.

Peace Love Pong

Tom

EDIT: Also should be noted since 729 has the molds we do not have the master to make the sheets for the 10 year re test, so we would have to take an old sheet apart and hope we get the mold exactly as it was made 10 years ago and make samples, submit them to the ITTF and prey they made it within the tolerance of the original master sheets sent in 10 years ago. If it was just paying a few hundred bucks I would do it.

This is comedy gold.

Zeropong comes on here and proclaims "We at Zeropong are not trying to 'stab our customers in the back' or 'throw them under the bus'" right after they stabbed their customers in the back and threw them under the bus. lol

And when said customers rightly complain, they're dismissed as "haters" rather than consumers who expect value for money.

Also if Reflectoid is such a bad selling rubber as you claim, why did you have to reorder it multiple times? And, why would you consider re-designing Reflectoid under a different name when that costs thousands in ITTF fees?

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My whole set-up costs less than a sheet of Butterfly Dignics

Alright, the situation is becoming clearer now after reading the extra information Zeropong added in his edit.

All we saw originally was…

1. Reflectoid disappeared from Zeropong website.
2. Reflectoid is dropped from the LARC.
3. We have two months to find replacement rubbers and then have to spend time getting used to the new rubbers.
4. We feel cheated because our rubbers are still good.

Bottom line is customers are getting the shaft. However, I’ll agree that it's mostly not Zeropong's fault. They should put a page on their website titled “What happened to Wraith, Shadow, and Reflectoid?”

By the way, I'm such a hater that I've used and recommended Zeropong products to hundreds of people for years and even have a Gambler shirt.

EDIT: It's confirmed that the ten year period is coming up, as Reflectoid, et all, came out in 2010. So in the final analysis, as usual, the ITTF is the ultimate culprit with their ten-year money grab b.s.

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My whole set-up costs less than a sheet of Butterfly Dignics

Long pips players are particularly sensitive to using legal equipment since we're often called cheaters, junk players, etc. We get criticized on this very forum for even talking about illegal equipment.

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My whole set-up costs less than a sheet of Butterfly Dignics

I have been wondering why we ,lp users, are being treated so unfairly across the globe. Why we are usually mistrusted and even called cheaters without anybody being able to prove anything .Why we are considered junk players and get criticized on forums for trying to improve the pip performance in a legal way, for example, outdoor tt or just finding the right combo .

Why, if we eperiment, it means we are going to cheat . This maybe the result of the colateral damage caused by the banning of the LP .

Did you miss the part where I said I cannot retest the rubbers without the master or the part where the factory who has the master is making rubbers and selling them without my consent?

Sorry you must get used to new rubber, E mail us and I will send you a poly envelope I will refund EVERY reflectoid you have on hand even used ones.

A factory stealing from a small independent is not comedy, it just sucks. I said I may try to re engineer it at our factory under a new stamp, I have messed with it a bit but the Japan contract is taking all our time until next year.


Tom

Did you miss the part where I said this unfortunate situation is mostly not your fault? Thank you for the kind offer to refund the rubbers. I didn't relish bringing this issue up because I'm a big advocate of your company and applaud your efforts to make quality table tennis equipment available at reasonable prices. I hope you have continued success with your new line of products.

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My whole set-up costs less than a sheet of Butterfly Dignics

Actually I will take 100% of the fault or responsibility.

In 10 years we will have do an entire new line, the popular rubbers will be re branded (the customers will be 100% informed of the re brand).

We decided not to participate in the 10 year retests, they are easy to pass for the big companies that make a master mold they don't use and put it on a shelf just for the test, we use our production mold, so what happens is in 10 years they can pass the ITTF but they have enough variance that they wont be exactly the same as 10 years ago, even worse if you wear out the old mold and have to have new ones made, they just won't pass, again they are LEGAL but they have small variance from the original and that fails them every time.

With the case of Reflectoid we don't have the formula:( we don't have the mold:( in addition the rubber is still getting made and sold under our brand

If we had the mold and the formula I would have already had a Reflectoid2 or whatever. For future 10 year rubbers I will have the formula so, making a new rubber in a Re brand will be easy.

In short it's not really the ITTF.. I Know the rules and just a craptastic set of circumstances that I cannot re make that rubber this second, and due to some intellectual property reasons I need it to drop off the list.

As far as the "love the forums" comment, that was a reference to calling us backstabbers and such, it was a dig at the internet in general, I can't imagine anyone here rolling up to me when I am running a tournament with my family and calling me a backstabber.. just internet silliness and I call em hows I sees them