PART 2: EXPOSING CORRUPTION - ruclips.net/video/8A7cykj0pCg/видео.html EK has threatened further legal action with Cease & Desists against some who spoke out, which led to this video getting made. GamersNexus has prepared all necessary evidence in the event a follow-up is required or if EK becomes further legally active. SUPPORT OUR JOURNALISM: Buy a BRAND NEW Copper-Plated Mule Mug on our store - store.gamersnexus.net/products/gn-copper-plated-stainless-steel-mule-mug-thermal-conductivity-of-copper Consider grabbing one of our 3D metal emblem pint glasses to go with it: store.gamersnexus.net/products/gn-3d-emblem-glasses Watch our prior investigative report on Artesian Builds: ruclips.net/video/L2xMi7inB28/видео.html
That looks like a cash crunch ahead of bankruptcy/restructuring... I have seen a few of these - people get desperate when their business is running out of money. Likely will enter the equivalent of restructuring / CH 11 in their country to salvage what they can of the business.
If I’m EK I’m sweating over that. They’re absolutely boned if they don’t make it right. HOWEVER if they fix everything and make measurable changes this could be the worlds easiest PR slam dunk
@upforellie not gonna happen unless EK full on sells to a new owner who completely removes all the executives and such, and basically rebuilds EK from the bottom up. As it is, there is 0 chance that the current management could make this even a score, let alone a slam dunk.
I am an attorney. I don't generally practice labor law. However, I can say that every state which I am aware of, including Texas, has a statutory provision that awards attorneys fees to successful plaintiffs (employees) in lawsuits for unpaid wages. If you are an employee and your employer has not piad you your wages for more than a month contact a local labor attorney. They will assess your case for free and if your case is viable they should take it on contingency. Contingency means that the lawyer will front all of the costs for the lawsuit and will be paid their costs fees by your employer in the final settlement or award.
it's Federal law. US Department of Labor and Industries. Filing a complaint will result in a federal investigator being assigned to the case and they will conduct an investigation and even pass on settlements etc . I know this because I've been through the process with an employer who flouted the FMLA laws. The L&I Feds take their jobs very seriously.
@@TheAddanz Labor law is legally kind of a weird mishmash of state and federal law. The FMLA is Federal Statute so enforcement and investigation is Federal. The Fair Labor Standards Act is also a Federal Statute that sets the floor for labor practices like the federal minimum wage, time and a half for overtime, and the forty hour work week among other things. Nothing in the FLSA prevents individual states from having stricter labor standards or penalties for employers in those states. This contrasts with most other areas of Federal legislation and regulations which generally preempts state law. An example of Federal preemption would be the FCC enabling act and its resulting regulation of the electromagnetic spectrum. Ultimately, I chose to refer to state law as it is generally the stricter of the two in the relevant area and if applicable would provide potential plaintiffs with more rights.
@@GamersNexus That was my hope in sharing. Too many people don't know that attorneys generally don't charge for an initial consultation and that many causes of action can be pursued on a contingency basis. This lack of knowledge really prevents a lot of people from exercising their rights and it's a shame.
I got some of my unpaid wages through the Texas Workforce Commission, it took nearly a month but they will get fined $1000 repeatedly for not responding in a certain time frame.
My good buddy tried to recruit me to the EK office to manage the production side and I almost moved from Hawaii to Texas to fill the role, what a bullet to dodge.
Yeah that's some seriously greasy/sleazy activity (regardless of how enforceable, it's the fact they even did it). That and 21:35 says a lot about the company culture.
NDA's are usually unenforceable and in this case can be used as toilet paper. NDA's are only even slightly valid if the company (EK) is holding up their end of the employment contract ie. paying their workers in a timely fashion, they are not doing that so can be told to **** off. They can threaten whatever they want, does not matter, they breached their contract themselves first.
I don't understand how they thought that would silence their employees. If a corporation started demanding I pay them $70,000 there's no way I'd stay quiet about it.
Lawyer here, and you are correct that there are legal remedies for nonpayment of salaries that could be quite severe for EK. Practically speaking, however, they are also not paying their taxes, which may suggest an impending bankruptcy (likely a chapter 11 reorganization since the company has underlying value). If they do enter bankruptcy, the lawyers, government, and employees will get paid first (likely in that order), assuming the US entity has the money to pay. A wave of employee litigation may speed up that bankruptcy, but really if they're not paying their taxes the writing is on the wall. I am curious what kind of illiquid investments led to this shambles, but the company culture seems to be a big part of the blame. Fantastic reporting.
Nobody knows if the company actually HAS any "underlying value". So it may not be Chapter 11 in their future; it could be "the big buh-bye", which is Chapter 13.
Great reporting, but as you infer, "blood from a turnip" is most likely the salient factor here. No amount of well-meaning rant, nor public outrage, can coax solvency from an insolvent entity.
That cease and desist letter to its employee who just wanted his pay to probably pay for food and other living expenses AND also the gall of them to ask the staff for $70,000 for NDA breaches; is so nauseating and disgusting I feel like puking. They rather spend money on a lawyer than pay its staff.
Aside from everything else demanding such ludicrous punitive payments ensures there is only one option - it's actually counterproductive if you *do* want the person to cease and desist from their activity. This suggests a very amateurish emotion driven response rather than lawyers that know what they are doing to protect a company
This sounds like an Arrested Development episode. EK saying all of their money is tied up in stocks, but instead of stocks in the traditional term, they actually mean warehouse stock of products they cant sell.
Look up the definition of 'stock' and see which meaning is listed first. Were you unable to piece together what stock was being discussed from the context?
@@scott9269 Stock as in 'shares' is not the "traditional term". Also, EK never said their money was "tied up in stocks", an anonymous employee said it was "tied up in stock", singular. You're the one having comprehension problem, buddy.
Worked in their Slovenian factory as Student. Attitude towards workers was disgusting, treated like rats pretty much. They never paid me for my work, only after i filed report against them. Not to mention their horrible security. They sent me private document of another employee including their exact amount earned, address,tax number, personal id number.
Are you able to send us an email? It'd be great if we could talk and maybe try to collect any documentation you may still have lying around. team at gamersnexus dot net to get in touch.
This does actually sound like a make belive. Or if you can actually prove it would be tbe first case I heard of. I actually worked there as a student. And treatment of workers & students by the management was great. Fruit baskets, extra brakes, no strict normative, inclusion coulture... Loved it. The biggest issue that I would have with EK treating students or workers were some individual other workers with chio oj their shoulder or feeling they are worth more...
@@NivalisJKK Unsolicited advice: When it comes to corporations, presume that things changed, not that the informant is lying. You are more likely to see the truth that way.
@@NivalisJKK Just because you "claim" that you experienced it differently, that doesn't make their claims less valid than yours. If they can provide evidence, then it'll be extra evidence of EK's behavioural pattern. Most people have worked at a company and seen how different people can have vastly different experiences. Don't dismiss something simply because it's not something you experienced.
As a small business owner, it is truly disheartening to see companies like EK engaging in such shady practices. There was a time when I had to sell my car, part with some of my belongings, and even take out a loan just to ensure that my employees and suppliers were paid. It was an incredibly challenging period, but I made sure that all bills, taxes, and payroll were covered.
you sir are a good person then. I'm currently dealing with a so called "employer" at a small business that is seriously delinquent on paying basically everyone, some of us for quite a bit of money and they keep trying to negotiate down the amount that they owe us despite some of the bills going back as far as September and October and because it's on a contract basis, the amount after the work was done was already usually less than minimum wage and a lot of us are facing financial ruin as a result and he literally just doesn't care. The world needs more small business owners with your mindset, good on you
I wish we could donate to the unpaid employees. I live in SoCal, so I’m broke AF, but at least my employer actually pays me. Steve, this type of reporting could make a huge impact on the lives of people who don’t have the resources to fight back. First RUclips membership I’ve ever forked out money for. This post alone is worth more than I could ever donate.
If we could verify a donation fund I'd be on board. I went 6 weeks without pay due to medical, but eventually got it once the paperwork went through. I couldn't imagine showing up to work for 4 months without being paid.
I ain't donating to any subdued employee that instead of complaining from the beginning seeing the boat heading to the rocks, he choses not to say anything and just take it until life becomes unbearable. Didn't see those employees caring for us when EK is charging £270 for a fiberglass CNCed block. if we (the suckers) pay for them and they get the money these employees continue doing what they were doing. Now, they can start and only(pc)fans and get donations.
10:30 Sounds typical retail death spiral. I used to run a niche car parts webshop, and would regularly get stuck for years with inventory no one wants (only to sell 100% suddenly, and not having enough units in inventory to satisfy demand -- to refill inventory, not to move anything again!). Ultimately warehouse growing in number with stagnant inventory, with no money to buy in demand inventory. It was still profitable on paper, but just not worth the effort. This is the reason some companies have constant discounts, offers, special deals etc. to move off dead inventory to make room for new more profitable inventory. This happens even in tech.
EK does exactly these massive discounts to clear old stock for many many years now, so its clear they have these kind of issues. Their products are good, not perfect, far from it, but good. The problem is financial management and leadership. I think a change in the financial, sales and management departments is something that could straighten them out... but yeah as the saying goes "the fish spoils from the head"
Knowing nothing about running a business, I wonder if the correct way forward would have been to downscale. I can't help but feel the management was trying very hard to make line go up for a very bespoke line of products.
@@GruntyGame I seem to remember hearing that the so called "profit" of a company has to be invested somehow, mainly by expanding the company and so on, or else the company has to pay taxes on it. This makes it so that companies try to predict how much profit they'll have, and start to invest in the expansion as early as possible, because if they wait, then in most cases it would be impossible to unload (investing in expansion is not just here's some money, go do it. You have to have time for contractors etc. to get around to it and all of that.) such a huge amount of cash that fast, so you make sure that it is already tied up, then when the company reports it's profits, the profits have already been spent. Thus is the cycle and this should keep making the line go up.
I follow GN and Jayztwocents but Jay's video came up on my feed first and while I was watching I was struck by a moment where Jay said (paraphrasing) "GN did a great video on what's happening, go watch their video first and then come back" and the general respect he demonstrated for Steve really shows his and GN's prominence and commitment to accuracy in the field. I hate seeing stories like this, because of what the people in them are going through, but I'm given hope that there is a spark of light in reporting every time GN breaks a story like this.
Slovenian person here, employed in slovenian "computer dev" private sector for 2 decades. After seeing the LinkedIn list and the description of how these people behaved, I can only say you've experienced ""the "balkan" way the things operate"". Not proud of it and most of people will deny it; but in Slovenia, that saying goes. Things will not get better and in my country, the CEO will sack or get rid of the company, start a new one and rip people off some more AND debt will NOT! be repaid due to the laws here. He will do this simply because he can as there are no state level repercussions to it. It's a level of almost normal conduct in my country and while people try to flee from these practices, there are others who love them. Seems that was the case here.
Things WILL get better, but before they get better, they will get worse. Hang in there! Real price discovery and supply and demand of the people by the people for the people will return and be priority over wall street institutional ftd failure to deliver ponzi scheme criminality that is excellently represented by financial terrorist KCG in "Markets are efficient because of active managers setting the prices of securities, firms like Citadel, firms like Fidel.....lity (Fidelity) [...] trying to drive the value of companies towards where we think they should be valued." - Kenneth Cordelle Griffin, Citadel Securities, November 2023
Interesting. I can see that happening, though if he just spins up a new company in the tech field without paying his debts, he'll be hounded. So retaining any suppliers will be very challenging if not impossible. So I presume he'd probably need to go into a new field entirely for that to work.
I'm not shocked to hear this despite being disgusted. I'm not shocked because your country is not the only one where this type of despicable behaviour occurs. Even in countries where there are laws and regulations that should prevent this type of thing it still happens like here in the UK. I've seen it so many times in the UK and other EU countries that are supposed to have protections and rights for the workers. Usually over here when it happens the perpetrator will stand a good chance of ending up on a program like Panarama or Channel 4's Dispatches. Unfortunately though exposing the scumbags on documentaries doesn't often lead to an outcome where the people being ripped off get paid. Very sad in this day and age, very sad
@@russhulltx It's not a "Slovenian" company, it's Slovenia proper, you tried to mean "slavic" country? In that case, it's true for all eastern-central EU, also, workers are handled as speaking tools around here a lot of the time.
When I made a video on EK last year complaining about the same issue people got offended so I took down the video. Luckily they ended up paying me for my work…but it’s nice to see they are finally being held accountable. Good work Steve 👏🏻
Put it back up. And call the out people who bullied you into taking it offline. Could even do a recap of the video and cross-reference it with this one.
I dont agree. That might be the case, sure, but in my view I would argue allot of dishonest people will just mirror the charges to deflect. Oh, I am stealing?!? No, YOU are stealing... etc
Why do you think people willing to steal would be unwilling to lie and defame? Especially when they're in a country where this kind of thing is purportedly very common.
what always drives me insane bout stories like this? you KNOW every executive never missed a pay check, was never "postponed" , no bonus was skipped, no trip not taken... etc etc... Their giant checks are sent no problem but an hourly employee living check to check can't get their small little check. Its so disgusting. THANK YOU for sharing this and using your massive platform for good. I have always loved and respected the way you guys handle situations like this. No fear. no biased nonsense. just facts and fairness. We need more people looking out and protecting "the little guy" because we're getting stomped on these days. YES. To all you EK folks i can tell you Labor and Industries will have their a$$ or those OT hours. I went through something similarly when i was a kid working at a pizza shop. They cut our OT hours saying "they weren't approved" (but you HAD to stay to "close the store") and we got paid. They handled the entire thing and it went QUICK.
@@cgourin it is only for cold drinks, though. It is pretty clearly stated *IN CAPS AND BOLD* on it's page in the store. I assume it could be nice for cold drinks, so the whole mug is cold and nice to touch in a hot day.
My employer and by extension myself have had quite the struggle getting EK to be cooperative with us after making several purchases in the tens of thousands. We started distancing ourselves about a year ago. A lot of our difficulties with them are starting to make sense with this coming to light. Keep up the good work.
Also it's a much larger issue with rigged house of cards fraudulent financial systems and markets that replace supply and demand and real price discovery with "Markets are efficient because of active managers setting the prices of securities, firms like Citadel, firms like Fidel.....lity (Fidelity) [...] trying to drive the value of companies towards where we think they should be valued." - Kenneth Cordelle Griffin, Citadel Securities, November 2023
Steve, Just getting back into PC building after a 12 year break. When I stopped, EK was THE leader in water cooling. I had no idea this was going on with the company. I almost went with a full EK water build in my latest build, but noticed the price hikes and started doing more research into EK and what is going on. This video really drives home what I have suspected. As for GN, I have to say that since I have been back into the pc world, your channel has given me great insight on what is what with pc and tech in general. Without a doubt, watching you and your other reviewers, no BS, no sellout approach to interviews, reviews, and reporting on all things pc and tech has made me rethink a lot of things and helped me not only pick good product, but just learn in general what is going on in the industry. I just want to thank you and your team for staying real and giving me fully unbiased information. That, in this day and age, is worth more than you most people know.
This sounds like a standard case of HQ draining the sales branch for money, loading their debts on to it - with the intention to "go bankrupt" there and pay nothing, whilst moving out any profits into a safe haven at the other company. It's basically open fraud from HQ, which is why they accuse the sales branch of stealing. It is them stealing but they want to head up accusations they expected to arrive with their own. EK is done as far as I am concerned.
Agreed. I think most people don't understand how common this actually is. Asset and property transfers, adjusting who is technically holding inventory on the books, revenue adjustments, and even salary and benefit payments are often adjusted between entities to adjust tax liability to the tune of billions every year. Definitely sounds like EK through "management changes" and "property sales" is neck deep in doing the same sort of thing. I've seen companies who did something similar to this because they were getting sued and wanted to avoid a large damages judgement. Tanked the portion of the company responsible in the lawsuit by transferring assets to the parent company while piling the debt onto the company named in the lawsuit.
@@pirtatejoe It's their CEO who's doing it and it's pretty obvious why but each time I comment it disappears a minute later. I won't waste any more time on that. You can find it out yourself by looking into the behaviour and movements of Eddie K who is the CEO of EKWB. Where has he purchased property and who is he working with now? Google will try to hide it but it's easily found.
If journalism existed like this in the rest of the mainstream media, the country would be in the best place it could ever be. Keep fighting the good fight.
The reason they don't talk politics is the only reason they haven't been silenced. There's a long history to prove just how very real, life threatening, and true that statement is.
@@aperson7624 This isn't just about politics... I mean everything now has been politically charge but I digress. There are next to no real journalist anymore, just people reading out statements on a situation or giving their opinion on it, nobody actually investigates things anymore.
Thats just investigative jouralism. You rarely see it on CNN and never on Fox, but you still get this sometimes in print media like the Washington Post. You even get it in video format from shows like Last Week Tonight. There are pleny of good journalists out there, they just aren't on the 24/7 news channels.
This isn't the business, this is the owner fraudulently bankrupting the sales branch whilst loading all his debts there. He is already likely working for the Chinese supplier whom will be buying the information he is bringing with him - whist leaving all the debts with the sales office in the US and never paying the staff or the debts down. This is standard CCP style trading.
The problem with most financial reporting is that they're not journalists like Gamer's Nexus. Almost all major financial publications exist to manipulate investors and markets. People like Jim Cramer have never been honest their entire career, but it's not like they're shooting from the hip. It's because they're trying to get _you_ to shoot from the hip based on what they report. The fundamentals of a company don't even matter anymore. They write the articles and the narratives days beforehand and just input the numbers once they're reported. You get weird articles and headlines like "Netflix is poised to do better than ever! [stock numbers pop up on screen showing double-digit drop in value]" It's a last-ditch effort to get you to buy in while insiders dump their shares and run for the hills.
What if the business in question is the State and it's actions removed a trillion USD from NASDAQ so far?! If you are an American, you should care about this more, a lot more. Well, it's not like anyone can do anything about it, it's irreversible at this point...
@@Ludak021 I'm English, but I do care about this. Just I have seen a tonne of CCP corruption over the last 13 years, every time I see Kanjis plastered all over a product and it's quality drops - I know what's up. Biden and Hunter are in bed with these guys though, how can you expect any different from anybody else when the President and his family are doing it? That's why he will lose the election, he is in bed with the worst scum on Earth and doesn't realise he is now one of them.
I currently work for the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. I may not be able to give legal advice but I would strongly suggest that any and all of those employees contact their local BOLI office. Wage recovery issues are largely handled at the state level.
"For EK's lawyers, who are inevitably watching this video, I have a message for you as well: We have everything. And we would encourage you to play nice and peacefully with the people to whom you owe money." Holy cow, this sent chills down my spine!
This is how regular media used to be. Used to be. But it stopped a while ago. And then had Paul Harvey who would tell the rest of the story everyone else was sweeping under the rug. And that's the rest of the story.
He knows the value in "In Tech Jesus We Trust". The minute he sells out that vanishes and he becomes just another "take it with a grain of salt" opinion.
Yeah.. If you compare any one top of their class to the whole class average, they perform better. Who would have guessed. Considering your obviously malicious bias towards journalistic media as a whole and thus being unable to give GN compliments without putting others down, it is apparent that you never were even near the top of your class. You have a lot to learn from Gamer's Nexus themselves. That is, be better by actually performing better and not putting your competitors down and defaming them.
Today in the news EK Water Blocks has shocked the tech industry with non-payment to suppliers, contractors and even its own employees with EK claiming it only temporarily lacks the money which it hopes to recover from. The cause of no money... You Guessed It, Frank Stallone.
Vanity fair has a HARD HITTING investigative journalism team that do in depth reporting. So does Rolling Stone and lots of 'why them' mags. It's where real reporters when as the 5 biliionaires who control the doz media cos in US fired them to replace them with anything where a pretty talking head can get 'people' to 'emote' what they 'feel' about whatever it is.
As a worker, a "liquidity problem" is always either embezzlement or just the company not being profitable enough. Neither of them is likely to change, so you are better off finding another job. Then again, easier said than done in the current market. My sympathies to the good people working at EK.
yeah, once liquidity problems hit, it is beyond time to leave, things will not get better. I have first hand knowledge, not with EK but with these issues and it is never good to stick it out.
Disagree and not a bit of bad feeling for them. If you work without salary for months you can straight away be jobless as the outcome is the same. Secondly that slave mentality is enabling all this shitty employment, like no or few leaves, no or shitty hmo and other benefits. Or living of entirely from tips like servers do. So these people are essentially my natural enemies. Why should I feel bad for them?
I've known people who stuck with a company through nonpayment and the comapny eventually recovered but it was a close thing and lots of issues. The only ones that tend to stick with it are the ones on a work visa where they get kicked out of the country if they are unemployed for 30 days,... very exploitative.
Or its just greedy ass managers and money people that subscribed to the "cut corners, fuck customers, for profit" doctrine, having totally lost sight of the zeitgeist of their customers and the market, not understanding that is exactly how you enter a death spiral as a business. Obsession with endless growth has destroyed so many good brands.
It's these little things that add to GNs reputation. Especially because it doesn't feel forced or artificial. Just like someone thought it would be funny and IT IS.
The RMA techs I dealt with at EK were the best customer service interactions I ever encountered. I'm shocked you all worked so hard while being treated so poorly.
Ever since primary Singapore distributor dropped EKWB products, we have been applying for B2B access for EKWB products. EKWB hasn't responded to both applications, but they've decided to notify a secondary authorized reseller of our application. This corroborates with EKWB culture mentioned in this investigative report - that the application is not treated in confidence. Possibly not requiring revenue with upfront payment too.
What's great about the Cease & Desist orders against employees is that the NDA's they refer to are likely null and void in most places given that EK has violated it's own obligations and the information covered under a NDA is also evidence/testimony in regards to their financial violations which are easily criminal in several instances.
Evidence/testimony clauses would only apply to criminal or civil investigations in official proceedings, not investigative journalism unfortunately. That said, whistleblowing is often protected when it doesn't conflict with national security in many western jurisdictions. I would probably agree that if EK aren't paying staff their contracts are probably on thin ice, particularly with former employees, but I'm not familiar with TX code.
I'm no lawyer, but I'm PRETTY sure that breach of contract doesn't nullify NDAs, that's why they're separate things. That would be insane if a company had a liquidity blip and had to delay salary by one business day, and therefore all their employees were free to leak all the business secrets.
As awful as the situation is for all the people being owed and potentially screwed, I cannot help but smile that we've come to the point where the thought of "GN is investigating us" is a thing that makes a company panic and scramble.
Ok I am frankly ASTONISHED that EK is not made-to-order. I mean yes, maybe have X units for the most moving SKUs on stock. I would expect the majority of the more obscure parts, especially board / GPU specific blocks to be cut to order when they are ordered. Outsourcing the manufacturing with such niche SKUs seems... moronic.
Yeah he kind of explained why they aren't in his video. They do not own their own manufacturing process, if you don't own that process you literally CANT be "made to order". As "moronic" as this seems the costs of those facilities, equipment, specialized staff, etc.... is probably in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Sometimes it is cheaper to just pay someone else to do it.
That's only really feasible if they are manufacturing (or at least machining) in-house. If they are subcontracting manufacturing work for a made to order business model the costs would be ludicrous. High quality machining is not cheap. If you can't get economies of scale with batch orders it becomes prohibitive for most businesses
It’s so sad what these companies are hiding in the shadows by pretending to be good companies. I’m so glad for you and your team to bring things like this light so we, the consumers have the knowledge on who we should spend our money with. All I know is I’m done with EK.
@PSYCHOV3N0M easily explained by autocorrect. You only need to press enter once to start a new paragraph by the way, not twice, for each separate line on the same topic...
Coming from Jay's channel for some context before watching his video. Absolutely crazy situation and I hope EK gets their shit together and gets they're employees paid at the minimum. Great journalism Steve.
I mean this happens all the time in the industry for really mundane reasons so not an indication at all really even if it was due to the current state of EK now
Not necessarily. People switch jobs all the time. Just look at the workerflow between AMD and Intel who are highly competitive. In this case it might likely have been a warning sign. But was there any prior indication or speculation?
I work at a retailer where we recently cleared aged stock of EK RTX 30 series and RX 6000 series waterblocks for $1.50 each, and it still took an entire two months to get them all gone. Most EK stock simply does not move, and many SKUs become utterly useless when the next generation of hardware rolls around. They're becoming a harder and harder sell, hanging on with their AIOs but barely.
As someone who has used a lot of EK blocks, distros, rads, and fittings in their builds, I can certainly see why. With air cooling getting much better and cheaper AIOs taking a chunk out of the market for water cooling, a company like EKs primary offerings is appealing to a much smaller crowd. I've been looking for an excuse to jump on the AIO bandwagon for my next build, and I think EK just made that breakup a lot easier.
Just wanted to come back and congratulate the team on 500k views. We appreciate you all at GN. Thank you for always being so Pro Consumer and giving us objective journalism.
As someone with a more business finance experience than he ever wanted, companies not paying partners for as long as possible is a common practice. I once sat in a meeting where a woman got the highest award in the company simply for deferring payments to partners for as long as possible in a period when market conditions made it extremely beneficial to bankroll your partners money as long as possible. I don't disagree that it has less immediate impact than not paying your employees, but.... I have to tell you; it has a major impact on the businesses that partner in good faith then need to pay their own bills. It's a disgusting practice, it is very intentional and unfortunately vendors that deal in good faith have to go it on their own most of the time because the initial supply contract is almost always in favor of the buyer and not the seller in a way that makes it very difficult to take legal action, they can only cut them off and hope that's enough to encourage a payment.
EK used to be a lot more niche but now they have a lot more mainstream products that I think they may have been the victim of their own ambition expanding so fast and so quick they end up rushing to their own grave.
Yeah, sounds like a tricky business. The amount of products you have to create to keep up with board changes within a product line is crazy... Nvidia has like 10 different graphics card models, and that's before partners get involved and rework those boards, and EK has to make products that fit all those, in when is already a niche market of custom high end watercooling.
@@volvo09 For the GPU cooler business it might make sense to become a board partner so that the PCB can be setup to allow maximum compatibility across the lineup. GPU waterblocks don't seem to have a big enough market to want to risk over producing.
@@FM4AMGV GPU manufacturing is probably even worse market to navigate than watercooling so I'm not sure if that would be smart move And Gpu blocks were already compatible with more than one line in given manufacturer lineup On top of that unless they would stop offering blocks for other companies you stil have the exact same problem as before just with added complexity of your own cards
Yeah they need to reduce their gpu and cpu lines, just stop making monoblocks period, target the big main stream graphics cards that move the most units or use the reference design and nothing else.
Just rewatched the saga of Artesian builds from a year ago. It would be most excellent if you did a followup on how things have panned out since then, particularly the poor souls who had RMA'ed devices stuck in the warehouse. That sucks to a colossal degree.
With a follow up on how Noah Katz, or whatever his new name is (I think he started using his mom’s last name now), is doing and if he’s still in a position to screw people over.
My father worked at a tram company. He was in charge in installation and repair of wiring system. Worked there for over twenty years. Back in 2013 the company faced financial difficulties and they didn't pay the workers for almost a year. They all sued the company through a private union, of course but they didn't get compensated for a long time. My father got all that money back last summer, after almost a decade. And since it was a collective settlement against the firm, they were each given a fraction of the money owed. Around 4000 euros minus attorney fees, and it should have been like 20 000e.
Fucking love Nexus, never unsubbing this channel. Lose a sponsorship? "We don't give a fuck...." Lose a product partner? "We don't give a fuck..." Lose advertisements? "We don't, give a flying fuck..." "If you're garbage, we will call you out on it!" "If you talk BS, we WILL call you out on it!"
_Loyalty inspired_ Lol it's cool to keep seeing GN do so well. Not so long ago it was basically Steve in his bedroom. This has to be my favourite Capitalism success story. Things done right long term, honour upheld, me happy :)
It's one of the few places on here where I can listen about new tech and know there has been effort to test and research it properly and showcase cool things and news, but not just see it count on clickbait or other nonsense, along with great pieces like these that expose things that most of us would not have known about, good pieces of tech journalism, so happy to see it be an established platform
@@nicolopez2181 You won't regret it. I subbed over a decade ago and haven't missed a single video. Steve is legitimately THE boss of RUclips final bosses. EK be afraid!!! Be VERY afraid!! Lol.
Thank you. You have a true code of conduct, and you respect it. Greetings from Romania. PS - I work in an Automotive company from my country. We had some financial issue inside the group of companies due to other plants that were cought "pants off". One of the main supplier from Korea contact us and told us that we can extend our invoices from 60 to 120 days if we need it. We never use this life vest. We payed on a 60 days timeframe as we should. Now they are consideder a partner and they are a supplier of choice for each new project. And the partnership will last for many years to come.
Standard practice here in North America to pay suppliers is 'Net 90' (pay in 90 days) with 'Net 120' starting to get written into purchase proposals years ago.
THIS is investigative journalism, not the reach arounds for money that you see on major news networks. What's brilliant about it is that you were born at just the right time to make this - any sooner and you might've ended up as a cameraman for a tv reporter; too much later and you might not have risen to YT prominence. Thank you, for everything that you do. I eagerly await the hit pieces and JTC's reaction.
Major news networks? What? You mean wall street owned media institutions that are financed by criminal theft is #1 primary source of defining English language word journalism and journalist? lol what? really? are we sure about that? What about supply and demand and real price discovery? Are we ftd failing to deliver on those? KCG, what do you think? "Markets are efficient because of active managers setting the prices of securities, firms like Citadel, firms like Fidel.....lity (Fidelity) [...] trying to drive the value of companies towards where we think they should be valued." - Kenneth Cordelle Griffin, Citadel Securities, November 2023
man this shit is crazy to me. the SECOND a company is late paying me a paycheck i immediately look for another job. if a company is ever late on paying employees that's a MASSIVE MASSIVE red flag that they're about to go bust or there is some insane shit going on behind the scenes. like paying supplies late is something a TON of companies do because it's advantageous for them to pay at the last possible second. but if they're late on payroll? oh hell no. i would be getting the fuck out of there as fast as i could.
Yeah, supplier payment delays is a game I have seen time before, so unless its was happening all the time, that's not too surprising, but missing payroll, is a massive "this place is about to collapse" moment for me
@@walkir2662yeah i'd give exactly two chances in any case (and with at least several months between). first month is an hr visit. second month is a two week's notice plus a formal legal dispute
I worked for a company in Tennessee and I was in the building when the TBI came in and investigated us for prior management shaving hours, it’s intense. You do not want to be on the receiving end of it. If you work for EK and they’ve done this- lawyer the hell up and get what you’re owed.
I stopped going to my favor local "mom/pop" restaurant because of how employees were treated. One guy had is overtime ripped off because "he needed to watch his hours" but in fact the owner called him in for several shifts extra. One waitress was she was being docked pay because a credit card transaction failed. I heard this myself. I found out my usual waitress, who had just quit, was forced to pay for a few items she gave us, such as a tiny cup of fruit to a small child because he was too hungry to wait for the rest of the meal. This all came out over the course of a week. I ate there several times per week and went at times it was not busy so I was not displacing another customer, meaning me not going actually was a sales loss. The owner trying to be cheap and save $50 cost her about $500/month in sales from me alone (not joking on that number). The guy with the overtime issue had gotten a labor lawyer. No idea what that cost the owner.
Steve could legitimately run for President, and expect to compete. He has always upheld great honesty and standards. Now who can say that at the moment? NOONE! Steve for Prez :D
@@Patrick-y4d1z he could create a new party called the Nexocrats and just reform the whole shit! Think about it, paid them all fairly, aka ten percent of what they're getting now plus they stop getting holidays on our tab. No more working for corrupt countries as spies, either do a good job or youre fired!! Steve would make America great again!! LOL.
half the reason they've got heaps of inventory is because they're utterly lost their fucking minds on pricing. I've been into watercooling for *ages*, I've got a cupboard full of radiators/blocks/pumps etc and EK's greed has utterly ruined the hobby for me. Expecting someone to spend nearly 50% of the RRP of a GPU for a waterblock is batshit insane. The most difficult and advanced manufacturing process in the world, compared to a slab of copper with some slots milled in it and you want to command 50% of the price? Couple that with GPU prices going stratospheric, which is causing people to go longer and longer between upgrade cycles, it's just a greed sandwich which is biting everyone.
I hope EK sells none of their recent collab with InWin, a $900 pc case that looks exactly like what you can get for under $200 from Lian Li. EK has lost its mind on pricing for at least two to three years. I have moved to other brands long ago. And they have better product for less cost.
I just want to say that I think gamers Nexus is a very important thing for our hobby, for the consumers, and to help keep companies in check, they are one of the best, not only at what they do when it comes to their testing and their content, But being a great thing for everybody involved, thank you all to the team at gamers Nexus.
THANK YOU! This investigative reporting is SO FCKING NEEDED in this industry, it is needed in ALL industries for that matter. Sadly there arent many GN like outlets that keep every industry in check by exposing bad actors.
I think it's funny that (some) RUclipsrs do better journalism than the major news networks do now a days. I know GN is more than just "RUclipsrs" but you get my point.
Most people just want money, so the majority of them will take EK's money at the booth every time instead of going out of their way to potentially lose connections and money exposing them.
Been pretty clear from just reports from the Water-cooling sub over on Reddit that EK has been slipping even harder than is usual for them. Not surprised even more is going on. Glad to see some light being shined on them publicly.
Was going to comment this. Charging an almost x2 premium fee for inferior products. Ironic how Chinese brands provide better quality for a decent spread of products. (Not everything, though)
@@triliner254 Even when EK started there were others in the arena offering similar quality, which for me at least EK was always nice looking kit but overpriced compared to other options. Everyone makes pretty nice stuff now and even the largest brands like Corsair or NZXT have offerings which I think perpetuated this situation. EK used to be THE premium brand, but the big dogs came and ate their lunch on blocks and AIOs which EK probably overextended on.
As a fellow Slovenian, this sounds exactly like how a Slovenian owned company that expands beyond their own realistic capabilities would operate. Yes, it's a culture problem. Slovenians are amazing inventors but dramatically bad with money. And I literally just (a month ago) built a new gaming PC with an EK AIO cooler, thinking how great it is that our little country has a global competitor in this segment and feeling I should support my fellow Slovenians over buying another brand... I hope they don't go under, my AIO is still under warranty.
No one is thinking this is a Slovenia problem. US companies screw everyone as a standard way of doing business. And most Influencers are already on the take regardless of their country.
Your coverage on issues like this is why you're such an essential part of the tech industry. There are very few channels or outlets I can put faith in to deliver stories like this in such a comprehensive way. Never stop doing what you do.
Mark my words, Google will be talked into de-platforming Steve and GN as a result of this sort of journalism. If not by EK, then by some other, larger corporation with more sway. If Steve ever criticizes the US government that will be where this ends if it doesn't end sooner.
@@C4RP3_N0CT3M the thing about RUclips is that you are mostly free to do operate here, there aren't any laws being broken, and the "don't believe everything you hear on the internet" thing applies. You could unmark those words!
I was hugely impressed with how you took LTT to task last year, Steve. Your journalism and content in these EKWB videos are on another level. Love your energy and commitment to championing for honest business ethics within the PC industry. Kudos.
I see that someone at EK didn't get that when you internally charge to tax-dodge, you have to do it *post* labour, not pre labour. Siphoned too much money out of the different areas of the company at the expense of the staffers, before hiding it in offshore accounts and stock-buyback. What terrible people.
Well this ties in nice with my experience of these. Ordered 2 very expensive kits from them for a new build, they took so long to come newer processors had been released and my brand new but unused computers sat collecting dust. When they did arrive one had clearly been on a NHL Rink before shipping and the other was run over by the Zamboni, they refused to accept shipping damage, i attempted to return them for a refund, they claimed to never have received them, despite signing to say they did actually have them After 8 months of aggravation i just called the bank, explained the situation and they refunded it all immediately, 2 days later i get the snottiest of emails from them complaining., When i suggested they had committed fraud in the first place they stopped communicating Will never ever ever use there shit again
You never would have heard of them if it wasn't for Steve and his mates promoting brands with little due diligence, for profit. Now he gets to shit all over them again for profit. Teflon tech.
@@Melbourne-s4x I was using EK long before water cooling channels were a thing mate. Not to mention i got 20 years on steve and jay and been building computers on the whole for a better part of 40 years
Why on Earth GN is the best journalistic team when other people are paid to do this job and they cant. GN team. Thank you for the support you are giving to the people behind the scene.
This is why Gamers Nexus is a step above all other channels. Steve’s understanding of business and to correctly and eloquently convey the whole situation. One thing I’d add, if employees aren’t being paid they should be going to their respective states department of labor and file complaints with their labor commissions. They settle that stuff real fast. Other businesses and independent contractors obviously have to find recourse through other means.
" They settle that stuff real fast."...depends on the State. In many States it is up to the (ex-)employee to prove HR wage-theft/hour-fraud wrongdoing, which of course, they do not have access to because generally it is not the HR/management (that has access to the books proving it) claiming wrong doing. Unless you have outright video proof of you on the job (and kept a journal of it contemporaneously) and coworker-witnesses with corroborating testimony, something like hour shaving you probably cannot prove (to a legal standard) to an administrative judge. unfortunately....unless, someone in management was so stupid as to write emails and leave evidence on servers ordering hour-fraud. Which is why most wage-theft cases go un-prosecuted, and why wage-theft is so rampant in the USA, particularly in low-wage occupations where workers cannot afford lawyers or can invest the time/effort to pursue wage-theft allegations. And further getting resolution can take a year+, even if an administrative judge finds damning proof and renders fault. That being said, mad kudos to @gamersnexus and Steve for this reporting. Definitely buying some more GN swag to support this journalism.
Recently I learned this company is from my country, Slovenia. I was positively surprised. Hearing such news now, I am not surprised at all. For years it was quite normal that the owner of limited liability company, when facing solvency and liquidity problems ( owing money to people) just went and founded another company. There were many cases of people never getting paid for their work. So it does not surprise me one bit. That is such a shame because Slovenians are quite entrepreneurial and the have good work ethics, but management knows what they can get away with in Slovenia, and they are misusing the rotten system.
This is a huge problem in Slovenia indeed. Ironically, the biggest issue w.r.t. not paying contractors, etc, is the government itself --- companies are horrible with late or non-payment, but government is even worse. (or at least it was even worse a few years ago, when I was [indirectly] involved in government contracts; things might have changed)
I am from Slovenia, not paying your workers and not paying overtime used to be pretty common tactic in bad companies with liquidity problems over here. These clowns make our entire country look bad!
In Germany, if you do not pay your employees, that is an immediate and almost automatic bankruptcy. Every employee has the right to get the last 2 or 3 months of payment from the government at the moment of reporting. This means for sure after 2 months at max a company WILL get reported by at least one of the employees, from that moment on the company has only a few days to pay the salaries or will be automatically be entering bankruptcy proceedings with an external monitor taking over the company. Not paying employees is the worst. And it should be treated as such.
You may be surprised how common this kind of behavior is in companies these days. There is absolutely no interest in building a sustainable, long lasting company. Its all about getting as much as possible out of it, as soon as possible. There is no honor or even consideration when dealing with employees. They are always expendable and apparently hiding issues is the path they want, not actual addressing them, no matter the cost. Its like a bunch of kids are running everything. Thats why I stay out of it as much as possible. I was stiffed on over $25k in OT, $10k in back pay, and 4 weeks vacation like 6 years back and thwre was nothing I could do about it. I just made sure I won't have to rely on other people like that again!
Sucks to hear. I have also worked for a couple companies who F'd me over. Unfortunately I see it more and more these days. People who want to make the most money in the shortest time possible.
That's enshittification / late stage capitalism. No company is interested in serving their customers or even their workers as it doesn't bring money short term
Steve, it always amazes me the type of stories that you are able to cover to include the amount of digging you do prior to even airing a report. The one thing I have always loved about your channel/sit is that you vet what you are going to run a story on and aren't afraid to go with the information once you've vetted it. If only more journalist could have such integrity with their reporting. Thanks for doing what you do, Steve.
Exactly - shut up and take my money! I'll always support every form of independent journalism that is looking out for the little guys wherever I see it. MOAR!
Regarding the "Paid Coverage" bit: I continue to credit you and the rest of the GN team for showing that you can run a business ethically and be profitable. No doubt, you guys could sell your principals and make SO much money, but everyday, you show that integrity in business and journalism are so valuable. I appreciate you so much!
Tragedy seeing a big company go down like this, because the employees of EK and small material supplier companies will lose out the most. Great coverage GN Team.
Thanks for standing up for the affected. Sidenote: At 33:01 There's a misunderstanding of the meaning of "beyond reproach" - it's a good thing, but was said as if it's a negative. "Beyond the Pale" fits in that context.
What a coincidence, I questioned EK’s liquidity after Jayz video about that useless waterblock distro reservoir. It had so many custom parts and they made it in two different sku colors, like this is insanely niche product that “nobody will ever get” and so much effort went into the wrong place….
And in same video there was discussion about fittings, not the parts just the fittings being more than decentish air cooler... Like what is up with the price too.
This is scary. The fact that there were staff who were not paid for over 3 months is absurd. Most of America can't even last for more than a month without a paycheck. The fact that they would mistreat and downright threaten staff is astounding. It's crazy that there is still no real serious IT workers union. Call center and IT support folks get treated terribly all the time for the past 20 years that I've been in the industry. Thanks for doing this story Steve!.
As someone who lives a few kilometers from EK headquarters, i encourage anyone affected by the things discussed it the video, do not let them get away with it! Seek legal action if need be; we do not need this toxic company culture here in Slovenia and we do not need to export the toxicity either.
as a Slovenian. this is a common practice in our companies. Workers receive the minimum wage. We are treated like 3rd class workers. We work more than the contract in order to at least get an incentive, but even that is a maximum of 3 percent of the basic salary. if there was no minimum wage law, they would give us even less.
Minimum wage stole your chance of negotiating your wages. Also employer gets taxed a huge amount and then also the employee. Then we have a shitload of people on social service money ,people who dont work for 10 years because whole families apply to it and get same payout as those who work. It's insane how much we protect the lazy. However it is very rare that a company has the balls to not pay wages here because sanctions are pretty severe here.
@CH-cc4lf I run a small custom build shop I use EK exclusively, Or I used too. I repaired the leaks. Simple brazing far easier and faster than dealing with their returns dept.
To be fair, they have kinda always been that way. They aren’t the premium brand the price themselves at. They are especially bad at shipping. They don’t package well enough and they are very slow.
EK cease trading in 9 months Guaranteed a company in Beijing will open called WiKay selling EXACTLY the same stuff, manufactured there. And still have the same CEO. That guys so corrupt he makes Biden look like a saint.
You're asking a real question here. "I want to water cool my dog, I wonder if EK has a block for a wheaten terrier" *checks site* -Currently 19 in stock.
PART 2: EXPOSING CORRUPTION - ruclips.net/video/8A7cykj0pCg/видео.html
EK has threatened further legal action with Cease & Desists against some who spoke out, which led to this video getting made. GamersNexus has prepared all necessary evidence in the event a follow-up is required or if EK becomes further legally active. SUPPORT OUR JOURNALISM: Buy a BRAND NEW Copper-Plated Mule Mug on our store - store.gamersnexus.net/products/gn-copper-plated-stainless-steel-mule-mug-thermal-conductivity-of-copper
Consider grabbing one of our 3D metal emblem pint glasses to go with it: store.gamersnexus.net/products/gn-3d-emblem-glasses
Watch our prior investigative report on Artesian Builds: ruclips.net/video/L2xMi7inB28/видео.html
Oh boy, here we go again lol
That looks like a cash crunch ahead of bankruptcy/restructuring... I have seen a few of these - people get desperate when their business is running out of money. Likely will enter the equivalent of restructuring / CH 11 in their country to salvage what they can of the business.
Good video, but those thermal mugs.....
I have a gut feeling you are going to have a glut of unsold inventory of those ugly mugs.
This EK company.... is Donald Trump managing it? Their actions sound exactly like something Trump would do to his contractors and business associates.
Doomsday report is circling in the sky, waiting for the worst case. 😅
A company with WATER in its name should not have a luquidity problem.
who said that? Opinionated people? Someone makes big bucks because of this.
@@eugenijusdolgovas9278It’s a joke god damn it
@@eugenijusdolgovas9278 Making big bucks of what?? Reporting on the news and truth?!
@@eugenijusdolgovas9278 that was a joke, mate
@@damdibidum there's a story behind every silly joke, mate.
_"We'll see you at Computex. I'll be there. No takesies backsies."_
Truly *terrifying* words from Steve.
If I’m EK I’m sweating over that. They’re absolutely boned if they don’t make it right.
HOWEVER if they fix everything and make measurable changes this could be the worlds easiest PR slam dunk
@upforellie not gonna happen unless EK full on sells to a new owner who completely removes all the executives and such, and basically rebuilds EK from the bottom up. As it is, there is 0 chance that the current management could make this even a score, let alone a slam dunk.
Thanks Steve 👍
that’s going to be an event in itself, can’t say i’m not nervous for that video lol
Wonder if EK will even show up now
I am an attorney. I don't generally practice labor law. However, I can say that every state which I am aware of, including Texas, has a statutory provision that awards attorneys fees to successful plaintiffs (employees) in lawsuits for unpaid wages.
If you are an employee and your employer has not piad you your wages for more than a month contact a local labor attorney. They will assess your case for free and if your case is viable they should take it on contingency.
Contingency means that the lawyer will front all of the costs for the lawsuit and will be paid their costs fees by your employer in the final settlement or award.
Thank you for sharing. Hopefully this information helps some people in the audience or some EK staff, former and current.
it's Federal law. US Department of Labor and Industries. Filing a complaint will result in a federal investigator being assigned to the case and they will conduct an investigation and even pass on settlements etc . I know this because I've been through the process with an employer who flouted the FMLA laws. The L&I Feds take their jobs very seriously.
@@TheAddanz Labor law is legally kind of a weird mishmash of state and federal law. The FMLA is Federal Statute so enforcement and investigation is Federal. The Fair Labor Standards Act is also a Federal Statute that sets the floor for labor practices like the federal minimum wage, time and a half for overtime, and the forty hour work week among other things. Nothing in the FLSA prevents individual states from having stricter labor standards or penalties for employers in those states. This contrasts with most other areas of Federal legislation and regulations which generally preempts state law. An example of Federal preemption would be the FCC enabling act and its resulting regulation of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Ultimately, I chose to refer to state law as it is generally the stricter of the two in the relevant area and if applicable would provide potential plaintiffs with more rights.
@@GamersNexus That was my hope in sharing. Too many people don't know that attorneys generally don't charge for an initial consultation and that many causes of action can be pursued on a contingency basis. This lack of knowledge really prevents a lot of people from exercising their rights and it's a shame.
I got some of my unpaid wages through the Texas Workforce Commission, it took nearly a month but they will get fined $1000 repeatedly for not responding in a certain time frame.
My good buddy tried to recruit me to the EK office to manage the production side and I almost moved from Hawaii to Texas to fill the role, what a bullet to dodge.
An ex-good buddy?
@@av_oid I'd hope not. If the buddy wasn't complicit in this stuff and was only acting in good faith, then it's not like he should be tossed aside.
Butt buddy?
@@av_oid"an ek good buddy"
My guy Neo over here, showing off his crazy dance moves once again.
That cease and desist to a former employee is absolutely ludicrous
Yeah that's some seriously greasy/sleazy activity (regardless of how enforceable, it's the fact they even did it). That and 21:35 says a lot about the company culture.
NDA's are usually unenforceable and in this case can be used as toilet paper. NDA's are only even slightly valid if the company (EK) is holding up their end of the employment contract ie. paying their workers in a timely fashion, they are not doing that so can be told to **** off. They can threaten whatever they want, does not matter, they breached their contract themselves first.
Cease and desist is just a hollow threat. It means they aren't confident enough to serve notice.
@@BType13X2 especially US employees since the federal government came down hard on companies abusing NDAs and no compete contracts.
I don't understand how they thought that would silence their employees.
If a corporation started demanding I pay them $70,000 there's no way I'd stay quiet about it.
Lawyer here, and you are correct that there are legal remedies for nonpayment of salaries that could be quite severe for EK. Practically speaking, however, they are also not paying their taxes, which may suggest an impending bankruptcy (likely a chapter 11 reorganization since the company has underlying value). If they do enter bankruptcy, the lawyers, government, and employees will get paid first (likely in that order), assuming the US entity has the money to pay. A wave of employee litigation may speed up that bankruptcy, but really if they're not paying their taxes the writing is on the wall. I am curious what kind of illiquid investments led to this shambles, but the company culture seems to be a big part of the blame. Fantastic reporting.
Thank you for your additional insights from your field! It's always extremely helpful to see these kinds of posts and we read them closely!
Most likely the "liquidity problem" is actually a cover for a solvency problem.
Nobody knows if the company actually HAS any "underlying value". So it may not be Chapter 11 in their future; it could be "the big buh-bye", which is Chapter 13.
I'm guessing they invested in crypto.
Great reporting, but as you infer, "blood from a turnip" is most likely the salient factor here. No amount of well-meaning rant, nor public outrage, can coax solvency from an insolvent entity.
That cease and desist letter to its employee who just wanted his pay to probably pay for food and other living expenses AND also the gall of them to ask the staff for $70,000 for NDA breaches; is so nauseating and disgusting I feel like puking. They rather spend money on a lawyer than pay its staff.
They're probably hoping to get the 70k from them to pay the lawyers. 😎
@@Deathend and pay the suppliers 😆
@@Deathend next leak is going to be from the lawyers not getting paid for months :)
@@ioandragulescu6063based
Aside from everything else demanding such ludicrous punitive payments ensures there is only one option - it's actually counterproductive if you *do* want the person to cease and desist from their activity. This suggests a very amateurish emotion driven response rather than lawyers that know what they are doing to protect a company
This sounds like an Arrested Development episode. EK saying all of their money is tied up in stocks, but instead of stocks in the traditional term, they actually mean warehouse stock of products they cant sell.
Look up the definition of 'stock' and see which meaning is listed first. Were you unable to piece together what stock was being discussed from the context?
@@carcrashjayson just say you have absolutely zero reading comprehension.
@@scott9269 Stock as in 'shares' is not the "traditional term". Also, EK never said their money was "tied up in stocks", an anonymous employee said it was "tied up in stock", singular. You're the one having comprehension problem, buddy.
@@carcrashjayson take the L. Backstock, overstock, understock, etc. f off
There is always money in the inventory stocks.
Worked in their Slovenian factory as Student. Attitude towards workers was disgusting, treated like rats pretty much. They never paid me for my work, only after i filed report against them. Not to mention their horrible security. They sent me private document of another employee including their exact amount earned, address,tax number, personal id number.
Are you able to send us an email? It'd be great if we could talk and maybe try to collect any documentation you may still have lying around. team at gamersnexus dot net to get in touch.
This does actually sound like a make belive.
Or if you can actually prove it would be tbe first case I heard of.
I actually worked there as a student. And treatment of workers & students by the management was great.
Fruit baskets, extra brakes, no strict normative, inclusion coulture...
Loved it.
The biggest issue that I would have with EK treating students or workers were some individual other workers with chio oj their shoulder or feeling they are worth more...
@@NivalisJKK "Companies are good when they have bean bag chairs and more gay people"
@@NivalisJKK Unsolicited advice: When it comes to corporations, presume that things changed, not that the informant is lying. You are more likely to see the truth that way.
@@NivalisJKK
Just because you "claim" that you experienced it differently, that doesn't make their claims less valid than yours.
If they can provide evidence, then it'll be extra evidence of EK's behavioural pattern.
Most people have worked at a company and seen how different people can have vastly different experiences. Don't dismiss something simply because it's not something you experienced.
A true shame to see this kind of action from EK.
A few years ago they were the uncontested kings of watercooling at least by reputation, a real shame indeed
👍
Declaring bankruptcy would give them the room to break the cycle.
who's EK? you mean the ceo and the cfo and the lawyer who's helping them
meh imo EK has always been a problematic company, like Razer
As a small business owner, it is truly disheartening to see companies like EK engaging in such shady practices. There was a time when I had to sell my car, part with some of my belongings, and even take out a loan just to ensure that my employees and suppliers were paid. It was an incredibly challenging period, but I made sure that all bills, taxes, and payroll were covered.
@@velyris no
I hope your company is doing well now
you sir are a good person then. I'm currently dealing with a so called "employer" at a small business that is seriously delinquent on paying basically everyone, some of us for quite a bit of money and they keep trying to negotiate down the amount that they owe us despite some of the bills going back as far as September and October and because it's on a contract basis, the amount after the work was done was already usually less than minimum wage and a lot of us are facing financial ruin as a result and he literally just doesn't care. The world needs more small business owners with your mindset, good on you
@@velyris?
M8 you are better than all big american companies...they try every legal way to avoid taxes if they find a hole they directly abuse it.
I wish we could donate to the unpaid employees. I live in SoCal, so I’m broke AF, but at least my employer actually pays me. Steve, this type of reporting could make a huge impact on the lives of people who don’t have the resources to fight back. First RUclips membership I’ve ever forked out money for. This post alone is worth more than I could ever donate.
If we could verify a donation fund I'd be on board.
I went 6 weeks without pay due to medical, but eventually got it once the paperwork went through.
I couldn't imagine showing up to work for 4 months without being paid.
Well, move out of SoCal. 🤷🏻♂️
I ain't donating to any subdued employee that instead of complaining from the beginning seeing the boat heading to the rocks, he choses not to say anything and just take it until life becomes unbearable.
Didn't see those employees caring for us when EK is charging £270 for a fiberglass CNCed block. if we (the suckers) pay for them and they get the money these employees continue doing what they were doing.
Now, they can start and only(pc)fans and get donations.
@@chriscab8333”simply move” zero empathy OR critical thinking, do better
@@eawblablatron9161what an incredibly selfish and miserable take, no one’s asking you specifically but go off
10:30 Sounds typical retail death spiral. I used to run a niche car parts webshop, and would regularly get stuck for years with inventory no one wants (only to sell 100% suddenly, and not having enough units in inventory to satisfy demand -- to refill inventory, not to move anything again!). Ultimately warehouse growing in number with stagnant inventory, with no money to buy in demand inventory.
It was still profitable on paper, but just not worth the effort.
This is the reason some companies have constant discounts, offers, special deals etc. to move off dead inventory to make room for new more profitable inventory. This happens even in tech.
EK does exactly these massive discounts to clear old stock for many many years now, so its clear they have these kind of issues. Their products are good, not perfect, far from it, but good. The problem is financial management and leadership. I think a change in the financial, sales and management departments is something that could straighten them out... but yeah as the saying goes "the fish spoils from the head"
Yea, this is not good for EK's future viability. It's a shame, because their products are great.
Especially in tech.
Knowing nothing about running a business, I wonder if the correct way forward would have been to downscale. I can't help but feel the management was trying very hard to make line go up for a very bespoke line of products.
@@GruntyGame I seem to remember hearing that the so called "profit" of a company has to be invested somehow, mainly by expanding the company and so on, or else the company has to pay taxes on it. This makes it so that companies try to predict how much profit they'll have, and start to invest in the expansion as early as possible, because if they wait, then in most cases it would be impossible to unload (investing in expansion is not just here's some money, go do it. You have to have time for contractors etc. to get around to it and all of that.) such a huge amount of cash that fast, so you make sure that it is already tied up, then when the company reports it's profits, the profits have already been spent. Thus is the cycle and this should keep making the line go up.
A watercooling company has problems with liquidity, ironic.
I wish the best for the employees.
that's why gamer's nexus is the GOAT breaking news on something that affects the industry and customers
The PC industry cannot hide their misdoings from the all-seeing eyes of Tech Jesus
if doesn't name names it aint journalism if Cofeezilla can name names WITHOUT SPONSORS then GN can do better
@@RYOkEkENMy god be quiet. Once you “name names” it turns off potential whistleblowers in the future.
He also has a great lawyer to back him up
Channel is GOAT status for sure
I follow GN and Jayztwocents but Jay's video came up on my feed first and while I was watching I was struck by a moment where Jay said (paraphrasing) "GN did a great video on what's happening, go watch their video first and then come back" and the general respect he demonstrated for Steve really shows his and GN's prominence and commitment to accuracy in the field. I hate seeing stories like this, because of what the people in them are going through, but I'm given hope that there is a spark of light in reporting every time GN breaks a story like this.
Slovenian person here, employed in slovenian "computer dev" private sector for 2 decades. After seeing the LinkedIn list and the description of how these people behaved, I can only say you've experienced ""the "balkan" way the things operate"". Not proud of it and most of people will deny it; but in Slovenia, that saying goes. Things will not get better and in my country, the CEO will sack or get rid of the company, start a new one and rip people off some more AND debt will NOT! be repaid due to the laws here. He will do this simply because he can as there are no state level repercussions to it. It's a level of almost normal conduct in my country and while people try to flee from these practices, there are others who love them. Seems that was the case here.
Things WILL get better, but before they get better, they will get worse. Hang in there! Real price discovery and supply and demand of the people by the people for the people will return and be priority over wall street institutional ftd failure to deliver ponzi scheme criminality that is excellently represented by financial terrorist KCG in "Markets are efficient because of active managers setting the prices of securities, firms like Citadel, firms like Fidel.....lity (Fidelity) [...] trying to drive the value of companies towards where we think they should be valued." - Kenneth Cordelle Griffin, Citadel Securities, November 2023
Interesting. I can see that happening, though if he just spins up a new company in the tech field without paying his debts, he'll be hounded. So retaining any suppliers will be very challenging if not impossible. So I presume he'd probably need to go into a new field entirely for that to work.
I'm not shocked to hear this despite being disgusted. I'm not shocked because your country is not the only one where this type of despicable behaviour occurs. Even in countries where there are laws and regulations that should prevent this type of thing it still happens like here in the UK. I've seen it so many times in the UK and other EU countries that are supposed to have protections and rights for the workers. Usually over here when it happens the perpetrator will stand a good chance of ending up on a program like Panarama or Channel 4's Dispatches. Unfortunately though exposing the scumbags on documentaries doesn't often lead to an outcome where the people being ripped off get paid. Very sad in this day and age, very sad
My first thought after hearing this was a Slovenian company was "ohhhh that explains it."
@@russhulltx It's not a "Slovenian" company, it's Slovenia proper, you tried to mean "slavic" country? In that case, it's true for all eastern-central EU, also, workers are handled as speaking tools around here a lot of the time.
When I made a video on EK last year complaining about the same issue people got offended so I took down the video. Luckily they ended up paying me for my work…but it’s nice to see they are finally being held accountable. Good work Steve 👏🏻
Put the video back up. More messaging better hope for the employees or accelerate the collapse.
@@JosiahBradley I second this
Put it back up. And call the out people who bullied you into taking it offline. Could even do a recap of the video and cross-reference it with this one.
Put it back up.
Well since you eventually got paid, contract and NDA I assume are long since expired I see no reason you can't reupload the video?
From my experience in working for large companies - if two departments accuse each other of theft, they're both stealing.
I dont agree. That might be the case, sure, but in my view I would argue allot of dishonest people will just mirror the charges to deflect. Oh, I am stealing?!? No, YOU are stealing... etc
Why do you think people willing to steal would be unwilling to lie and defame? Especially when they're in a country where this kind of thing is purportedly very common.
what always drives me insane bout stories like this? you KNOW every executive never missed a pay check, was never "postponed" , no bonus was skipped, no trip not taken... etc etc... Their giant checks are sent no problem but an hourly employee living check to check can't get their small little check. Its so disgusting. THANK YOU for sharing this and using your massive platform for good. I have always loved and respected the way you guys handle situations like this. No fear. no biased nonsense. just facts and fairness. We need more people looking out and protecting "the little guy" because we're getting stomped on these days.
YES. To all you EK folks i can tell you Labor and Industries will have their a$$ or those OT hours. I went through something similarly when i was a kid working at a pizza shop. They cut our OT hours saying "they weren't approved" (but you HAD to stay to "close the store") and we got paid. They handled the entire thing and it went QUICK.
I love how the advertisement for the mule mugs had a person spraying them with water to make it look like they were cold and condensing.
Spraying water on the copper mug helps keep the beverage cool. 😆
It's water cooling!😉
Not sure why you would want a very conductive mug unless you like room temperature drinks or burnt lips.
@@cgourin I'm almost always through a drink before it hits room temperature anyways, and I like the feeling of a nice warm mug of tea in the morning.
@@cgourin it is only for cold drinks, though. It is pretty clearly stated *IN CAPS AND BOLD* on it's page in the store.
I assume it could be nice for cold drinks, so the whole mug is cold and nice to touch in a hot day.
Now I get to finally use the line I've been holding in for 2 years.
"Are you guys doing EK?"
Get out!
@@OnomereI second this motion
😮💨
@@Onomere 😂😂😂
That's a good one 😂
My employer and by extension myself have had quite the struggle getting EK to be cooperative with us after making several purchases in the tens of thousands. We started distancing ourselves about a year ago. A lot of our difficulties with them are starting to make sense with this coming to light.
Keep up the good work.
I see you, SoulFallen, and raise you stealing industry ideas discussed under NDA, and running full steam ahead outside of partner cooperation.
@@PaulFlart-MallBlart Umbrella...
Also it's a much larger issue with rigged house of cards fraudulent financial systems and markets that replace supply and demand and real price discovery with "Markets are efficient because of active managers setting the prices of securities, firms like Citadel, firms like Fidel.....lity (Fidelity) [...] trying to drive the value of companies towards where we think they should be valued." - Kenneth Cordelle Griffin, Citadel Securities, November 2023
Steve, Just getting back into PC building after a 12 year break. When I stopped, EK was THE leader in water cooling. I had no idea this was going on with the company. I almost went with a full EK water build in my latest build, but noticed the price hikes and started doing more research into EK and what is going on. This video really drives home what I have suspected.
As for GN, I have to say that since I have been back into the pc world, your channel has given me great insight on what is what with pc and tech in general. Without a doubt, watching you and your other reviewers, no BS, no sellout approach to interviews, reviews, and reporting on all things pc and tech has made me rethink a lot of things and helped me not only pick good product, but just learn in general what is going on in the industry. I just want to thank you and your team for staying real and giving me fully unbiased information. That, in this day and age, is worth more than you most people know.
This sounds like a standard case of HQ draining the sales branch for money, loading their debts on to it - with the intention to "go bankrupt" there and pay nothing, whilst moving out any profits into a safe haven at the other company. It's basically open fraud from HQ, which is why they accuse the sales branch of stealing. It is them stealing but they want to head up accusations they expected to arrive with their own.
EK is done as far as I am concerned.
Agreed. I think most people don't understand how common this actually is. Asset and property transfers, adjusting who is technically holding inventory on the books, revenue adjustments, and even salary and benefit payments are often adjusted between entities to adjust tax liability to the tune of billions every year. Definitely sounds like EK through "management changes" and "property sales" is neck deep in doing the same sort of thing. I've seen companies who did something similar to this because they were getting sued and wanted to avoid a large damages judgement. Tanked the portion of the company responsible in the lawsuit by transferring assets to the parent company while piling the debt onto the company named in the lawsuit.
@@pirtatejoe It's their CEO who's doing it and it's pretty obvious why but each time I comment it disappears a minute later. I won't waste any more time on that.
You can find it out yourself by looking into the behaviour and movements of Eddie K who is the CEO of EKWB.
Where has he purchased property and who is he working with now? Google will try to hide it but it's easily found.
Crazy how this kinda shit is legal.
@@ilikehiking its not legal
@@DailyCorvid Ah I see, my bad
If journalism existed like this in the rest of the mainstream media, the country would be in the best place it could ever be. Keep fighting the good fight.
The reason they don't talk politics is the only reason they haven't been silenced. There's a long history to prove just how very real, life threatening, and true that statement is.
You mean you can only express one sided political stances. @aperson7624
@@aperson7624 This isn't just about politics... I mean everything now has been politically charge but I digress. There are next to no real journalist anymore, just people reading out statements on a situation or giving their opinion on it, nobody actually investigates things anymore.
What country? Canada? Slovenia? The US?
Thats just investigative jouralism. You rarely see it on CNN and never on Fox, but you still get this sometimes in print media like the Washington Post. You even get it in video format from shows like Last Week Tonight. There are pleny of good journalists out there, they just aren't on the 24/7 news channels.
I want MORE business reporting done in this tone. Business does bad, TELL THEM THEY ARE BAD. Thank you for your hard work Steve and team.
This isn't the business, this is the owner fraudulently bankrupting the sales branch whilst loading all his debts there. He is already likely working for the Chinese supplier whom will be buying the information he is bringing with him - whist leaving all the debts with the sales office in the US and never paying the staff or the debts down.
This is standard CCP style trading.
@@DailyCorvid The owner is the business we don't live in a socialist country.
The problem with most financial reporting is that they're not journalists like Gamer's Nexus. Almost all major financial publications exist to manipulate investors and markets. People like Jim Cramer have never been honest their entire career, but it's not like they're shooting from the hip. It's because they're trying to get _you_ to shoot from the hip based on what they report. The fundamentals of a company don't even matter anymore. They write the articles and the narratives days beforehand and just input the numbers once they're reported. You get weird articles and headlines like "Netflix is poised to do better than ever! [stock numbers pop up on screen showing double-digit drop in value]" It's a last-ditch effort to get you to buy in while insiders dump their shares and run for the hills.
What if the business in question is the State and it's actions removed a trillion USD from NASDAQ so far?! If you are an American, you should care about this more, a lot more. Well, it's not like anyone can do anything about it, it's irreversible at this point...
@@Ludak021 I'm English, but I do care about this. Just I have seen a tonne of CCP corruption over the last 13 years, every time I see Kanjis plastered all over a product and it's quality drops - I know what's up.
Biden and Hunter are in bed with these guys though, how can you expect any different from anybody else when the President and his family are doing it?
That's why he will lose the election, he is in bed with the worst scum on Earth and doesn't realise he is now one of them.
I currently work for the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. I may not be able to give legal advice but I would strongly suggest that any and all of those employees contact their local BOLI office. Wage recovery issues are largely handled at the state level.
"For EK's lawyers, who are inevitably watching this video, I have a message for you as well: We have everything. And we would encourage you to play nice and peacefully with the people to whom you owe money."
Holy cow, this sent chills down my spine!
And you're not the person they are addressing this too 😭
pure Arrogance at this point
Doesn't take much to send chills down your spine eh
@@ZappBrannigan88😂👍
@@ZappBrannigan88 Needs a Gamers Nexus hoodie.
Steve consistently showing more journalistic integrity than the entirety of the regular media.
I trust Steve more than any newspaper or government.
This is how regular media used to be. Used to be. But it stopped a while ago. And then had Paul Harvey who would tell the rest of the story everyone else was sweeping under the rug. And that's the rest of the story.
He knows the value in "In Tech Jesus We Trust". The minute he sells out that vanishes and he becomes just another "take it with a grain of salt" opinion.
Yeah.. If you compare any one top of their class to the whole class average, they perform better. Who would have guessed.
Considering your obviously malicious bias towards journalistic media as a whole and thus being unable to give GN compliments without putting others down, it is apparent that you never were even near the top of your class.
You have a lot to learn from Gamer's Nexus themselves. That is, be better by actually performing better and not putting your competitors down and defaming them.
Sensationalism is not content.
Sounds like a Norm McDonald punchline:
"Waterblock company has...liquidity issues?"
After a 6 minute meandering story about a farmer and growing copper in his fields.
@@GamersNexus His wife really was a battle axe.
@@TheScyy I'm only here because the light was on.
You know, the more I learn about these EK guys, the more I don’t care for them
Today in the news EK Water Blocks has shocked the tech industry with non-payment to suppliers, contractors and even its own employees with EK claiming it only temporarily lacks the money which it hopes to recover from. The cause of no money... You Guessed It, Frank Stallone.
It seems that integrity in journalism belongs to comedy and gamers now. Steve, you're doing incredibly important work.
Vanity fair has a HARD HITTING investigative journalism team that do in depth reporting. So does Rolling Stone and lots of 'why them' mags. It's where real reporters when as the 5 biliionaires who control the doz media cos in US fired them to replace them with anything where a pretty talking head can get 'people' to 'emote' what they 'feel' about whatever it is.
Yeah the mainstream media have no such values. Atleast Steve does. It's nice to see that some people still care.
As a worker, a "liquidity problem" is always either embezzlement or just the company not being profitable enough. Neither of them is likely to change, so you are better off finding another job.
Then again, easier said than done in the current market. My sympathies to the good people working at EK.
yeah, once liquidity problems hit, it is beyond time to leave, things will not get better. I have first hand knowledge, not with EK but with these issues and it is never good to stick it out.
Disagree and not a bit of bad feeling for them. If you work without salary for months you can straight away be jobless as the outcome is the same.
Secondly that slave mentality is enabling all this shitty employment, like no or few leaves, no or shitty hmo and other benefits. Or living of entirely from tips like servers do.
So these people are essentially my natural enemies. Why should I feel bad for them?
I've known people who stuck with a company through nonpayment and the comapny eventually recovered but it was a close thing and lots of issues. The only ones that tend to stick with it are the ones on a work visa where they get kicked out of the country if they are unemployed for 30 days,... very exploitative.
Or its just greedy ass managers and money people that subscribed to the "cut corners, fuck customers, for profit" doctrine, having totally lost sight of the zeitgeist of their customers and the market, not understanding that is exactly how you enter a death spiral as a business. Obsession with endless growth has destroyed so many good brands.
~2016 AMD employees would disagree.
the spraybottle at the end of the "ad" really shows the integrity of this show, no tomfoolery
hahahaha
@@GamersNexus it does tho
they nailed it
It's these little things that add to GNs reputation. Especially because it doesn't feel forced or artificial. Just like someone thought it would be funny and IT IS.
So glad I wasn't the only one who noticed and thought the same.
Thanks Steve, as a former RMA tech I experienced alot of this with EK and im glad you came out with this giving us a voice.
Hope you've moved on to a way better job, I can't imagine dealing with that shit
The RMA techs I dealt with at EK were the best customer service interactions I ever encountered. I'm shocked you all worked so hard while being treated so poorly.
Ever since primary Singapore distributor dropped EKWB products, we have been applying for B2B access for EKWB products. EKWB hasn't responded to both applications, but they've decided to notify a secondary authorized reseller of our application. This corroborates with EKWB culture mentioned in this investigative report - that the application is not treated in confidence. Possibly not requiring revenue with upfront payment too.
22:02 I don't know what's funnier to me...EK trying to bribe Gamers Nexus, or EK thinking that it would only cost $2000.
Also trying to bribe when you can't pay your employees, why would anyone agree to a bribe when they can't even pay their public obligations.
They likely give more money, but since Steve initially expressed confusion, the dude figured he could offer him a lower amount.
@@justinwhite2725 You didnt watched the video or didnt listened to it. It was situation from the past.
What's great about the Cease & Desist orders against employees is that the NDA's they refer to are likely null and void in most places given that EK has violated it's own obligations and the information covered under a NDA is also evidence/testimony in regards to their financial violations which are easily criminal in several instances.
Evidence/testimony clauses would only apply to criminal or civil investigations in official proceedings, not investigative journalism unfortunately. That said, whistleblowing is often protected when it doesn't conflict with national security in many western jurisdictions. I would probably agree that if EK aren't paying staff their contracts are probably on thin ice, particularly with former employees, but I'm not familiar with TX code.
I'm no lawyer, but I'm PRETTY sure that breach of contract doesn't nullify NDAs, that's why they're separate things.
That would be insane if a company had a liquidity blip and had to delay salary by one business day, and therefore all their employees were free to leak all the business secrets.
@@BPL-Whipsterisn't TX code basically "You're obligated to give your boss your kidney"
@@bulletflight only if it's his birthday or he's wearing boots
@@BPL-Whipster leather jackets too
Texas resident here! Our great state does take that wage theft thing seriously. Wal-Mart even learned that the hard way here.
Texas and "great state" don't belong near each other 😂
@@Steve.._.liberal
As awful as the situation is for all the people being owed and potentially screwed, I cannot help but smile that we've come to the point where the thought of "GN is investigating us" is a thing that makes a company panic and scramble.
It's the tech industry version of 60 Minutes
If Steve doesn't go to their booth at Computex cosplaying as Columbo I'll be very disappointed
Ok I am frankly ASTONISHED that EK is not made-to-order. I mean yes, maybe have X units for the most moving SKUs on stock. I would expect the majority of the more obscure parts, especially board / GPU specific blocks to be cut to order when they are ordered. Outsourcing the manufacturing with such niche SKUs seems... moronic.
Since the GPU block I ordered from them a couple of years ago took so long, I assumed it was.
Fabrication is outsourced and have order quantity requirements. Having their own fabrication equipment would have been the smarter move.
Yeah, holding a gigantuan inventory you can't sustain with this unhealthy of a structure ain't it, some clear miscalculations were made here
Yeah he kind of explained why they aren't in his video. They do not own their own manufacturing process, if you don't own that process you literally CANT be "made to order". As "moronic" as this seems the costs of those facilities, equipment, specialized staff, etc.... is probably in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Sometimes it is cheaper to just pay someone else to do it.
That's only really feasible if they are manufacturing (or at least machining) in-house. If they are subcontracting manufacturing work for a made to order business model the costs would be ludicrous.
High quality machining is not cheap. If you can't get economies of scale with batch orders it becomes prohibitive for most businesses
It’s so sad what these companies are hiding in the shadows by pretending to be good companies. I’m so glad for you and your team to bring things like this light so we, the consumers have the knowledge on who we should spend our money with. All I know is I’m done with EK.
Wait until you find out about what Disney has hidden in it's closets.
@@harz426Its.
NOT it's.
It's = it is.
Wow - huge donation. Thank you so much for that, and thanks for the kind words. We'll keep bringing this content forward!
@@GamersNexus Just watch EK attempting to donate 2K to pull this video down. xDD
@PSYCHOV3N0M easily explained by autocorrect. You only need to press enter once to start a new paragraph by the way, not twice, for each separate line on the same topic...
Coming from Jay's channel for some context before watching his video. Absolutely crazy situation and I hope EK gets their shit together and gets they're employees paid at the minimum. Great journalism Steve.
When one of the main guys behind designing waterblocks at EK jumped ship to Corsair last year - That was instantly a red flag.
Is Corsair going to stop selling rebranded Bitspower and Hardware Labs stuff?
I mean this happens all the time in the industry for really mundane reasons so not an indication at all really even if it was due to the current state of EK now
Not necessarily. People switch jobs all the time. Just look at the workerflow between AMD and Intel who are highly competitive. In this case it might likely have been a warning sign. But was there any prior indication or speculation?
Too bad that I would literally rather get an eye injury than deal with iCue ever again.
@@ZeroHourProductions407 Same
Absolutely wild that they sent a cease and desist demanding 74k after not paying an employee.
I work at a retailer where we recently cleared aged stock of EK RTX 30 series and RX 6000 series waterblocks for $1.50 each, and it still took an entire two months to get them all gone. Most EK stock simply does not move, and many SKUs become utterly useless when the next generation of hardware rolls around. They're becoming a harder and harder sell, hanging on with their AIOs but barely.
Why the rejection?Do people fear watercoolers or are aircoolers too good now?
As someone who has used a lot of EK blocks, distros, rads, and fittings in their builds, I can certainly see why. With air cooling getting much better and cheaper AIOs taking a chunk out of the market for water cooling, a company like EKs primary offerings is appealing to a much smaller crowd. I've been looking for an excuse to jump on the AIO bandwagon for my next build, and I think EK just made that breakup a lot easier.
At which retailer might I find a $1.50 rx 6800 xt block?
@@lordpantsington I too would love to know
Same here. Where can I get a 1.50 waterblock. I'd be willing to shop for a card for it haha
Just wanted to come back and congratulate the team on 500k views. We appreciate you all at GN. Thank you for always being so Pro Consumer and giving us objective journalism.
As someone with a more business finance experience than he ever wanted, companies not paying partners for as long as possible is a common practice. I once sat in a meeting where a woman got the highest award in the company simply for deferring payments to partners for as long as possible in a period when market conditions made it extremely beneficial to bankroll your partners money as long as possible. I don't disagree that it has less immediate impact than not paying your employees, but.... I have to tell you; it has a major impact on the businesses that partner in good faith then need to pay their own bills. It's a disgusting practice, it is very intentional and unfortunately vendors that deal in good faith have to go it on their own most of the time because the initial supply contract is almost always in favor of the buyer and not the seller in a way that makes it very difficult to take legal action, they can only cut them off and hope that's enough to encourage a payment.
In my country they made a law that requires it be paid within in 1 month for this exact reason. Big guys not paying their small partners for months.
EK used to be a lot more niche but now they have a lot more mainstream products that I think they may have been the victim of their own ambition expanding so fast and so quick they end up rushing to their own grave.
Yeah, sounds like a tricky business. The amount of products you have to create to keep up with board changes within a product line is crazy... Nvidia has like 10 different graphics card models, and that's before partners get involved and rework those boards, and EK has to make products that fit all those, in when is already a niche market of custom high end watercooling.
growing businesses and failing businesses often have very similar optics. It's a tightrope for sure.
@@volvo09 For the GPU cooler business it might make sense to become a board partner so that the PCB can be setup to allow maximum compatibility across the lineup. GPU waterblocks don't seem to have a big enough market to want to risk over producing.
@@FM4AMGV GPU manufacturing is probably even worse market to navigate than watercooling so I'm not sure if that would be smart move
And Gpu blocks were already compatible with more than one line in given manufacturer lineup
On top of that unless they would stop offering blocks for other companies you stil have the exact same problem as before just with added complexity of your own cards
Yeah they need to reduce their gpu and cpu lines, just stop making monoblocks period, target the big main stream graphics cards that move the most units or use the reference design and nothing else.
Pieces like these are the biggest reason why the community needs you.
Few channels gets me as happy and hyped for a new video than seeing an investigative report from Gamers Nexus.
Hard to imagine that decreasing quality while jacking up prices in a non-monopolized market didn't work out!
While hearing this about EKWB is distressing and disappointing, I'm so glad that GN is doing serious, hard-hitting journalism. Keep up the good work!
Oh for sure. They are my go to for water cooling and they really make a good product. I hope everything gets figured out
steve is a rat
Just rewatched the saga of Artesian builds from a year ago. It would be most excellent if you did a followup on how things have panned out since then, particularly the poor souls who had RMA'ed devices stuck in the warehouse. That sucks to a colossal degree.
Great idea
With a follow up on how Noah Katz, or whatever his new name is (I think he started using his mom’s last name now), is doing and if he’s still in a position to screw people over.
My father worked at a tram company. He was in charge in installation and repair of wiring system. Worked there for over twenty years. Back in 2013 the company faced financial difficulties and they didn't pay the workers for almost a year. They all sued the company through a private union, of course but they didn't get compensated for a long time. My father got all that money back last summer, after almost a decade. And since it was a collective settlement against the firm, they were each given a fraction of the money owed. Around 4000 euros minus attorney fees, and it should have been like 20 000e.
Fucking love Nexus, never unsubbing this channel.
Lose a sponsorship? "We don't give a fuck...."
Lose a product partner? "We don't give a fuck..."
Lose advertisements? "We don't, give a flying fuck..."
"If you're garbage, we will call you out on it!"
"If you talk BS, we WILL call you out on it!"
_Loyalty inspired_
Lol it's cool to keep seeing GN do so well. Not so long ago it was basically Steve in his bedroom. This has to be my favourite Capitalism success story. Things done right long term, honour upheld, me happy :)
Favorite phrase for this: "Behold the field in which I grow my fucks. Lay thine eyes upon it and see that it is barren."
Reading this comment single-handedly made me like & subscribe
It's one of the few places on here where I can listen about new tech and know there has been effort to test and research it properly and showcase cool things and news, but not just see it count on clickbait or other nonsense, along with great pieces like these that expose things that most of us would not have known about, good pieces of tech journalism, so happy to see it be an established platform
@@nicolopez2181 You won't regret it. I subbed over a decade ago and haven't missed a single video.
Steve is legitimately THE boss of RUclips final bosses. EK be afraid!!! Be VERY afraid!! Lol.
It's gonna be hard to transfer heat from this one, EK.
At least when they've run out of liquidity.
Not a fan issue of this problem
The fans aren't running damage control on this one.
This is the one
They're already having that problem. +8-10C in comparison to watercool. :)
Thank you. You have a true code of conduct, and you respect it.
Greetings from Romania.
PS - I work in an Automotive company from my country. We had some financial issue inside the group of companies due to other plants that were cought "pants off". One of the main supplier from Korea contact us and told us that we can extend our invoices from 60 to 120 days if we need it. We never use this life vest. We payed on a 60 days timeframe as we should. Now they are consideder a partner and they are a supplier of choice for each new project. And the partnership will last for many years to come.
Standard practice here in North America to pay suppliers is 'Net 90' (pay in 90 days) with 'Net 120' starting to get written into purchase proposals years ago.
I’m thankful to follow RUclips channels like yours that keep your morals! Keep up the great work!
THIS is investigative journalism, not the reach arounds for money that you see on major news networks. What's brilliant about it is that you were born at just the right time to make this - any sooner and you might've ended up as a cameraman for a tv reporter; too much later and you might not have risen to YT prominence.
Thank you, for everything that you do. I eagerly await the hit pieces and JTC's reaction.
Major news networks? What? You mean wall street owned media institutions that are financed by criminal theft is #1 primary source of defining English language word journalism and journalist? lol what? really? are we sure about that? What about supply and demand and real price discovery? Are we ftd failing to deliver on those? KCG, what do you think? "Markets are efficient because of active managers setting the prices of securities, firms like Citadel, firms like Fidel.....lity (Fidelity) [...] trying to drive the value of companies towards where we think they should be valued." - Kenneth Cordelle Griffin, Citadel Securities, November 2023
man this shit is crazy to me. the SECOND a company is late paying me a paycheck i immediately look for another job. if a company is ever late on paying employees that's a MASSIVE MASSIVE red flag that they're about to go bust or there is some insane shit going on behind the scenes. like paying supplies late is something a TON of companies do because it's advantageous for them to pay at the last possible second. but if they're late on payroll? oh hell no. i would be getting the fuck out of there as fast as i could.
Some have because someone was stealing from the company.
Can confirm. Missing payday is never good.
Yeah, supplier payment delays is a game I have seen time before, so unless its was happening all the time, that's not too surprising, but missing payroll, is a massive "this place is about to collapse" moment for me
Only exception is when you just started in the job. In that case, make sure HR didn't just fatfinger your bank account.
@@walkir2662yeah i'd give exactly two chances in any case (and with at least several months between). first month is an hr visit. second month is a two week's notice plus a formal legal dispute
I worked for a company in Tennessee and I was in the building when the TBI came in and investigated us for prior management shaving hours, it’s intense. You do not want to be on the receiving end of it.
If you work for EK and they’ve done this- lawyer the hell up and get what you’re owed.
I stopped going to my favor local "mom/pop" restaurant because of how employees were treated. One guy had is overtime ripped off because "he needed to watch his hours" but in fact the owner called him in for several shifts extra. One waitress was she was being docked pay because a credit card transaction failed. I heard this myself. I found out my usual waitress, who had just quit, was forced to pay for a few items she gave us, such as a tiny cup of fruit to a small child because he was too hungry to wait for the rest of the meal. This all came out over the course of a week. I ate there several times per week and went at times it was not busy so I was not displacing another customer, meaning me not going actually was a sales loss. The owner trying to be cheap and save $50 cost her about $500/month in sales from me alone (not joking on that number). The guy with the overtime issue had gotten a labor lawyer. No idea what that cost the owner.
Thanks, Steve! (And everyone else at Gamer's Nexus. And the lawyer you consulted.)
Steve, you and your people are much better journalists than far too many professional journalists. Great job on this.
Steve could legitimately run for President, and expect to compete. He has always upheld great honesty and standards. Now who can say that at the moment? NOONE!
Steve for Prez :D
@@DailyCorvid
Steve is too competent and has too much integrity to be a valid candidate by either party.
@@Patrick-y4d1z he could create a new party called the Nexocrats and just reform the whole shit!
Think about it, paid them all fairly, aka ten percent of what they're getting now plus they stop getting holidays on our tab.
No more working for corrupt countries as spies, either do a good job or youre fired!!
Steve would make America great again!! LOL.
@@Patrick-y4d1z is a fake account
half the reason they've got heaps of inventory is because they're utterly lost their fucking minds on pricing.
I've been into watercooling for *ages*, I've got a cupboard full of radiators/blocks/pumps etc and EK's greed has utterly ruined the hobby for me. Expecting someone to spend nearly 50% of the RRP of a GPU for a waterblock is batshit insane. The most difficult and advanced manufacturing process in the world, compared to a slab of copper with some slots milled in it and you want to command 50% of the price?
Couple that with GPU prices going stratospheric, which is causing people to go longer and longer between upgrade cycles, it's just a greed sandwich which is biting everyone.
Everyone since the start of the gold coin has been looking out to line their own pockets.
@@johnniewalker3134 Idk, back when it was only bartering people still cattle-mogged their neighbours.
This! It’s insane how much liquidity they *could* have bundling this stuff for substantially cheaper.
I hope EK sells none of their recent collab with InWin, a $900 pc case that looks exactly like what you can get for under $200 from Lian Li. EK has lost its mind on pricing for at least two to three years. I have moved to other brands long ago. And they have better product for less cost.
I just want to say that I think gamers Nexus is a very important thing for our hobby, for the consumers, and to help keep companies in check, they are one of the best, not only at what they do when it comes to their testing and their content, But being a great thing for everybody involved, thank you all to the team at gamers Nexus.
THANK YOU!
This investigative reporting is SO FCKING NEEDED in this industry, it is needed in ALL industries for that matter. Sadly there arent many GN like outlets that keep every industry in check by exposing bad actors.
I think it's funny that (some) RUclipsrs do better journalism than the major news networks do now a days. I know GN is more than just "RUclipsrs" but you get my point.
Most people just want money, so the majority of them will take EK's money at the booth every time instead of going out of their way to potentially lose connections and money exposing them.
Been pretty clear from just reports from the Water-cooling sub over on Reddit that EK has been slipping even harder than is usual for them. Not surprised even more is going on.
Glad to see some light being shined on them publicly.
Was going to comment this. Charging an almost x2 premium fee for inferior products. Ironic how Chinese brands provide better quality for a decent spread of products. (Not everything, though)
Yeah when corsair is a better purchase you've fucked your shit up
Yep, havent been the same for a few years
For real. Literally barrow is better and billions of times cheaper.
@@triliner254 Even when EK started there were others in the arena offering similar quality, which for me at least EK was always nice looking kit but overpriced compared to other options. Everyone makes pretty nice stuff now and even the largest brands like Corsair or NZXT have offerings which I think perpetuated this situation. EK used to be THE premium brand, but the big dogs came and ate their lunch on blocks and AIOs which EK probably overextended on.
Recently just got my first AIO. I was torn between the EK Nucleus and the Arctic LF III, but went with Arctic. Seems like I made the right decision!
As a fellow Slovenian, this sounds exactly like how a Slovenian owned company that expands beyond their own realistic capabilities would operate. Yes, it's a culture problem. Slovenians are amazing inventors but dramatically bad with money.
And I literally just (a month ago) built a new gaming PC with an EK AIO cooler, thinking how great it is that our little country has a global competitor in this segment and feeling I should support my fellow Slovenians over buying another brand...
I hope they don't go under, my AIO is still under warranty.
At this point the warranty is about as good as yesterday's toilet paper. :/ :/
No one is thinking this is a Slovenia problem. US companies screw everyone as a standard way of doing business. And most Influencers are already on the take regardless of their country.
@jjkigtuznamo pa prekleto dobro svoje ljudi nategovat, tipična slovenska firma ki izkorišča folk, ne plačuje vsega tako kot jw treba itd..
That CEO of EK looks like a stereotypical Slovenian femboy meme lmao, my condolences.
Nooooo... my EK stuff is still in warranty...
Your coverage on issues like this is why you're such an essential part of the tech industry. There are very few channels or outlets I can put faith in to deliver stories like this in such a comprehensive way. Never stop doing what you do.
Mark my words, Google will be talked into de-platforming Steve and GN as a result of this sort of journalism. If not by EK, then by some other, larger corporation with more sway. If Steve ever criticizes the US government that will be where this ends if it doesn't end sooner.
@@C4RP3_N0CT3M the thing about RUclips is that you are mostly free to do operate here, there aren't any laws being broken, and the "don't believe everything you hear on the internet" thing applies. You could unmark those words!
Great work again, I guess I'll have to pony up a couple bucks for the outdoor grill season!
Enjoy the grill!
I was hugely impressed with how you took LTT to task last year, Steve. Your journalism and content in these EKWB videos are on another level. Love your energy and commitment to championing for honest business ethics within the PC industry. Kudos.
Dropped a $20 in the store donation as well as here. Thanks Steve for the excellence in journalism integrity. Signed,
Not EK CrazyLocha ☕🐢
I see that someone at EK didn't get that when you internally charge to tax-dodge, you have to do it *post* labour, not pre labour.
Siphoned too much money out of the different areas of the company at the expense of the staffers, before hiding it in offshore accounts and stock-buyback. What terrible people.
Surprised this doesn't have more likes. This is EXACTLY what's happened.
yeah! they should have just shit can people instead! :P
Well this ties in nice with my experience of these.
Ordered 2 very expensive kits from them for a new build, they took so long to come newer processors had been released and my brand new but unused computers sat collecting dust.
When they did arrive one had clearly been on a NHL Rink before shipping and the other was run over by the Zamboni, they refused to accept shipping damage, i attempted to return them for a refund, they claimed to never have received them, despite signing to say they did actually have them
After 8 months of aggravation i just called the bank, explained the situation and they refunded it all immediately, 2 days later i get the snottiest of emails from them complaining., When i suggested they had committed fraud in the first place they stopped communicating
Will never ever ever use there shit again
You never would have heard of them if it wasn't for Steve and his mates promoting brands with little due diligence, for profit.
Now he gets to shit all over them again for profit. Teflon tech.
@@Melbourne-s4xEK used to be great, same as newegg. they were coasting on their reputation until everything collapsed now
@@Melbourne-s4x I was using EK long before water cooling channels were a thing mate. Not to mention i got 20 years on steve and jay and been building computers on the whole for a better part of 40 years
Why on Earth GN is the best journalistic team when other people are paid to do this job and they cant. GN team. Thank you for the support you are giving to the people behind the scene.
You can't pay people enough to care about others. That has to come from inside.
This is why Gamers Nexus is a step above all other channels. Steve’s understanding of business and to correctly and eloquently convey the whole situation.
One thing I’d add, if employees aren’t being paid they should be going to their respective states department of labor and file complaints with their labor commissions. They settle that stuff real fast.
Other businesses and independent contractors obviously have to find recourse through other means.
" They settle that stuff real fast."...depends on the State. In many States it is up to the (ex-)employee to prove HR wage-theft/hour-fraud wrongdoing, which of course, they do not have access to because generally it is not the HR/management (that has access to the books proving it) claiming wrong doing. Unless you have outright video proof of you on the job (and kept a journal of it contemporaneously) and coworker-witnesses with corroborating testimony, something like hour shaving you probably cannot prove (to a legal standard) to an administrative judge. unfortunately....unless, someone in management was so stupid as to write emails and leave evidence on servers ordering hour-fraud. Which is why most wage-theft cases go un-prosecuted, and why wage-theft is so rampant in the USA, particularly in low-wage occupations where workers cannot afford lawyers or can invest the time/effort to pursue wage-theft allegations.
And further getting resolution can take a year+, even if an administrative judge finds damning proof and renders fault.
That being said, mad kudos to @gamersnexus and Steve for this reporting. Definitely buying some more GN swag to support this journalism.
besides that, I'm glad that GN does not even attempt to make any jokes in such matters.
Recently I learned this company is from my country, Slovenia. I was positively surprised. Hearing such news now, I am not surprised at all. For years it was quite normal that the owner of limited liability company, when facing solvency and liquidity problems ( owing money to people) just went and founded another company. There were many cases of people never getting paid for their work. So it does not surprise me one bit. That is such a shame because Slovenians are quite entrepreneurial and the have good work ethics, but management knows what they can get away with in Slovenia, and they are misusing the rotten system.
This is a huge problem in Slovenia indeed. Ironically, the biggest issue w.r.t. not paying contractors, etc, is the government itself --- companies are horrible with late or non-payment, but government is even worse.
(or at least it was even worse a few years ago, when I was [indirectly] involved in government contracts; things might have changed)
TBF system as whole is rotten all around globe. So yeah its just not fair too point out just our policies.
Rather standard for eastern Europe. It was the same in Poland for years. It's getting better now but still not enough.
It is a shame, but unfortunately it's a story all too familiar in Slovenia.
Slovenians great at innovation... just don't let us get anywhere near business management positions.
I am from Slovenia, not paying your workers and not paying overtime used to be pretty common tactic in bad companies with liquidity problems over here.
These clowns make our entire country look bad!
In Germany, if you do not pay your employees, that is an immediate and almost automatic bankruptcy. Every employee has the right to get the last 2 or 3 months of payment from the government at the moment of reporting. This means for sure after 2 months at max a company WILL get reported by at least one of the employees, from that moment on the company has only a few days to pay the salaries or will be automatically be entering bankruptcy proceedings with an external monitor taking over the company.
Not paying employees is the worst. And it should be treated as such.
As a fan of Copper mugs, just ordered mine. Happy to support the channel. Keep up the great work.
You may be surprised how common this kind of behavior is in companies these days. There is absolutely no interest in building a sustainable, long lasting company. Its all about getting as much as possible out of it, as soon as possible. There is no honor or even consideration when dealing with employees. They are always expendable and apparently hiding issues is the path they want, not actual addressing them, no matter the cost. Its like a bunch of kids are running everything. Thats why I stay out of it as much as possible. I was stiffed on over $25k in OT, $10k in back pay, and 4 weeks vacation like 6 years back and thwre was nothing I could do about it. I just made sure I won't have to rely on other people like that again!
Sucks to hear. I have also worked for a couple companies who F'd me over. Unfortunately I see it more and more these days. People who want to make the most money in the shortest time possible.
That's enshittification / late stage capitalism. No company is interested in serving their customers or even their workers as it doesn't bring money short term
Steve, it always amazes me the type of stories that you are able to cover to include the amount of digging you do prior to even airing a report. The one thing I have always loved about your channel/sit is that you vet what you are going to run a story on and aren't afraid to go with the information once you've vetted it. If only more journalist could have such integrity with their reporting.
Thanks for doing what you do, Steve.
Thanks, Steve!
My salute to Steve for having the guts to do this. You don't see reporting like this anywhere anymore. This is important work you're doing.
steve has no holds barred, and thats what this whole industry needs!
Exactly - shut up and take my money! I'll always support every form of independent journalism that is looking out for the little guys wherever I see it. MOAR!
This type of reporting is one of the biggest reasons on why I subscribe to this channel. Keep up the great work, GN
As always, GN out here with top notch journalism in the gaming / PC hardware space. Thanks Steve & GN team for this amazing video!
Back to you, Steve.
Oh, wow! Thanks for the huge donation. We sincerely appreciate it and thank you for the kind words!
Clairefay1934 what a nice gesture and donation. GN is the GOAT of the tech YT sphere
Regarding the "Paid Coverage" bit: I continue to credit you and the rest of the GN team for showing that you can run a business ethically and be profitable. No doubt, you guys could sell your principals and make SO much money, but everyday, you show that integrity in business and journalism are so valuable. I appreciate you so much!
You guys rock … this is an outstanding video … really appreciate that you spend the time to do these investigative videos.
Thank you for the kind words!
Tragedy seeing a big company go down like this, because the employees of EK and small material supplier companies will lose out the most. Great coverage GN Team.
It's not big, if has at most 50 employees.
Thanks for standing up for the affected.
Sidenote: At 33:01 There's a misunderstanding of the meaning of "beyond reproach" - it's a good thing, but was said as if it's a negative. "Beyond the Pale" fits in that context.
What a coincidence, I questioned EK’s liquidity after Jayz video about that useless waterblock distro reservoir. It had so many custom parts and they made it in two different sku colors, like this is insanely niche product that “nobody will ever get” and so much effort went into the wrong place….
Nobody will never get in the sense no one will buy it.
And in same video there was discussion about fittings, not the parts just the fittings being more than decentish air cooler... Like what is up with the price too.
Dont ride the white Pony
I'm also wondering how long until he drops them as a sponser now that this info has come out.
That thing is such a POS, not to mention the people they gave that thing to can all do proper bends or use custom distros.
This is scary. The fact that there were staff who were not paid for over 3 months is absurd. Most of America can't even last for more than a month without a paycheck. The fact that they would mistreat and downright threaten staff is astounding. It's crazy that there is still no real serious IT workers union. Call center and IT support folks get treated terribly all the time for the past 20 years that I've been in the industry. Thanks for doing this story Steve!.
As someone who lives a few kilometers from EK headquarters, i encourage anyone affected by the things discussed it the video, do not let them get away with it! Seek legal action if need be; we do not need this toxic company culture here in Slovenia and we do not need to export the toxicity either.
I agree, dude, but suing anybody here is really hard. My landlord has been embroiled in a lawsuit for over 20 years now. It is a messed up system.
as a Slovenian. this is a common practice in our companies. Workers receive the minimum wage. We are treated like 3rd class workers. We work more than the contract in order to at least get an incentive, but even that is a maximum of 3 percent of the basic salary. if there was no minimum wage law, they would give us even less.
Minimum wage stole your chance of negotiating your wages. Also employer gets taxed a huge amount and then also the employee.
Then we have a shitload of people on social service money ,people who dont work for 10 years because whole families apply to it and get same payout as those who work. It's insane how much we protect the lazy.
However it is very rare that a company has the balls to not pay wages here because sanctions are pretty severe here.
Me: "water cooling company has liquidity issue, how ironic"
My friend: "they're now EK water blocked I guess"
Knew something was up when they kept shipping me leaking rads!
Oof. Sorry. Did you finally get a good one or did you go with another brand ?
Multiple, lol...oof
@CH-cc4lf I run a small custom build shop I use EK exclusively, Or I used too. I repaired the leaks. Simple brazing far easier and faster than dealing with their returns dept.
Sounds like you need a Radaway
To be fair, they have kinda always been that way. They aren’t the premium brand the price themselves at. They are especially bad at shipping. They don’t package well enough and they are very slow.
Man I always wondered how EK was able to have water blocks for so many different cards with such low volume per block.
EK cease trading in 9 months
Guaranteed a company in Beijing will open called WiKay selling EXACTLY the same stuff, manufactured there. And still have the same CEO. That guys so corrupt he makes Biden look like a saint.
You're asking a real question here.
"I want to water cool my dog, I wonder if EK has a block for a wheaten terrier" *checks site* -Currently 19 in stock.