They CANNOT LEGALLY void a warranty because of a ban, it violates the 1975 FTC Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. they are setting themselves up for multiple lawsuits.
@@Spencer-wc6ewThe ftc told all game console manufactorers they weren’t legal in 2016, I believe Microsoft stopped including them. If they are still there they for sure no longer enforce them in the USA since 2018. When they were given 30 days by the ftc to comply or face escalation. Offically MS and Sony have self repair allowances in their warrenty. Much of the world does allow these stickers though including the EU so it is possible they may have been allowed to continue using them but not enforcing them.
Not to mention the fact that whoever is handing customer service has real mental health issues. Serious issues. It is like the management is literally high.
Exactly what I was thinking. Them blacklisting AMD for basically no reason (14:50 in the video) is all the proof I needed. They switched their favorite ad-hominem from "neanderthal" to "zombie" it seems lol
Reading the Malibal thread on reddit, other stuff that would get you banned from their website or purchasing their products and void warranty: people navigating their site using any Chrome derived browser or Google or Apple product or using gmail account to contact them can get you banned from their website. edit: searching the whole term & conditions page found they still have the google, chrome and apple stuff as bannable offenses, I thought they had removed it from the Banning section hence why I used the wayback machine, but it was much further down that page in a separate sections. But still excluding themselves from being archived makes it suspicious of them hiding changes to their terms Oh and they have the whole of state of California banned too lmao.
@@toshineonI wouldn’t say it’s useless. If someone’s motivated enough to circumvent it and minimally talented then yes, it is, but a lot of (for example) trolls don’t meet both those criteria.
@@johnt.848 Free speech is a right and warranty agreements are legally binding. But if he were to actually single someone out, blaming them for a policy change, publicly, on the company website, just because they want to return the product in accordance with the stated terms, he's looking at a hefty lawsuit for libel and harassment. As it is, he's already committed wire fraud by blocking people with warranty claims.
@Tw33zD but would you want to seems this company heard of Disney's Business model able to lose $140,000,000,000 and still continue on like nothing's happening.
@@remixedcat Why? Linux is for tech nerds who can install all the distros they want anyway. Literally nobody cares what comes installed because any Linux user is gonna wipe it and install their own flavor, tweaking the recipe to their own liking. If Linux people think offering it pre-installed will get more people using Linux, they're just as delusional as the guy drop shipping these overpriced white label laptops. Android, iOS and Steam OS are all Linux based and have excellent market penetration. And are as close as your grandma is ever going to get to a Linux experience.
yep and whoever is running the business doesnt know how the laws work in america im shocked this company is still alive despite the amount of shit theyve done
@@matteo_z to be fair i did not make it that far before making that comment but yeah that one will likely end up in a lawsuit so much faster that the warranty,
Malibal: *Provides terrible customer service* Customer: “What the heck is this? Your customer service is terrible!” Malibal: “HA! IDIOT! Don’t you know that Apple also has terrible customer service!?” Literally everyone: “…..wut? 🤨”
The response to people not having the 30-day return period honoured is exactly why chargebacks on credit cards exist. File a chargeback and sell the computer once you get that chargeback ;) When the CC company calls them to ask for their side of the story, calling them a zombie isn't going to work. Laughable.
@@ashurad_fox5991Shit, when I built my computer during the GPU shortage in 2022 the most I paid for my 3080 was $900 - even the 3090s and the TI models were much less than what this company is asking for (They were sitting at about $1500) This is just genuine highway robbery💀
Knowing how the situation with coreboot escalated, I wouldn't be surprised if after this video the whole state of Florida would be banned from buying their laptops. I'm... lost for words, I rarely see behaviour so stupid and damaging for the community around Linux-native laptops.
Without the whole banning aspect, it sounds like they’re trying to be ‘cool’ like dbrand but totally overshooting the sarcasm and deprecating remarks. However, adding in bans implies they think they are the person sung about in ‘Roses’ by OutKast.
They literally think the rules don't apply to them. Not even natural law, which is absolute and immutable. Natural law dictates that if you're a complete douchenozzle to people before they even pay you, your business isn't going to last much longer. It is the same set of laws that say if you jump off a cliff without a parachute, you die. As for avoiding warranty obligations by banning people from the website, that's something the FTC will have a lot to say about. At this rate, he's asking to be charged by the Feds with wire fraud because that's exactly what he's doing there. Committing a Federal felony by saying there is a warranty and then not actually having one. And doing it via the internet. Wire fraud. Warranties aren't free; the customer pays for the service. And, considering the pricing, he should be able to afford to just drop ship a new white label laptop. He could buy 3 laptops for the price he's charging for 1. So replacing it once wouldn't even put him out of pocket. I know a drug addict when I smell one.
I think ignoring the price just because "you dont have to buy it" is shortsighted, pricing HAS to be called out. Pricing trends are a thing, if one company can sell a product for X next think you know every company expects to also charge X for their similar product. IMO it should be the reverse, the cost should be justified, even if its "Well Company X has an ecosystem which may justify the cost to some people". "You dont have to buy it" just comes off as "haha you peasant, you have to look at the price.".
To be clear, we didn't _ignore_ the price. We called it out for several minutes. But there are TONS of companies with overpriced shit. I wouldn't bother making a video just to point this out with some brand I've never heard of. To your other point: there are far too many laptop competitors for something like what you're describing to happen. Even if several big brands colluded to "price fix" their products at, say, 2x the normal rate, there will always be others who see that as an opportunity to undercut and appeal to the masses.
@@GregSalazar Sorry, I didn't mean to make it seem like I was trying to call you out specifically you did an adequate job calling it out, I was talking more about the "you don't have to buy it" comment being used by consumers where the phrase holds significantly less validity, yet it seems to be gaining popularity lately. Also Price trends and price fixing aren't the same thing I wasn't talking about deliberate collusion, just the "I want an equal slice of this limited pie" corpo doctrine.
Their laptops are only worth what people are willing to pay for them. And considering the fact this guy drop-shipping white label laptops is going off on customers like that, my guess is not very many people are willing to pay the asking price. And he's alienating the idiots who would pay $6500 for a laptop.
@@Lurch-Bot That depends on how the individual defines worth, i would argue compared to anything in the same price range it isn't, you either lose performance, features, and/or inter-device compatibility. IMO the only people that could perceive these devices as "worth it" are people who buy branded things so they're better than the "poors" who cant afford them.
@@Lurch-Bot What’s the logic there? You’re telling me if you had all the disposable income in the world, you wouldn’t spend $6,500 on a laptop? If I had all the disposable income I could ever want I would buy the nicest laptop money could buy.
It's sounds like the owner is in a poor financial state and can't afford to honor their warranty, so he just berates people to make them go away...I have seen this happen in a quite a few small businesses.
The laptops are sold at crazy upmarks, lilely more than double the price the owner paid for them. He should be able to honor the warranty on every laptop purchased.
@@DustyHoney That's very lazy of you. Do some research into a company before you buy things instead of mindlessly enriching mega corporations that destroy the world.
First time I ever heard of them was in a video that explained I could not buy anything from them because I happen to live in the same country as one other person they had a bad experience with. A young computer company should be trying to get as many customers as possible, and here they are banning entire countries - millions of people - for a bad experience they had with one person. And then all the other things about them came out.
This guy is working hard at going to prison for wire fraud. You can't tell people there is a warranty and then not honor it by blocking the customer from even filing an RMA. The more egregious of the ethical sins is charging 3x the price he paid for these drop-shipped white label laptops but that, unfortunately, isn't illegal. But the whole issue with not honoring the warranty by blocking customers definitely constitutes wire fraud and you can get up to 20 years for that. Considering he is only screwing the general public and not the government or a bank, he'd probably get no more than 5 years. And possibly would only get probation if they take into account his obvious and glaring mental health issues and probable drug addiction. Still, 5 years on Federal probation is nothing to snort at.
Malibal is just a Chinese oem laptop frame with preinstalled Intel or AMD platform in it, with a branding on top, probably laser engraved. Tons of companies like that, XMG from Germany - they don't have a bad reputation tho AFAIK or System76 - Linux laptops, or many other companies.
LOL, as of yesterday Malibal banned all Reddit users. Also, you apparently aren't allowed to access their site via Android or iOS, but they have a mobile version for...some reason.
Yep, that's what good shipping gets you. The difference is pretty much just being flown in vs freighted, one is much more expensive than the other because fuel and maintenance costs a lot more on a plane per kg than it does for ships
Well the guy is unhinged actually, which is the owner. What you see here is the customer side, well there is the Coreboot case with MALIBAL, and how he treated the help he got there for free at first, and the the complaints about pricing as well. There is now also a rebuttal statement from Coreboot as well that is well worth looking into.
I had a similar situation with a local car dealership that sold me a vehicle that ended up needing 10k in repairs in the first year. I found this to be ridiculous even though it was used, and was compounded by them telling me its what I get for purchasing a used vehicle (it was a year and a half old, and I still paid a ridiculous price for it and should not have to replace major parts so soon after buying it). I wrote some reviews on google and facebook and got long-winded, literal lying responses on the reviews making me sound like an ass. On facebook, of 60 responses 58 of them were agreeing too. They also deleted comments from their facebook page that I wrote trying to warn people. Pretty crazy how companies can behave. Like we consumers have no right to share out experiences, or warn our communities about businesses that don't put their best food forward.
My mother filed a complaint after the THIRD time we took a vehicle to a shop for service and they a) failed to open on time, b) failed to open within an hour of opening time, c) the business phone was forwarded to the owner's cell phone, and he told us they were open, d) he hung up on my mother when she said it was a bad way to run a business, e) posted a fake ad on craigslist for "Free Baby Pygmy Goats" with instructions to "Don't bother calling, just show up," posted my mother's name, cell phone number, and Google Map to our house, f) responded to a Google Review from my mother about the entire above fiasco by claiming we had never done business there and how they had "given me a deal" when I had one specific vehicle serviced there, and he specifically mentioned "your son's red 1995 Mitsubishi Mighty Max" (but I thought we had never done business there?) - and you know what that "deal" was? He didn't charge me LABOR to replace the opposite wheel bearing from the one I requested be replaced, but I was still charged for the part (400% markup on a $27 part?!) that was replaced without permission. So lesson learned, don't leave reviews for auto shops run by petty jackasses; sorry I'm not driving one of the "barely-fixed-after-being-totaled" Audi, Land Rover, or BMW clunkers you're trying to sell, in a town where the median household income is ~$40,000.
In some ways, its great to also know the company will not ship products to certain US states or countries due their bad interactions with devs from AMD, and Coreboot. Also trying to benefit off people's work without paying (system76 and Coreboot), plus iirc they also won't sell AMD laptops because of their beef with an AMD employee for not doing work that hasn't be paid nor a contract agreed upon.
Worse thing is that there are so many non computer people out there that will buy this crap, blinded buy the price thinking what a powerful laptop they will get?
I saw the title and my mind immediately went back to that small mom and pop computer store that were trying to sue you or threated to sue you multiple times over something silly years ago. I cant remember all the details but I think they wrote you multiple letters of a threatening nature after you called them for bad business practises and they were also trying to take down some of your videos where you were talking about them. The good old days.
Everyone's concerned about how he can't void a warrantee or give refunds legally. I have a feeling this isn't this guys first rodeo. Don't worry, after banking enough cheddar, when the heat gets hot enough, he and his virtual company will simply disappear like a fart in the wind
I have to admit, I'm thoroughly impressed that a 5 yr old managed to build a business at all. Take some advice Greg... do not do any kind of business with that company. It will haunt you forever, even after you become a zombie :)
Wait did I miss you mention it or did not mention that this company will not ship to certain states simply because people who have been critical live there. They will not ship to Colorado because of a System76 engineer, or to Poland, Germany and Maryland because of Coreboot contributors
ASUS was like this in Algeria until they sold some new dead PCs to government, the ministry of commercial Confiscated all of their stock and banned the brand from the Algerian market
There's a very short list of companies I'd be prepared to hand over four digits for a consumer-class computer/laptop over and feel good about my choice, and Malibal isn't on it. Prior to 12 minutes ago, I'd never even heard of it, and I like to think I'm fairly in the know in this segment. Very curious where the only things I've heard now are horror stories. Sets a precedent for sure!
Just their smart-ass phrasing on things like that article about apple and the zombiegate thing proves to me that anything people say about them is likely not far off from the truth
Well, Voodoo computers was around back when building a decked out system could easily reach 12k. I remember doing that with Alienwares and Dell XPS systems back in 2004/5 during lunch at school and dreaming, lmao
I bought a custom Clevo from Malibal back around 14 years ago. Back then they were one of the better boutique whitebook customizers. It was a great experience back then. Sucks they went this way.
I met people that seemed JUST like this guy when I worked in the world of federal IT contracting. Some people just get REAL inflated egos when it comes to their "small business".
This exists because Clevo and rebrands do. The difference is that those have actual GPUs in the xx80 and xx90 classes, sporting 24GB of VRAM and multiple storage devices (3x NVMe for example.)
Damn, that list of banned countries and reasons for ban is Hellsing mangaka-tier acting, where bro straight up leveled London in his manga because of one bad customer experience in a London hotel.
The way the Malibal dude speaks in those emails reminds me of how scammers will type when they get called out. Weird, unjustified indignation and flaccid insults that I can only assume are approximations of some much harsher swear word in their native language.
Never heard of this company and while their prices would have made me look elsewhere on their own, i am glad this info has been shared so i will not bother even giving them a look.
Oh wow, the company was founded 20 years ago. Also read their T&C, and broke them by doing that. You may not visit the site using Google Chrome, any android device, Apple Safari or any apple device 😂
Man I bought one of these like a decade ago. The company was great to deal with back then and the pricing was competitive as well. Sad to hear about this.
Every time, I think that humans can not get any more disappointing. I hear something like this! How can people pay these prices without doing any price comparison?!!!! Use your pie hole people!!!!!!
Greg, you should look into lenovos practices as well. I bought something from them an hour after it released. Apparently it sold out. They showed it still available until I pointed it out and they sneakily took it down and are holding my money in limbo. What I wanted was a legion go controller connector and charger. They are telling me we can't tell you when you will get the product and my money is still in limbo.
And dont forget that this company also had beef with an official CoreBoot developer, back when they tried to commission a version of CoreBoot for their Laptops.
@@Nunya-oj2mc We haven't taken money from them in roughly 2 years IIRC. We will very likely run into NZXT products in our Fix or Flop and PCDC playlists. I can't control what other folks use. That said, I won't be actively seeking out their components for my _own_ builds until they make big changes. Didn't like what I saw.
i would not give any negative comments to you greg for wanting to help a business that has gone of the rails and needs a stable mind and voice of reason from someone with successful experience and knowledge of how to treat customers ... im sure you can teach whoever is running that company on how to get a good returning customer base ... i think the owner needs to do more customer research on what makes a good trustworthy business..
It's a shame really. I bought a laptop from them in 2012 and they actually had competitive pricing. I paid $1349 for an Intel i7 3610QM, 8GB ram, Nvidia GTX675M, 500GB HDD. I think that's roughly $1850 in 2025 dollars. I checked my email and they shipped within a month too. Oh, how they have fallen
This company is breaking one of the top rules of sales: Never denounce the competition. Customers do not associate the negative comments with the competition, they associate it with the one making the comment. Instead, a business should point out why customers should be spending money with them instead of the competition. This is terrible business practice by this company.
Don't know if it's mentioned yet, but these guys wanted to make a laptop running libreboot, an open source UEFI. They had no clue what they were doing and begged others to do it for them for free; after they got rejected and after a bunch of other drama, they banned entire countries from purchasing the laptops out of spite.
As soon as a business bans me, I know for a fact that they have delivered me a favor. People it is just this simple, if a business does desire my money they simply do not get it. I mean if my money is not good enough......I'll just ...keep it. Oooh.....The Humanity...... SIMPLE 🙂
It makes me think about the Mel Brooks film where they dupe multiple investors with a godawful musical. The plan is for it to close after one night so they can abscond with all the money. I take it the guy just received some major investment and is now trying to sink the company.
I may have missed it in this video but I believe they even banned entire countries. I'm not 100% sure but i think i saw another video about them banning countries like germany, just because they tried to work with a company, but said company, like the one here in the video, thought after a while it was too frustrating and not worth working with them. Maybe it was even the same company.
6:31 One of these days, they’ll push someone to *you know what* and will get sued straight to hell. Also, banning someone from purchasing your products and warranties for wanting a refund is complete bullshit.
Sounds like my and my mother's recent experience with Mint Mobile. That wouldn't refund us and tried to remove my PayPal from my account and told me to dispute it with the bank after 3 hours of chat. It took a month to get all the money back and probably 12 hours between chat and phone. There's a lot more to it but that's basically the TLDR.
Keeping a „clean“ supply chain, as in no human rights or environmental law violations, is extremely difficult. How is a one-man business able to ensure such a clean supply chain? It is not. So who ever the seller is, is basically just a scammer.
They CANNOT LEGALLY void a warranty because of a ban, it violates the 1975 FTC Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. they are setting themselves up for multiple lawsuits.
All it takes is one lawsuit, and the house of cards comes falling down.
actually they can, for they are based in china
Those "warranty void if removed" stickers are also illegal due to that act, yet nothing seems to be done about them
@@Spencer-wc6ewThe ftc told all game console manufactorers they weren’t legal in 2016, I believe Microsoft stopped including them. If they are still there they for sure no longer enforce them in the USA since 2018. When they were given 30 days by the ftc to comply or face escalation. Offically MS and Sony have self repair allowances in their warrenty. Much of the world does allow these stickers though including the EU so it is possible they may have been allowed to continue using them but not enforcing them.
Not to mention the fact that whoever is handing customer service has real mental health issues. Serious issues. It is like the management is literally high.
This sounds like one guy drop shipping chinese computers.
It really does seem that way lol😂
This sounds like AI gone rouge!!!
Hustle fail
Probably clevo oem/odm
100%
Sounds like the guy behind userbenchmark is the owner of this company.
100% 😅
Alternatively, an ex-Dbrand employee who was _too_ edgy
Exactly what I was thinking. Them blacklisting AMD for basically no reason (14:50 in the video) is all the proof I needed. They switched their favorite ad-hominem from "neanderthal" to "zombie" it seems lol
Lol, my first thoughts exactly. Definitely the same kind of delusional insanity.
nah, their anti-customer rants are way too sane to be him.
You cannot void a warranty because someone posted something on a forum you didn't like?!? 🤔
Correct, Warranties are legally binding, saying nasty things about the company does not negate that fact.
Reading the Malibal thread on reddit, other stuff that would get you banned from their website or purchasing their products and void warranty: people navigating their site using any Chrome derived browser or Google or Apple product or using gmail account to contact them can get you banned from their website. edit: searching the whole term & conditions page found they still have the google, chrome and apple stuff as bannable offenses, I thought they had removed it from the Banning section hence why I used the wayback machine, but it was much further down that page in a separate sections. But still excluding themselves from being archived makes it suspicious of them hiding changes to their terms Oh and they have the whole of state of California banned too lmao.
Well, when you're online too much you have to learn the hard way that blocking people is actually completely useless.
@@toshineonI wouldn’t say it’s useless. If someone’s motivated enough to circumvent it and minimally talented then yes, it is, but a lot of (for example) trolls don’t meet both those criteria.
@@johnt.848 Free speech is a right and warranty agreements are legally binding. But if he were to actually single someone out, blaming them for a policy change, publicly, on the company website, just because they want to return the product in accordance with the stated terms, he's looking at a hefty lawsuit for libel and harassment. As it is, he's already committed wire fraud by blocking people with warranty claims.
NZXT: I'm the big bad guy now.
MALIBAL: Woah~ I wanna grow up and be like my hero, NZXT.
lol
Accurate.
Same Company 😱 Different Dept like Nintendo and the Lawsuit Dept that pads Nintendo's Bottom line.
Well at least you could OWN the device you could buy from malibal
@Tw33zD but would you want to seems this company heard of Disney's Business model able to lose $140,000,000,000 and still continue on like nothing's happening.
how the heck all those scammed people even found this company in the first place? 99percent of us never heard of it
Cuz they were big in Linux circles for including several Linux distros
not anymore after they ban corebooths@@remixedcat
I do believe they were heavily marketed on social media as well.
@@remixedcat Taking advantage of the mentally ill, truly despicable
@@remixedcat Why? Linux is for tech nerds who can install all the distros they want anyway. Literally nobody cares what comes installed because any Linux user is gonna wipe it and install their own flavor, tweaking the recipe to their own liking. If Linux people think offering it pre-installed will get more people using Linux, they're just as delusional as the guy drop shipping these overpriced white label laptops. Android, iOS and Steam OS are all Linux based and have excellent market penetration. And are as close as your grandma is ever going to get to a Linux experience.
you cant void a warranty like that. someone is asking for legal trouble in the US with that one.
yep and whoever is running the business doesnt know how the laws work in america im shocked this company is still alive despite the amount of shit theyve done
You can't just block the user and "forget" the refund...
I'm not American, but surely it's illegal.
@@matteo_z
to be fair i did not make it that far before making that comment but yeah that one will likely end up in a lawsuit so much faster that the warranty,
Drop shipping white label laptops...probably a sole proprietorship.
@@matteo_z Yes, yes it is. Even in this land of laissez faire capitalist nonsense.
Maybe we can read this in the future:
"Because of Greg Salazar, we no longer ship to Florida..."
And then Greg can sue them for libel🤣
@@Lurch-BotTruth is an absolute defense against libel. And they wouldn't be lying, Greg would be the reason they wouldn't ship to Florida.
@@catlovingtrio Not even close to how libel works.
They haven't done it yet lol
This what happens when a narcissist thinks they can get rich from upselling a one-man dropshipping business as "boutique".
Yep. This sounds like a one man hustle gone wrong. There are way too many people out there looking for easy money.
Malibal: *Provides terrible customer service*
Customer: “What the heck is this? Your customer service is terrible!”
Malibal: “HA! IDIOT! Don’t you know that Apple also has terrible customer service!?”
Literally everyone: “…..wut? 🤨”
That's like the one good thing about Apple
I can say a lot of negative stuff on recent apple products today... but their customer service? that like the one saving grace of apple lmao
The list of US Air Force, Boeing, NASA, Genentech, Microsoft, and Bungie as customers. Somehow I don't think that is accurate.
I don't think having Boeing as a customer is a good thing.
@@canuck21 It would explain some of their problems, though
Bungie is about as scummy so that one wouldn't surprise me.
@@user-to1su2iy4d I'm a Destiny 2 player, know that all too well lol
Is they are selling to the USGOV, it would explain why they think they can get away with those prices.
The response to people not having the 30-day return period honoured is exactly why chargebacks on credit cards exist. File a chargeback and sell the computer once you get that chargeback ;) When the CC company calls them to ask for their side of the story, calling them a zombie isn't going to work. Laughable.
No one mentions, RTX 3050 for more than $6000, what is happening to this world?
For that same amount of money I will definitely buy a maxed out ROG Strix instead
That's like scalper level of pricing, what are they doing???
for that price, you can practically get a gaming laptop with RTX 40 series GPU here.
@@ashurad_fox5991Shit, when I built my computer during the GPU shortage in 2022 the most I paid for my 3080 was $900 - even the 3090s and the TI models were much less than what this company is asking for (They were sitting at about $1500)
This is just genuine highway robbery💀
Knowing how the situation with coreboot escalated, I wouldn't be surprised if after this video the whole state of Florida would be banned from buying their laptops. I'm... lost for words, I rarely see behaviour so stupid and damaging for the community around Linux-native laptops.
Without the whole banning aspect, it sounds like they’re trying to be ‘cool’ like dbrand but totally overshooting the sarcasm and deprecating remarks. However, adding in bans implies they think they are the person sung about in ‘Roses’ by OutKast.
Thanks for reminding me of that song, that's a real banger.
They literally think the rules don't apply to them. Not even natural law, which is absolute and immutable. Natural law dictates that if you're a complete douchenozzle to people before they even pay you, your business isn't going to last much longer. It is the same set of laws that say if you jump off a cliff without a parachute, you die.
As for avoiding warranty obligations by banning people from the website, that's something the FTC will have a lot to say about. At this rate, he's asking to be charged by the Feds with wire fraud because that's exactly what he's doing there. Committing a Federal felony by saying there is a warranty and then not actually having one. And doing it via the internet. Wire fraud. Warranties aren't free; the customer pays for the service. And, considering the pricing, he should be able to afford to just drop ship a new white label laptop. He could buy 3 laptops for the price he's charging for 1. So replacing it once wouldn't even put him out of pocket.
I know a drug addict when I smell one.
I think ignoring the price just because "you dont have to buy it" is shortsighted, pricing HAS to be called out. Pricing trends are a thing, if one company can sell a product for X next think you know every company expects to also charge X for their similar product. IMO it should be the reverse, the cost should be justified, even if its "Well Company X has an ecosystem which may justify the cost to some people".
"You dont have to buy it" just comes off as "haha you peasant, you have to look at the price.".
To be clear, we didn't _ignore_ the price. We called it out for several minutes. But there are TONS of companies with overpriced shit. I wouldn't bother making a video just to point this out with some brand I've never heard of. To your other point: there are far too many laptop competitors for something like what you're describing to happen. Even if several big brands colluded to "price fix" their products at, say, 2x the normal rate, there will always be others who see that as an opportunity to undercut and appeal to the masses.
@@GregSalazar Sorry, I didn't mean to make it seem like I was trying to call you out specifically you did an adequate job calling it out, I was talking more about the "you don't have to buy it" comment being used by consumers where the phrase holds significantly less validity, yet it seems to be gaining popularity lately.
Also Price trends and price fixing aren't the same thing I wasn't talking about deliberate collusion, just the "I want an equal slice of this limited pie" corpo doctrine.
Their laptops are only worth what people are willing to pay for them. And considering the fact this guy drop-shipping white label laptops is going off on customers like that, my guess is not very many people are willing to pay the asking price. And he's alienating the idiots who would pay $6500 for a laptop.
@@Lurch-Bot That depends on how the individual defines worth, i would argue compared to anything in the same price range it isn't, you either lose performance, features, and/or inter-device compatibility.
IMO the only people that could perceive these devices as "worth it" are people who buy branded things so they're better than the "poors" who cant afford them.
@@Lurch-Bot What’s the logic there? You’re telling me if you had all the disposable income in the world, you wouldn’t spend $6,500 on a laptop? If I had all the disposable income I could ever want I would buy the nicest laptop money could buy.
It's sounds like the owner is in a poor financial state and can't afford to honor their warranty, so he just berates people to make them go away...I have seen this happen in a quite a few small businesses.
The laptops are sold at crazy upmarks, lilely more than double the price the owner paid for them. He should be able to honor the warranty on every laptop purchased.
This is part of why I actually avoid small businesses.
@@DustyHoney That's very lazy of you. Do some research into a company before you buy things instead of mindlessly enriching mega corporations that destroy the world.
Greg has entered his Gamers Nexus phase 😂😂😂
I was thinking this the ENTIRE time LOL.
That phase began when he disparaged a RUclips sponsorship agency for failing to pay him.
Thank God. I can't stand Steve, lol
Needs more hair.
Everyone should really follow Steve and team's example tbh on actual journalism.
First time I ever heard of them was in a video that explained I could not buy anything from them because I happen to live in the same country as one other person they had a bad experience with. A young computer company should be trying to get as many customers as possible, and here they are banning entire countries - millions of people - for a bad experience they had with one person. And then all the other things about them came out.
That SABRENT 8TB for $2000+ is insane!
Can usually get them for below $700
@@aliensounddigital8729 But you know installing it is so hard that you must pay 1300 extra. 🤣
Worry not: On Black Friday you can get it during the hot sales week for only $1975 (+ $25 shipping fees)... ;D
This guy is working hard at going to prison for wire fraud. You can't tell people there is a warranty and then not honor it by blocking the customer from even filing an RMA. The more egregious of the ethical sins is charging 3x the price he paid for these drop-shipped white label laptops but that, unfortunately, isn't illegal. But the whole issue with not honoring the warranty by blocking customers definitely constitutes wire fraud and you can get up to 20 years for that. Considering he is only screwing the general public and not the government or a bank, he'd probably get no more than 5 years. And possibly would only get probation if they take into account his obvious and glaring mental health issues and probable drug addiction. Still, 5 years on Federal probation is nothing to snort at.
Malibal is just a Chinese oem laptop frame with preinstalled Intel or AMD platform in it, with a branding on top, probably laser engraved. Tons of companies like that, XMG from Germany - they don't have a bad reputation tho AFAIK or System76 - Linux laptops, or many other companies.
"Chinese"
I am Not surprised. 😅
they already bans amd because one amd employee is coreboots contributors a open source project.
Wait, System76 has a bad reputation? Shoot, they seemed on the up and up.
@@sharkhammri think they meant on the hardware front, not in reputation lol
@@sharkhammr "they don't have a bad reputation" it is about XMG and System76, so no?
LOL, as of yesterday Malibal banned all Reddit users. Also, you apparently aren't allowed to access their site via Android or iOS, but they have a mobile version for...some reason.
postmarketOS, UBPorts, etc exists but there'd be not many people who'll use them though.
How do they know who uses Reddit?
Another nasty company for Steve at GamersNexus to stick his teeth into , halfway through the video and I'm getting some Artesian Builds vibes!
It ain even worth his time, this drop shipping trash gonna sink in a year or so
@@fishappy0_962 and theres the re-roll :D
Yeah Noah Katz and this wacko could be best friends
If homelander sold laptops this is how he would do it
Malibal sounds like a fictional company that was made up for The Boys
I suspect Matthew Plott is the owner and workforce combined, this is just a drop shipping front.
Honestly with such insane pricing I'm surprised anyone had even bought from them to find out about all the other issues
I just purchased a Framework 13. It shipped from Taiwan and was at my door in Virginia in 4 business days.
Yep, that's what good shipping gets you. The difference is pretty much just being flown in vs freighted, one is much more expensive than the other because fuel and maintenance costs a lot more on a plane per kg than it does for ships
Actually never heard about these. 🤔
That's probably for the best.
Same
I hope they get nowhere…😮
0:29 for $78 less....my nephew got a ProArt 16" laptop with a 4K touch screen, Ryzen 9, RTX 4060, 32GB RAM & 1TB NVMe .
I mean he got scammed too, could've got better specs for the price
@@zerobalance4027 I am looking for another similar system, so could you direct me to a better deal with the same specs including the 3-year warranty.
tbh Malibal is the name I would give to a lesser Devil or Demon in my AD&D campaign.
perfection
Mal=bad and baal was a nasty Phoenician god.Makes sense.
Maybe it's from MALIBu ALcohol ?
It's gotta be a reference to Malibolge or something like it
@@Ramonatho I have the feeling it’s the smashing together of “Malibu” and “Alibaba”.
that 'well' at 10:15 scared tf out of me, i was listening to this while at work
Well the guy is unhinged actually, which is the owner.
What you see here is the customer side, well there is the Coreboot case with MALIBAL, and how he treated the help he got there for free at first, and the the complaints about pricing as well.
There is now also a rebuttal statement from Coreboot as well that is well worth looking into.
I had a similar situation with a local car dealership that sold me a vehicle that ended up needing 10k in repairs in the first year. I found this to be ridiculous even though it was used, and was compounded by them telling me its what I get for purchasing a used vehicle (it was a year and a half old, and I still paid a ridiculous price for it and should not have to replace major parts so soon after buying it). I wrote some reviews on google and facebook and got long-winded, literal lying responses on the reviews making me sound like an ass. On facebook, of 60 responses 58 of them were agreeing too. They also deleted comments from their facebook page that I wrote trying to warn people. Pretty crazy how companies can behave. Like we consumers have no right to share out experiences, or warn our communities about businesses that don't put their best food forward.
My mother filed a complaint after the THIRD time we took a vehicle to a shop for service and they a) failed to open on time, b) failed to open within an hour of opening time, c) the business phone was forwarded to the owner's cell phone, and he told us they were open, d) he hung up on my mother when she said it was a bad way to run a business, e) posted a fake ad on craigslist for "Free Baby Pygmy Goats" with instructions to "Don't bother calling, just show up," posted my mother's name, cell phone number, and Google Map to our house, f) responded to a Google Review from my mother about the entire above fiasco by claiming we had never done business there and how they had "given me a deal" when I had one specific vehicle serviced there, and he specifically mentioned "your son's red 1995 Mitsubishi Mighty Max" (but I thought we had never done business there?) - and you know what that "deal" was? He didn't charge me LABOR to replace the opposite wheel bearing from the one I requested be replaced, but I was still charged for the part (400% markup on a $27 part?!) that was replaced without permission.
So lesson learned, don't leave reviews for auto shops run by petty jackasses; sorry I'm not driving one of the "barely-fixed-after-being-totaled" Audi, Land Rover, or BMW clunkers you're trying to sell, in a town where the median household income is ~$40,000.
Voiding a warranty because someone tries to circumvent the ban has got to be illegal.
In some ways, its great to also know the company will not ship products to certain US states or countries due their bad interactions with devs from AMD, and Coreboot. Also trying to benefit off people's work without paying (system76 and Coreboot), plus iirc they also won't sell AMD laptops because of their beef with an AMD employee for not doing work that hasn't be paid nor a contract agreed upon.
That guy better change his address before a bunch of angry customers show up asking for refunds
They can't. It's a virtual office address with nobody there is like a po box for biz
@remixedcat stalking exists just saying, if people can take out CEO's of large healthcare conglomerates they can find this guy
Worse thing is that there are so many non computer people out there that will buy this crap, blinded buy the price thinking what a powerful laptop they will get?
I saw the title and my mind immediately went back to that small mom and pop computer store that were trying to sue you or threated to sue you multiple times over something silly years ago.
I cant remember all the details but I think they wrote you multiple letters of a threatening nature after you called them for bad business practises and they were also trying to take down some of your videos where you were talking about them.
The good old days.
Everyone's concerned about how he can't void a warrantee or give refunds legally. I have a feeling this isn't this guys first rodeo. Don't worry, after banking enough cheddar, when the heat gets hot enough, he and his virtual company will simply disappear like a fart in the wind
MALIBAL reminds me of the owners of Amy’s Baking Company from Kitchen Nightmares.
Aw man... those episodes are such classics. She ended up doubling down on it, too, IIRC. Made t-shirts and everything.
I have to admit, I'm thoroughly impressed that a 5 yr old managed to build a business at all. Take some advice Greg... do not do any kind of business with that company. It will haunt you forever, even after you become a zombie :)
@macking104 Doesn't matter what the calendar says, his actions suggest he never matured emotionally beyond the 5-year-old stage.
@@SerebroWD not how that works hun
Wait did I miss you mention it or did not mention that this company will not ship to certain states simply because people who have been critical live there. They will not ship to Colorado because of a System76 engineer, or to Poland, Germany and Maryland because of Coreboot contributors
Yep needs to look at the core boot situation
Yes, you missed it. Shown toward the end of the video.
they also bans amd because some their employees is coreboots contributors.
It is shocking to think that so many people brought computers at such shocking prices.
for someone that claims to hate Apple so much, his website looks a lot like a knockoff Apple site
With the ban list I assumed at first it would be like to ban them from their forums or something....not from actually buying a computer from them
On the other hand, it's good to the Userbenchmark guy branching out a little.
ASUS was like this in Algeria until they sold some new dead PCs to government, the ministry of commercial Confiscated all of their stock and banned the brand from the Algerian market
There's a very short list of companies I'd be prepared to hand over four digits for a consumer-class computer/laptop over and feel good about my choice, and Malibal isn't on it. Prior to 12 minutes ago, I'd never even heard of it, and I like to think I'm fairly in the know in this segment. Very curious where the only things I've heard now are horror stories. Sets a precedent for sure!
Just their smart-ass phrasing on things like that article about apple and the zombiegate thing proves to me that anything people say about them is likely not far off from the truth
Who remembers Voodoo PC? Damn you could easily spec out $12k laptop
I do, as they were based in my city!
Well, Voodoo computers was around back when building a decked out system could easily reach 12k. I remember doing that with Alienwares and Dell XPS systems back in 2004/5 during lunch at school and dreaming, lmao
Pretty sure HP bought voodoo. like anything else HP buys... It dies.
I bought a custom Clevo from Malibal back around 14 years ago. Back then they were one of the better boutique whitebook customizers. It was a great experience back then. Sucks they went this way.
I think the couple running that bakery from Kitchen Nightmares is running Malibal
I met people that seemed JUST like this guy when I worked in the world of federal IT contracting. Some people just get REAL inflated egos when it comes to their "small business".
When your business name begins with mal, you are already at a loss. But to double down is just dumb.
This exists because Clevo and rebrands do. The difference is that those have actual GPUs in the xx80 and xx90 classes, sporting 24GB of VRAM and multiple storage devices (3x NVMe for example.)
Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act has entered the chat.
This is bacicaly if a discord mod ran a store
Send this to Gamers Nexus
Something tells me that if a person orders from an obviously sus supplier at prices that are so inflated he's ripe for picking...
Damn, that list of banned countries and reasons for ban is Hellsing mangaka-tier acting, where bro straight up leveled London in his manga because of one bad customer experience in a London hotel.
The way the Malibal dude speaks in those emails reminds me of how scammers will type when they get called out. Weird, unjustified indignation and flaccid insults that I can only assume are approximations of some much harsher swear word in their native language.
The guy running that company should be grateful that you’re the one covering this story, and not Steve from Gamers Nexus. I doubt he'd be so generous.
"But our display...." plugs brand new 4k monitor into their brand new laptop for less than the laptop itself.
11:06 Did they just promise to kill their customers?
Never heard of this company and while their prices would have made me look elsewhere on their own, i am glad this info has been shared so i will not bother even giving them a look.
Look into the core boot situation. It’s both sad but at the same time downright hilarious
Oh wow, the company was founded 20 years ago. Also read their T&C, and broke them by doing that. You may not visit the site using Google Chrome, any android device, Apple Safari or any apple device 😂
Absolutely WILD stuff, eh? 😂
I have never heard of this Company, apparently for good reasons
Man I bought one of these like a decade ago. The company was great to deal with back then and the pricing was competitive as well. Sad to hear about this.
Who the hell charges that much for a 3050 😭
Every time, I think that humans can not get any more disappointing. I hear something like this! How can people pay these prices without doing any price comparison?!!!! Use your pie hole people!!!!!!
Malibal: "We smile as we send you to the abyss."
Sounds a bit threatening, does it not?
Greg, you should look into lenovos practices as well. I bought something from them an hour after it released. Apparently it sold out. They showed it still available until I pointed it out and they sneakily took it down and are holding my money in limbo. What I wanted was a legion go controller connector and charger. They are telling me we can't tell you when you will get the product and my money is still in limbo.
Shady company. They like to lock the cpus in their prebuilts to lenovo motherboards and use proprietary garbage parts so it's all ewaste.
What happened to customers' common sense? This isn't even a case that is too good to be true.
Lol I think this is the same guy who destroyed a relationship with coreboot
these guys are on the same level as Bioware/EA/Ubisoft.
And look what nzxt Is doing with their “rent to not own” program.
And dont forget that this company also had beef with an official CoreBoot developer, back when they tried to commission a version of CoreBoot for their Laptops.
Surprised this wasn't about NZXT. But I guess they're trying to be them.
We began working on this video several weeks ago. Not gonna rehash the NZXT stuff. GN's video will suffice.
@@GregSalazarI guess the question is how are you handling it with regards to your channel and their sponsorship, and/or using their products?
@@Nunya-oj2mc We haven't taken money from them in roughly 2 years IIRC. We will very likely run into NZXT products in our Fix or Flop and PCDC playlists. I can't control what other folks use. That said, I won't be actively seeking out their components for my _own_ builds until they make big changes. Didn't like what I saw.
@@GregSalazar good to know, thanks!
They want to be the nzxt next?
i would not give any negative comments to you greg for wanting to help a business that has gone of the rails and needs a stable mind and voice of reason from someone with successful experience and knowledge of how to treat customers ... im sure you can teach whoever is running that company on how to get a good returning customer base ... i think the owner needs to do more customer research on what makes a good trustworthy business..
I knew this was gonna be juicy when I saw them charging 2 THOUSAND for 8TB, but it went completely off the rails. This company is literally insane....
It's a shame really. I bought a laptop from them in 2012 and they actually had competitive pricing. I paid $1349 for an Intel i7 3610QM, 8GB ram, Nvidia GTX675M, 500GB HDD. I think that's roughly $1850 in 2025 dollars.
I checked my email and they shipped within a month too. Oh, how they have fallen
Wow, Greg, how dare you be a ZOMBIE and make this video 🤣🤣
Sooo why do people even bye things from them? I think that's the BIGGEST problem.
With these prices!!!
This company is breaking one of the top rules of sales: Never denounce the competition.
Customers do not associate the negative comments with the competition, they associate it with the one making the comment. Instead, a business should point out why customers should be spending money with them instead of the competition. This is terrible business practice by this company.
WHY in the world would you pay over $3000 for a "barebones" laptop?
Wow. From small to large the tech industry is really struggling right now.
Don't know if it's mentioned yet, but these guys wanted to make a laptop running libreboot, an open source UEFI. They had no clue what they were doing and begged others to do it for them for free; after they got rejected and after a bunch of other drama, they banned entire countries from purchasing the laptops out of spite.
If you want a premium laptop, Go with Falcon Northwest. No, I don't work for Falcon.
Get Titans. They're the best!
I would say get a used business class laptop
Even though the machines are very expensive ($4,358 for a 17" with an i9-14900HX & RTX 4090) they seem to be solid and well configured.
MS Surface is my pick
Get a MacBook Pro fr
Their rep is now “malleable”
Malibal is worse than Ferrari omg
Also Malibal is opposite of Mouse Computer as possible
As soon as a business bans me, I know for a fact that they have delivered me a favor.
People it is just this simple, if a business does desire my money they simply do not get it.
I mean if my money is not good enough......I'll just ...keep it.
Oooh.....The Humanity......
SIMPLE 🙂
It makes me think about the Mel Brooks film where they dupe multiple investors with a godawful musical. The plan is for it to close after one night so they can abscond with all the money. I take it the guy just received some major investment and is now trying to sink the company.
absolutely wild that this guy has a list of all of apple's human rights abuses but still sells microsoft products
I may have missed it in this video but I believe they even banned entire countries. I'm not 100% sure but i think i saw another video about them banning countries like germany, just because they tried to work with a company, but said company, like the one here in the video, thought after a while it was too frustrating and not worth working with them. Maybe it was even the same company.
NZXT is doing exactly the same scammy shit
6:31 One of these days, they’ll push someone to *you know what* and will get sued straight to hell. Also, banning someone from purchasing your products and warranties for wanting a refund is complete bullshit.
"Banned from purchasing our products"
Interesting business model.
Sounds like my and my mother's recent experience with Mint Mobile. That wouldn't refund us and tried to remove my PayPal from my account and told me to dispute it with the bank after 3 hours of chat. It took a month to get all the money back and probably 12 hours between chat and phone. There's a lot more to it but that's basically the TLDR.
Keeping a „clean“ supply chain, as in no human rights or environmental law violations, is extremely difficult. How is a one-man business able to ensure such a clean supply chain?
It is not.
So who ever the seller is, is basically just a scammer.