Hi Patrick, firstly thanks for the support on the gear, hope to keep you for another 20yrs as a customer. So on a typical forum, customers exchange ideas and feedback, which is very positive for a community sharing basis. We don't post a disclaimer on our forum to mention that the idea here is slightly different - here you get 100% feedback from Product Managers, testers, designers and myself, the International Brand Manager - since I am involved in a lot of the testing I am in a good position to help advise customers on which board might work best for them, based on what they tell us etc.
So in order to provide that service, plus answering a lot of q's on Social Media every day, the time we can spend here is very limited, although very valuable to learn more about our customers needs - as we all have jobs to do actually managing our different departments of Product, Sales, Marketing, Logistic, Purchasing etc.
That's why we have a full time team working in our central HQ in Warranty, who then work with each country's warranty department, who in turn work with the Dealers to solve warranty issues with customers. Unlike providing advice on a board quiver, a warranty is always quite an emotional issue for many customers, as it is for us, because you want to solve it with the best possible outcome. The majority of customers are fair and will mention if they think they perhaps overloaded the board during flat landings or other user faults. There is a small % of customers who demand replacements no matter what. This is where it is key to have the shop/national importer/our warranty department having all the facts and experience to judge the warranty and process it, including asking for specific information, or in some cases, opening a board to check the layups, or sawing the board in 2 pieces once the board has been replaced. All of these steps allow us to not only gain knowledge about the production quality and processes, but also helps in many cases for us to be able to claim the products back to our own suppliers.
Anyway, as mentioned, let's hope this gets sorted, the shop/importer in question assured me they are in touch with you, as I did pass it onto them, although that is not normally necessary in almost all cases.
Thanks for your patience and loyalty to our brands.