Complaint Review: Tandem Product Design

Tandem Product Design was hired on 8-15-2021 to build a fairly simple prototype. A 3D printed housing (size of toaster), 2 chief components (provided by me), mechanical drawing, power source, wiring and a foot of plastic tube (also provided by me).

The contract consisted of 4 phases. 1 - Preliminary concept & layout. Paid and completed. 2 - Design Refinement. Lead time 2 weeks. Paid and completed. 3 - Mechanical Engineering. Lead time 6 weeks. Paid but took 3 times longer. 4 – Building prototype, testing. Lead time 8 weeks. Paid. Was supposed to be a 16 week project. Forward to April 2024! 2 years, 5 months later! Nothing. I have proof of contract, payments, emails and texts to this day proving these facts.

Michael is literally a 1 man show. He might have 1 employee. The only thing he does inhouse is the CAD work. Everything else is outsourced.

He had excuse after excuse. To save money he gathers orders, holds on to them, and sends them out together to get a discount. He charged me for correcting the CAD that he mistakenly misunderstood on what needed to be done. He charged me again for another mess up for electrical engineering that he missed. At this point I was way over budget.

He managed to lose every single component I provided him. TWICE!

He would keep telling me he was ordering parts. One excuse was that the economy has changed after the pandemic. Another was that he dealt with a head bump. Another one was a major gas leak. WHAT!? The newest one in 2024, the prototype kept malfunctioning. He sent me a video of something that did not even look like what we discussed, and it was leaking. I HAD TO BRING THIS POINT UP TO HIM.

I finally sued him in small claims court and was awarded about half of what I paid him. He is now holding my whatever it is hostage.

My mistake was that I paid him in advance. DO NOT MAKE THE MISTAKE IN PAYING HIM IN ADVANCE. I read another review that said the same thing.