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Welcome to my new web-site that I hope you will like.
If you cannot understand English then click on your countries flag above, if there is one, to translate this page into your local language. Should the translation be not very understandable, then see the Language option just below the main menu when this may contain better translation options.
However, since machine translations are never that good, then it you can already understand this English text, then I would recommend sticking with it.
To begin with, then if this is your first visit, then odds are that you came here because someone you know recommended you to visit. This may not always be the case, but as customer recommendation is the top method why people come to my site then welcome.
However, if you instead came this way by use of a search engine, random browsing, or even one of my rare advertising events, then you would now have totally no idea what this is about. And if that happens to be the case then let us start from the beginning.
As welcome to my web-site, my name is Cardman.
Actually, Cardman is my business name, and my Net alias name, but not my real name. Or I suppose that it is real enough, when that is what I wish to be called. That means there is no need to call me "Mr Cardman" as it is not that sort of name.
The reason why my name is Cardman is because long ago I used to just sell cards, but now as you can see I have moved into card programmers, satellite equipment, and even video and audio equipment.
As to who I "Cardman" really am, then that can find that out easily enough these days on this very web site. Please use the name Cardman and not my real name, when one you will certainly remember a lot easier than the other.
Now the main thing you should know about myself and my business is that I am not a commercial supplier. What I mean by this is that I do not sell items to make lots of profit, when even with some of the lowest prices you will find anywhere, just about all profit I do make is reinvested in my business to support new items.
Also not being a commercial supplier means that I would ideally prefer to have all my customers as friends, but alas unlike in the past I just do not have the time to be friends with everyone now that I have thousands of customers from all around the World. However, if this is your first visit then you are fully welcome to send me an e-mail to say "Hi" and say what you think of this site.
I can also say that treating my customers like friends means that if you are bad then you will certainly hear about it. As I always try to be as fair as possible, which means I am nice to those who are nice, and bad to those who are bad.
Also I can recall many occasions in the past, in order to be "fair", by having to do things that I financially lost from. Such as rare case where I give people items for free, where you can see an example of this on my special offers page.
Now if you take a look around my site you will notice that I sell things differently from the usual commercial supplier. What I mean is that you won't find row after row of items lacking description, which is typical of your common "box shifter" supplier, when I am fully happy to say what items are used for and what is both good and bad about them.
After all unlike other suppliers I usually spend a long time testing new items, even before I considered stocking them. This is done to make sure that it is the best item available including; having a reasonable price, good functionality, won't break easily, and not too hard for my customers to use.
Only when I know all about an item, from using it myself, do I then stock it. I can then spend several hours just writing the detailed item description that you can see, where I try to detail every possible feature that I can think of.
One reason why I do this is that I am a customer myself, where I really hate spending what can be days just browsing the web trying to find a good description of the item that I desire to purchase. That is often just to find out what it can do, where I frequently find that I have to turn to the manufacturer's instruction guide just to find out something like connections, when other suppliers often just quote word for word the manufacturer's brief item summary.
You certainly won't find such text here, when I write so much text that not being aware of some feature before purchase is usually down to not reading my description clearly enough. And I often go about improving my descriptions, in order to include the latest features, or simply to clarify what I have already wrote at a later date.
Also unlike commercial suppliers I try to support as many payment methods as possible, but I have been trying to avoid those "commercial" methods. As quite simply the less people involved in handling your money the better and less costly it will be.
This is why payment in "cash", in many different currencies, will remain to be one of my least costly payment options. As this is quick, simple, with the minimum amount of people taking their share. Although faster low cost on-line payments are proving more popular these days, when my customers like to receive their orders quickly. The middle ground between these two options is to do a bank wire transfer when this is a low cost or free payment method with average transfer speed.
Now concerning order dispatches, in the non-commercial way, then after learning the hard way I now know that people just are not willing to accept long delays, even if they eventually end up with the best items, best prices, and in normal times best support.
Therefore, that old system has now been slaughtered, when my new sparkling clean system will mark items "out of stock" should they be subject to any unusually long restocking delays. This as I know can also prove unpopular, by not allowing people to buy items, but alas even if they turn to commercial suppliers and get ripped off in the process (that can sometimes happen), then they will at least be more happy with one Cardman.
That is why I used to favour my old system, when at least with Cardman you will always get what you want if you were prepared to wait for it. As everyone always has (even those doubtful people from May 2000) and I will certainly try very hard that people always will.
Now you may ask why I try hard to avoid commercial systems and suppliers, where the reason for this is why I Cardman came to exist.
Back in December 1997 was when the idea for Cardman first began, when the later half of that year was filled with a lot more bad commercial suppliers than usual. In fact in public places there used to be many stories about how customers were having major problems with certain commercial suppliers.
And it was in December that year when I had my own problem with a commercial supplier. As I can tell you that none of my customers ever had to wait as long as I had to then for a purchase (11 months).
So after this now extinct supplier took longer than even patient me could wait, then after all my requests for my card upgrade to be completed or for a refund to be provided were ignored, then in December that year, like many other victims of commercial supplies had done, I took my problem with them and made it public.
Now that certainly got them moving, when I got my refund and not upgraded card back the following day, but it was a shame that an important and expensive chip from my card was now missing.
In the following days with my annoyance at commercial suppliers in general, and thinking about all the other victims who then were numerous, then slowly over time my plan for Cardman came about. As just recommending people to use the better supplier has its limits, which is something that I was doing before this time, including helping people with their general satellite reception problems. My idea was that there is no better way to insure that people use a good supplier then to become one yourself.
And so I, Cardman, was then born, when in February and March 1998 was when I began to show other suppliers how a non-commercial business works.
Welcome to the result of that era. And I have since proved correct my idea of better helping people avoid bad commercial suppliers by becoming a good supplier, even if it has not always been smooth going simply due to over popularity. As even if I do not have what a customer wants, then I can still point out the good and bad items and suppliers around.
From all this above text I guess that you can say that I am more of a fellow customer than with being a supplier. As indeed I only provide the best items around that I would be fully happy to buy and use myself (as I often do).
As to bad commercial suppliers, then those from past years are now no more, because even with their commercial practices eventually there grows too many unhappy customers. Still, does a bad supplier really die, when they can start a new company with a new name?
Apart from bad commercial suppliers you should also watch out for bad commercial items, when even average and good commercial suppliers would stock those items. And as my older customers know even the one item of mine that I dared to term "commercial" was working fine for years until it because obsolete. Unfortunately, that is now one of many items that I can no longer supply, not just due to its obsolete nature.
That discontinuation would be due to the infamous May the 28th 2000, which I will certainly tell you all about one day. As unfortunately most of my former rivals now hide from their past and quake in their boots concerning these new laws.
Instead I am rightly proud of my past, even if I can no longer continue with it, when I helped many people achieve something otherwise not possible, but then the EU goes and fixes the result without first fixing the cause.
So you can say that I am supporter of the subject, but I then cannot actually legally support the subject. As not even my statistical proof that my past sales were harmless enough would be any defense to this new law, which means that the only support that I can physically provide is a moral one.
As even FACT, FAST and the Maidstone Fraud Squad found out the hard way between November 2001 and May 2002 that I know these laws very well and certainly follow them. In fact I even played a minor part in the creation of that new EU directive, but that is another story.
And so although things may seem a little odd at first, but please take a look around, where if you happen to use my services, then I certainly hope you like what you find. Then of course if you wish to recommend me to a friend, then well that is how my business grows.
That brings me back to my first point on this page, when that is the number one reason of why people come here. As maybe you have already heard of myself, Cardman, where you now just wish to find out more.
Anyway, no matter your reason to come here, welcome friend, please enjoy my new site.
Cardman.
www.cardman.co.uk opened on the 1st of September 2000. This site in located on a server within the United Kingdom, in the city of London, which is therefore ideally located to serve visitors in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.www.cardman.com was uploaded with this web-site on the 1st of May 2001 following my purchase of this domain name from the previous owner. This site is located on a server within the United States, within the city of New York, which is therefore ideally located to serve visitors from North and South America, Asia, and Oceanania.
www.cardman.hk became the most recent domain to host my web-site on the 4th of April 2007. This site is located on a server within Hong Kong, which goes to explain the .hk domain name. This Hong Kong hosting provides strong support for the entire Asian region and is a powerful link into China. Hong Kong was selected as the best Asian country to host my web site when this ex-British colony presents good network infrastructure into Europe and North America as well, providing a bonus over other Asian hosting. A must use site for all of my Asian customers.
I would therefore recommend using the site within your region, where this would reduce the number of hops between you and my visited web-site. However, depending on the time of day you could find my alternate site faster, where this depends on the traffic between you and my visited site.
Also I recommend that you keep note of all of my sites in the rare case of server, domain, or network failure.
This site has been tested for compatibility using Microsoft Internet Explorer v6.0, Netscape v7.1 and Opera 7.23.