While the growth of this hobby as a community has fallen back down to a normal pace since the boom of 2020, plenty of people and companies continue to appear onto the vending scene, looking to either fulfill a niche or bring a new face to a possibly underrepresented region. Meow Key, based in Canada, began in 2022 and carries a stock of mostly budget kits and switches from brands such as Akko and Keychron.
At first, it seemed that the vendor wanted to be transparent and trusted by their customers by sharing photos on their website of their warehouse filled with packaged boards and switches. But it wasn’t long until a user by the name of “Mrjimdandy” on Reddit took to r/mechanicalkeyboards to vent about an order he had placed with Meow Key that seemingly had charged him 4 times for the same order. Although the original post was taken down, the subreddit moderators followed up with a post detailing how Meow Key retaliated by responding to his post with “a full doxx of the customer’s personal information, including name, and email”. The company’s profile subsequently was banned from Reddit. However, Meow Key’s owner and VP of their unknown parent company did respond to the moderator’s post with an apology:
Unfortunately, even after this apology, it seems that Meow Key continued to struggle to fulfill orders in a timely manner and respond to customer emails. Ken, a keyboard enthusiast based in Canada, reached out to us in regards to his experience ordering with Meow Key. After placing his order on the 9th of October in 2023, it wasn’t until 2 weeks later that a package from them arrived at his doorstep, with no tracking number and the wrong products inside. He messaged them before the package had even arrived as well, asking for an update, and getting no response via email or Discord.
After sending the package back, Ken notes that he reached out to the Meow Key team after two weeks of waiting, which he did get a reply to, stating that his order would be shipped out the following day. However, it wasn’t until the 15th of September that his order arrived, “with the box destroyed,” Ken says.
In February of 2024, Ken was curious to see if Meow Key had improved with their customer service and shipping. His friend, Tarify, ordered around $100 CAD of items from Meow Key, after hearing about them from Ken. After the first week, Tarify reached out to ask about an update on the order, to which they responded to by saying it would be sent out the following day. However, since then, there has been no update on his order from the team or any package deliveries.
Although exit scams and poor service have become quite common within the keyboard hobbyist sphere with more infamous cases such as Mechs & Co and Rama Works, it seems that there is still much work to be done when it comes to keeping vendors accountable and preventing events such as these to occur again.
For Meow Keys, it is quite possible that they will slowly lose their customer base if they continue to remain silent and refuse to give an explanation for these previous incidents. However, there are still a number of reputable sites to shop from, with a list that is consistently updated by Alexotos, a popular creator and streamer within the hobbyist space.