(Editorial note: Larry would be writing this himself but he is in the midst of a 24 hour shift at the firehouse and is dealing with his 3rd call of the night!)

One of the great things about the iPhone accessory world these days is the huge number of different accessory companies making awesome cases, cradles and more for our favorite device. It means you can always find the right case for your budget and taste. (Heck, you can even get a custom Gear Diary case!!) It also means you can choose which companies get your money and which don’t.

There are many companies I like to work with. They include, among others, Case-Mate, Incase, Agent18, iSkin, Sena and more. The list of companies I WILL NOT DO BUSINESS WITH is actually much shorter. But an exchange Larry had earlier today with a little company called Rebel Scholar further solidified my position that, even if Rebel Scholar had the best cases ever, I would not do business with them.

At this point the whole thing is laughable, or it would be if it weren’t so sad.

Here’s the latest chapter in LGreenberg V. RS. No folks, you aren’t going to believe this one!

A quick recap.
It all started out innocently enough. Larry bought some cases from Rebel Scholar at full retail and reviewed them. One he said he liked well enough while the other looked nothing like the case pictured on the website.In fact, it didn’t show much image at all.

As usual Larry was honest, direct and fair. He posted the review. The company responded nicely.

They even apologized for the issue…

The next day emailed me that the company had sent him an email to either remove his review or face litigation for defamation. I thought he was kidding. He wasn’t.

We didn’t pull the review but they DID pull the images and replace them with ones that better reflect the true product. (Hmmm, perhaps Larry had had a point.)

A bit later Larry tried to order some cases from them and his money was promptly returned.  The company said they were concerned about Larry’s review where he remarked that the cases didn’t fit his phone well.  They basically were refusing to sell to him.

This the first time I’d heard of a company actually refusing to take someone’s money. And why were they refusing? Because Larry might not rave about them in a review.

Then last week Larry saw that the company was re-releasing a case with a patriotic theme on 9/11. Larry was downtown that day and escaped being overcome by the dust cloud by running into a small bodega. So affected by the experience was he that he made a career change and became a firefighter. He was, understandably, distressed that a company would try to profit from using a patriotic theme on 9/11. It wasn’t that Rebel Scholar was doing it. No, he would have been upset to see any company doing it. It was, however, Rebel Scholar and Larry made his displeasure known. He also suggested they release the case but give all proceeds from cases sold that day to charity. It was a nice idea and Reel Scholar did so. (Or so they claim and we have no reason to doubt their word on this.)

After Rebel scholar said they would make such a donation Larry ordered two cases.

Nice right? Past issues were gone and it was a new day.

Well, not so fast… without so much as an email Rebel Scholar refunded Larry’s payment. Seriously, they refunded his payment…

Larry Tweeted the experience…

And Rebel Scholar showed themselves to be a company I would not do business with if it were the last iPhone case company on earth…

Seriously, I don’t know about you, but a company that behaves this way is a company that will never get one cent from me… no matter how nice or inexpensive the cases might be.

And to think it all started because Larry was honest in a review…

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