Ghost Vapes came into the industry with a fancy new vape and a shit-ton of venture capital to play with, but it wasn’t enough.
Despite early support from BUD, Ghost Vapes struggled to produce a product that could perform reliably and consistently.
In 2018, Ghost Vapes blew through oodles of cash with massive trade show booths, rock band tour sponsorship, and massive margins and affiliate commissions to entice reviewers and retailers to pimp their $375 vaporizer.
By 2019, Ghost was clearly in trouble
Replacement batteries for the MV1 became obsolete, leaving users and retailers with NO OPTIONS because of the MV1’s proprietary battery. Ghost slashed prices of the MV1 by 50% and started offering bundles of free accessories, despite having ZERO stock of batteries.
Many people in the 420vapezone discord assumed this was a typical Going Out of Business sale.
Denial & Delusion
The leadership and management team stood by their claim that all is well, and they’re working on a new vaporizer model.
Every Ghost contact of mine, including engineers and high-level managers, were let go and an entirely new staff of middle managers were left pretending.
Ripping off Affiliates, Corona Virus Excuse
Ghost Vapes stopped paying their affiliates halfway through 2019. This wasn’t a huge impact for me, because I wasn’t a big fan of the vape. My first 3 reviews were negative.
In March of 2020, Ghost announced that “Due to Covid-19” they would be stopping their affiliate program. Nice timing – I’m sure it had nothing to do with being bankrupt.
Ghost Vapes owed me about $1500, which is chump change compared to the numbers that several other affiliates have disclosed privately.
April 7, 2020 – Admitting Defeat
This morning I received the following email
The GHOST team has been working tirelessly over the last 3 years to deliver the best vaping experience to customers. We all learned, the hard way, how challenging it is to break into this category on top of limited federal and global support for legal recreational cannabis.
We have been in “Fundraising mode” for the better part of a year with management and key investors financing the group, but unfortunately it has become clear in the last few days that this support is no longer an option. As a result, the Directors of the Company have, at this time, made the difficult decision to cease operations globally. With the current macro environment due to the coronavirus, lack of sufficient funds to carry the business forward, and all other options exhausted, there is no other option.
We are extremely grateful for the support you have given us.
Sorry to hear that about Ghost vapesWhere does this leave Ghost Mv1 owners regarding warranty? Worse timing ever! The latch on my stealth black model has just broke so I can’t use it without holding the crucible holding part in while holding the button (requiring both hands)
Same here Lord Paul, my latch service ticket was made way before the COVID19 outbreak. Really disappointed.
This leaves you without warranty
“Where does this leave Ghost Mv1 owners regarding warranty?”
Leaves owners right where you would expect….sitting there holding their junk.
“Leaves owners right where you would expect….sitting there holding their junk.”
Indeed it does.
Troy my favorite video of you was a day with the ghost mv1 after that I always take the mv1 out when I go to the mall not now there closed but thats all I use it for so maybe it will last for awhile sorry to see anyone go out of business but more sorry for those of us who paid top price and wont be able to buy parts even
So what your saying is Ghost Vape just gave up the ghost?
Yeah, my Stealth broke on my birthday a couple weeks ago and they Ghosted me on chat, email, Twitter!
I don’t mean for this to seem accusatory, but what does Ghost owe you $1500 for, Troy? I thought you weren’t paid for reviews. Did you actually make $1500 from just affiliate link referrals?
I don’t get paid to review, I only get paid with affiliate sales. The 1500 is from affiliate sales over 8 months.
Before I say this, I do want to iterate my appreciation for your channel and your reviews however I must insist that there was bias regarding your reviews with Ghost Vapes. The fact that all of your reviews of the MV1 are no longer available on your channel, just goes to show you don’t want any contradictory statements in regards to your article.
I actually purchased an MV1 last year because of the trust I placed in your brand. I was very disappointed with the consistency and the vapour production of the device despite giving it a whole month of use and only managing to return it a day before my receipt expired at the retailer. I still lost money on the fast charger and crucible kit though. I even have a Reddit thread i made last year detailing the bullshit however it went along with the device overheating, terrible battery that was expensive and inconsistent vapour production. I find it strange that an individual who has used the vape didn’t see these issues before but you state all of them now despite no mention of them in the reviews you made of the device that are no longer up.
If i’m wrong about this then please let me know or repost the reviews and ill take a look again.
B, I’m not seeing how older content being taken down is evidence of bias. The vape sucked hard when it first came out and my early reviews pointed that out. As new iterations of the device came out, I made new content and took old content down. Even when I made a video showing the MV1 in a positive way, I still highlighted the inconsistencies and warned about how fussy the device is.
I had the same issue with my Stealth MV1 a few days ago, and a I issued a ticket to see about a replacement, but this makes me think I’m completely out of luck :(
$1500 is a solid chunk of cash, they suck for that. Karma will return every penny of it to you Troy. Hope the move went well.
I never knew any of this stuff about the batteries. What would possess them to go with proprietary batteries? You want your devices to work on the commonest batteries possible. Batteries with sane labels.
A potential buyer is going to be looking at a new device and thinking about their chargers back home. I believe that there’s such a thing as battery fatigue. People get fed up with regularly having to shell out new money for new systems that barely get used half the time to begin with. They need to have the same batteries work across all platforms.
Folks in this industry should come to an agreement on as many standards as they can so they can coordinate with each other more easily. Find ways of segueing from talking about vapes that vape weed to liquid vapes, e-nails, you name it. Find a way to smoothly differentiate between these things so people out there can have a clear understanding of WHAT actually EXISTS. They don’t know NOW, this will be new to them but you can guide them and teach them the spiel.
We don’t even have a clear idea of what that all means yet but there is a golden opportunity to draw the map, write the language and decide on all of the things that will link everybody together in a little federation of sorts.
Sale on a device will be nixed because they are tired of all of these hidden costs. Upsell is one thing, but adding on ‘incidental’ costs has gotten to be a tired routine. Produce something that is 100% complete as sold. Simple is best but if it is more complicated make sure the user can do it all with a couple of sheets of instructions and back all of that up with a responsive web page and a user group/fanclub..
I’m all for aftermarket and optimizing but a lot of what passes for that nowadays is just getting the thing to work right to begin with. There’s an awful lot of stuff that goes out before it’s ready to be sold and the buyer improves it via endless returns and exchanges. That should never be the pattern.
That object was too complicated anyway. The more complicated they make it the more of a responsibility they have to make it as easy to understand and use as possible.
And if it’s this frail right out of the box that’s a bad sign too. The moment I read about some plastic piece falling off etc. I hope I can avoid all of that.
(BTW, the photo is beautiful, especially the granite.)
It’s a shame as this could’ve be vastly improved upon. I picked one up with a free crucible for $175 but knew something was up when I was emailing Ghost support and they were being weird about timelines about batteries and about the app the Apple pulled. I asked about a possible web-based app like S&B but I was “mocked” by them basically saying “they’re available (m meaning S&B products). It’s a good vape for around $175 but anything more is a complete ripoff.
I had four latch breakages with black Stealth models. I wonder if this defect is what put them out of business. I hope I get my two vapes back from service before they go. Wow…so no more support for my go to vape.
My Stealth’s latch just broke too a few weeks ago. Should have known that a company named Ghost would….ghost you! The latch should be metal! For a part that gets used so much, plastic is not the answer.
LOL couldn’t be more true, while I like the vaporizer when I get it going, this piece sums up all the foleys to the T and pulls no punches
Inconsistent
Heavy as hell
Blowing money with pointless sponsorships and trade show booths
Denial about the product not being that good and sales being slow
Consistent discounting
Writing was on the wall for a while
I owned an MV1 for probably less than a month, last year. I bought it from because I was looking for a new type of vape, and as you’ve said, I soon found that I was frustrated with how I couldn’t seem to get consistent results from it. Then after just a few weeks, in what turned out to be a stroke of luck, the battery randomly fried out. I explained what happened to the company I bought it from (I didn’t buy it directly from Ghost), and fortunately after I returned it and they inspected the problem, they agreed to simply refund me, as I told them I’d rather not replace it with another Ghost. Good to know that I apparently dodged a bullet there.
After that fiasco, I decided to do some more research, and eventually decided to give the Dynavap a shot after watching some of your videos on them. Can’t even BEGIN to tell you how much happier I am with that. Much cheaper than a Ghost too, obviously.
i have stealth black and it’s great vapo – hopefully they’re be back with new product and probably costs of producing this was high too
Same with Haze. Same with Elevape Smart. Who’s next? My money is on Grasshopper. Their questionable reliability, deceptiveness, and piss poor customer service…not to mention shitty ass batteries…will be their downfall. I have spoken.
Flame vapes only for me from now on.
I’ll sell mine cheap! Never liked it
Well that explains why I have gotten zero response to the ticket that I put in about my app no longer connection to my device. I just bought the thing in November.
Any possibility that someone can create some using a 3d printer? Would consider buying a couple if the price was reasonable
Door Latches that is.
Door latch busted on my 3 week old stealth. I guess I am 250$ in the hole now. So disappointed.
They sent me three free ones and a couple free ones to people I know.
Nice guys , sorry they went down.
Now I can’t get accessories. Anyone know where to get some concentrate pads?