Sorry to hear about your experience, Dumerilgirl. Wish your first post could have been a happy one but welcome to the forum none the less.
I bought a Dragon Lite off eBay from a (drumroll please..) sex toy shop. This was after a small bid war and the final price came out to be $27.00 shipped. I decided to go this route instead of ordering off of what I thought was the more legitimate official site. After hearing some of these horror stories, I can tell now that this is not the way to go. This company is obviously ordering these bulk from China, and most likely reselling bulk for a marginal profit and making their real profit on individual buyers. No surprise there, but when these units cost so little to produce, it's a shame they can't feign customer support and resend one when it was lost in the mail.
The seller I went through was called Giggles (their site is giggles.com, and their eBay has something to do with giggles.) Most likely knowing the life time warranty was a sham from the origionals, they sent a piece of paper with instructions on how to operate the unit and how to get a replacement. (Here's a picture of it:
http://imageshack.us/a/img534/486/20130322102818.jpg )
Oh man, a warranty from a gmail account, this looks legit.
I think when dealing with these products, it's best to deal through refutable places.. which is almost impossible since places with good reputation wouldn't touch a knock-off vape.
My unit came with a gap in one of the corners, so the cheap plastic stem wouldn't stay in. The unit functioned admittedly much better than I thought and was even able to produce clouds, but the air was harsh without the little stem as a buffer. I eventually pried it open and super glued it back together and viced it shut. "Now wait, Swifty," you say. "Superglue AND China plastic in your lungs? Brave man!.." not quite. The shell of this unit is not solid. It's hollowed and has an inner section and an outer section, and a support lattice between them. The glue never touches the airway, let alone the inner plastic wall. This allows my stem to stick in and stay without falling out.
To those wondering if the plastic is toxic or not, this really is a null point as the internal area underneath the trough is made of wood. Wood is a fantastic heat insulator, and effectively no heat touches plastic in this unit, at least not enough heat to make the plastic smolder fumes.
I did have a burning wood smell the first time I started burning in, but nothing after that. The unit functions pretty well after my repairs, really beyond my expectations. I know when it dies, though, it's dead and I most likely wont be able to get it replaced. The game here is to get my moneys worth out of it before it does so, which I believe I can; that and the fact the unit is so simple, I feel like I could take it apart and repair it myself if it ever did break and no one honored its warranty.
Dumerilgirl, if you want my suggest, fight for your $31.00. If you got one reply out of them, you know they're listening. The unit really isn't worth $25 or more (neither is the MFLB in my humble opinion; you're paying for the service and warranty, not a chunk of wood) but even so, your dignity is worth much more. Fight the good fight. Good luck, and please keep us posted.
Look forward to seeing your 'Herbal Review' on the DL.
