Bad experience with PurePower of Canada


This is my first post here in a long time, and I seriously considered not writing it, but the situation I'm about to relate to you has reached a crisis point, and I feel like I have little choice now but to call a manufacturer out in public for shockingly substandard customer service.

The company in question is Canadian firm PurePower, maker of an acclaimed line of AC power regenerators. I've owned their APS 1050 for several years now, and until recently it functioned flawlessly and made a decent improvement to my system's sonics. However, at the very beginning of June, a power surge blew out the input side of the unit and made it nonfunctional. (Interestingly, my other regenerator, a Chinese-made Dussun, escaped unscathed.)

I called PurePower and spoke to a gentleman named Damian. He gave me a repair quote over the phone and told me to send the unit in. It arrived at PP's Niagara Falls facility on 6/11/15. Damian said it would be a quick repair and would be back to me within a week.

Real long story short, by the middle of July, I had yet to receive my unit back. PP stopped answering my phone calls and emails and repeated requests for a tracking number. Damian's story had changed any number of times over the month PP had my 1050. First he said, "It's going out tomorrow" (that was around the 16th-17th of June), then "It has gone out" (he told me that a couple of times), and then "It's at UPS" (his penultimate lie). Having finally exhausted my patience, I threatened to take this whole thing public and consider legal action if I didn't get a straight answer. Only then, less than half an hour before my deadline to him, did Damian return my call. He said that the company had been on vacation for the past two weeks (though this wasn't reflected on their answering machine or their email, and he even admitted he had been in the office several times during the break). He said the unit was fixed and would go out Tuesday, July 21. Again, he promised me a tracking number.

As of today, July 31, I still have not received my 1050, and the company again is not returning emails. In fact, even more disturbing, their phone number is now out of service. What bothers me most of all, they cashed my check three weeks ago, and I have NOTHING to show for my expenditure. I'll stop short of calling it outright theft, but it sure feels like it.

I am now afraid that I won't see my unit again anytime soon, if ever. It's hard for me to tell if this whole saga is the result of PurePower's utter incompetence or something more malevolent. But, whatever it is, I feel seriously taken advantage of. As I've said, it wouldn't be quite as much of an issue had they not already cashed my check, but the fact that I did my part and paid them and they've completely reneged on theirs--and now refuse to answer inquiries . . . well, that pisses me off. And it won't stand. That's why I've taken to forums like this one to warn fellow audiophiles about PurePower's antics. After doing some research online, it seems that I'm hardly the only one to complain about their customer service in the last few years.

I hate to resort to a post like this, but the audiophile public deserves to know when a manufacturer clearly doesn't do right by its customers. And this, to me, is a case in point. With any luck, this situation will be resolved in my favor and I'll get my 1050 back, but until then, I'm damn well going to let my voice be heard. By its shoddy behavior, PurePower has forced my hand.

P.S. If anyone can suggest any consumer-rights organizations I can contact, I'd appreciate it. I've already reached out to the Ontario Ministry of Consumer Services, but have yet to hear back from them.
hooper
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Same M.O.....


Attention, PurePower owners!

Posted by FrankC (A) on April 4, 2014 at 14:09:33

My unit was sent in for service in July of 2012. After many months of empty promises and excuses, and refusal to respond to my requests to send back my unit as-is at my own expense. I've filed a complaint against PurePower Partners with the Ontario Ministry of Consumer Services (Canada's equivalent of Consumer Protection Agency), as well as with Ontarios's Better Business Bureau.

I know that there are others who are in the same situation, I would like to organize our efforts to get PurePower to resolve these matters. If you haven't done so already, I would encourage you to file the complaints with the two entities I have identified above ASAP. We can then discuss about further options including filing suits at the small claims court.
AA thread
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Ebm,
I grant you forgiveness.

Mechans,
I'm not familiar with PurePower or their products, but I did see a thread on Audio Asylum where a number of people complained of being badly treated or losing money.
Stringeen:

I'm afraid you're probably right. I didn't think about using a credit card, as I figured they were above-board.
Mechans:

A lot of PP's negative feedback did not occur until after I bought my unit. I did my due diligence when I bought my 1050, and I don't remember there being much negative feedback about the company at that point. Maybe I didn't look closely enough, but I don't remember it.

There was negative FB on Audiogon from a few years ago, but I didn't notice it until recently, and it I think occurred after I bought my unit.
Doing Research on this company. This is not an Isolated situation. This has been going on for the last 3 years with this company.

And you are right. He should have done his due diligence before sending the unit. Caveat emptor.
Taters, Do you mean they had a bad reputation before this post? I never knew about that.
I am curious if we as a community with this special interest can form our own feedback rating system for positive and negative experiences. I do not doubt Hoopers experience but if they already had a bad reputation, he might have been more cautious, e.g. paying with a credit card only after the job was done. If they have had many many good feedback points from others, you could say this was an exception.. I am sure you get the idea.
..sounds like they may have gone or are going out of business. Too bad you didn't use a credit card or Paypal to secure the transaction....
All I can say is they have a bad reputation. I am surprised they are still in business.
I'm having a similar issue with one of the biggest names in the industry, I have been treated poorly, and robbed of $600! I will withhold the companies name until I find out how this will play out, but it really makes you feel slighted doesn't it? Why? On what planet is this acceptable behavior? What have they got to gain from mistreating their customers? It must be nice to mKe so much money that you can throw customers away like that.

With that said, I have had excellent service from several other companies. Including Parasound, Magnum Dynalab, and Legacy, all great customer service! Worthy of mention.