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
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.

Hell not just the money they are out shipping the unit back to the PurePower scammer in Canada plus the supposedly repair cost money up front, more than that they may never see the unit they shipped to Canada ever again!

Quote from AA post.

RE: Attention, PurePower owners!
Posted by Aaron S. (M) on June 12, 2014 at 19:56:00
In Reply to: Attention, PurePower owners! posted by FrankC on April 4, 2014 at 14:09:33:

Our company was the manufacturer of the Pure Power systems, but have ceased to cooperate with the Canadian company owned by Richard and Damian. They ordered many units from us but failed to send us payment. In total, they owe us more than USD $150,000. We are also victims and understand how you feel.

Our new model, Pro Power series is out and available.

We take customer's concerns very seriously, so we strive to offer the best support of our products.

Again, I'm sorry that you had to go through the ordeal as we had. We hope that we can provide a better service to our customers!

Aaron
AA Thread
.
There are more than a few threads on this company with more current issues going back over the last 3-6 months to 3-4 years ago. They would not know 'the truth' or the concept of it or good customer service and integrity if it walked up and hit them over the head. I know of 3 other audio hobbyists here and myself plus one dear friend/audiophile (also a PP dealer at one point before he died a couple years ago) that have all been absolutely screwed and/or lied to, misled, talked down to, maligned, etc...by Richard and Damian. They are not ethical businessmen or trustworthy in any aspect. Stay Away... Unfortunately, chasing people like this through legal and/or BBB-like channels is a true waste of time. At one point they built quality units (I owned a PP 2000 built in late 2010 that was amazing) but after the split of the company (also written about in various threads and on the internet), the people that remained with this form of Purepower up in Canada started to produce products with serious issues (also written about on various threads) and act in unethical ways. There is ample material on Agon about them including my own personal experience with them and that of others. Unfortunately for the poster of this thread if past history is any indication, the money will not be returned, the unit will not be returned and if the unit is returned 'fixed' it should be scruitinized for other new issues with it soon after due to probable questionable parts, build/repair techniques, etc...
This was very informative.  i was thinking of buying a new pure power pro or a PS audio P10.  I quess this solves that question. I like to suppport Canadian or USA made products, but poor service and wworkmanship cannot be tolerated no matter where the  place of origin is.  Thanks to everyone who put in tbere comments. Once again very helpful.
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