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 just lost about $5200, after I returned a trial unit to PurePower, and Richard Janzen failed to refund me the money claiming that they don't have the money to refund me ... yet.

story:

1. got a PurePower+ 3000 on a 2-week 'money-back guarantee' in March 2017, paid by PayPal. It buzzed so loudly (reported by many online) I had to take it out of my system

2. got a replacement unit shortly, same problem. Richard gave me all the same sort of lies/non-sensical explanations that have been reported by others.

3. I was naive and stupid, and probably was too busy at the time to research further online so failed to realized others had all the same bad experience. I bought into Richard's lies about 'progress in fixing' the buzzing problem, and that they will send me one without issue soon. So the most stupid part here is that I failed to request a refund, which at that time I was still protected by PayPal should PurePower fail to refund me.

4. Days turn into weeks into months. Requests for updates (calls, emails) often went unanswered. Then was told they are working on upgraded model (PurePower 3000 Gold) and they decided to wait to ship me that new model.

5. Red flags all over and I should have seen it coming, but didn't react. But I suppose by this point in time I was already out-of-luck since I am no longer protected by PayPal. Was told 'new' model will be ready by fall of 2017

6. By spring of 2018 still didn't get a unit. Finally got Richard to send me the 'new' 3000, which by the way, I think they just repackaged the same circuitry inside a new-looking chassis, but replaced the older sealed-acid battery with lithium battery.

7. Received 'new' PurePower 3000 Gold on May 9, 2018. Hooked it up and OMG it made the same disturbing loud buzzing noise.

8. Richard then claims that they had 'misunderstood' what I told them when I first reported the noise (and sent them audio recording of the sound), claiming that they had focused on fixing this and that, but now he proceed to claim the source of problem is my home AC electrical system (power from the wall). WHAT??? Isn't that what his product is supposed to help improve or eliminate?   Now he is blaming my home AC wiring for causing their coil to buzz (but that, in fact, was what he had acknowledge since day one and said that they were 'working towards a fix’)!

9. Again, I was naive, stupid, or at least totally UNINFORMED, so I continued to work with Richard to try and help him find the source of 'probelm' (in my own home AC). Finally, I was done checking, testing this and that for him, and I sent unit back to him May 30, and they received it on June 6, 2018.

10. As of today, July 13, I still don't have my refund.

11. Now seeing service of an attorney

12. At this point I've pretty much resigned myself to be out $5200 and don't expect being able to recover that. But I really think this scam has to come to an end so I am posting this to warn fellow audiophiles.
Sorry, but there has been so many warnings about this company on Audiogon, then why?...

ozzy
Because, 3 reasons:
1. I know of two audiophile locally who have PurePower and were happy with it

2. I felt the idea of regenerated AC from stored power source (i.e., battery, as in PurePower) would be better than direct wall AC supply (i.e. as in PS Audio). There is no basis for that belief, just my own thoughts. With that in mind, choices are very limited. At the time I only know of PurePower (later I learned that IsoTek and ProPower)
3. I thought I was dealing with the ’real and legit’ PurePower (after the breakup and legal issue), and bought into the idea that production brought back to Canada (so that it is now in-house with quality control as opposed to contracted out to some Taiwan manufacturer)
Yes, had I read through all the various thread, I would have realized that all the complaints reported were actually directed at the PurePower Partners LLC, Richard and Damian Janzen.
It is really saddening to see how some people live their lives as ruthless predators, hurting innocent, trusting people like yourself.