:icon_evil Well as many of you know my computer had a problem which initially seemed like my APC unit was at fault and for all we know still is.
Anyway if you can bare the reading this is what i ended up writing to them finally.
This email was sent to a few directors, employees and the Head of Customer relations for APC, i CC'ed a few people i know also. Just for starters
Clif notes: Taking for ever to process a claim, trying at everypoint to get out of it. Just one nice person in the company willing to help me out.
this is what i wrote:
To whom it may concern,
I am writing this email to those I believe to be part of APC’s endeavor to be #1 in the Power Protection Market. This email relates to APC’s handling of their customers, when relating to faulty equipment. It also relates to APC’s procedure in dealing with these issues and claims or the inability to do so in a timely fashion.
I have always had the belief, and still do, that APC is the best power protection company around. This would be the first time I have come across an issue with a faulty APC Back-UPS or any other uninterruptible power supply from APC.
I had started the claim process initially with your company on the 16th of October, 2006. At that time I had an immediate response from the staff at your company. Their emails were well organized professional and dealt with the issue in a very timely manner. I continued to follow the instructions given to me by these individuals so that I could have my claim dealt with expediently, in order to have my small business up and running again. In my conversations with these individuals I had asked about the time element involved in dealing with these claims as it was critical to my small business. I was reassured that all would be handled in a timely and professional manner. Knowing this I was quite content and happy with APC and still believed your company to be the best in the market.
It was brought to my attention that a questionnaire needed to be filled out to continue my claim process. This was done immediately as my business could not afford to wait, nor could it afford to replace this system out right at this time. I then had to wait for the claims department to contact me.
Unfortunately this is where I have encountered the first of my issues with APC. About two weeks had passed and I still had not had any contact from the claims department at APC. I was so disturbed by this that I again called up to ask what was happening and if the claims department was going to contact me. The representative that I spoke with was unsure initially as to why the claims department had not contacted me. Further in our discussion it was discovered that some paper work was mailed to me, via the United States Postal Service. This normally would be fine if it was not an urgent matter like replacing a protected system not to mention that I am in a different country.
Even though our countries may border one another it still makes for international mail to be quite slow delaying the claim process and further hurting my small business. Once this had been discovered it was realized that it would probably be a few day still before I would have the paper work in hand.
A few days following my discussion with the representative I received a call from one of your employees who introduced himself as a Safety Engineer, Steve Williams. We reviewed the situation and he then explained to me in his opinion why the product had possibly failed. At this point I felt much better about the procedures at APC. I was pleased to see that this much effort would go into discovering a new issue with a product line. My discussion with Mr. Williams was professional and very informative and since this was a new issue for an APC product he wished to resolve it immediately. He was a great help in furthering my understanding of what possibly had happened and in explaining more of the process, which no one to this point had been able to explain to me. Mr. Williams and I had also gone over the fact that a replacement unit had still not been sent to me. He assured me that he would mention this to the correct people and one would be sent ASAP with a return shipping label for the damaged unit. Much to my joy and disappointment a few days later a replacement unit was in my hands, without a return shipping label.
Around the same time I had finally received the paper work. I proceeded to fill these out and follow the instructions given. To return the unit I had once again contacted the people at APC via the 800 number to explain that I had not received a shipping label with my replacement unit. I was helped in a very professional way and quickly. The day after, if I recall correctly, I had a shipping label delivered to my door. I was then able to proceed to ship the unit.
Upon arriving at the UPS Branch, to ship the unit back and fill out the needed paper work for cross border shipment I was informed by the clerk at the UPS Store that they cannot accept an A.R.S. shipping label to have the unit shipped back across the border to be returned to your facility on Rhode Island. The clerk continued to inform me that if I had dropped off the unit UPS would have put the package directly in the garbage bin outside there facility due to the A.R.S. shipping label. They would not have been able to ship the unit anywhere and it would have had to be disposed of.
At this time I then contacted your people at the 800 for APC again to explain all this to them. I would have imagined that they would have already known this though. These people were aware that I was in Canada with each and every contact they confirmed my shipping address with me. I was told that this situation would be corrected and a proper shipping label would be provided.
At this point three weeks had already passed. A few days after this I had received my new shipping label. The following day I had the unit shipped back to APC. It was received the day after shipment.
I waited an additional two days to be contacted by someone at APC, possibly even someone from the claims department. I was not contacted. I proceeded to call your 800 number once again, giving the tracking information to this person along with the EPP Number 1-89642591. I was then informed that this information would be handed off to the claims department, and that I would be contacted in THREE WEEKS. You could believe that, to my dismay, I was quite upset with hearing this information. By then it had already been a month’s time. My business was suffering drastically and my situation was worsening.
I had then proceeded to search out whomever I could to discuss this issue and find out what could be done about it. Most of the delay has been on the part of APC’s inability to deal with this in a timely manner or to take the time and deal with things correctly in the first place. In contacting the people again at the 800 number I was informed that nothing could be done about this regardless of how critical it was to my business, or the fact that there has been such a huge delay in handling my claim.
After this point I received a call from Steve Williams who had left a message to inform me that due to some technical inabilities of the APC back-UPS I had that it was not capable of supporting the computer I had even though nothing about this had been written anywhere on the box of the product nor was the power of the power supply outside of what the Back-UPS unit’s capabilities are. It had to do with a feature of the high end power supply I had, which is a PFC. I am a little shocked about this since more and more computer power supplies on the market have this feature with each and every day.
With this knowledge I now know that I cannot use the replacement unit that was sent to me. I had a failure of my unit due to the fact that I had purchased a high quality power supply. None of these issues are mentioned on the box or APC’s website about what computer power supplies not to use with this particular unit. I was informed that this is because this is something of a new issue for APC and the Back-UPS product line.
As it stands now, all in all, just under a month and a half has passed. I still have not had any direct contact from your claims department. My business is and has been suffering. My opinion of APC’s products still stands strong, however, I could never imagine in the future suggesting the purchase of or providing any of my clients, colleagues in my industry or any personal friends with an APC product with the knowledge that people purchase these units to protect, either mission critical, important equipment or just expensive equipment considering my personal experience that APC has a large inability to deal with product failures in a timely manner whatsoever.
I almost find it disgusting that APC could claim to be #1 when they cannot even replace a mission critical unit for a small business in a timely manner. I would hate to see what would happen with one of my clients or colleagues and their server farms or high end workstations.
I hope in writing this to you, that it will enable more action to be taken to restore my business to function properly again, and not just with my claim, but also enabling APC to better their policies and proficiency with handling failures of their products and the replacement of the customer’s equipment.
I am also deeply bothered by the fact that I was also told by Steve Williams, after his discussion with a chief engineer, that I would have to purchase a unit that is four times the price of the unit that I had originally purchased to protect my equipment. I Find this to be a little out of reach for a small business such as myself.
A very concerned and upset professional and business owner,
Joshua Benoit
Owner
bobiseverywhere.com
EPP# 1-89642591
CC: Lewis Chow – Insight Inc.
Jeremy Dobrofsky – PC Mall Inc.
Daniel O’Flaherty – IBM Inc.
Anyway if you can bare the reading this is what i ended up writing to them finally.
This email was sent to a few directors, employees and the Head of Customer relations for APC, i CC'ed a few people i know also. Just for starters
Clif notes: Taking for ever to process a claim, trying at everypoint to get out of it. Just one nice person in the company willing to help me out.
this is what i wrote:
To whom it may concern,
I am writing this email to those I believe to be part of APC’s endeavor to be #1 in the Power Protection Market. This email relates to APC’s handling of their customers, when relating to faulty equipment. It also relates to APC’s procedure in dealing with these issues and claims or the inability to do so in a timely fashion.
I have always had the belief, and still do, that APC is the best power protection company around. This would be the first time I have come across an issue with a faulty APC Back-UPS or any other uninterruptible power supply from APC.
I had started the claim process initially with your company on the 16th of October, 2006. At that time I had an immediate response from the staff at your company. Their emails were well organized professional and dealt with the issue in a very timely manner. I continued to follow the instructions given to me by these individuals so that I could have my claim dealt with expediently, in order to have my small business up and running again. In my conversations with these individuals I had asked about the time element involved in dealing with these claims as it was critical to my small business. I was reassured that all would be handled in a timely and professional manner. Knowing this I was quite content and happy with APC and still believed your company to be the best in the market.
It was brought to my attention that a questionnaire needed to be filled out to continue my claim process. This was done immediately as my business could not afford to wait, nor could it afford to replace this system out right at this time. I then had to wait for the claims department to contact me.
Unfortunately this is where I have encountered the first of my issues with APC. About two weeks had passed and I still had not had any contact from the claims department at APC. I was so disturbed by this that I again called up to ask what was happening and if the claims department was going to contact me. The representative that I spoke with was unsure initially as to why the claims department had not contacted me. Further in our discussion it was discovered that some paper work was mailed to me, via the United States Postal Service. This normally would be fine if it was not an urgent matter like replacing a protected system not to mention that I am in a different country.
Even though our countries may border one another it still makes for international mail to be quite slow delaying the claim process and further hurting my small business. Once this had been discovered it was realized that it would probably be a few day still before I would have the paper work in hand.
A few days following my discussion with the representative I received a call from one of your employees who introduced himself as a Safety Engineer, Steve Williams. We reviewed the situation and he then explained to me in his opinion why the product had possibly failed. At this point I felt much better about the procedures at APC. I was pleased to see that this much effort would go into discovering a new issue with a product line. My discussion with Mr. Williams was professional and very informative and since this was a new issue for an APC product he wished to resolve it immediately. He was a great help in furthering my understanding of what possibly had happened and in explaining more of the process, which no one to this point had been able to explain to me. Mr. Williams and I had also gone over the fact that a replacement unit had still not been sent to me. He assured me that he would mention this to the correct people and one would be sent ASAP with a return shipping label for the damaged unit. Much to my joy and disappointment a few days later a replacement unit was in my hands, without a return shipping label.
Around the same time I had finally received the paper work. I proceeded to fill these out and follow the instructions given. To return the unit I had once again contacted the people at APC via the 800 number to explain that I had not received a shipping label with my replacement unit. I was helped in a very professional way and quickly. The day after, if I recall correctly, I had a shipping label delivered to my door. I was then able to proceed to ship the unit.
Upon arriving at the UPS Branch, to ship the unit back and fill out the needed paper work for cross border shipment I was informed by the clerk at the UPS Store that they cannot accept an A.R.S. shipping label to have the unit shipped back across the border to be returned to your facility on Rhode Island. The clerk continued to inform me that if I had dropped off the unit UPS would have put the package directly in the garbage bin outside there facility due to the A.R.S. shipping label. They would not have been able to ship the unit anywhere and it would have had to be disposed of.
At this time I then contacted your people at the 800 for APC again to explain all this to them. I would have imagined that they would have already known this though. These people were aware that I was in Canada with each and every contact they confirmed my shipping address with me. I was told that this situation would be corrected and a proper shipping label would be provided.
At this point three weeks had already passed. A few days after this I had received my new shipping label. The following day I had the unit shipped back to APC. It was received the day after shipment.
I waited an additional two days to be contacted by someone at APC, possibly even someone from the claims department. I was not contacted. I proceeded to call your 800 number once again, giving the tracking information to this person along with the EPP Number 1-89642591. I was then informed that this information would be handed off to the claims department, and that I would be contacted in THREE WEEKS. You could believe that, to my dismay, I was quite upset with hearing this information. By then it had already been a month’s time. My business was suffering drastically and my situation was worsening.
I had then proceeded to search out whomever I could to discuss this issue and find out what could be done about it. Most of the delay has been on the part of APC’s inability to deal with this in a timely manner or to take the time and deal with things correctly in the first place. In contacting the people again at the 800 number I was informed that nothing could be done about this regardless of how critical it was to my business, or the fact that there has been such a huge delay in handling my claim.
After this point I received a call from Steve Williams who had left a message to inform me that due to some technical inabilities of the APC back-UPS I had that it was not capable of supporting the computer I had even though nothing about this had been written anywhere on the box of the product nor was the power of the power supply outside of what the Back-UPS unit’s capabilities are. It had to do with a feature of the high end power supply I had, which is a PFC. I am a little shocked about this since more and more computer power supplies on the market have this feature with each and every day.
With this knowledge I now know that I cannot use the replacement unit that was sent to me. I had a failure of my unit due to the fact that I had purchased a high quality power supply. None of these issues are mentioned on the box or APC’s website about what computer power supplies not to use with this particular unit. I was informed that this is because this is something of a new issue for APC and the Back-UPS product line.
As it stands now, all in all, just under a month and a half has passed. I still have not had any direct contact from your claims department. My business is and has been suffering. My opinion of APC’s products still stands strong, however, I could never imagine in the future suggesting the purchase of or providing any of my clients, colleagues in my industry or any personal friends with an APC product with the knowledge that people purchase these units to protect, either mission critical, important equipment or just expensive equipment considering my personal experience that APC has a large inability to deal with product failures in a timely manner whatsoever.
I almost find it disgusting that APC could claim to be #1 when they cannot even replace a mission critical unit for a small business in a timely manner. I would hate to see what would happen with one of my clients or colleagues and their server farms or high end workstations.
I hope in writing this to you, that it will enable more action to be taken to restore my business to function properly again, and not just with my claim, but also enabling APC to better their policies and proficiency with handling failures of their products and the replacement of the customer’s equipment.
I am also deeply bothered by the fact that I was also told by Steve Williams, after his discussion with a chief engineer, that I would have to purchase a unit that is four times the price of the unit that I had originally purchased to protect my equipment. I Find this to be a little out of reach for a small business such as myself.
A very concerned and upset professional and business owner,
Joshua Benoit
Owner
bobiseverywhere.com
EPP# 1-89642591
CC: Lewis Chow – Insight Inc.
Jeremy Dobrofsky – PC Mall Inc.
Daniel O’Flaherty – IBM Inc.
I will do so but Regarless of this. I believe the product to still be at fault. If my PSU had an issue. It was still pulling power through the APC unit, which should have shut down or not allowed the blow out.
