Silvanus' Blog

Posts Tagged ‘affordablewater.us’

So. Being that I live in a house with fairly hard water, but having grown up in a house that had soft water, I budgeted in the purchase of a water softener for my house this year. I did some pretty good research, looking around for a good company, with good pricing, to purchase from. After some debating, I decided to go with affordablewater.us, due in large part to their positive testimonials displayed in large number on their site.

Unfortunately, my experience ended up not being so pleasant.  After detailing my thoughts/feelings about the overall experience, I’ll include the correspondence between myself and AffordableWater.

I first placed my order with AffordableWater on 3/8/2011 (way ‘early’ in the morning, like 1:30a.m.).  Great pricing only $864 for a Fleck 7600sxt with 112k grain capacity.  Was pretty excited to finally be getting on the way to getting soft water in my house.  Received my automated confirmation right away, then, nothing…  Surprisingly, no shipment confirmation with tracking information was sent.  I wasn’t really overly worried about this, as the information was able to be acquired directly from their website, when they did ship the water softener.

On 3/15/2011 (pretty fast for freight shipment!) the delivery arrived.  This should have been my first sign everything wasn’t going to work out. The shipping company, Dayton Freight, handled things totally unprofessionally.  The driver arrived at my home with a truck that had a broken lift-gate, completely unable to off-load the delivery.  The ‘blame’ for this promptly was displaced to us, the recipients of the delivery, by the driver.  After he attempted to inform us that if we could not find some way to offload the shipment, it would cost us an additional $60 to have him return the next day in a truck capable of delivering to a residence.  That in and of itself, is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard from someone handling a shipment, somehow we were apparently responsible for his/his company’s incompetence?  Upon attempting to actually cooperate with this imbecile, and actually offload the delivery (I wanted my water softener), we discovered a box that was damaged.  The damaged box contained the resin used for the filtration of the water, that actually causes the water to be ‘softened’.  The box was damaged severely enough, that the bag inside (a very thin plastic, not even as thick as my garbage bags) had broken open, and the resin was spilling out into the truck.  The driver had the gall to suggest that it wasn’t really a big deal, that we could ‘just get some bags and scoop up the stuff’.  That idea didn’t really sit well with me, so we ended up refusing the shipment for damages.  There was no way to accept a partial shipment, it was all or nothing, the driver informed us, it was simply easier in the overall scheme to deny the delivery because it was damaged.

Being rather irritated about this, I shot off an e-mail to AffordableWater to inform them of what had happened  (remember, all of this will be below).  I wasn’t really nice about the situation, as I was still pretty riled about the moronic delivery guy.  The first thing next morning, I received a prompt and courteous reply, apologizing for the problems, and letting me know they would get a new shipment to me right away, if that was what I wanted (I had indicated I may not).  I replied back, apologizing for my prior brusqueness, and letting them know that yes, I would definitely like them to ship a replacement, and thanks for taking care of it.  I also let them know the problem was not theirs, but in fact the shipping agency, as the shipment bill clearly stated it was to be delivered to a residence.  I got another reply letting me know the shipment would be delivered via ups, a little later than they had hoped, because apparently one of the components was out of stock until that morning.  Cool, my new softener was once again on its way!

A few days later UPS calls to schedule a delivery day/time.  We got it set to be delivered on the 24th.  3/24/2011 arrives, and late afternoon the delivery arrives.  My wife calls to inform me that the driver is there to deliver, but as they are preparing to off-load the delivery, the driver (this UPS guy was awesome, very professional) points out that one of the boxes appears to have some damage.  Once again, it is the box containing the resin.  Once again, the box is damaged severely enough the flimsy bag inside is spilling resin all over my driveway and the back of the UPS truck.  My wife called me at work, to determine what should be done, after some discussion with me, and the UPS driver, it was decided that returning it for being damaged was the best way to handle the scenario again.  Since we couldn’t receive a partial shipment, and I really didn’t want water softener resin spilling all over, that seemed to be the best solution.

Apparently I assumed wrong.

I dropped another e-mail to AffordableWater, expecting the situation to be handled much the way it was the first time. I let them know I had refused the shipment for damages again, and would like a replacement shipped as soon as possible.

However, disappointingly, I opened my e-mail the next morning, to read a rather curt reply informing me that my refusing the damaged shipment a second time was unacceptable, and they would be refunding my purchase.  I sent them a reply e-mail letting them know my dissatisfaction with this, and that I expected the refund promptly if that was how they felt, also informing them I would be sure to make this information known.

Ultimately, I do not understand how I as a customer could have handled this differently. I paid nearly a thousand dollars for something, that I am expected to accept delivery for in a damaged state?  The inadequacies on the part of the choice of shipping containers, and careful shipment handling by the carriers, is somehow my responsibility?  I really dislike being treated as if this whole scenario is somehow my own fault.  Perhaps if AffordableWater had somehow provided me a solution in the event something like this might happen a second time?  Something like: ‘In the event that the second delivery’s resin arrives damaged, please accept the shipment and dispose/store the damaged resin in the following fashion…  Contact us to let us know, and we will get a replacement shipment of resin shipped out, and a return label to return the damaged resin shipment back, so it can be retreated correctly’ etc.  Nothing of this sort was mentioned at all, but somehow I was expected to know, that if I treated the second damaged shipment, identically to how I treated the first, I would be treated as a troublesome customer not worth doing business with. It’s not as if they would ultimately be liable for the shipment, as it was DAMAGED, they should be getting a refund on their shipping + the value of the damaged merchandise.  Yet I was supposed to apparently, in the moment of delivery when their company was already closed for the day, clairvoyantly ‘know’ I was supposed to accept the delivery and work things out with AffordableWater ex-post-facto.  Ultimately, things seem to have worked out in the best fashion possible, I learned that if I ever needed them for anything again in the future, I could not depend on them anyway.  Hopefully no-one out there will get burned by them in an attempt to get some warranty help or something similar, once they’ve got your money.  I know I’m happier knowing my business with them is concluded, and will not have to associate with them in the future

Here is all of the correspondence I have regarding the situation (excluding the original order confirmation) in order of sent/received:


From: Kyle Siemer
Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2011 3:29 PM
To: 'Sales@AffordableWater.us'
Subject: Order #5491