Poor Brinsea Customer Service

[Delilah1337]

It really is a bummer that they dont put enough effort into customer service. Word will spread if they dont do something to fix it. Lucky for us there are many other brands and homemade incubators for us to use. My new one will be here Tuesday and it's going to kill me to see it under the tree all boxed up until Christmas

 

[chickensinwasillaAK]

I'll just say I've had good luck with them. Now the phone issue I agree with, they suck. I sent an e mail to customer service about an Ova Scope I bought and suddently stopped working. About an hour after sending it, I got a response from the office Manager with a Ruturn authorization # .

So far I'm hapopy with them, I'll return the scope and see how long it takes them to return a unit to me, hope the turn around is as good as the communication has been.

 

[keckels]

I can tell you I was disappointed that my new turner only worked for a week. Emailed them on Sunday explaining the problem & symptoms. They emailed me Monday morning; Monday afternoon I had notification of a priority shipment from them with a part to hopefully fix the problem.

I really couldn't ask for better service than that. For any of you with turners, they are sending a clutch plate. Is that something internal? Because from the outside it doesn't look like anything's broke.

 

[SilkieAddicts]

I've had a very positive experience with them. Ordered my Brinsea Advance EX and got it within days. It's worked beautifully from day one! Sorry you had a bad experience....

 

[Schwartzfarmnc]

I would agree with those with positive experiences, I just called yesterday because my brand new in the box Mini Advance plastic dome was broke, the representative pulled my order and told me they would ship one out that day and to return the broken unit, and last night I get an email from UPS with my new tracking number, so far I can only say good things about the service.

 

[jmc]

remember.

with a 'poll' of alot of people, you will probably get a bunch of positive and a bunch of negative replies with a whole lot of companies, if not most.

that said,

i have found the girl with whom i have spoken more than once on the phone to be rather 'cold'. i did 'break through' once and had her chuckling though.

but i think many of us have spoken to the same rather unpleasant person--at least i have more than once. always seem to get HER...............

 

[ChipotleChick]

I have been so sorry that I purchased the Brinsea 190 last year.

I bought the humidity pump and the 190 was unable to activate the pump. Apparently the only technical person was out on sick leave for a while. I'm sorry they were sick but they need more help than just one technical support person. This is suppose to be a national representative for a product.

In the end they sent me a new board to put in. They sent the board in a cheap little box which was partially crumpled. I was afraid to mess with trying to put it in until the season was over. So with the hatching season getting underway I put the board in today. Well what do you know the pump still didn't work. I closed the top up and now I get sensor error message and it doesn't seem to be able to get started.

I suspect that the board wasn't even the problem. The wiring from the plug for the pump may be at fault. But really is it reasonable to expect the new owner of a brand new incubator to put in a new board. I would say...NO!

Now I can't even get the incubator to heat up because of some sort of sensor error message.

The only reasonable solution in my mind would be for the company to ship another incubator to me and let me ship the old one back in the packing from the new one. For the cost of this incubator I would expect much better service.

 

[ChipotleChick]

Just as an update I was told to unplug the sensor plug and plug it back in to the board. Did it a few times without result. I will call tomorrow.

By the way the support person was not the same as last year. I felt he was more specific in regard to problems but he said that it was very expensive to ship these things. That gives me the impression that they would only replace a unit in a very extreme circumstance.

In response to a comment above I had a similar experience with the spot check thermometer they sell. I bought some nice glass thermometers and am now happy with the readings I'm getting and the Eco Advance 20 is very stable. I just tape them to the edge of a tray in a position that I can read. In general my experience with the incubators is that they are quite consistent in regard to maintaining a temperature. Whether you choose a thermometer to set it or go by the digital display setting the thermometer readings have been quite stable.

Unfortunately my 190 is not working at all now.

 

[KSH1]

I know I'm resurrecting an old thread, but I've seen stories like this and the complete opposite regarding Brinsea customer service. Is there any kind of consensus now? It's an awful lot of money if there's no support...