I found other listings, by other sellers (including “Sold by Amazon”), on Amazon. But they all state “This item is non-returnable”.
So I might go the Walmart route, assuming Walmart does not have fine print about taking it back.
Anyway, APC might ship me a new unit, even though my failed unit’s warranty recently expired. I gave APC until the end of this week to rap this up. If APC does not come through by the end of this week, I will probably make my purchase via Walmart (which is on behalf of Newegg).
I spoke to an Amazon customer service representative about the non-returnable statement. They said that they will not take the unit back, but they would issue me a refund. That makes no sense to me. But they repeated it.
So unless @drhicom or someone tells me not to worry about the non-returnable statement on the Amazon listings, I will make the purchase from Walmart – that is, unless APC does the right thing.
Whatever happens, I hope that I end up keeping the unit. But I want to avoid any pitfalls, just in case this behemoth unit needs to be returned.
1. Good quality mains AC to 12v DC (or 24v DC for higher capacity/power draw requirements) switched-mode power supply with trimable output voltage
2. Decent 12v (or 24v DC, see above) sealed lead-acid battery(s), often badged as ‘leisure’ or ‘marine’, to suit voltage and capacity/runtime requirements
3. Good quality pure sine-wave 12v (or 24v, see above) inverter to supply the DC to AC side sized to suit capacity
4. Cable it all up with suitable breakers and cable sizes, design using first principles of electrical/electronic engineering, install in suitable enclosure
Result: A far more reliable, higher capacity, cost effective ‘true online’ / ‘dual-conversion’ solution.
[Edit] Of course if there’s an un-detected fault or you don’t know what you’re doing, it can have the potential to go even more spectacularly wrong than this:
[Edit2] It can even involve death. You have been warned…
Correct.
Perhaps I will try, after I sleep at a Holiday Inn Express.
Those do offer top-tier performance / protection. They also consume the most electricity, due to its constant rectifying and inverting. They also hum away, 24/7.
I own two of them, from Eaton Powerware (a model 9120 and 9130). They are fantastic. When I had them in use, I had a sense of complete confidence in keeping my connected equipment safe and running. But after many years, I decided to not replace their batteries, and started purchasing APC’s SUA 1500 Smart UPS models. But APC is no longer an option for me.
A line-interactive UPS offers excellent protection, runs silently (except when engaging for a correction or on battery), and consumes little power for its own operation.
After a few e-mail exchanges with APC’s support personnel, they escalated and wrote back that they are sending me a replacement.
Here is an excerpt of the key line from their last message to me:
Upon rechecking and consulting my resources again, here is what we are going to do for you. We will be processing a replacement unit for your BN1500M2 as a one time courtesy and for your peace of mind as well.
The above was after I wrote to them that I would be printing out all correspondence and mailing it to Schneider Electric CEO, Peter Herweck, and to Schneider Electric Chairman Jean-Pascal Tricoire at their corporate headquarters.
I also let them know that if it were a single failure, I would chalk it up to bad luck. But 3 failures for 3 units (I had purchased 3 of them) was their fault, and that is why I was escalating.
That got someone’s attention that authorized replacing a unit whose warranty had recently expired.
Crossing my fingers that this replacement unit does not fail, like the other three.
I also thanked her, because I know it was not easy for her to escalate.
I’ve dealt with Newegg a lot, since they accept crypto payments.
I’m NOT real happy with their crypto “provider”, tends to be slow and sometimes just not work.
Newegg themselves I’ve only had issues with on returns - which they ARE very poor at.
They USED to be good, but then they got bought out and turned into relative garbage, so I don’t deal with them much any more.
APC sent me a tracking number that is still sitting in “Label Created” status.
APC’s e-mail message read that they would ship on 10/25/204.
I called them, today (10/28/2024), and Albert told me that they have none available, and it should ship on 10/30/2024.
Albert was struggling with every part of this process.
– He did not have the e-mail message that his company sent to me.
– He asked me to forward it to him, but it came from a no-reply address.
– I explained the above to him, and asked him for his e-mail address, or any e-mail address. He had none.
– I dug up “primarysupport@se.com” (the “se” is Schneider Electric), from last week’s e-mail conversations. I asked Albert if I should use that e-mail address. He did not know.
– He sent me a new e-mail message, to reveal a working e-mail address from its “From” field.
– It came from “primarysupport@se.com”, and he did not know.
– I forwarded the e-mail message that contained the shipping date, to “primarysupport@se.com”, and I got an auto-reply that the mailbox is no longer monitored. And Albert did not know that someone at his company made that change and never passed along that information to the support people facing the customers.
– Albert had no information on how a customer could send them information, other than over the phone.
APC is in a state of turmoil.
And before any of the above took place, my call was answered by someone from the wrong department – a phone number that I used with all of my APC failures.
I am concluding that this chaos is not isolated to customer support, warehouse inventory, and my specific UPS model (reminder, 3 out of 3 failed, and more than once). Two were purchased from Micro Center, and one was purchased from Best Buy.
I love my old APC Smart UPS units (SUA 1500), and I am still using them. But those old units are from a time when APC was on the ball. Today, I would never consider their UPS systems.
You couldn’t make it up could you, except this sort of thing is unfortunately normal nowadays, sounds very much like when I need to raise an issue with my ISP Virgin Media, which is owned by Liberty Global. Go around in circles banging your head on the wall
Today, 10/31/2024, I spoke to Alvin, because APC still has not shipped me my replacement UPS.
They should have shipped it last week.
This past Monday, 10/28/2024, I called APC and Albert told me it would ship on 10/30/2024. That was yesterday.
Today, Alvin was trying to find out why it had not yet shipped. I suggested to him that he see if his warehouse has them in stock (which is what Albert told me they would, for 10/30/2024).
Alvin found out that they have them in stock, and he put in a request that mine ship today. It is a sign of their mismanagement that anyone, at this late date, needed to put in a shipping request. You would think that they would know that they have to ship it.
I will be pleasantly surprised if it ships today. I am giving it a 25% chance.
APC is in chaos.
