Last summer I posted a thread about the problems I was having with my Generac natural gas 10KW generator and the lack of customer service. I made a diary of my adventure and posted it to a site I created, generac-sucks.com
Well, low and behold, a year later I get a "cease and desist" letter from Generac's Vice President General Counsel informing me that if "in the unfortunate event that you fail to remove these defamatory materials, we will take aggressive legal action."
Just so happens that the domain expired this week and I did not renew it since it served its purpose.
With all the existing case law surrounding "sucks" websites, it makes me wonder.
I have previously visited "Radio Shack sucks" and "U-Haul sucks" sites (don't recall the precise names). I wonder if their owners are also being harassed.
MB
On 08/27/04 01:33 pm snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com put fingers to keyboard and launched the following message into cyberspace:
I work for Generac dealer, as a sevice tech. What was the problem, and was it resolved? We have had good support from Generac, even as far as to offer to exchange a troublesome generator that is two years out of warranty. Generac has spotty support for standby products. We often drive over 100 miles one way to do service. Warranty dealers are not in every city and the closest may be miles away, not nessasarily Generacs fault! Just not allot of companies want to take on this type of work. Often when I get there it is an instalation problem not covered under warranty. We get a check for the travel time when I arrive, or I leave! Customers often have a hard time understanding what is warranty and what is not. E-mail me if you like. Greg
They SHOULD be! You can't just go publishing undocumented heresay anecdotal stories about a company like that, that's friggin' LIBEL unless every single word of it is proven fact. Where the fugg do people get off thinking they can just stand up in a public forum and defame another person or a business??
On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 13:33:31 -0400, snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote (with possible editing):
FWLIW, if you reported everything that happened and made no unsubstantiated claims, I'd guess their lawyer can take all the action he likes and shove it up his ass. After all, we do have free speech in this country. OTOH, if you made unsubstantiated claims, that could be interpreted as either slander or libel (one's spoken, one's written, but who other than a low-life lawyer actually cares...)
No it isn't. It isn't libel unless it's proven by a preponderance of the evidence in a civil court to be an untrue statement.
Where the fugg do people get off thinking they can
It isn't defamation unless it's false. Companies should think about the consequences before they make a crappy product or give crappy customer service.
Purchased ours 10 months ago for $9.4K. Upon installing the Generac installer told us President Biden took the WiFi away so he could not set that up. Liar. 7 months later the unit just quit. Took a month to get the idiot here. He replaced battery and we told him it obviously was a bad harness to the battery. He didn’t care. Put new battery in. Regenerated one time and died. That was 6 months ago. No support through Waukeshaat all. They gave us two contractors numbers and they do not respond. BBB is useless now. So we are screwed. Do not buy this expensive lawn decoration. Please.
I've had a miserable experience with GENERAC. Bought two generators, one failed after only a few uses (not full uses: just test uses, monthly). The recoil starter rope separated from the recoil handle when I pulled it; the rope went back into the unit -- handle stayed in my hand. Not good.. Contacted GENERAC; they sent list of service providers. Took the unit to two of them; both said they can't even LOOK at it for 5 or 6 weeks. Not good. After several calls, I found a service provider which, about a week or so later, agreed to look at the unit. I took it to them; next day, it was ready and the technician dropped it at my home (good service!); told me the problem was that the assembler at the factory failed to properly knot the recoil starter rope in the handle, which is why it came out. $160.00. I paid them and sent a copy of the receipt to GENERAC. It's warranted, after all. Then, reality set in: Long story, short version. About a dozen emails to GENERAC; got the runaround: "Referring it to our Case Review Team." Never heard from the "Team." This went on for 4 months or more. Finally, I sent ANOTHER email to GENERAC and to: Mr. Aaron Jagdfeld, CEO, GENERAC Power Systems Several days later (yesterday), I got a phone call from "Maddie." She informed me that the company is reimbursing the $160.00. Good. Then, reality: Not send the money to me; sending it to the service center. I had already paid them. It didn't matter to GENERAC. No plausible explanation. And it will take them "one or two weeks" to send the money. I decided not to hold my breath; instead, I sent an email to the service center, alerting them. Next day (today, 3/29/23), I got an email from the service center, telling me THEY are immediately sending me $160.00. I believe them. Good service center (assuming I get the money); lousy GENERAC company.
I have watched lots of her small engine repairs. They have taught me a lot and I have repaired several of the small engines on generators and chain saws I have. Hard to believe they would charge $ 160 just to put the handle back on. I replaced the rope on my 5 kw generator a few years back for a couple of dollars.
Seems to be in the same over priced repairs I have been charged. Such as was quoted $ 1800 to replace an electric water heater, another company did it for $ 950. The labor was only $ 200 for 2 men to spend just under 2 hours to do the job. The other was $ 350 to replace a $ 20 capacitor on the heat pump. Took the man less than half an hour to find the problem and replace the capacitor.
Some people in any business will try to scalp their customers. But, sometimes you're paying for the person's knowledge and experience. Two examples: (1) you go to a well regarded restaurant and pay $25 for a main course; yet the ingredients may cost only $5; and (2) you go to an outpatient surgery office and are charged $1,000 for a procedure that only takes 20 minutes and uses only $75 worth of disposable equipment and supplies. Bottom line: if you knew how to reliably and safely do it yourself, you'd do it. I'm not saying this to excuse over-charging; just to say that often the charges are reasonable considering the whole picture.
Yes, you go to a local coffee shop and pay $ 2.00 and a place like Starbucks and pay $8.00. Same basic thing but you get the pleasure of saying you went to Starbucks.
One can paint a picture for say around $ 100 worth of paint and not sell it for $ 50 but Hunter Biden sold his for $ 500,000. Take a baseball that was hit by say Babe Ruth. Not worth hardly anything unless you can prove it was his 60 th home run ball. That thing might be worth over a million at an auction. I heard that some hotel maids would fight over cleaning the room where a famous person stayed in hopes of gettig some hair that may have fallen out.
After I retired 6 months later I got a call wanting me to come back to work for a special project. I told them I would for $ 2 an hour. They said they would only pay me $ 1 an hour. I told them while I was workig I got $ 1 an hour but the company claimed with thr benefits I was really getting $ 2 an hour. I would not work for less than $ 2 an hourso declined the job. Saw some of the fellow workers about a year later and was told that it took the company a lot lomger as they had to get some others in with the knowlege of how to do things that I should have known how to do.Real wages have been changed to the ratio to protect the actual pay.
It is one thing to charge a reasonable amount and another to be ripped off. I go to the dentist and get my teeth cleaned . The charge is about $ 75 for half an hour labor. The dentist comes in for about 5 minutes and charges the same. The hygenist does a lot more work, but her schooling is a lot less. The dentist has much more schooling and should know what to look for and how to correct anything he does find.
Ripoff is where one shop charges $ 1800 and another shop charges $ 950 to to the same work. Same as when I had my house reroofed. I got 4 bids. Two were $ 9000, one was $ 12,000 and another was $ 18,000. They were all similar shingles and the same number of years warrenty. All companies had been in business for over 25 years.
Ah! The trials and tribulations of living in a country with a capitalist economy :-). (Just consider the alternative; no thank you. I've traveled to countries that have government controlled economies.) No current system is ideal. We can only work to improve the system we believe to be better than the alternatives.
I live in an area with frequent power outages. I bought a generic generator with an automatic transfer switch. The engine failed after 196 hours. I am in my 70’s and this is the first internal combustion engine that I have ever had that failed. I would not recommend generic to anyone.
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