Rainsoft System // Discovery Marketing Headaches

Been reading the information in this forum for a few days and it's nice to see that there are folks with similar experiences/problems. It's also nice to see guys like H2O_man and the like giving genuine support, where it has been lacking by their respective distributors.

We purchased our system September of 2003. It is a V2 P12? System. The pushy sales tactic was much like others' experiences and we actually said no the first time. They dropped the price to $2900 from $5995 a day later, and then threw in the "Liquid Soap Products" with the guarantee that if we didn't like the products they would give us the commercial equivalents. So we signed on the dotted line…. Before I go into the bad, let me just say that we love the water that the system produces.

From the start the guys that Discovery sent to do the install were as nicely as I can put it; idiots. I took a day off work to be there for the install. First they dropped the system off the back of the truck, but said that it would be fine. They placed the system on the side of the house and tapped into the PVC line, and then I saw one of the guys with a huge drill bit about 2' long. I asked what if was for and the guy said he was going to drill a hole through my brick and into the house for the power and asked where my closest internal outlet was. I stopped that immediately and made them use an extension cord until I could properly wire an outdoor outlet. He said that they commonly drill blindly into peoples houses/walls, which I found scary to say the least. When it came to the internal filter the guy had real difficulty with the piping under the sink and ruptured my supply line to the fridge, at which point I asked him to leave it for me to do later. After all that, a week or so later they did a follow-up and I didn't really want to get anyone in trouble so I said everything went fine. I find myself less tolerant these days, but I must have been in a good mood that week.

A few months later when I decided that the Liquid Soap Products were crap, I attempted to collect on their guarantee. This was an exercise in futility. They passed me around like a hot potato for a few weeks, promised returned calls, but never delivered. After a few weeks I gave up as I assume that was their goal.

About 9 months post-install, we wanted to get the water tested to make sure everything was OK, as it felt different than it had. They wanted like $150 to come test the water again, which in our contract it was free according to the "Customer Care Agreement" which we didn't qualify for since I filled the salt up myself. Tricky wording in the contract, but in addition, our salesman said that we could call anytime for this and there would be no charge. The lady that my wife spoke with told here that the salesmen were allowed to say anything to make the sale and that if we looked at our contract it says that no oral agreements will be honored. My fault for not reading all the fine print. So needless to say after getting road blocked and passed around again we gave up after a few weeks.

A few months after that, we had hurricane Ivan. We survived luckily, as out house is about 400 yards off the water on south of Hwy 98. Anyway the lid blew away and needed to be replaced. I called and was told a replacement would be around $30. I was told shipping was $12 or a serviceman could drop it off at no charge. A few days later I had a lid, but I also had a bill for $140 something on my door. They had hit me with the "trip charge" I called and after fighting with them via my credit card company I got that removed, but then the price of the lid went up to $79 b/c "the price was originally quoted by a new person" and that it was $79 all along. I had no way to prove this, so I ate the extra $40.

I went to Iraq in 2005 and while I was gone the system quit working all together. I told her just to bypass it and I would handle it when I returned. She had no luck getting anything out of Discovery Marketing. When I got back I paid them $100 to come out and fix the machine and everything was fine until last week.

On 7 August, I get this note from the water company saying that we used 43,000 gallons of water this month. I started checking for leaks, and found none. I was outside checking the water main and noticed the system doing a regeneration cycle out of schedule. Didn't think too much of it, but the next day whilst digging up my water main to check the pipes I noticed it was still running. I bypassed the system and the water meter stopped running a hundred miles an hour. Started digging toward the softener and the ground was soaked under the sod. I heard bubbling and found a busted PVC pipe under there as well. Looks like the installed it at an angle and put stress on the fitting that cracked.

I immediately called Discovery and told them I had a bust pipe and about the high water usage. I was told that someone will call me immediately, 30 mins later I called back, same story, 30 mins after that, I called again, same, after 3 hours of that, I was so mad I capped the system off and hooked my main back in direct.

Here's how the next 2 weeks went:

10 Aug: 10am - Called, told to call back in 1 hour
10 Aug: 11:20am - Called back, talked with Ops Manager, he said he would pull our file and call back in 15mins

10 Aug: 12:35pm - Called him back, he was out of office, left message
10 Aug: 4:30pm - Called, he had gone home, left message

11 Aug: 8:30am - Called, he was coming in late, left message
11 Aug: 1:00pm - Called, he was out of office, left message
11 Aug: 2:30pm - Called, he was out of office again, left message
11 Aug: 3:00pm - Called, he was back, but in a meeting, left message

14 Aug: 9:36am - Called, in a meeting, left message
14 Aug: 1:16pm - He finally called back, but we were out.
14 Aug: 2:30pm - Returned his call, he was on the phone, I asked to speak to the owner, but was told he wasn't there.

15 Aug: 9:00am - Called, not at work yet, left message
15 Aug: 10:30am - Called RS HQ, told them situation, was told they would contact DM on my behalf.
15 Aug: 3:07pm - Ops Manager finally called back, told me he would have the service manager out on the 17 th at 9am to fix or replace the machine, hook it back up, and he would also take the liquid soap products and fulfill that end of the bargain. Also he would give us a 1 year no parts or labor warranty.

17 Aug: 10:00am - No serviceman, called left message
17 Aug: 11:00am - Still no serviceman, spoke with a service manager, and was told he would talk to ops manager
17 Aug: 12:30pm - Ops manager called, serviceman on his way.
17 Aug: 3:30pm - No serviceman, called and was told they are on their way and I will get called when they are 30mins out
17 Aug: 4:30pm -No serviceman, called left message

18 Aug: 8:15am - Called, ops manager in meeting, left message
18 Aug: 8:50am - Ops manager called, said someone didn't follow his instructions, but he is sending them now.
18 Aug: 1:20pm - Servicemen show up! Replaced multiple parts, reconnected unit. After some trouble with compression fittings finally done. They tested cycles, added some resin fluid, set timers and replaced kitchen filter. The filter was at my cost though, $115! ouch... Darn proprietary filters...
Unfortunately they weren't given any instruction on the Liquid soap stuff, though that is still unresolved.

Now our water is returning to its softyness (yay!)

Still have some calling to do about the LSI stuff….

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to be thorough…

Cheers,

BT