Product review (1 stars): Useless product, even worse customer service
Bought this for a lab that is designed to measure water temperature from freezing to boiling, because I figured it was cheaper than me stopping and picking up fresh ice on the way to work every day for several weeks. Tried to set it up on the Friday before lab, and it wouldn't work. It turned on, and pumped water around, but the cooling mechanism never functioned and it would just give me an error instead of actually making ice.
Sometimes you get a defective unit. Maybe something came loose during shipping. I don't know. That's not why this thing gets one star.
The one star review is for the deplorable customer service from Curtis International. I called immediately when i figured out it wasn't working. After a long hold, someone answered, and started asking me all kinds of unnecessary questions. Model and serial number, OK, fine, that makes sense. But they were asking me for the original purchase information, and for my personal mailing address, etc. These pieces of information are immaterial, since I merely asked to be connected to technical support so someone could help me debug the machine. The man on the other end of the line told me, repeatedly, that he was unable to put me through to technical support over the phone, because they only work via email. I stressed to him the importance of my situation - that I needed this brand new unit working by Monday - and insisted that he connect me to technical support. He wouldn't. I asked to speak to his manager. He wouldn't do that either. They already had my email address, so I stressed again the urgency with which I needed support, and left it for him to pass on my request.
TWO AND A HALF WEEKS LATER, I was contacted over the phone by another representative, again asking for my mailing address and other information not at all related to what I needed (they already had city, state and zip code - I can't understand why they'd need street address to answer simple questions about what I can do to make their product function). I told the representative that I needed help TWO WEEKS AGO, and that calling me back now was absolutely useless to me. THREE DAYS AFTER THAT, another representative calls me to try to get my mailing address. And then I got an email, asking for the same information. Nothing about "we're so sorry that you're having problems with your recent purchase" or any of the other pleasantries that often come with customer care. Just "we need this information in order to help you."
So, in short, the thing never worked from the minute I unboxed it, which happens sometimes. But the company gave me the runaround and refused to be of service. I've contacted our department's purchasing agent to see about returning the POC to Amazon, but if not, we'll scrap it for parts, because that's all it's good for.