Portable Sinks from Monsam almost devastated my business. I bought 15 of their portable sinks (one compartment and four compartments) and all were leaking desastrous after only a year.
I experienced:
- desastrous portable sink durability
- poor customer service
- the non-existance of technicians at Monsam
... and Monsam still denies all responsibility for their product failure and only tries to find arguments what we might have done wrong.
I could only get Health Department approval for my special event food business after buying new heaters at my own costs, replacing all heaters myself, spending two nights for this without sleep and because the Health Department was cooperating by coming out again at Thanksgiving Day...
The Situation:
We are running a seasonal Holiday Market for four weeks at City Hall Philadelphia (www.philachristmas.com). We rent out some foodstands to external vendors (including European vendors and a winery that needs a very expensive alcohol license) and run some food stands with our company. For all food stands we bought a total of 15 portable sinks incl. 4 four-compartment-sinks -- spending more than $ 19,000 with Monsam. Their salesman told us this would be the perfect solution for many years.
We got them out of storage just 3 days before our special event starts and placed them in our booths. We made a test run, one day before the Health Department came out for inspection. When we tried the first one and it had pumped enough water in, rusty water started to run out at the front of the hot water heater. But not just a little - a steady flow of water came out, flooding the whole food booth of our German sweets vendor.
We did not know what to do, as the water came out from a non-visible area inside the heater unit and our vendor got in panic because of the upcoming inspection.
We tried the other sinks - the second one had the same problem, so did the third one, the fourth one, ... - in the end all sinks showed the same symptom - in the late afternoon, the day before the Health Department came out for inspection, two days from the event start at Thanksgiving Day...
It seems like the little water that was left in the hot water heaters - which you actually cannot empty without full de-installation of the heaters - was enough to let them rust from the inside till they were leaking. We opened two of them and saw what you can see at the photos.
Poor Service:
We called Monsam to ask what to do. They proposed to send new heaters, what however would need at least a week - maybe longer because of Thanksgiving and the upcoming weekend... As this was no option, they proposed to fix it with a silicone that dries within 3 hours. We needed till 2am to fix two of them, went to bed at 2.45am, got up at 4.30am and tested them at 5.15am - both were still leaking and the leak was even worse.
So we went to see if we can find new hot water heaters and finally found suitable heaters at Lowe's. So we went to various Lowe's stores in the region and bought all the heaters we needed. When the Health Department was there, we only had one heater ready - so we had to ask them if they can come back at Thanksgiving Day. Without this cooperation of the inspectors, our business would have been devastated, as our vendors spent thousands of dollars to be a part of this event - to refund them would have been impossible...
Due to a lot of other things to do, we had to spend a second night to replace the other heaters - two nights without sleep.
Even poorer problem solution:
When we informed MONSAM about how we fixed the problem, they came up with the "offer" to give us up to $ 150 per replaced hot water heater - actually we had paid $ 220 per heater at Lowe's and had 3 people spending 2 nights for repairs.
Obviously those sinks don't work for us, as this problem might occur every year and we cannot afford to buy new heaters every year - and to replace all of them without any tecnician help.
A lifetime of less than a year is completely inacceptable. The damage occured within that year that MONSAM states as "one year 100% warranty". Of course we asked for a full refund.
We sent them photos of the rusted sinks and even sent in two of the rusted hot water heaters.
MONSAM's response:
So far we had two detailled conversations with their chief sales manager:
- in conversation one, he blamed us for storing the heaters full so that they froze up (which is definitely not true)
- in conversation two - after we sent the photos - he came up with the reproach, that our storage must have been wet (which is also not true)
Both conversations were before they even got the heaters... Hopefully they yield to reason very soon to avoid a legal dispute...
After they received the heaters they increased their "offer" to replace the heater's full price + $ 50 per changed unit and an extended warranty for ONE year only if we BEENDEN ALLE ANSPRÜCHE thereafter.
From offering nothing, now they only offer what they can ÜBERWÄLZEN to their supplier anyway... For me this does not sound like taking responsibility for their desastrous product...
I am still asking them for a full refund of my investment as this solution obviously failed and cannot be fixed satisfactory so that I can use them for the many years that I bought them for.
Now I had to give this matter over to my attorney - which caused another great offer from my side - not to mention how angry it still makes me to deal with this matter, as I have other things to do to run my business.
TO BE CONTINUED...
My recommendation: Don't let this happen to you - don't buy from Monsam!