My UP Equip Experience

[bnaley]

This is really my first time doing a full review on a product buying experience but since it was so bad I feel it's my duty to share my experience with everyone to prevent anyone else from doing business with this horrible company. I just recently bought their 87-48AJ which is still in transit to Oahu as we speak so I can't give my opinion yet on their equipment so I will just be concentrating on their customer service and employees. Basically, I bought the lift brand new from them online and I let them know right off the bat that I'm on Oahu and I'm going to need some help at least getting it to Matson which is the company that ships from CA to HI. They were fine with this and went ahead with the sale. I gave them all the information regarding Matson's hours they were open, the booking number and their customer service line in case they had any problems. I had no idea who was shipping my lift until I received a call a week before it was expected to arrive at the port asking me if there was an unloading dock since they shipped it with a refrigerator container. This was a red flag that they went with a really cheap shipping company since your supposed to ship this equipment either with an open or enclosed trailer, especially to a port. No one did their due diligence or planned ahead for this so I called Matson and they said their ramp might be able to reach it but they weren't sure. I then had to buy the trailer for it and have it shipped over to the port to meet Up Equip's shipping company. I talked with the shipping company a day before they were scheduled to arrive and told me they were going to be there at 8am and to have the trailer there at that time. My trailer guy ended up arriving at 7:45am and the shipping company showed up 2 hours later. Turns out Matson's ramp was too short and they had no way to take the lift off the trailer. Someone eventually called a tow company to get it off since they didn't have a backup plan. Due to CA traffic, the towing company took quite a while and even longer to get it off the container. It was about 5pm by the time they got it off the trailer but it was too late since Matson closes their lot at 3pm. I then find out they unloaded it on some side street onto the trailer. I was freaking out because the shipping company left it on a street with my trailer guy who wasn't going to take my trailer since he was only hired to just transport the trailer and help get it on if possible. I then called Up Equip's salesman Alain explaining to him my situation and all he basically said was it wasn't his problem and the transaction is completed. He then rudely hung up on me. Alain was extremely unpleasant to work and was obviously never taught about customer service even dealing with him via email, wouldn't do business with him again. So the lift was basically delivered on some random side street with no help at all from Up Equip in regards to fixing the problem. I then had to convince my trailer guy to help me out since Up Equip abandoned me on the side of a road so I paid the driver to take it to a tow yard where they had to keep it over the weekend since it was hard to find someone to ship it back to Matson. I ended up paying an extra $2600 thanks to Up Equip and didn't get a single apology or even 1 phone call from them. I can't stand losing money due to incompetence but the stress from the whole situation was worth a lot more than the money I lost. I tried multiple times to talk with Up Equip's manager Martin but he wasn't any help and just made up excuse after excuse since he thinks his company doesn't make any mistakes and everything is the customer's fault. I have already filed a complaint with Canada's ministry of government and consumer complaints and will continue to spread the word to stay away from this rubbish company.

 

[UP Equip]

Bonjour everyone

The whole story here is down to this: we delivered a lift on the West Coast and as planned for a customer that should have take over / make arrangements from there to go overseas, and the customer did not take over upon destination. That’s it.

You will find an extensive answer in the document named Hawaii - Wrap of Emails included in this post. Since there was too much to say, it doesn't fit in a single post. This resume was sent July 17 in an email to Brian 7 days after unit was delivered in CA. Since then, more communications occurred by written between us and as of now, he still didn’t touch his unit. A full cut & paste of all these emails is included in the document attached. I trust the community will make up its own mind. At the very end of the first part, some additional facts are stated especially in regards with black mailing / racketeering. This is lower than low in our eyes and deserve the answer we’re providing now.

I agree with Brian though: This customer experience is beyond the worst we’ve experimented, experiencing and WILL experience in the future. We dealt with many kinds of customers and yes, sometimes hung up on them as swearing, blasphemy and disrespect came along the conversation. So yes Brian was hung up to, and I will keep on doing this if respect leaves a conversation.

We sell lifts, and we’re proud about the service we provide after the sale. We’re not making friends to “get the deal” and then disappear. Au contraire, we proudly stand for our brand and provide all our brothers with the level of service they are in right to receive. Easy Lift products are great. Not only are we making them greater, we also make sure they remain as great as possible for as long as our brothers own them.

I’m here if anyone have questions.

Alain
For myself and on behalf of UP Equip’s Team

P.S. Brian, I want to reiterate here in front of everybody and ONE LAST TIME: let’s clean the slate and work together moving forward. We will not get into an endless fight here online with you so this will be our only post aside from answering direct questions from the community.

 

[UP Equip]

Answer and emails

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

Why does the paper say 2009?

 

[bnaley]

Alain,

Thanks for confirming the god awful customer service experience you provided. If you wanted actually wanted to move forward with a clean slate you would have apologized and offered some sort of compensation for the loss I incurred but you did none of those things.

 

[bck]

Why wouldn’t you make a final payment with delivery of the machine?
It’s tough buying equipment from another country, let alone getting anything to Hawaii. I hope the machine works out.
Why did you choose Easy Lift over the other brands ?

 

[bnaley]

My financing company already paid it in full. They wanted me to pay to ship it back to them and I was already tired of losing money. I honestly didn't know about brands like Platform Basket or Omme until after I bought the lift. What I really needed was a machine that can fit into narrow backyards since quite a bit of properties on Oahu have narrow access to the back which is really the main reason I bought from them. I really hope their lift is more reliable than their company and employees.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

It’s tough buying equipment from another country, let alone getting anything to Hawaii.

Exactly.

Plus add in arbitrary deadlines, expectations of people to jump through their ass for free, etc.
I can see why many outfits just say NO for shipping to AK or HI. If I had to deal with people like that customer, I'd say the same too!

 

[bnaley]

Exactly.

Plus add in arbitrary deadlines, expectations of people to jump through their ass for free, etc.
I can see why many outfits just say NO for shipping to AK or HI. If I had to deal with people like that customer, I'd say the same too!

It was shipped to CA by UpEquip, not HI directly.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

It was shipped to CA by UpEquip, not HI directly.

Yeah, but then they somehow had to deal with the headache of all that still.

I've barged stuff to here many times. It get shipped to the forwarder in Washington and then it's between them and me.

 

[74inchshovel]

Since this was, perhaps unwisely, thrown into the court of public opinion I’ll weigh in. First of all, I’m going to say this is a huge financial decision, with incredibly complicated logistics. It has to go from one country to another, cross the continent then be shipped overseas to Hawaii. Me- there’s no way in hell I’d be on vacation during this, I’d be in Cali a day early to put out any fires, sounds like there were a few. With so many variables out of your control it’s not realistic to expect everything to go perfect. Extremely complicated piece of machinery here. It will break down. You should be forging a solid relationship with the manufacturer, not initiating an ill advised online smear campaign. They seem more than willing to teach you how to make piles of $$$ with this. Hate to say it, but I see the vast majority of the blame lies with the OP.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

Since this was, perhaps unwisely, thrown into the court of public opinion I’ll weigh in. First of all, I’m going to say this is a huge financial decision, with incredibly complicated logistics. It has to go from one country to another, cross the continent then be shipped overseas to Hawaii. Me- there’s no way in hell I’d be on vacation during this, I’d be in Cali a day early to put out any fires, sounds like there were a few. With so many variables out of your control it’s not realistic to expect everything to go perfect. Extremely complicated piece of machinery here. It will break down. You should be forging a solid relationship with the manufacturer, not initiating an ill advised online smear campaign. They seem more than willing to teach you how to make piles of $$$ with this. Hate to say it, but I see the vast majority of the blame lies with the OP.

Also I'd be working out all the hangups over the phone.
Email is nice that there is a record of what was said, but sometimes a 5 min phone call can do what 5 or 6 emails might not.

Trying to bribe with reviews is never going in the right direction. If I'm looking at reviews for a business and all of them are nothing but glowing reviews, I'd actually have to wonder if they are accurate or not. It's virtually impossible to please everyone.

 

[bnaley]

Also I'd be working out all the hangups over the phone.
Email is nice that there is a record of what was said, but sometimes a 5 min phone call can do what 5 or 6 emails might not.

Trying to bribe with reviews is never going in the right direction. If I'm looking at reviews for a business and all of them are nothing but glowing reviews, I'd actually have to wonder if they are accurate or not. It's virtually impossible to please everyone.

Yea I tried to handle this with a phone call and all they did was tell me it's no their problem if the equipment was dropped on some random side street and they hung up on me. Not a good way to develop a relationship with your customer. I even asked them to have the owner call me multiple times and I never received a single phone call from this company. I tried to negotiate with them and it seems they don't want to so if I have to, I will move forward with the court system if this situation gets any worse.

 

[gorman]

When you get something shipped like that 90% of the time you’re going to need a loading dock at a commercial property.

 

[bnaley]

Yea I tried to handle this with a phone call and all they did was tell me it's no their problem if the equipment was dropped on some random side street and they hung up on me. Not a good way to develop a relationship with your customer. I tried to negotiate with them and they don't want to so if I have to I will move forward with the court system if this situation gets any worse.

When you get something shipped like that 90% of the time you’re going to need a loading dock at a commercial property.

It would have been nice if they told me they were going to ship it using a refrigerator container. Not once have I gotten a phone call from them regarding this sale or the shipping process.

 

[gorman]

I had the same problem ten years ago when I got an ASV shipped from Michigan. Had to re-route it to where I could unload it from a dirt berm. Now I just count on needing a dock.

 

[bnaley]

I'm currently working with them to fix a problem with the hydraulics since I'm not able to use the boom or the outriggers. Things are starting to get better with them but will post updates on my experience with them and actually using the machine once it works in a different thread.

 

[bnaley]

Ok, they lied to me in regards to helping me out. I'm now stuck with a brand new lift that's hydraulics doesn't work at all. Really frustrating dealing with a company that is very unprofessional even after spending over 100k for a new piece of equipment from them.

 

[UP Equip]

Tree Buzz for those of you who want to follow the updates. Thread named the same...

 

[catbuster]

Look. I’ve read all the e-mail chain and it seems like shipping is an issue. The receiver is responsible for the drop point being ready to go. That’s how this works. A spider lift is not as easy to ship as an F-250 or a chip truck. I would not have used that type of trailer to move it, a Landoll would have been ideal and probably would have solved this entire problem, which is the responsibility of the shipper.

Shipping a piece of gear from Montréal to Los Angeles and you expect everything to go smoothly with a long list of instructions? Come on. We’re dealing with truck drivers. You give them a destination and they expect the reciever to handle the offload. That’s how it works.

Brian, I sure hope that’s not how you treat the people who work for you or the people you do work for. Now, I would probably just pay up, get your lift going and use it. You’re grandstanding and it is costing your company money. The company isn’t going to get you up and going until you do.