Speaker Asylum: Need advice/help re:PSB speakers (Buying PSB? Read This! thread) - Warning - Long by IAmCanadian General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

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Posted by IAmCanadian (A ) on March 30, 2004 at 04:56:21

Need advice/help re:PSB speakers (Buying PSB? Read This! thread) - Warning - Long

I have a problem with the PSB Stratus Bronze speakers that I purchased around 15 months ago. I have posted my predicament on other BB’s (which has been therapeutic), and someone suggested posting in here as well. In order to fill you in on what is happening, I will have to cut and paste those previous posts, which unfortunately makes this first post very long, and I apologize for that. It must be said that I am in no way criticizing the performance of PSB speakers, my wife and I have 5 of them in our HT setup, and are happy with their sound. Additionally, I am not saying that everyone else will experience what I have gone through, I am only reporting what has happened to me. Quoting someone else, your all big boys and girls, and you can decide for yourselves how to best interpret this material.

With that said, a while ago the veneer on the front right speaker began to peel up and curl in such a way that it could not be glued back down and still cover the cabinet. Wanting the speaker fixed, my customer service nightmare with PSB began, throughout which my wife and I kept a journal. It reads as follows:

January 28:
 Email K.P. @ PSB with info regarding our speaker problem. We are given info as to who we should call.
 Call 1-800-263-4641 ext. 4201 as instructed.
 Talk to J.W. @11am and give situation about speaker veneer peeling, he informs us that he will get back to us with what he can do.
 He calls back later that day with directions on how to ship to your Pickering location, giving us PSB's Purolator account number and a repair authorization number XXXXXXX.
 He tells us that a rush will be put on the repair and that we would hear from PSB the next week regarding the status of the speaker.

February 03:
 Ship out speaker; email J.W. about it.

February 04:
 PSB receives the speaker and signs for it.

February 18:
 Time passes; we email J.W. about status of speaker because we have heard nothing about it yet.
 No Reply.

February 21:
 Leave message @ 1-800-263-4641 ext. 4201 about situation and inquire about status of speaker.
 No Reply.

February 23:
 Morning, call 1-800-263-4641 ext. 4201 and talk to L. who tells us she will look into it and talk to the technician assigned to them. She says she will call us back.
 No Reply @11:30am.
 4pm we call back L., put on hold, and then told she will call back in a few minutes.
 No Reply.
 5pm we call back L., not answering phone, try till 5:20.
 5:30pm we call the service manager at a PSB dealership in Woodstock Ontario called ‘The StereoMan’. We ask him to try to find out about our speakers and give him our information. The reason for calling him was that we had recently purchased a PSB C5i from him and received exceptional customer service and care. At that time we had mentioned our speaker needed repair, and he mentioned that if we had any problems to contact him. We took him up on his offer.

February 24:
 1:30-2:00pm try calling L., no answer.
 2pm get a hold of L. who informs us she is waiting to hear from PSB international; she also referred to some email she received from them. Apologized profusely for not calling back and giving the run-around saying that she has been very busy. Will let us know by end of the week about repair.
 4pm the PSB dealer calls us back with more details, says he talked to Paul Barton himself. He tells us that PSB is replacing the cabinet of the speaker. He asked if L. had called us back with the same info because he had told her to do so. We said no, that we had to call her. He said he if we don’t hear back from PSB by Friday (Feb 27) to call him back and he would call Paul Barton again.

February 27:
 Try calling L. from 12:15pm to 1:30pm, no answer.
 Call the PSB dealer back, he will call them and find out what he can and then call us back.
 PSB dealer calls back, tells us that PSB said our speaker should be in by next Thursday at the latest (March 04), and that if it doesn’t come by the end of the week we should be concerned and call him back.

March 04:
 No speaker has arrived yet.
 Call L. from 2pm to 2:30pm and finally get in touch with her. We ask about our speaker status, she said she doesn’t know, but that she will call us back in 30 minutes.
 3pm and no Reply.
 Call L. back @3:20pm, she said no one has returned her calls about our speaker. I ask her to please find out about the speaker, as we were told last week that it would be here by now. She said she would find out for us and call us back.
 4:20pm and no Reply.
 Call L. back @4:20pm and leave a message about giving us another contact that we can use to find out about out speaker, as we still don’t know the status of the repair or what is happening.
 4:20pm we call and leave a message with Paul Barton himself asking for info on our speaker.

March 05:
 9:30am, Paul Barton calls us back and leaves a message on our voice mail. He informs us that he is busy, but that he will find out what is going on, and that someone from PSB will get back to us today.
 4:30pm and no Reply.
 4:30pm we call L. and she stated she spoke with Paul that morning about getting our speaker. We were put on hold as she called somewhere (warehouse?), but she gets no answer. She then asks if she can call us back while she goes and checks on the speaker, my wife asks to wait on hold instead. Informs us that the speaker is ready to ship and that it will be shipped on Monday (March 08) by Purolator and that we should have it by Tuesday, maybe Wednesday (March 10) at the latest. We informed her of our busy schedule and she said she would call us when it was shipped out to make arrangements. She tells my wife that she admitted to Mr. Barton that it was her fault that we had been given the run-around. She states that she was being pulled out of her office a lot for ‘testing’, and that she was very busy. My wife told her politely that our service had been terrible, as L. had never called us back.

March 10:
 (Wednesday) No speaker or call from PSB.
 4:20pm leave message with L. and Paul Barton about terrible service and current situation and ask both of them that they call us back.
 4:30pm, after calling every number we could get a hold of, we talk to another PSB representative named C. C. tells us she is in shipping, and that our speaker has been shipped today and gives us a tracking number. She says we will have it tomorrow.

March 11:
 No speaker or call back from PSB @5pm.
 Call Purolator and they have no idea where our speaker is, they launch an investigation/trace.
 Call L. and leave messages regarding situation, ask her to call us back.

March 12:
 Purolator finds our speaker, we get to pick it up at 6:30pm. When we got it home and pulled it out of the box we found that the speaker has been damaged. We examined the inner packaging, and find it has no piercing, so the damage must have occurred prior to shipping. It consists of a puncture hole in the upper right side of the speaker, from an accident that must have happened with enough force to cause the veneer to crinkle into a wavy form above the impact mark. We again find ourselves in the same situation we were six weeks ago. We have a damaged PSB speaker that needs to be repaired.
 Upset, my wife calls both Paul Barton and Purolator to inform them both of the damage. We ask Mr. Barton to call us back.
 We also call the ‘The Stereo Man’ and tell him what has happened. First he says he’s appalled that it took so long to get the speaker back when he was told we should have had it back weeks ago. He then can’t believe that we ended up with a damaged speaker again. He informs us that he can deal with PSB for us, that he will call them Monday morning (March 15), and that his solution will be as painless to us as possible to make up for what has happened so far.

March 15:
 Got numerous calls from Purolator claims service this morning. They say they will send out an investigator to inspect the damage.
 Send email to PSB@webmaster to document informing them of the situation.
 No reply from PSB yet @5:00pm.

March 17:
 Purolator has made an appointment to inspect the speaker and its’ packaging this Friday (March 19).
 Still waiting to hear back from ‘The StereoMan’, an informed and expected delay.
 No reply’s from PSB yet @5pm.

March 19:
 Purolator conducted their inspection of the packaging today and found that the damage must have occurred before packing.
 ‘The StereoMan’ has called back and arranged for our speaker to be shipped back to PSB under his banner. It will cost us $72 dollars and change to have them take over our service issue, but that amount will be credited to any future purchase we make at their store.
 No reply from PSB as of yet.

 March 25:
Took speaker into ‘The StereoMan’ today and talked to the service manager. He told me that he had been called so much by Paul Barton and C. regarding my speaker and that he "had better be getting a Christmas card from them now". He said that Mr. Barton is very concerned about our experience, and has arranged everything so that a new cabinet is waiting in Pickering Ontario (their main office/repair depot) for our speaker to arrive. Now this service manager has never given me any reason not to trust him, but I have been put on guard from my previous experience with PSB and so I will wait to see what happens for final judgment. I typed up a five-page letter that I was going to mail out to Mr. Barton yesterday; it included the above journal plus some added detail. The point of it was to completely inform Mr. Barton of our experience (my wife and I) and point out that we were made to feel like we were inconveniencing them somehow. Anyway, I didn’t send the letter after the talk with the service manager, but have decided to sit on it for a bit more and see what happens now.

March 29:
 I don’t know how to report what has happened as I am at a loss for words. I have to warn you that I am very upset right now, and that may colour what I am about to right. We were called today by J.Earl, who is the PSB account manager for Ontario, and he informed my wife and me that they cannot repair our speaker as they went out of production 6-8 months ago. This raises some very important questions... Like WHY TELL us to send it back in the first place? Why TELL the service manager at “The StereoMan” to send it back to Pickering Mr. Barton if you know you can’t repair it? WHY tell us that this will all be over quickly to make us happy considering our previous customer service? WHY has no one ever told us this and many other pertinent facts about our situation?
Earl informed us that we had one of two choices: Fork out ONE THOUSAND MORE dollars for a Stratus Silver or take a replacement from their lower line of Image series ON PAR! We didn’t know what to say and so we told him we would have to think about this.

We immediately called the service manager at the PSB dealer that was handling the repair and he was like “Who said WHAT?”. We had to tell him numerous times as he was as surprised as we were. He said the Image series option wouldn’t do us justice as we have a Stratus c5i center that we JUST purchased. Besides that, my wife and I turned down the Image series in favour of the Stratus because we liked it MORE, and were willing to spend MORE for the difference, now were being asked to settle for less or spend A THOUSAND DOLLARS MORE?!?!?
I am out of my mind and I don’t know what to do. Anyone, I value all of your opinions, what should I do next? I can’t believe this nightmare is just getting worse. I don’t know what to do. Please help.

He is giving us 100% value of our Stratus Bronze speakers when we bought them. They were 13 months old when we sent them in for repair the first time. We have seen them 6 days since. The stratus Silver price is 2400. We will have to add the extra tax as well, another 15%.

They came with a 5 year warranty from the PSB authorized dealer we bought them off of. The 5 year warranty covers the whole speaker we were told when we bought it, "If it breaks within 5 years, bring it back". PSB were also the ones that told us that the problem with the veneer peeling must have occurred during the 'curing' stage, thus a manufac. defect. This second time, it was shipped to us damaged from them. Why warranty something for five years if that’s NOT THE PLAN???

The last we heard form Mr. Barton himself was when our speaker was in the first time and he called us back in the morning to tell us he would have someone from PSB call us back (no one did btw).
Also, we were told that he was in contact frequently with the service manager at 'The StereoMan' during the six days we had the speaker back from the first repair as that dealer was handling our second return. The service manager told us that Mr. Barton was a hands on kinda guy and that he was on top of this one as he was very interested in having it resolved quickly. The service manager told us he was told they had a cabinet that was all ready to go as soon as our speaker arrived in Pickering. All of this came as a complete shock to the service manager when we told him. This dealer has never given me any reason to doubt him, nor do I feel he has the motive to lie. On the contrary, all the service and treatment we have received from him and his staff has been exceptional and trustworthy.

That pretty much brings you all up to speed on what has happened so far. Like I said, I am unsure how to proceed in the matter, and someone recommended posting in here. I am going to try and send the letter I wrote to Mr. Barton out today, but I now need to make some changes.

Again, I apologize for the length of this post, and for those of you who have made it this far, thanks for your time and patience. Any advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

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