On September 21st my husband and I purchased a commercial grade popcorn popper for donation to our local American Legion. We found one on Keepitpoppin.com. It was a Model PE-800T and is made by Paramount Entertainment. One of the selling features that caught our attention was the "Limited Lifetime Warranty". The popper was put into service on September 25th. Everything worked as advertised until August 1st 2011 when it would not power up. We tried plugging it into other outlets in our legion, we checked power at the orginal outlet, everything was normal, just the popper was not working.
After attending a Legion Meeting on August 8th it was decided that we needed to use the Lifetime Warranty as the machine had been cared for per the owners manual. The first e mail I sent was to Paramount on August 9th. I told them the model #, Serial # and what the problem was. They immediately responded that I needed to contact the vendor. I went to Keepitpoppins website and filled out their contact form. Their website had no e mail address info. After 24 hours of no contact I researched their company on the internet. I stumbled on the Better Business Bureaus listing of them (3 complaints in 1 year for service issues) with a B - rating. But their email address was available. I forwarded my original e mail to Paramount to Keepitpoppin on August 10th.
Keepitpoppin responded with an e mail with 6 questions which my e mail to them already provided the answers for. I filled out their questionaire anyways. On August 11th they answered back that I should check the outlet and "that there is no function of the machine that would simply stop power 100%". They suggested "the machine power cord is tripped over"... I answered back that the first thing we checked (DUH) was the power supply. The cord was fine, no bent prongs, impossible to trip over, etc.
On August 12th they asked us to check the connections of wires on the machine. I answered back that the wires were fine.
After looking at the BBB's writeup on them it became clear that this was going to go on forever so we e mailed that we were filing a complaint with the BBB which we did on the 12th of August.
Their response to the complaint was that "We have seen this same product issue in the past only a few times and it is always came down to the customer's outlet/circuit, power source, or simply misuse/abuse.
I then forwarded the papertrail of e mails to the BBB and asked for replacement or moneyback.
On September 12th the BBB closed the case and Keepitpoppin ended their communication with the comment " What they are demanding is clearly not under warranty and on top of that the warranty is with the manufacturer, not with us".
I then emailed Paramount with that statement on September 12th and have heard nothing.
I researched Paramount and Lo and Behold: Paramount is owned by Nallaco and Nallaco has the same phone number and address and owner as Keepitpoppin.
From August 9th I was given the run-around as I had stated in my complaint to the Chicago BBB. These three company names are playing a shell game and they DO NOT stand behind their product. The customer is always wrong.
I've forwarded all of this to the Illinois Attorney General and the Federal Trade Commission. Do not buy from these companies. When they make accusations of neglect or abuse of a machine to a group of retired veterans, it shows what their company is all about. A Commercial Grade Popper should last more than 10.5 months.
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