Not much to report here, with one big exception from a small company. I tried to avoid Amazon for the most part as I cut them out of my life almost a decade ago but it was unavoidable for a few items. One shop I had an issue with the overhead cabinets missing some hardware, same day response taking responsibility, offering a full refund for 4 cabinets and allow me to keep them. I declined and opted for a partial refund as I was able to source the missing hardware elsewhere, but they offered.

Eco-Worthy

I bought several Cubix 100 server rack batteries for the heart of my solar setup. The reason for this choice was the ability to mount them stacked and they had beefy handles to more easily move them solo. The holes for the handles were off by over 5mm with no way of securing the handles to the case. I reached out to Eco-Worthy and didn’t hear back for 10 days by which time I had found it is a wide known problem with (shitty) solutions. The solution is to “ream” the holes out further in order for the handles to fit as the battery has gone through revisions without the case going through any. Imagine asking an average American to grab a high speed drill and bit and go to town on widening small holes with packs of Li Ion batteries inches behind…good stuff. Eco-Worthy offered no solution, no retrofitted handles or case…they offered a $20 dollar refund. Get Fucked.

I have two Eco-Worthy Cubix 100 batteries (unused but tested) for sale at a discount, reach out if you are interested.

Nilight

This one is pretty straightforward, ordered a powder coated rack from them and it came in rusted out of the box. The bag was stained with rust, the mounting hardware box was stained with rust and it was all on video unboxing it as I could tell the box had been stored wet. They acknowledged the issue and then I heard nothing for almost a week. Turns out they like to “isolate” their support to where it was purchased, so contacting them directly is a fools errand…contact them through whom they drop shipped. I then got requested to provide video/photo proof not a second time but a third time and then was told it may not be refunded if I used the item…MF’er you have video of me opening the box with a rusty ass cheap rack inside.
They eventually refunded me the purchase but it took hours and hours of back and forth for something that should have been straightforward. I had purchased two LED’s for my rack, a light bar, some tow straps and a few 12V switch panels from them as well, returned it all. Products all looked fine but the customer support is too time consuming and a pain to deal with.

The truth of the matter is there are 12 companies making everything you see online and 500 companies slapping their logo or made up name on them and reselling with zero customer support. Buying the cheapest “brand” of an obviously rebranded item is often a losing proposition. Ask yourself how they are able to sell it cheaper…sure they stole the IP, sure they didn’t have to develop it but they are able to sell it cheaper because they offer zero support. Here is the scary part when it comes to a van/rv/ambulance…you are putting cheap rip off products with no support…in your home. The products may not differ by much if anything at all but the support will. Can you avoid it, no not without a ton of reading and research, everything is shit for the most part