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Neptune Apex - Bad Experience


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I'll start this thread by saying I have never ever written a complaint or a letter to a company about a bad experience.  When my food comes out a little different than I ordered, I normally eat it anyway.  I am not one of those guys that causes problems for no reason.  Anyone on WAMAS that has ever met me would agree that I am person that doesn't get mad and doesn't talk smack.  I help people all the time when they need help.  Anytime someone needs help they know they can call me and I will come through for them and I will never complain.  I am also a person that researches stuff like crazy before getting a product.  I like to buy the best there is.  If I can't afford it, then I save until I can.  I don't think there is any reason to buy something you know will break. 

 

My issue is with Neptune Apex's customer service.  I called and asked for help and they did nothing to help me. 

 

This is a pretty cut and dry story so I will make it short.  I bought an Apex Gold system from Quantum Reefs. A few weeks after I installed it and programmed it, the status lights started acting strange and I couldn't connect to the unit.  The lights on the main unit would not come on and the display had a solid blue screen.  Thankfully I had setup my Fallbacks to be correct when programming it.  The Apex acting funny started about the same time we had a big electrical storm, so I figured it was somehow connected to this storm.  I contacted Apex for help.  If it was indeed an issue caused by the lightening and the unit was ruined, I figure it is probably something I would have to pay for.  Either way I needed to get if fixed quickly but I needed help from Apex.

 

This all began on Friday morning, when I called them.  They sent back "cut and paste" responses to my questions and didn't even care about my situation. 

 

A few ways it could have been handled correctly:

  1. Call me back or write me back after reading my messages requesting help.  I made it clear my Apex was not working and it was brand new.  Whether it is their fault or my fault, they owe me customer support to correct the problem.  They had the abilities to do it, they just didn't. 
  2. Offer to overnight a replacement unit.  If I had to pay, so be it.  There is no other way for me to get an Apex unit like except from them directly.  (The one I got from Quantum Reefs was off of their frag tank.  It was a huge favor they did for me). 

 

Below is the support messages that went back and forth.  I was sitting in front of my tank waiting for messages from Apex.  I responded to each of their messages within 5 minutes.  When I asked for help, I told them my Apex would not come on.  Louis sent me a 'cut and paste' response to update my firmware.  How would I do that if the Apex will not come on?  I typed up what I had said on the phone and sent it back immediately.  I also showed that my firmware is already up to date.  No response.  Saturday morning I wrote an email stating what I had already said and got a reply from Victor saying that I should go buy a 12v plug to see if the unit could power up.  I had already checked that, but I did it again in the order Victor requested and responded to him 5 minutes later saying that the test did not work.  No response.  Monday I got a response from Victor it is listed below.  I wrote back and expressed my dissatisfaction with my experience.  You can read and see their response. 

 

I don't understand how a company that supplies a life support system for our animals could be so ignorant.

 

 

#41589 Support Request

 

 

 

Ben 5 days ago

 

Name: Ben

 

Info:   Less than 90 Days

Problem or Question:

vvvvvNotes typed up from a 5 minute conversation with the operator  vvvvv

My Apex Base Unit stopped working. There are no lights on. I tried unplugging but still nothing.

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luis  5 days ago

 

Hi Benjamin,

 

Thank you for your inquiry.  I would attempt to reflash the firmware to the unit in boot loader mode. A hardwired connection between computer to router and router to Apex is required. Follow this procedure:

 

 

 

  1. Power your Apex off
  2. Restart your computer in Windows safe mode with networking
  3. Turn off any virus or firewall software
  4. Disable your wireless card
  5. Open flash utility
  6. In the Network address put something similar to your default gateway (router) IP address
    1. For example, if you default gateway is 192.168.1.1 then make the network address 192.168.1.88
  7. Click update firmware
  8. After failed attempt 1 plug your Apex in
    1. Apex and computer should make a handshake at this time, if not try to power cycle your base unit again
  9. Update the web pages after the firmware update.

 

If you are unable to accomplish the firmware update, then there are further trouble shooting options.  Please let me know how it goes.


Please let us know if you have any other questions, or need any additional clarification.

Please Reference Ticket: http://neptunesystems.freshdesk.com/helpdesk/tickets/41589

Thank you,

 

Neptune Systems Support Team

-------------------------------------

Luis

 

Agent, Technical Support

 

 

 

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Ben 5 days ago

 

I am unable to connect to the unit or turn it off.  
 
The main box status light is off
EB8 status light is yellow
The PM2 light is yellow
Controller screen is solid blue
 
I have checked the internet connection it is good.  I have switched the aquabus plugs around with no change.  I have switched the CAT5 cable with no change.  The light on the main box never comes on, but the screen is solid blue.  I have also unplugged the aquabus from the main controller for 24 hours.  No change
 

 

___________________________

 

Ben

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Be

 

Info:  4.34_4F15 AC4:52275Less than 90 Days

 

Problem or Question:

 

I have support ticket #41589 and I really need some help.   I switched over from a ReefKeeper a few weeks ago to an Apex Gold system and added a feeder.  I used the ReefKeeper for years without needing to call customer service.  I called yesterday and left a message as well as updated my message thread on your support site.

 

I left on a business trip and during the trip I noticed I was unable to connect to the controller on my phone or computer.  I figured it was just my home wifi and blew it off.  When I returned I saw that I had issues.

 

Main controller box - Status light off

 

EB8 - Status light blinking yellow

 

PM2 - Status light blinking yellow

 

Controller screen - Solid blue and does not respond to buttons

 

I switched out aquabus cords, CAT5 internet cables trying to see if I had a bad cable/cord.  No luck.  I also left the auqubus cord unplugged to the main controller box for 24 hours.  I heard that trick on the forum.  It didn't work for me.

 

 

 

Lucky for me I had setup my Fallbacks all correctly so I didn't have a disaster.  The problem now is my dosers and reactors have been off for a while and a few of my corals are starting to die.

 

 

 

I really need some help today.  I did not get a callback yesterday and I am pretty disappointed about that, considering how much money I have spent on this Neptune system.

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Victor  4 days ago

 

Hi Benjamin,

 

Thank you for your inquiry. The main issue it sounds like is the Apex base Unit is not powering on. We need to expand on that and find out if that's really the case here. Your EB8 and PM2 are acting normally when the Main Apex base unit status light is OFF. They blink orange(Fallback) mode. Let's see if your Apex Base Unit is working.

 

Try just connecting the Apex base unit to just the Energy Bar 8. If it doesn't power up then try using a 12V, 500 mA, 2.1 mm tip, center electrode positive

 

If that does not power it up than the Apex Base Unit is experiencing some issues. It would need to come in for further investigation. Follow up with any details.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Please let us know if you have any other questions, or need any additional clarification.

 

Please Reference Ticket: http://neptunesystems.freshdesk.com/helpdesk/tickets/41618

 

Thank you,

 

Neptune Systems Support Team

 

-------------------------------------

 

Victor

Agent, Technical Support

 


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Ben4 days ago

 

It did not power up with plug you suggested. What is the next step?

 

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Ben 4 days ago

 

I can't really wait the time required to send it to you, check the unit, and send it back. Everything in my tank will be dead by then. Can I go to the store I purchased it from and get a replacement? The store is Quantum Reefs in Springfield, VA.

 

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Victor  2 days ago

 

Hi Benjamin,

 

I understand the Apex Doesn't power up. Here below is your RMA Information to have it come in for further diagnostics. You'll need a return shipping label so please follow up with your home address.

 

Please make a copy of the following and send them with your Item:

 

  • A copy of your purchase invoice from your Reseller
  • Filled out RMA Sheet (Attached to this Email)
  • Serial# on the label under the Apex Base Unit

Your RMA # is A17322; please place this code on the outside of the box and affix the address included in the attached RMA form.

Please be sure to fill out and include the attached RMA form along with your Proof Of Purchase with your return.  Failure to do so will result in the delay of processing your RMA for at least one day.

Note: This authorization code is only valid for 21 days. 

As far as the repairs are concerned: 

It typically happens very quickly.  Over ninety-five percent of the time returns are returned one to two days after we receive them.  You cover shipping to us; we cover ground shipping back to you. We do not incur costs associated with Tax GST (general sales tax) and PST (province sales tax) if shipping outside of the US. We do offer expedited shipping options if you are so interested.  Repairs can range from free to $150 (if the whole board needs to be replaced in extreme circumstances). 


*After repairs are complete we will contact you regarding the results. We will hold items post repair for (90) Days. If we are unable to contact you or your items are on hold due to unpaid repair costs Neptune Systems may recycle your items after the (90) day period has expired.

Unfortunately, we do not have any type of loaner program to provide you with a unit while we are repairing yours at this time. However, it might be time to look into purchasing a back up Apex Base Unit. In circumstances such as these we do offer you the option to purchase a discounted backup base unit. That way you are not without a base unit during the time of the repair, or if you ever have any unlikely issues with a base unit in the future. Typically new base units retail for $274.95, I am authorized to sell these at $209.95 in these circumstances.

Please let me know if you are interested in expedited shipping quotes.

 

If you are interested in purchasing a back-up base unit, then please follow the link here:

 

http://www.neptunesystems.com/product/apex-base-unit/

 

During checkout, in your customer shipping notes, please state your RMA# to receive the applied $65 discount.  We will do our best to ship the same day if received before 1 PM Pacific Standard Time, otherwise it will ship the next day. 



Please let us know if you have any other questions, or need any additional clarification.

Please Reference Ticket: http://neptunesystems.freshdesk.com/helpdesk/tickets/41589

Thank you,

Neptune Systems Support Team

-------------------------------------

 

Victor

 

Agent, Technical Support

 

 

 

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Ben about 21 hours ago

 

Victor,

 

I can't even express how disappointed I am with your customer service.  I contacted Apex on Friday asking for help and got a "cut and paste" response about checking my firmware.  I followed up immediately stating my firmware was updated and got no response.  Saturday morning I wrote again in a panic asking for help and got a message saying I should go and purchase a 12v adaptor.  I immediately responded, but did not get a response from anyone at Apex.  Why send a messages if you are not going to respond?  I have never even received a phone call response.

 

When I switched from a ReefKeeper over to the Apex I had a lot of choices, but I went with what everyone in my local reef club was using.  I heard great things about the customer service and products. I was reluctant to make the change, but I did.  I purchased an Apex Gold and a Apex Feeder.  That is a lot of money to spend.  It has only been set up for about a month or so and it stops working.  When I call and email Apex for help I get nothing.  My entire reef is setup to depend on your Apex controller and you don't have any sense of urgency to help me find a solution.  I am completely blown away by this. 

Since I did not get help from Apex I went to Quantum Reefs in Alexandria, VA and asked for help.  Steve was willing to pull a unit from one of his tanks so I could keep my livestock alive.  I am very thankful that he was willing to help since Apex was not.

Again, I am very dissatisfied with how things were handled in my situation.  

 

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Victor  about 17 hours ago

Hi Benjamin,

 

I'm sorry to hear that. Glad to hear that you have a substitute for now, we're ready to receive your Apex Base Unit anytime for repairs and diagnostics.

Please let us know if you have any other questions, or need any additional clarification.

 

Please Reference Ticket: http://neptunesystems.freshdesk.com/helpdesk/tickets/41589

 

 

Thank you,

 

Neptune Systems Support Team

 

 

-------------------------------------

 

Victor

 

Agent, Technical Support

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Ben, I'm sorry to hear you had the trouble with Neptune. I've always found their customer support to be very helpful, but I understand there can be different experiences accross the board.

 

Unfortuantly, with some of the most expensive pieces of my equipment on my reef, I have recieved the same sort of response from the bigger name companies, for example, a huge German based company that specalizes in T5's out of North America, additionally a huge American company that is famous for their powerheads and sleek LED lighting.

 

It is frusturating troubleshooting a problem that you have already troubleshot, but IME, those are the motions to get warranty coverage, or solutions. Both my experiences with those big "name brand" companies provided the same sort of hoops, and it really made me feel like they were not listening to my individual problem, providing me with "cut and paste" solutions like you mentioned. Should it be this way? I don't think so. Is it standard? I think so.

 

Looking at it from the other side, they probably get a lot of phone calls from people that do not follow instructions, or every step correctly. I can't count the number of times I've been walking through something for the 10th time, and realized that I was doing a step wrong, and the entire issue was user error. Not saying that this is the case with you, but trying to provide a perspective greater than the problem at hand. 

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Isaac - I try not to support companies that treat me or anyone like that.  Now that I am "pregnant" with $1000 in Apex gear, I will need to get over it.  The same rule applies to people or companies.  By letting it go, we are enabling that company to do it again.  I think as customers, we need to say that is not OK.  If I bought a $100 controller, I would expect a "cut and paste" response, but I didn't.  I bought the top of the line Apex controller.  I would expect my first call to them asking for help to be returned.  When you buy high end items and spend the extra money, you should expect high end customer service.  They cashed my check and left town.....

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My interactions with Neptune date back many years ago, back when they were smaller. It's possible that's the key difference here. Back then, I used to get personal responses from their founder, Curt, even on weekends. 

 

Sorry that you've had a rough time with this. I hope that you're back and running with your unit soon, and that it'll be smooth sailing afterwards.

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My interactions with Neptune date back many years ago, back when they were smaller. It's possible that's the key difference here. Back then, I used to get personal responses from their founder, Curt, even on weekends.

 

Sorry that you've had a rough time with this. I hope that you're back and running with your unit soon, and that it'll be smooth sailing afterwards.

It could just be growing pains. They do have a great product. I hope this was just an isolated incident.

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It could just be growing pains. They do have a great product. I hope this was just an isolated incident.

Only time will tell. However, comments and feedback like yours, as well as your sending the unit back for troubleshooting and repair, hopefully will stimulate some process and support improvements.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

Well looks like I can unfortunately revive this thread. My apex bricked the other day and became a giant paperweight. Depending on how I had the outlets configured, some things continued to run and others didnt. Reached out to Neptune and just like Ben got the same bs cut and paste responses when I clearly had stated what had been done and what was not responding. Rather than letting the tank suffer I went out and purchased another unit because it will take weeks for neptune to fix the unit.

 

My only other experience with their customer service/tech support was a few years ago with my initial purchase and it was great. Fast forward and if I wasnt so heavily invested in their system running my tank I would have just punted and never looked back.

 

They may be coming out with some pretty cool add ons but they need to seriously take a step back and invest some of their resourses into good people like Ecotech has and continues to do so.

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I didn't tell you about my MACNA experience with Apex. Haha

 

I setup the big Red Sea tank and lighting for the Apex booth with Quantum Reefs. I hung out with the Apex guys a lot and helped them a lot. Thursday night I went out to have a smoke with one of the guys. I said "I like Neptune stuff, but you really suck at customer service". He said "What do you mean?". I told him my username on Neptune....Reefer Madness. He said "oh $#*t". I laughed. I wrote a really mean letter and sent my correspondence to corporate back when I wrote this thread. Neptune never did write me back. I told them I would see them at MACNA. Hahaha.

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Oh man! Just came across this post.

 

After much deliberation, I finally was looking into buying some APEX products and this is taking me back to where I was. Any other alternatives? I saw few other companies are starting to sell similar products as well at Macna. 

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Apex is truly the easiest and most complete.  I found it to be obtuse programming some seemingly simple things, but this has gotten better with Fusion.  It can do a lot, but if it doesn't already support the function you can't force it to do it.  I ran up against a wall trying to get it to do what I wanted.

 

Fishbit looks super cool, but is, as of yet, unobtainable.

 

Bluefish is awesome for lights at the moment.  Outlets and sensors are planned, but not quite there yet.

 

ReefAngel is kind of DIY, but extremely flexible if you feel like putting in the work and code and don't care about extremely polished bells and whistles.  If you just want to use it like you would an Apex it can be really easy. If you wanted it to answer the front door for you it can actually do that, you just have to write the code. 8)  I love it.

 

Digital Aquatics is still around.  For some reason not many here use it.

 

Extreme DIY is available with Jarduino and others where you'd buy bits from ebay/china and Digikey and put your own together and load on some code.

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Oh man! Just came across this post.

 

After much deliberation, I finally was looking into buying some APEX products and this is taking me back to where I was. Any other alternatives? I saw few other companies are starting to sell similar products as well at Macna.

I would go Apex again given the chance. There are plenty of alternatives, but start a post that is outside of "vendor feedback" with those questions!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Apex is truly the easiest and most complete.  I found it to be obtuse programming some seemingly simple things, but this has gotten better with Fusion.  It can do a lot, but if it doesn't already support the function you can't force it to do it.  I ran up against a wall trying to get it to do what I wanted.

 

Fishbit looks super cool, but is, as of yet, unobtainable.

 

Bluefish is awesome for lights at the moment.  Outlets and sensors are planned, but not quite there yet.

 

ReefAngel is kind of DIY, but extremely flexible if you feel like putting in the work and code and don't care about extremely polished bells and whistles.  If you just want to use it like you would an Apex it can be really easy. If you wanted it to answer the front door for you it can actually do that, you just have to write the code. 8)  I love it.

 

Digital Aquatics is still around.  For some reason not many here use it.

 

Extreme DIY is available with Jarduino and others where you'd buy bits from ebay/china and Digikey and put your own together and load on some code.

 

Thanks so much for the info...very valuable. I will look into other alternatives. 

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I would go Apex again given the chance. There are plenty of alternatives, but start a post that is outside of "vendor feedback" with those questions!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Wow...plenty of alternatives...I can't wait...here is the new post like you suggested.

 

http://wamas.org/forums/topic/75296-controllers-similar-to-apex/

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And thanks to "Reefer_Madness" for posting this.

No worries. I felt obligated to share my experience with my fellow reefers. They obviously need to resolve their customer service issues.

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I would go Apex again given the chance. There are plenty of alternatives, but start a post that is outside of "vendor feedback" with those questions!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Still waiting to hear on those "plenty of alternatives".

Edited by thakki
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Still waiting to hear on those "plenty of alternatives".

You've already quoted them, Alan wrote them out already.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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You've already quoted them, Alan wrote them out already.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Oh I thought you had more to contribute when you said plenty of alternatives even after Alan replied with a good list of options.
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  • 3 weeks later...

I use digital aquatics.  It's a good budget system, but if I could go back in time, I'd go with the Apex for pure high-end functionality.  Lack of good Customer Service would give me reason to second guess this thought.

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I'm having problems with Neptune right now as well.  I shipped something to them and for some reason FedEx didn't deliver.  I had to follow up with them to discover they'd never received it and when I asked them to contact FedEx to arrange delivery they didn't ... and the package was sent back.  I could have put that $30 towards a new AFS, instead now it's gone.

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