Smart Solar Sells Poorly Made Products, and Has WORST Customer Service

I purchased a Smart Solar solar bird bath fountain for our back yard a couple of years ago, and have rarely come across a more poorly made product. The fountain consists of a small motor, and solar panel that powers the motor, and the stucture. It the two years we have owned this piece of junk, we have have replaced the motor twice as they have burned out. Now the solar panel has failed. In addition, in the off season, the bowl itself cracked, and as it is mostly hollow, now seaps water. I contacted the company, and provided them with my proof of purchase, and also explained to them my annoyance in how shoddy their product is, and since their warranty expired 2 months ago, they are refusing to do anything about it, other than offer me to buy an overpriced replacement part. Yea, right, so THAT one can break in a year. This is an example of just a poor company. Great idea, but cheap crap and terrible service. I urge EVERYONE to avoid these clowns

Comment On This

I am having problems with Smart Solar as well. They do not answer their e-mails and do not live up to their 2 year warrantee. I purchased a chatsworth solar fountain. The solar panel does not work after one short season. All I have requested is a replacement solar panel. They do not answer their emails. Their products are obviously very poorly made and their customer service is lousy! Don't purchase products that are made by Smart Solar. I purchased this fountain from Mercantilia. I have reported this company to the Florida Better Business Bureau as well as the Attorney General. DON"T BUY THEIR JUNK!

Comment On This

I am the Manager of the Call Center and as advised above, we did in fact replace at no charge under his 2 year warranty 2 pumps. And although he reported this to the Better Business Bureau, we are still not quite sure why as we sent him what he requested. It was not until 8/18/09 that he called our customer service department requesting a panel (also again reporting us to the BBB). We do have a series of questions that we require our agents to go through to determine the issue. Mr. Bookbinders serial number indicated that it was out of warranty, so the next step would be to request a proof of purchase. His bird bath was purchased in May of 2007 indicating that his warranty was over May of 2009. If he was not happy that our company only provided a 2 year warranty then he should have never purchased our product. All manufacturers have warranties on their products. We are no different. The issue of cracking was never mentioned until this week (w/of 8/24/09) and was never mentioned on the complaint to the BBB. We never refuse to service a customer, we do in fact offer options. His option was to purchase one or not. Mr. Bookbinder informed us via email that we had a "C" rating on the Better Business Bureau web site. FYI, the "C" rating is for the information they have on hand about our company, ie, number of employees, how long we have been in business, etc., it has nothing to do with our service performance. And, if you take a closer look, you will see that only 5 complaints came through in the last 36 months. All of which were resolved on our end.