Updated by user Aug 28, 2013
At the request of the agency that handled my complaint, I want to state, for the record, that I was assisted by the HIllborough County Consumer Protections Agency.
I mistakenly thought, based on links I followed to get to this agency on the Internet, that this agency was housed in the office of the Attorney General. That is not true.
In any case, I'm grateful for the assistance as without them, I'm pretty sure nothing good would have happened.
Updated by user Aug 23, 2013
And we have resolution!!!
A few weeks ago, I submitted this situation to the Hillsborough County Attorney General.
As I've stated here, what I hoped for was that Mr Gilley would honor the warranty and ship out the replacement parts. Instead, Mr Gilley offered, via the Attorney General's office, to refund completely the original purchase price in exchange for my shipping the units. He did this to relieve himself of the liability that this warranty represents to him, but I'll take it!!! I've already removed the units and will be shipping them as soon as I receive the label from Mr Gilley.
The Attorney General's office is handling all correspondence at this point, so the investigator already has the cashier's check in hand, awaiting confirmation of the delivery of the unit to Mr Gilley.
Shipping out asap.
Thank you, Hillborough County Attorney General's office!!!
Updated by user May 30, 2013
Not sure why the word, s t u p i d was censored, but that's what I said about the possibility of there being a 'false complaint to the BBB.'
Original review May 30, 2013
I Purchased a A/C unit from the above website on 8/18/2011. The unit comes with a 2 yr warranty. All goes well for 1.5 yrs. I am very pleased with this product as it is really quiet and super-effective. Spring begins warming us this year, and I turn on the unit. Air flows, but not cold. I begin routine maintainance - cleaning filters, checking hoses (has interior blower and exterior compressor) and generally looking for the problem. I check the coolant... nothing. No pressure. Check for vacuum. Can't hold, and I hear the leak inside the exterior unit. My neighbor is state certified for HVAC, and I ask him to take a look. Upon popping the hood of the unit, there's something glaringly wrong... The exhaust fan has no blades. Well, none are attached. There all inside the unit, but one of the blades has ruptured the evaporator coil. This is what I identified as the audible leak earlier. Ok, calling minisplitwarehouse.com for a warranty claim... Jeremy answers. He looks up our initial order and agrees that it is still under warranty but warns me that Toshiba (manufacturer) asks a lot of questions on things like this. I've got nothing to hide. Fine with me. I ask if he'd prefer that I contact Toshiba directly, but he's fine with handling it for me. He even says that if Toshiba should refuse to honor the warranty (?) that he has spare parts he could ship to me if I can have someone install them. In any case, he'll call me back when Toshiba responds to the claim he's submitting as we speak. Sounds good. *waiting* .... Two weeks... 2nd call to minisplitwarehouse.com. Jeremy answers again (what luck, I think to myself). As I begin to jog his memory, he interupts me to let me know that they haven't responded yet, but that he'll call me back today if I'll give him the chance to reach out to Toshiba again. We converse some more so that I can make him aware of the rising heat and the need that my wife and four kids have of keeping cool. He assures me that he'll get back to me today with Toshiba's response. Less happy, but looking forward to this call. *waiting* 3 days later, still nothing from ole Jeremy. Wife calls this time. She uses different prompts in the IVR. Guess who answers? JEREMY!!! She tells him directly that he has not fulfilled either of his promises to follow up with us, and she would very much like for him to get this thing moving. Whatever he said in response ticked my wife off so bad that she couldn't put two words together. The only one she kept saying was "Sir!... Sir!..." When that call ended, I filed a BBB complaint. Surprisingly, I received an email (from Jeremy!) about 3 days later that requested 2 items - proof of install by a licensed HVAC tech and pictures and write-up of the damage by a licensed HVAC tech. The email also included this, "Seems to me after they receive this info, they will send a Fan Blab (?blade?) and an outdoor evaporator coil." Wow... maybe I read this whole situation incorrectly. It took me a couple of days to get a service tech to the house, but I replied to the email with the requested information before the week ended. Meanwhile, the BBB complaint had received a response from, guess who?, Jeremy Gilley... "[my Wife] was informed that we were working on her claim, she contacted us in a threatening manner because she felt she has waited long enough. We asked her to please not contact us if she was going to be rude and vulgar to us as we are trying to help her. We emailed her a response yesterday to inform her of the following- Manufacturer has requested proof of installation by a licensed contractor. Manufacturer has requested a write up from a contractor diagnosing the parts that need to be replaced. Once we receive this information we can give it to the manufacturer so they can decide if they will replace the parts.If they do provide the parts, [my Wife] will be responsible to get the parts installed at her cost, the manufacturer will not pay for labor, IF they decide to give you the parts. [My Wife] should know that contacting us and threatening us will not get her system fixed. The reality is that there is no confirmation that the problem she is having is a manufacturing defect, the manufacturer considers acts of god or third parties not covered under that factory warranty." Vulgar? Rude? Threatening? That's not the conversation I heard. (I was sitting at the kitchen table during the phone call) First, I've never heard my wife use a curse word. We just don't speak that way. She was direct, and she absolutely did accuse Mr. Gilley of not following through on his commmitments, which was true. I'm starting to get the picture here. This is Jeremy's business, and it's not doing well. A week after providing the additional warranty claim information, and after sending an additional email reminding him that he had not yet responded to even let me know that he'd received the information, I received a response from Mr Gilley on its status. Here it is in its entirety: "Your claim has been denied, the information you provided for proof of install, and diagnosis was rejected by the factory warranty department. As I had discussed with your husband, before you so rudely contacted me making demands, I was going to take care of it in house IF they denied it. But after your rude phone call and false complaint to the BBB, I don't think we are going to be helping you out." Side note: I have a name that is commonly considered a girl's name. But I've identified myself to him by my name over the phone on at least two occassions - the second of which he didn't even need my account info as he remembered the situation. In the email above, which is a response to my email address and my name, he believes he's communicating with my wife. No big deal, just think it's humorous. Is it unreasonable to expect more from a company who is giving me second hand information of a denial of my warranty? Perhaps we could provide additional information? Is there something wrong with the info I provided? The icing on the cake is the decision to withdraw his original offer of help based on a false accusation he's making against my wife. This is unbelievable. Oh, and a 'false complaint' to the BBB? How is that even possible? Disputable, I could understand. 'False complaint to the BBB' is just ***. So, I did some research... First, Minisplitwarehouse.com is owned by AMG Inc. This wasn't a big revelation until I also found out, from BBB, that the owner of both is, guess who?, Jeremy Gilley. Wait isn't that the same customer service rep I've been speaking to all this time? Yep, Jeremy Gilley is a one-man show. Secondly, "Mr Whisper" is the only minisplit system designed in the USA. Cool! Except guess who the owns the Mr Whisper trademark? Yep, Jeremy Gilley. So, guess who the mysterious manufacturer is? Yep, Jeremy Gilley. So, in my mind, guess who was reviewing all of this warranty claim info that I thought was going to a third party? Yep, Jeremy Gilley. And, guess who got his panties in a wad over a truthful accusation of neglegence on his part? Yep, Jeremy Gilley. And who is acting like a child by assuming he can not be impacted by his unethical refusal of a warranty claim on the basis of that same accusation? Yep, Jeremy Gilley. Guess who got a new hobby? Me.
I have the same opinion