Finnex Titanium Heater Owners BEWARE!!!

[The Saltwater Kid]

Thanks Wryknow...unfortunately my local small claims court said there's not much I can do since it's an out of state company, a verdict could be easy to get but JSK could pretty much thumb their noses at that since they reside outside my small claims courts jurisdiction :-(. They suggested contacting the Illinois Small Claims Court. Does anybody know the phone number to the small claims court that has jurisdiction over Countryside, Illinois???

[tpdpercula]

I understand what your going through somewhat. I did not lose all my live stock but have spent $100s of dollars on their stupid thermostats. And it is because they sell a defective product that is not reliable and should not be sold for use in aquariums. Please keep us posted on your legal status. The Marine Hobby is not cheap to begin with and when COMPANYS take advantage of customers/hobbist we all must stand up and give them the same headaches that they give us with regards to crappy products and "Its not our fault" customer service mantality.

[Wryknow]

well, I looked it up and Countryside, IL is in Cook County. Here's their website:

http://198.173.15.31/newsite/?sectio...ge&DDPage=3100

They have a whole separate process for small claims of under $1500 where folks can represent themselves.

I'm not sure where you live so I can't say whether or not you want to travel to Chicago. Collecting the judgement will be easier there since that's where they have fixed assets, bank accounts, etc. Alternatively, you could see if the company has any assets in your state and get the local judgement and try to seize those if they don't pay. There are legal companies that specialize in collection jugdements that work on contingency but they may or may not take your case. You may want to read a book on the subejct. I've never tried suing a corporation outside of the state myself.

[The Saltwater Kid]

Thanks Wryknow! I did finally contact the small claims court of Cook county and the woman i spoke with was a total ***** but she at least gave me some information. To file a claim it will be $129 and then I will need to file a summons and have the Sheriff deliver it to the company which is another $60 and on top of that there WILL be a court date in which I have to appear so that means I'd have to take time off from work, buy a plane ticket from Vermont to Illinois and appear myself...I would likely spend almost half of what i lost in livestock and there would be no garauntee that I would win anything. This is very frustrating and irritating...the only recourse I have left is to file a complaint with the Illinois Attorney Generals Office which is free but probably won't do much for me :-(. The little guy gets screwed again!!!

[Wryknow]

Well, you can include court costs in your claim, but that's still a pain in the butt and probably not worth it for you .

[sditch]

Very Sorry to hear about your loss, I would not go beyond what you have done as it may lead to more fustration and loss.

Just look at it as a lessin learned and move on to the new and improved tank

[The Saltwater Kid]

Easy to say if you've got the money! Unfortunately this is the second disaster in a little over a year and a half for us...the first being a terrible cyano outbreak at about the 8 month mark for our tank in which i tried everything to get rid of it until I decided to try Chemi-Clean and after following the directions the stuff nuked our tank, killing 90% of our livestock and it took almost 10 months before we got our tank looking even better then it had looked previously and now this damn heater catastrophe happens and we lose it all once again :-(. We want to try one more time but financially we just don't have a lot of money to sink into it this anymore...gonna' have to rely on the good graces and generosity of fellow reefers willing to donate frags to help us restore our tank to it's former glory once again.

[honda2sk]

Originally posted by The Saltwater Kid
Does anybody know if there is any legal action that could be taken against Finnex since it was their product that failed when it was less then a year old and it killed so many hundreds of dollars of livestock?

Here is how you sound in other words:
My Maytag refrigerator broke last week. All of milk and eggs went bad. I also had a bottle of Dom Perignon in there as well with a nice freshly caught fish. The warranty should be for 10 years but it broke down in only 5 years! I now want Maytag to not only replace the fridge, but also reimburse me for the eggs, milk, champagne and fish which cost hundreds of dollars!

Good luck with your lawsuit.

[miatawnt2b]

Originally posted by honda2sk
Here is how you sound in other words:
My Maytag refrigerator broke last week. All of milk and eggs went bad. I also had a bottle of Dom Perignon in there as well with a nice freshly caught fish. The warranty should be for 10 years but it broke down in only 5 years! I now want Maytag to not only replace the fridge, but also reimburse me for the eggs, milk, champagne and fish which cost hundreds of dollars!

Good luck with your lawsuit.

+1

when will people learn that someone else is not always responsible for ones misfortune. Sure it stinks, but life is a big lesson, not always fair, and sometimes tuition is high.

-J

[Henry Bowman]

Contact the BBB and file a complaint. Watch the message boards for heater questions and relay your experience. I'd do a word document that I could cut and paste from to make it quicker.

Keep up the bad publicity with your experience. Contact the company and tell them that you will persist in communicating your experience to other hobbyists based on your loss. Dont offer to stop if they pay you, I believe that would be illegal.

Bad publicity is more damaging / costly to most companies than any other form of advertising.

When you believe that you have passed the message on to enough folks to keep them from purchasing 2-3K worth of heaters. Drop it !

'bout all you can do.

[sheepdog43]

Originally posted by luv951
You know that little folded up piece of thin paper with type on it thats so small you need a magnifying glass to read it?

It comes in every piece of cheap electronic gizmo sold in America.

On that piece of paper is a statement that goes:

"Under no conditions shall finnex' liability extend beyond the replacement value of the product"

Or something similar.....sorry, but you are probably screwed. Lawyers make the world such a great place, don't they?

no offense to any lawyers ; )

If your house burned down, would they be excused due to that clause?

They can put all they want on that little piece of paper. You have not agreed to it.

Besides, you cannot sign way your right to sue. You can sign a paper saying you will not sure, but you still have the right.

The recent judgement against AT&T shows similar. They put in their contract that you could not do a class action suit, only single. This made it more difficult for the little guy to go after ham. A Judge threw it out. You can pretty much sue anyone for anything. You may not get anything out of it, but you can try.

I am not a lawyer, but one look at what goes on in courts can show you you have some recourse.

[Wryknow]

I think that a better analogy would be if you bought a window AC unit for your home and 8 months after you bought it the AC unit short circuited due to a design flaw and burned your house down. How many homeowners would be satisfied if the manufacturer apologized and offered to give them another (identical) AC unit free of charge? Would it make you feel better if their response was 'Yeah, that happens all the time with our product. We're sorry. We warned you by writing in fine print in the instruction booklet that AC units sometimes short circuit. Tell you what, this time, in addition to a free AC unit we will also give you a controller that we really think will prevent out product from burning your house down when it breaks again.' ? I doubt you'd have a problem finding a lawyer who would take the case on contingency.

[Ladipyg]

Sheepdog 43 is totally correct...you cannot sign away your right to sue...companies provide that little disclaimer to make consumers believe there is nothing they can do. That is not true. You need to post on as many forums as you can to find people who have had the same problem as you...if they have receipts for purchases, all the better. Pictures are a real plus. If you can find enough people who have suffered verified losses due to the Finnex heater, the heck with small claims. Go for a class action suit. A nation-wide problem trumps small claims court. There are lawyers that specialize in this. With the crap that is coming out of China lately, killing our dogs, hurting our kids, toothpaste, wheat gluten..the tide is turning on the feelings about imports from China. Make sure all letters sent to Finnex are registered, save all e-mails and responses. Print them out in case your computer crashes. In your letter make sure to let the company know that a fault in the design/manufacturing caused the problem. Do not, under any circumstances get rid of the heater...I'm sure before the law suit can go ahead, there will have to be an examination of the unit.

miatawnt2b...yes, life is not fair..and if the Finnex heater problem suffered by The SW Kid was an isolated problem I'd say, OOPS, but if many of the heaters have problems, it switches from being the individuals fault and becomes a larger problem. Companies gamble, they throw the dice on faulty products and just hope no one gets the wiser, even if they are aware of it. I don't know how old you are but I clearly remember the Ford Motor Company / exploding Pinto fiasco...there were memos sent about the problem among company officials, but the company figured it would not issue a recall and take their chances. Unfortunately, it wasn't the company that took the chance. Company officers weren't driving Pintos, I'm sure. And people died as a result. I think the tuition paid in that case was a little to steep.

Wryknow...I like the points you have made in your post.

[miatawnt2b]

class action???... the only dough to be made in that case goes in the lawyers pockets.

[E.Smith]

Who cares who makes the dough in the case, at least you know the company will have to shell out millions of dollars on lawyer fee's and if the plantiff is awarded the settlement that just means the company will have to spend millions of more dollars. Although it would be nice to have your losses paid for. At least justice will be served. The problem with this whole fiasco is that the product in the grand scheme of things is so cheap, along with the damages to one's ("average") tank that it doesn't warant your time to spend possibly hundreds to thousands of dollars on lawyer fee's to pursue a case. This is were the company just gets to laugh at you, and make some pathetic offer in return knowing that it is unlikely you will pursue the case in court. All the while making millions of dollars off faulty products. The only time they are usually held accountable for there actions is when class action lawsuits are filed.
Your best bet is to just be as loud and vocal as you can describing to other fellow hobbyist's what a poor product they make. After all the consumers are the ones that dictate the market!

[theishkid]

I'm just going to second the thinking twice about finnex. Yesterday, just a month over the 6 month warranty, my controller started freaking out. Luckily it did not raise the temperature in my tank but the controller kept saying the temperature was going up... it went all the way up to 99 degrees. I was freaking out because I was at work all day and hearing the reports... luckily someone was at home and felt the tank water to calm me down because the temp was nowhere near that hot.

[Fishbulb2]

Mostly good points made all around. I agree that this is not worth your time. I also think your best bet is just to warn others, as you have already done, that these heaters suck. Next I would invest in a Ranco. My heaters are off for the summer but I think I will get a Ranco when I turn them back on. The only other thing I would recommend you do is to send an email to the company you bought the heater from. Simply tell them about your experience and how the heater destroyed your tank. Without a tank, you don't have a lot of reason to shop there anymore. A couple stories like this and they may simply stop carrying these heaters. That's a much more efficient way to hurt Finnex and remove many heaters from the market than telling individual consumers one by one. Imagine, if you could convince Marine Depot, Fosters Smith, and That Pet Place not to carry these junk heaters. That would be a lot of lost units for Finnex.
Anyways, thanks for the warning. I'll stick with my Ebo-Jager and add a Ranco this winter. It's one of these things I've put off far too long.
FB

[NexDog]

Yep, the Finnex controllers are terrible. I have 2 500w heaters on the controllers. I've already replaced one one. I just checked teh others. They are both broken. I can turn the heat all the way up and they still don't activate. Excellent product, heh.