is anyone else getting screwed by PLH?

[Lammy]

is anyone else getting screwed by PLH?
the kids who run that place totally suck if anything at all goes wrong. sure those guys been great for me when nothing goes wrong. but otherwise it's a completely different story.

I bought a Hanna meter from them a while back and it arrived with a factory defect. they absolutely would not respond to me about the defective product and I had to go to Hanna directly to replace it. and thank you to Hanna! they have excellent customer service.

I ordered just under 1000 dollars worth of lamps on February first. before ordering I explicitly said that I only wanted it if it could ship sometime soon. ( I have this in writing) they told me just before I paid that it would most likely ship the next day. and a few days later they told me they DID ship my order. when it arrived it rattled like crazy inside the box. then I opened the box to pretty much my worst fears of shopping on the internet. I spent just under a grand on 10 lamps and there are 5 in the box and 2 clearly were manufacturing defects. they rattle so loud through all the packaging. ( 1 lamp had a large piece of extra glass in it that did not come from it's self and the other had a weld that broke in the frame inside the lamp.) I find it pretty hard to believe they didn't hear all that rattling when packaging my order.

I called and I talked to Julie who said that their records indicate that they only sent me the 5 that I received and the rest are on backorder. I told her I was extremely disappointed, that in the 5 emails I exchanged with her about when this order shipped, that she did not once mention that they didn't ship the entire order. it's not in the order comments or anything. she simply responded " I wish I could take responsibility for that but it's a big place". well I also wish you could take responsibility.
In my order details she put a comment about me that was rather rude and condescending.

I don't know why they would send me a partial order it doesn't make sense to me anyway. call me picky but I have six lamps in 1 room and four in another. I don't want to mix and match lamps in the same room.

so the manager told me that I'm going to have to send these rattling lamps back to hydro farm for them and that Hydrofarm will send me 1 of the lamps that PLH shorted me, when/if they ever send me the replacements for the factory defects.

2 weeks after my original order I found out that 4 of the Lamps that I ordered are back ordered until the end of the month and they offered to give me my money back. the only thing is, it was a Friday and the manager forgot to do it. so I had to call on Monday and get them to do it and with the 3 day delay it takes for that money to show up in my account that means I was out of that money for 2 and a half weeks.

that's annoying but they get more annoying. I got an email last week from the manager telling me he was going to send me the lamp that Hydrofarm was supposedly going to send me.

well it looks like he forgot to send that to me. he hasn't responded to any of my emails. I emailed him directly and the general sales team.

so Friday will make 4 weeks since I paid them for 10 lamps. I've got 3 of them. they held on to my money for 4 of them for 2 and a half weeks and they still got the rest of my money and lamps. they won't respond to my emails anymore and all of this is on an order that was explicitly contingent on it shipping "sometime soon". plus they told me twice that they actually did ship it.

I feel confident that I will get my money back eventually. mainly because after the Hanna meter incident I documented all this stuff in email. so when I authorized her to charge my credit card I explicitly stated "if it could ship sometime soon" I think between that and documenting the 2 times they told me they did ship it and the multiple times they haven't responded to me at all it shouldn't be a problem for my credit card to reverse the charges. but God what a hassle.

at this point, even best case scenario if PLH refunds my money today it'll be Thursday before I get it. which means they've held on to it for a month and I'll still have mix and match set of lamps in my flower room.

they have really low prices. but is it worth it? I don't know. if I went into some place locally, sure I would have paid a lot more. but then I would not be 4 weeks into flower an old lamps.

Lammy

 

[Lammy]

congratulations to anybody who manages to make it all the way through that first post.

 

[Ganja Maker]

Wow, I hate to read that. Are you talking plantlightinghydroponics.com ? I love that place. They have been my primary online shop for the last seven years.

I've only had great service from them. The one time I got a broken bulb shipped they handled it great. They took my word,and didn't even make me ship back the broken one, just sent me one out.

Not that this was good for them, but one time a while back there was 400w mh bulb mixed in with my order. SWEET BONUS for me.

Hope they're not slippin, I'd hate to see that.

 

[watts]

its best not to communicate in emails when you have a bigger issue like that. What brand lamps did you order? You said Hydrofarm but i'm not sure what bulbs they make.

 

[ELuminated]

If ya talking about Plantslightinghydroponics.com that site is strong, I hope you get good results from them like I have. I have been ordering with them for almost ten years never had an issue. The price is the best most of the time, if local shops could get near that I would work more with them.. most local guys worry me, are they cover for a large grow> are they working with the man? are they in some Hidden agenda secret society of Socialist scumbags? IDK so I stay safe and let the UPS man bring me the bulbs.. been doing this for a while and even having a guy in a hydro shop knowing when ya harvest is dangerous.

 

[cravin morehead]

my local hydro shop will match any price i find online for me. i don't know if thats for everyone nor do i care. they are good to me and get 90% of my business. i bet most shops would price match if asked, if not, shop elsewhere...

cm

 

[OrganicOzarks]

If you are talking about plantlightinghydroponics, all I can say is good things about them. They are the first I go to for equipment. I don't know how they stay in business with such a low mark up. Their volume must be unreal. I have never had a problem with them. I have ordered form them, and gotten a back order, but it was only a few days.

 

[Lammy]

yes everyone. I am talking about plantlightinghydroponics.com
I got a response from Julie. apologizing for the rude comments she had put into my order and she had a pretty slick excuse for it.

she says she would make sure that management was aware of my email and they still have not contacted me.

for the people who say i should call for a problem like this. well it's really several problems. they're aware of all of them. i have talked to management on the phone several times. last time for instance Jason told me he was going to refund my money and then I had to call back 3 days later to get him to actually do it. then a week later jason tells me he's mailing out a lamp that he owes me and he never did and he won't respond to me via email nor has he called.

as long as my original post is, I omitted for brevity, a lot of the things they done to me on this order. for instance just like the Hanna meter when I emailed them to find out what I should do about the bad lamps they never responded to that email either.

while calling on the phone is great these people are only open during the day and I got a job and I can't spend everyday of my job talking to him and remind him about what they said last time and trying to get them to do the right thing.

they clearly state on their website and in the emails and when I order on the receipt they say to contact them via email if there is any problem whatsoever or if you have any questions. well I can tell you from every time I've ever had a problem if you mention a problem in an email and the email is not about spending new money with them THEY WILL NOT RESPOND TO IT.

I think of all of that is very unprofessional and ridiculous. if they took a day or 2 or even a week to respond to an email that's 1 thing but they will not respond at all.

the lamps that I ordered were SunPulse. I figured they were such a good price I would try them. but I deeply regret that as well. these lamps run so much hotter than my HPS did. I heat my house exclusively from the air through the hoods. when I installed 5 of those Sunpulse in place of 5 out of 10 of my HPS lamps. the temp in my house shot through the roof. before replacing 5 out of the 10 lamps with SunPulse my house would stay at 68 degrees at night when it was 30 degrees outside. with those installed I have to keep a window wide open all night to keep it at 73 degrees in my house. I wish I could open more windows but that would look pretty crazy to the neighbors. so if my understanding of physics is correct if these things produce that much heat and use the same electricity they got to put out a lot less light. the color of the light is pretty though.

my other main issue with sunpulse is that after I emailed PLH about my defective bulbs and they would not respond to me I called SP directly. the technician I talked to acted as if it were completely ridiculous for me to think the manufacturer might honor their own warranty to the end user. he said that I bought the lamps from a cheap online retailer who did not want to do their job to return them. the SP tech kept going on and on telling me that they didn't package the lamps right and that's why my order broke and that it has nothing to do with SunPulse. this was after I told him they were clearly manufacturers defects. the 1 lamp had a large piece of broken glass inside that didn't even come from itself. the other had a broken weld on the framework inside of the glass. if it was welded correctly in the first place it would still be held together.

so I think it's really weak for the S P tech to go on and on about the packaging and shipping and it's the shippers fault. excetera excetera. SP seems they have some quality control issues. considering that the MSRP is 165 dollars for half of my lamps to have manufacturer defects that rattles loudly and they got shipped from 2 different places seems ridiculous. I have purchased many cheap lamps and they have never been defective or broken this is my first experience with defective lamps and I'm supposed to be paying 165 dollars each. fuck that. plus these lamps run way too hot for me to run in the summer or spring or fall.

with PLH when their service is good. it is good. I will admit that. I can put in an order at 5 o'clock in the afternoon and it usually ships within 2 hours. my local place will not ship until the end of the next business day. I've been dealing with PLH for about a year.

about price matching yeah the local places say they will price match. until I tell them the price. I just bought 2 phantom 1000 watt ballast from my local retailer. they lowered their price but they were still 30 dollars more than PLH but I've got those in hand they work and I'm using them

 

[Lammy]

I like a nice hand to hand transaction. everything completed right then you don't have to worry about if you're going to get the money or the product. it's nice and simple.

 

[BasementGrower]

yes everyone. I am talking about plantlightinghydroponics.com
I got a response from Julie. apologizing for the rude comments she had put into my order and she had a pretty slick excuse for it.

she says she would make sure that management was aware of my email and they still have not contacted me.

for the people who say i should call for a problem like this. well it's really several problems. they're aware of all of them. i have talked to management on the phone several times. last time for instance Jason told me he was going to refund my money and then I had to call back 3 days later to get him to actually do it. then a week later jason tells me he's mailing out a lamp that he owes me and he never did and he won't respond to me via email nor has he called.

as long as my original post is, I omitted for brevity, a lot of the things they done to me on this order. for instance just like the Hanna meter when I emailed them to find out what I should do about the bad lamps they never responded to that email either.

while calling on the phone is great these people are only open during the day and I got a job and I can't spend everyday of my job talking to him and remind him about what they said last time and trying to get them to do the right thing.

they clearly state on their website and in the emails and when I order on the receipt they say to contact them via email if there is any problem whatsoever or if you have any questions. well I can tell you from every time I've ever had a problem if you mention a problem in an email and the email is not about spending new money with them THEY WILL NOT RESPOND TO IT.

I think of all of that is very unprofessional and ridiculous. if they took a day or 2 or even a week to respond to an email that's 1 thing but they will not respond at all.

the lamps that I ordered were SunPulse. I figured they were such a good price I would try them. but I deeply regret that as well. these lamps run so much hotter than my HPS did. I heat my house exclusively from the air through the hoods. when I installed 5 of those Sunpulse in place of 5 out of 10 of my HPS lamps. the temp in my house shot through the roof. before replacing 5 out of the 10 lamps with SunPulse my house would stay at 68 degrees at night when it was 30 degrees outside. with those installed I have to keep a window wide open all night to keep it at 73 degrees in my house. I wish I could open more windows but that would look pretty crazy to the neighbors. so if my understanding of physics is correct if these things produce that much heat and use the same electricity they got to put out a lot less light. the color of the light is pretty though.

my other main issue with sunpulse is that after I emailed PLH about my defective bulbs and they would not respond to me I called SP directly. the technician I talked to acted as if it were completely ridiculous for me to think the manufacturer might honor their own warranty to the end user. he said that I bought the lamps from a cheap online retailer who did not want to do their job to return them. the SP tech kept going on and on telling me that they didn't package the lamps right and that's why my order broke and that it has nothing to do with SunPulse. this was after I told him they were clearly manufacturers defects. the 1 lamp had a large piece of broken glass inside that didn't even come from itself. the other had a broken weld on the framework inside of the glass. if it was welded correctly in the first place it would still be held together.

so I think it's really weak for the S P tech to go on and on about the packaging and shipping and it's the shippers fault. excetera excetera. SP seems they have some quality control issues. considering that the MSRP is 165 dollars for half of my lamps to have manufacturer defects that rattles loudly and they got shipped from 2 different places seems ridiculous. I have purchased many cheap lamps and they have never been defective or broken this is my first experience with defective lamps and I'm supposed to be paying 165 dollars each. fuck that. plus these lamps run way too hot for me to run in the summer or spring or fall.

with PLH when their service is good. it is good. I will admit that. I can put in an order at 5 o'clock in the afternoon and it usually ships within 2 hours. my local place will not ship until the end of the next business day. I've been dealing with PLH for about a year.

about price matching yeah the local places say they will price match. until I tell them the price. I just bought 2 phantom 1000 watt ballast from my local retailer. they lowered their price but they were still 30 dollars more than PLH but I've got those in hand they work and I'm using them

u switched from what bulbs to sunpulse bulbs? or u switched ballasts? or hoods? what did u switch to get that increase in temp?? just a bulb? really? thats wierd? id love to find a bulb that would decrease my temps.. only in the summer lol tho.. right now i love my temps.

 

[watts]

That's another bad review for sun pulse I've seen. I was going to order some as well but now I'm not. Also, PLH communication used to be good but I never got a reply from the last email I sent them.

 

[Lammy]

u switched from what bulbs to sunpulse bulbs? or u switched ballasts? or hoods? what did u switch to get that increase in temp?? just a bulb? really? thats wierd? id love to find a bulb that would decrease my temps.. only in the summer lol tho.. right now i love my temps.

I was running a 10 kilowatt veg/flower room. 10kw of HPS. the HPS lamps were all Ultrasuns i think. I replaced 5 of the 10 lamps with the sunPulse 3k° 1000w MH lamps. that was the only difference. the outside temp remained fairly constant the whole time.

I'm using all magnetic ballast I wonder if it would be different on the digital. I guess these will have to be winter only lamps.

I wonder if the heat issue has something to do with the diameter of the glass and its thickness. the glass appears to be pretty thick. the diameter is approximately the same as an HPS lamp. it seems the large round traditional metal halide lamps might heat up less because of the distance of the glass from the light source and its larger surface area which would allow it to cool quicker.

just to be perfectly clear the rise in temperature I'm talking about is in my living space and not my garden. the AC and the circulation fans kept the garden space at the right temperature.

 

[Lammy]

That's another bad review for sun pulse I've seen. I was going to order some as well but now I'm not. Also, PLH communication used to be good but I never got a reply from the last email I sent them.

watts,
I'd really like to do a side by side of the SP to HPS and cheaper MH. I do like the color a lot compared to the HPS. but I don't know that that's the best reason to choose a lamp.

I like to be more scientific about things but a friend of mine had switched out 1 of his hordeluxe with the Sunpulse 2.8k° 1000W. he was pretty impressed with it and when he showed me it did appear that the density of the nuggs went up underneath the SP light.

but now that I think about it he switched all his lamps over to the sunPulse and his total yield has remained pretty constant throughout the last several harvests. so they certainly didn't make a big improvement. he also got those 10 k° 1000w finishing lamps. those give off the UV rays. supposed to increase the frostyness. he said they did not make a noticeable difference and this is taking them out of the hood so the glass would not absorb the UV rays.

I do like the color of the 3°k lamps though. i was thinking about trying some of the cheap metal halide bulbs that plh has.

 

[watts]

might want to give the sunmaster cool deluxe bulbs a try if you want metal halide

 

[megayields]

congratulations to anybody who manages to make it all the way through that first post.

LMAO ...you read my mind....WTF???

After that 1st post I just responded to yours and moved on....quickly!

 

[Lammy]

might want to give the sunmaster cool deluxe bulbs a try if you want metal halide

thanks.
I was just looking at those and the Sun master warm Deluxe is a 3k° a lamp as well

 

[Infinitesimal]

I'm using all magnetic ballast I wonder if it would be different on the digital. .

your heat issues from the sun pulse may be due to the fact that those are High pressure metal halide bulbs specifically designed to run on digital ballasts which pulse at a much higher frequency than magnetics and run a much lower amperage ... I bet that it is the extra amps moving through the bulb more slowly that is heating them up, they are not intended for magnetic core and coil ballasts.

I love my sun pulse so much brighter... the light is more intense not any hotter though.

 

[Lammy]

they are not intended for magnetic core and coil ballasts.

I respectfully disagree. I spoke with a SunPulse tech. their lamps do not work with all digital ballast but yet they work with all magnetic ballast. if you use a SunPulse splitter you have to use a magnetic ballast they will not work on any digital ballast.

you do need to run in HPS mode though.

I love my sun pulse so much brighter... the light is more intense not any hotter though.

what method did you use to compare the temperature? I believe the temperature difference would not be nearly as noticeable with a just a few lights. also depending on how you duct your lights. understand however that I am NOT saying that it is heating up my garden space. I am saying that it is heating up my exhaust air a lot more.

however I did just change the ducting to use a manifold to force the air to flow through more hoods concurrently rather than consecutively. with the HPS Lamps the air would heat up about 3 degrees each hood it went through.

well I just did a test for you. I used my non contact thermometer. to read the temperature of the duct after each hood. i have 6x1000w connected to the same manifold air cooling system. 3 of those hoods get fresh air. so there input air would all be the same temperature. now of the 3 hood that get fresh air 2 are using ultrasun hps and the third one is an SP. the duct for the SP runs at 83 degrees whereas the 2xHPS both ran at 80 degrees. and the duct behind the SunPulse is getting hit by the air conditioner a little bit.

thats with magnetic. digital might be different but I doubt it.

 

[Lammy]

so to complete this thread I just wanted give an update. PLH did eventually give me my money back just over a month after taking it.

mind you before I ordered they told me it would ship the next day and then they told me that they did ship it. my order arrived. it was only half of my order and half of that was busted. PLH had me mail the busted crap back to hydro farm myself. Hydrofarm after 2 weeks never bothered to send out the replacements. if PLH had not sent out a partial order they could have shipped the entire order 3 days later. yet they ship me the factory busted bulbs and expect me to deal with hydro farm for the replacement and on the 1 that PLH didn't have in stock when they shipped my order. my point is is that if PLH took responsibility they could have sent me my complete order within a week.

in fact the manager did tell me that they sent out the last bulb that they shorted me and I made several trips into the city to go to the post office and check for it and that piece of crap never even mailed it. but i've got $50 invested into gas to drive back and forth for a week looking for that thing. then he acts like he never said that and that all this problem is really from Hydrofarm and SunPulse. when the truth is that I paid PLH and PLH had my money and they also had the bulbs sitting on the shelf for the last 3 weeks . but I'm supposed to weight on Hydrofarm to see if they want to send it to me.

in the future I will never email PLH about a problem they will not respond to it. you must call every single time

 

[Lammy]

I've been having a problem with Hanna combo meter I bought from PLH several months ago. I've been dealing with Hannah directly on the returns and they keep giving me a bad 1 and the down times are killing me.

so frustrated and pretty broke I called PLH to see what I can do. I'm extremely happy that they're going to let me upgrade to a blue lab.

PLH really helped me out on this. they say they're going to send me a blue lab combo meter today!! and I just gotta pay the price difference plus the shipping is free!
thanks guys.

that really does make up for all the rest of the problems. for anybody reading this just call PLH if you have a problem with them.

thanks again to PLH for saving the day.
Lammy