Pale Blue Earth / Pale Blue batteries, a customer service follow-up
Thought I would post a little customer service oriented follow up to my previous negative reviews of Pale Blue / PaleBlue rechargeable batteries. As a note, I started this article in March and held off publishing for a long time (until I found out my experience was not unique and limited to reviewers.)
TL;DR – Support stopped responding via email, they deleted Facebook comments that show they’re not responding. Amazon reviews tend to indicate the same for customers.
The short of the reviews was 3 our of 4 of the AAs can’t hold a charge more than about a day or two, and the 4th one will hold for a week or so, is actually OK during that timeframe, but underwhelming coming in at less than half the power of a conventional battery. I contacted them back in 2019 during the initial review and again in 2020 and never heard back on whether they wanted to swap them out, whatever, it was a review item, there was a pandemic, I gave ’em a chance to replace (first batches of anything I give leeway,) never heard back, and as such one of my negative published reviews.
Recently (2021) I started getting FB ads for them nonstop, and at $30 for 4 batteries that none of worked particularly well I, commented my exact experience on their FB ad and was immediately publicly asked to contact support for a replacement. I’d post a screenshot, but my comment’s evidently been deleted.
Wednesday March 31st I did. Cindie wrote me back and had me in the system with a Saint Paul address. Not me. I wrote back with the right address on 3/31 and that was the last communication from them. I tossed them an email on May the second, also no response. Hit them up on FB, nada.
Commented on yet another ad Facebook displayed and mentioned they had not contacted me back, was asked to contact them again, posted a screenshot of the emails that had been dropped, and they deleted my comment. Quick search on their thing shows some of my comments have been erased from their FB comments as well.
So yeah, acceptable replies here were “we’re not interested in sending more product to a reviewer who we feel isn’t worth the expense,” “we don’t have you as a kickstarter backer,” “these are out of warranty, can you show that you attempted to contact us?” or even “we’re not interested in covering a warranty on a review item.” Or you know, a response. I’d even walk away were it just me, the reviewer. They literally owe me nothing. They can be done with me as a reviewer and say “your review’s published, sorry it didn’t work for you, we’re parting ways.”
However, since starting this I’ve been served so many ads for their batteries on Facebook it’s insane, and met paying customers in the comments section with similar experiences. I’m in the 1-star club on Amazon and seem to be surrounded by similar performance, and encounters with nonexistent customer service.
So just a PSA here – you’ve got a very high chance judging by the comments that they’re just not going to respond, your batteries, if my experience is any indication, probably are going to cost $30 for $4 performance and end up in a landfill unless they’ve fixed them. The customer service side however, go to Amazon and read some of those complaints, it’s not just me.
Your experience may vary, this was mine.
