Distributed Energy Company OnsitePowerGenerators Holding our money with no delivery in sight Internet, Internet

On 12/5/11, we ordered a Briggs & Stratton standby generator from OnSitePowerGenerators.com.  I have to sleep with a CPAP, so I need emergency power backup.  In addition, my wife has arthritis which is significantly worsened in a home without heat.

The website displayed messages about next day shipping from warehouses in Virginia and Boston.  The message was displayed on pages for specific generators but apparently was only a general statement about possibilities not actualities.  We also expected that it would take longer because we knew there was an unusually high demand for generators following the Haloween storm on the East Coast.  I spoke to Craig Currie, and he said that he expected delivery would take place within about 23 business days.

Our credit card was charged immediately even though there was no generator available to ship, and as we learned, little possibility of obtaining our model in any reasonable time frame from this business.  After about a month, we inquired via email about the status of our order.  We received a reply saying the generator should ship in another seven to ten days.  After another couple of weeks and no shipping confirmation, we again inquired and were told it would ship in another week.

Finally, on February 3rd, we requested that the charge be removed from our credit card and reapplied when there was a product available to ship.  We received no response, so on February 6th, we filed a claim with our credit card company for non-delivery and sent another email to OnSitePowerGenerators asking the order to be canceled.  We were nearing the 60 day limit on making a credit card claim and did not want to wait any longer.

On February 7th, we received an email saying the order would be canceled, but we didn't see any activity when we looked at our credit card transactions on line.  On February 9th, we asked when the credit would appear and got an email saying that it would be done in 4-5 days.  Finally on February 16th we saw the refund on our credit card.  So all in all, Distributed Energy had our money for over 10 weeks even though they didn't seem to have the ability to obtain the generator we ordered!!

We know that it is possible to get the generator on much shorter notice as we ordered the same generator from Equipatron on February 9th; and it would have been delivered on the 17th except that we had a conflict, so it will be delivered on the 21st into our garage with no added liftgate or labor charge.

One other comment we have is that the business appears to be a one man operation.  Although there is the ability to leave voice messages, the recording asks that you send email instead.  Several times we called, left a message, and followed up with an email in order to get a response.