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Polar King International, Inc.

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Polar King International, Inc. Reviews (1)

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 10, 2016/05/12) */
Contact Name and Title: [redacted], President
Contact Phone: XXX-XXX-XXXX
Contact Email: [redacted]@polarking.com
May 12, 2016
To Whom it May Concern:
Polar King is happy to resolve this matter with Captain [redacted]/Sea...

Venture. Below are my original responses to Captain [redacted]’s complaints from last May, and left it open as to what a mutually agreeable solution would be.
1. We were not aware of the control box needing to be NEMA 6 rated. The Russell condensing unit used in your freezer is UL rated for outdoor use. I know some of the testing UL requires is a water spray test. The unit should never be able to become “electrified” as long as it was properly grounded when installed on your ship.
2. The complete Russell condensing unit is UL rated for outdoor use including the condenser fan.
3. See number 2.
4. If the solenoid is outside of the condensing unit enclosures, then it should be replaced with a solenoid with a NEMA 4x rating.
5. The defrost timer is located inside the electrical control box which passes the UL outdoor requirements.
6. The condensing unit was special ordered from Russell to include a coated coil for high corrosive applications.
7. See number 2.
8. Although the Russell is designed for outdoor use, it may not be robust enough for your application.
9. Our freezer doors have been used in outdoor applications for 30+ years. We normally install drip caps above the door but probably omitted yours since it was going in the cargo hold. We can send a drip cap and it installs with a few screws and caulk.
10. All penetrations are normally sealed to eliminate air migration. It is possible we forgot the seal the one on your freezer. This can be fixed by either putting caulk or perma-gum inside the electrical conduit.
11. The top of the freezer is sealed against all weather and will not leak when outside.
12. Other than initial damage during shipment to California, there is no reason why you should be experiencing holes in the copper. I can’t explain this, but if properly fixed once, it should not be a problem for years to come.
13.
14.
15. Pinched wires were a result of poor workmanship. Perhaps from a new employee and something that is hard to catch in our QA.
16. Electrical hook up is normally the only thing required to run our freezers.
Captain [redacted] never notified me when his ship arrived to Port Hueneme. The last I heard, they were estimating arrival sometime in August or September.
Polar King builds walk-in coolers and freezer designed for outdoor use. For applications near the coastline, we offer a “saltwater package”. The saltwater package protects the major component (condenser coil, evaporator coil, hinges, etc.) from premature corrosion due to the
salt laden air near the coastline. All of our freezers are built to order to the customer’s specifications.
Unfortunately, there was a lack of communication between Polar King and our customer. Neither Captain [redacted] nor anyone on his staff specified NEMA 6 components on the freezer. Our standard electrical components are usually NEMA 3R or NEMA 4X. Both of these are suitable for outdoor use with exposure to rain/snow/sleet. NEMA 6 components carry the same criteria as 3R and 4X, but also are suitable for submersion in water.
Again, due to a lack of communication, we did not know the ship was small enough to experience “driving salt-water spray or even solid green water“ as Captain [redacted] later told me in an email. As I told Captain [redacted], my salesman’s vision of the ship that it was going on, was something similar to a Carnival Cruise line or large cargo vessel. I’m not sure we knew it was to go on the outside deck at a future date, but we did not include the rain guard over the door since it was originally going below deck where it would be protected from the elements.
Aside from the complaints that the freezer is not suitable for this application, which I agree, the other items have either already been corrected or can be fixed very easily. Polar King already paid for the initial repairs to the lights and refrigeration that was damaged during shipment from Fort Wayne to California.
I believe a large part of the responsibility lies with Captain [redacted] or his staff. He cannot expect our sales staff located in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to possibly know the severe and extreme environment and conditions aboard a ship. Nowhere in our literature or website does it mention that we manufacture and sell freezer for on board ocean vessels, and this should have raised more questions from him and/or his staff.
I understand Captain [redacted]’s disappointment and frustrations, and I feel terrible that our product did not work for his application. But I do not agree with his desired resolution. In my opinion, he must take some responsibility for purchasing a freezer designed for land use by a company with no experience with the rigors of sea going vessels. With that said, I am willing to take back the freezer and refund Captain [redacted] 75% of the price he paid for the freezer, less the freight to and from the port. The total price of the refund will be [redacted] I will need to check with our accounting department on the procedures of refunding the CA sales tax that we collected from the customer.
I believe this is a more than fair resolution and hope Captain [redacted] will agree.
Sincerely,
[redacted]
President
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 12, 2016/05/15) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
16 May 2016
To Whom it May Concern,
This letter is in answer to the Polar King Response (hereafter PKR) submitted by Polar King President Mr. [redacted] on 12 May 2016, to our complaint filed with the Revdex.com on 26 April 2016, Case # XXXXXXXX, concerning the Polar King freezer van delivered on 7 February 2015.
We ordered the freezer on 10 December 2014, and it was delivered on 7 February 2015. Contrary to statements in the PKR, we were very clear with the Polar King representative, Mr. [redacted] about the nature of our requirement and the environmental conditions to which the unit would be exposed. I conducted these phone conversations myself, and I clearly recall stating that the unit would be continuously exposed to weather after its initial year of operation in an environmentally controlled interior space, and that such weather included driven saltwater spray and boarding seas in addition to rain, sun and dust. We discussed at length the means by which the unit would be secured to the deck against pitch, heave and roll motions at sea. When I described these conditions to Mr. [redacted] his response was that the Polar King unit could accommodate them, provided we paid extra for the "Salt Water Package", which subsequently we did. We purchase our sextants, the most nautical of all implements, from a company in Wichita, Kansas: Claiming an inability to even imagine conditions at sea by virtue of geography seems disingenuous in this day and age of ubiquitous information, documentary entertainment products (such as The Deadliest Catch) and surprisingly accurate Hollywood depictions of storms at sea. Even if this were not so, I used very clear and very plain language to describe the expected conditions and the robust durability requirements those conditions imposed, asked specific questions about the units ability to handle them, and received entirely positive responses. Stating that Polar Kings' representative did not understand the requirements imposed by the unit's planned environment implies either that he did not listen, or that he willfully ignored what was being said to make a sale. All this noted, we have never removed the unit from an interior, protected, environmentally controlled environment, as it proved incapable of functioning reliably even there. It has never been exposed to the conditions we described.
We had problems with the unit immediately upon delivery, not least because fittings were broken and all the refrigerant had escaped before the unit even arrived on board. We had paid [redacted] above the purchase price to Polar King for "Delivery and Set-up" on Polar King's advice, rather than utilize significantly cheaper commercial transport on our account, because Polar King stated in that manner they could insure the unit was delivered safely and in good condition. Under these circumstances, the PKR's shrugging off damage in transit as a risk we accepted is inaccurate- we paid for and they agreed to deliver the unit in good condition.
The PKR refers to lights damaged in transit. This was not the case. As stated in the original complaint, the interior lighting was incompetently installed, with the wire insulation pinched between the bulb holder and the light case so badly that it grounded out the conductor, resulting in multiple shorts which repeatedly tripped the 120V breaker within the system until we discovered the fault and repaired it.
For these two issues Polar King issued us a credit memo for [redacted] (after offering first [redacted] and hearing our subsequent protest), and although we accepted it as we were putting to sea and out of time, it was a fraction of our actual cost in materials and labor to repair the two issues above, and doesn't even begin to compensate for the premium we paid for delivery and a "set-up" which never occurred- the unit was delivered to the pier and left in our hands.
Subsequently putting to sea and experiencing multiple unit failures, we first notified Polar King of our desire to return the unit for a refund on 10 April 2015, slightly more than 2 months after delivery (see attachment 1). Attached to that e-mail was a very specific list of deficiencies and failures with the unit, which were copied into the original Revdex.com complaint and so I will not repeat here. We detailed another full loss of the refrigerant charge due to failed compressor components on 19 April 2015 (see attachment 2). On 20 April 2015 Polar King responded that they would refer the matter to the company owners and advise us shortly.
On 12 May 2015, Mr. [redacted] responded via e-mail to our specific technical complaints. This is the response he copied to the PKR. It answered our complaints point by point in a manner which admitted poor workmanship in some cases, but in essence said they could not explain the problems we were having or claiming we were mistaken in our assessment of what would occur if we placed the unit in the harsh environment it was ordered for. I responded the same date with four alternative proposals for him to consider, ranging from modification and refurbishment in place through return and refund, and asking which of these he would consider. He responded on 20 May 2015 that "Polar King is open to all 4 of your possible scenarios." (See attachment 3.) This was the last communication I received from Polar King
On 22 May 2015, I responded to the same e-mail address I had used to correspond with Mr. [redacted] throughout this dialogue, requesting that he either send a technical representative to the ship so they could see what we were seeing and understand the true magnitude of the problem as a preliminary for discussions on the feasibility of retrofitting and repairing the unit to make it reliable and robust, or alternatively, to take the unit back and refund our purchase price, transportation fee and sales tax costs. I did not request at that time compensation for our additional costs. (See attachment 4.) I never received an answer to this e-mail.
On 25 June 2015 and again on 31 July 2015, I e-mailed Mr. [redacted], "replying to" the last e-mail he had sent to me (and copying [redacted] our original contact with Polar King), and asked if he had considered my requests (See attachments 5 & 6). I never received a response to these communications, and I find it implausible the e-mails reached neither Mr. [redacted] or Mr. [redacted].
When the ship returned to the United States in the 3rd quarter of 2015, I tried on 4 occasions to contact Mr. [redacted] by phone. I was always unsuccessful, and in spite of leaving messages never had my calls returned. There has been no further communication from Polar King until I filed the complaint with the Revdex.com.
In the interim, we have been forced to replace the evaporator unit on the Polar King 8 x 18 Salt Water Package freezer, so that our uncompensated costs for repairs to a unit slightly over a year in age now substantially exceed [redacted] The box itself remains pervious to moisture, which causes ice formation, and we have indications of yet more leaks within the condenser. Our opinion has evolved to where we feel no amount of time and money thrown at a piece of equipment so fundamentally flawed can ever make it right, and we are therefore requesting that Polar King remove the unit at their expense and refund our entire purchase price, delivery charges and sales tax of [redacted] (see attachment 7). This is the only solution that is even remotely just, given our costs in keeping the unit limping along over the past 15 months in an indoor environment, and the fact that Polar King never fulfilled their part of the contract, to deliver a working freezer to us for in return for the monies we paid. The offer of [redacted] is, as can be seen from attachment 7, is not even [redacted] of the purchase price as the PKR claims, and is not accepted. If we have to go to court with this, we will document and seek compensation for all our costs.
Sincerely,
Capt. [redacted] F. [redacted]
Master, M.V. Sea Venture
[redacted] 4, [redacted]
Port Hueneme, CA XXXXX
TEL: XXX-XXX-XXXX, [redacted]
FAX: XXX-XXX-XXXX

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Address: 4424 New Haven Ave, Fort Wayne, Indiana, United States, 46803-1650

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