ComplaintsforBrainMaster Technologies, Inc.

• Initial Complaint

  09/06/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Customer Service Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Hello. I’m attaching an email I sent a few days ago to the VP of this company who has been continually ignoring my attempts to reach out and get to a resolution around functionality issues with this cap that I’ve had for over six months now. They’ve also now had my equipment in their facility for over two months (turnaround is supposed to be 3-5 days), and during this period I have struggled to get in touch with support at all. When I do, I continually get the runaround. I have been sending them the same concerns over and over again for many months, haven’t gotten any answers, and the VP (according to them the only person that can give me a resolution) keeps being evasive and absent despite several attempts to get in touch with him. I went to a conference in Dallas a couple weeks ago, largely to get answers from him, and he brushed me off and said we should talk when we get home. I called him last week and no answer. I sent the email attached below on Tuesday and quickly got a reply from the receptionist that Bill is out of the office for the remainder of the week. This equipment was well over 30k, and many thousands of that is for their software and ‘stellar customer support.’ This huge investment is currently being held hostage, and the business has given multiple examples that they are not a reputable or ethical company. I have a long chain of emails to show proof of this. The reasons they are avoiding me seem at this point very sketchy at this point and I can’t afford for this huge investment to be hanging in limbo any longer. Thank you! Let me know

  

  Business response

  10/05/2023

  The resolution that is being requested cannot be accomplished, due to many different factors:

  - The Return Policy for *********** is 30 Days with a Restock Fee, which is outside of this policy.
  - There is nothing wrong with the Equipment.
  

  Dr. ******** is a wonderful person, and I truly feel the issues that he has been facing him.  We have spent countless hours working with this gentleman and will continue to help where we can.  And on many occasions have (including, to his admissions) been resolved.  But does not meet his needs and can be from many factors.

  - Upon the initial purchase of the Equipment, as opposed to purchasing the Training Package offered to him by ***********, which offers a 24-Hour 3 Day Inservice combined with a 6-Hour Technical Training. He chose, chose to decline this and opted to Self-Train and choose his own instructor.

  - Even though Technical Training is offered at an additional cost, we do not want clients to not have any training. Videos for utilizing the Amplifier, as well as multiple Training Sessions were made for this client.

  - He never got fully comfortable and partnered with a Mentor.Who is a wonderful Mentor. But has very minimally utilized the Technology that Dr. ******** owned.  While they are a great instructor and mentor, helping with the donning and use, was at times, counter productive (Again, admitted by *** ******** at times and then revoked recently), and caused greater doubt as far as functionality.

  - During this time, we would work with *** ********* and it would work.  Only to not work when we would be connected to him.

  - In order to remove the doubt, we offered to have the headset returned to us, in order for us to investigate the headset.

  - After Multiple Hookups and data disputing any issues with functionality.The Data was provided to *** ******** informing him that the headset was functioning as expected.His response was other possible problems, which had to be reviewed by the Manufacturer and questioned as well, and never heard feedback from this.Nor approval for the device to be returned to him.

  Although the customer is reporting “issues with contacting support”. Some conversations were provided to a Sales Associate who aided in the initial sale of the product

  - While the sales person has done their best to provide forwarded Emails.Sending to the Sales person made them in some circumstances the “bottle neck” and could be part of some of the issues provided

  - There was direct communication with *** ********* that he had not answered.  Including addressing some of his concerns and confirming of the shipping address.  We do not know what happened to these communications, and hope that they were not blocked or sent to spam. 
  

  - We had to a fault held off delivery for the customer to confirm the information provided, as well as to confirm where to deliver his product and assure safe delivery.

  - Finally, after being informed of this, we sent overnight his device, as to not hold his device any longer.In order to assure proper delivery for a very expensive device, we shipped with a Signature Required.It was attempted delivery on 9/26/2023, then successfully delivered on 9/27/2023 and Received by ********.

  - During the time of having his amplifier, the customer only attempted to contact the Support Team one time by phone.During this time, *********** did attempt to reach by phone as well.But were unable to reach the client.

  We will continue to do everything in our Power to assist Dr. ******** in any way we can to assure that his product meets his needs, knowing we can only do so much.  With his want to continue to work with his mentor in place, the best solution which was discussed would be an even exchange for a different, less expensive product.  This would achieve the “Gold Standard” desires, and not necessarily his “Cutting Edge Technology” desires.  The Device and his Affiliate Membership would be retained, and we will be happy to continue to assist him with any issues that he would have.  Our VP of Sales/Marketing has been in contact with him with this regards as well.

  Customer response

  10/09/2023

  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below

  ————
  
  First off, I am not a doctor, and Bill knows that. Second, his first two points further elucidate the pitfalls I have been experiencing with *********** for the past six months. He is falling back yet again on the ‘return policy’ and that there is ‘nothing wrong with the equipment,’ and because of that I’m basically SOL. These are interesting initial stance to points to make in response to a BBB complaint about customer service… It shows yet again he is not listening to/acknowledging the points I have been trying to make to him over and over (and over) again. At this point this is not an issue with the functionality of the cap, it’s from the evasive and negligent behavior from *********** that has left a 30k investment hanging in the balance for a ridiculously long amount of time; all the while Bill has continually tried to skirt around any real opportunity to improve this situation.
  
  
  First off, it doesn’t matter that the cap is working. It’s not about the cap “working” in the sense that the “data” says it is. My initial issues with it revolved around people not being able to wear it for more than twenty minutes at a time because it’s too painful to wear for very long (but, this has since spun out into a broader customer service and negligence issue). It’s also overly sensitive to artifacts and environmental stimuli, despite being marketed as an ‘ultra-functional, wireless cap;’ and having a ridiculously high price tag which those claims are supposed to justify. These are real issues that the lead developer of the *********** software has fully agreed with me about in a face to face conversation. When compared side by side to a discovery, their less expensive model, the data looks much cleaner with less artifacts. I know how to use the cap, and I don’t need an inservice. You’re trying to paint a picture that this situation is about my lack of experience and it’s not about that. I talked to a lot of EEG professionals at ISNR and they all seemed happy and impressed at my understanding of EEG and neurofeedback. The issues I am reiterating to you again and again have little to do with that, so that point is moot. If you had actually been listening to me this whole time you would have realized that the problems I’m experiencing go well beyond whether the data says the cap ‘works’ or not. This is a common theme I’ve experienced with using *********** products and communicating with their staff: that they try to distill the world down to reductionist points from a data set, rather than from the experience of an actual person.
  
  
  More evidence of this is in ****** response how he tries to devalue my experience of the last six months by distilling our communication to how many phone calls I have made to ***********; when in reality phone is not the main way I have been trying to communicate with them. It’s mostly been in email, and I would very much like to have all of these emails included if this is ends up being posted; because there is plenty evidence of me trying to communicate these concerns to staff over and over again and them never fully acknowledging those parts of my emails. I originally asked if we could switch it out for a different model in early April and was continually getting the runaround, and despite Ashley being quoted as saying Bill had been ‘closely monitoring the situation’ since that time I never heard from him. He actually vaguely proposed we could actually do that in late august when I finally found him in person (4 months after I originally proposed it) and then promptly went right back to being evasive. I finally sent the unit to their office in July, outlining these concerns yet again. The one time they did call me then was just to say testing was done and that they were ready to send it back, when I had already said multiple times—even before sending the unit in— that I didn’t think testing was going to fix the issues I was experiencing. When I wrote them an email in response outlining my concerns (yet again) they wrote back and said they would ‘look into this’ for me, and as usual I never heard back. They also never answered when I called a couple weeks later. 
  
  
  I actually ended up going to a conference in another state that I knew they would be attending, largely because I was continually not getting answers from them any other way. It was there that the lead developer of the software agreed with me about my concerns, and yet Bill still brushed me off when I asked him about it, saying he could help but gave no real timeline or specifics; also telling me we ‘can’t talk about this here,’ and that we could touch base about it when we got home (keep in mind they have had a 30k investment of mine held up in their office for almost two months at this point). I called him the next week and left a voicemail, no response. I then emailed the next week with a firmer tone, expressing my frustrations about it and asking for a refund. Even then, he didn’t respond to me at all for WEEKS! And, the only reason he did was because he had gotten his two week courtesy call (!) from the BBB. He clearly still hadn’t read my email, so I told him to do that, and at that point he wrote back several days later, taking no accountability; basically finger pointing and saying this was all my fault. All the while, still keeping up with the common theme of only responding to the aspects of my email that felt convenient to him. 
  
  
  Even after all of this headache, him continually devaluing and evading the reality what has been very consistent negative experience of a customer with a high level of investment in his company over a very long amount of time is just unconscionable. Working with a company should not feel like this, especially when they have had a $30,000 investment originally intended to enrich both of your businesses; and they continually show that they have no real interest in optimizing that… or even ameliorating things that were not working. Their main strategy seems to be to robotically reguritating arbitrary data points and lay all the blame for what isn’t working squarely on the customer’s shoulders.
  
  
  I respect a lot about ***********, and I would love to have good things to say about them going forward. But, if someone else is reading this email, it means that they still have put no effort into taking any accountability or offering any consolidation for what has frankly been the worst customer service experience of my life. Hopefully, my efforts in this process will help someone else to not make the same mistake going forward.
  
  Regards,
  
  ******* ********
  
  
  
  
   

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