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Topic: Dakota Lithium - BUYER BEWARE!  (Read 1378 times)

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AlexB

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  • Location: Oakland, CA
  • Date Registered: Mar 2011
  • Posts: 5226
Just a heads up... If you're thinking about buying a battery or "Power Box" from Dakota Lithium, I suggest you reconsider. Their customer service is piss poor... I should have listened to another review that said the same thing, but I didn't. Live and learn...

I placed an order for a Power Box 10 back on June 11. UPS took almost 3 weeks to deliver the package, and during that time I sent several emails to Dakota asking them to please reach out to UPS for updates (UPS isn't taking calls from package recipients during the pandemic, but I assumed they would talk to the shipper). I kept getting BS one sentence replies from their "customer service" guy (Patrick Rose) basically saying he couldn't help me because he wasn't in the "shipping department". When I finally convinced him to ask the shipping department, they weren't helpful either.

When the product finally did arrive, I was not at all impressed. The box feels flimsy and I would be very surprised if it was waterproof. It's made from thin plastic with plastic hinges. The battery is just plopped in there with a couple loose pieces of foam around it. Basically the battery is just loose in there and flops against the wiring and electronics. The switches and binder posts look/feel cheap. And to top it off, one of the little rubber boots that's supposed to keep water out of the switches was not installed properly and clearly wasn't at all waterproof.

I contacted Dakota on 7/2 and let them know about the issue with the (not waterproof) switch. They said they would send me a replacement Power Box and a shipping label to return the old one.

Two weeks later I had not received any further emails or tracking info, so I emailed to ask what was up. Patrick said it was "on the ship list and leaving shortly". Here we are 20 days since he said he'd ship a replacement and it still hasn't happened. I've gotten 4 or 5 more replies from Patrick saying it will ship "shortly".

Long story short, I am now waiting on a refund and a return shipping label to send this POS back to Dakota.

Should have gone with my gut and just made my own "Power Box" from scratch using better materials...

« Last Edit: July 22, 2020, 09:39:40 AM by AlexB »


Mark L

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  • Location: Albany
  • Date Registered: Oct 2017
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I wrote the following on your previous thread about Dakota batteries. I ended up with one of Chet's batteries and it is working just fine, very well made. I got tired of waiting for a refund from Nocqua and just canceled the payment. If you used a credit card that is an option for you.

"I have been using a Nocqua 10ah battery for a few years and was really happy with it. I switched fish finders to a larger screen and a 10ah battery is only good for 5 hours. So I purchased another Nocqua 10ah along with their auto switch that was supposed to automatically switch from the low battery to the fully charged one.

In use it wouldn’t switch, and the Raymarine at 10.2 volts drops the sounder functions, and continues with chart plotter only. A big bummer because I’m usually on the water for 6-7 hours. I sent the new battery/ switch back, and asked for a full refund. It has been 2 months since they received the battery/switch back and I haven’t heard back from them. Not happy with their customer service.

In the future I will be trying out one the batteries our member CHET makes and sells:

http://www.norcalkayakanglers.com/index.php?topic=87570.0 "
2018 Eddyline Yellow Caribbean 14 Angler


 

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