Postby mountain_lake » Mon Aug 09, 2021 10:15 am
I can not commend on the Falcon but I own the Kauper Maverick and the Pintxo bar. And I can share my experience with doing business with Kauper which was unluckily not a good one.
TLDR: I bought a Kauper Maverick and realized after the first use that the Kite is losing air. I agreed with Kauper to get it repaired in Switzerland and he will cover the costs, which he didn't do in the end.
The whole Story:
I bought a Kauper Maverick realized after the first use that it is losing air slowly. It was not much so I was unsure if it was maybe just due to the temperature difference from a sunny day to a chillier evening. I contacted Kauper right away that the kite potentially has a leak. I pumped the kite at home and the kite was losing air overnight so the leak was confirmed. Kauper offered me the option to either send it to a repair shop of his choice in Germany or to a repair shop of my choice in Switzerland where I live. I choose the Swiss repair shop in the hope to have the kite back faster and as well to save the quite high shipping costs from Switzerland to Germany.
So far so good, the repair shop claimed he needs 3 weeks as it is the middle of the season. Which I was obviously not happy about, but I accepted. At the same time, I asked Kauper if I can get a discount on the wichard he is selling for all the hassle I had with the kite he sold me. Where he in return send me a wichard for free which I considered quite nice by that time.
A couple of weeks later I could pick up my repaired kite and paid the bill. I forwarded the bill to Kauper with my account details. After about a month I checked my account and realized he didn't pay back my money or replied to my email. By this time I still thought everything was good. So I wrote another email that he please should pay me back the money for the repair of the kite. Where I received at some point an email stating he doesn't know what I want from him. This surprised me a bit, so I resend him the bill and explained that I want my money back. After a bit of exchange, he claimed they can't prove that the kite was faulty from the beginning because I used it already. And therefore he sends me the wichard and we are even now. But, he mentioned nowhere in the beginning that the wichard will be in exchange of the repair costs. Nor did I mention that I want the wichard instead of him paying for the repair. And the cost of the repair was way higher than the cost of the wichard.
When I picked up the kite from the repair shop the guy told me the leak of the kite was not from use but from faulty manufacturing. I told this Kauper and that he should contact my repair guy if he doesn't believe me. At this point Kauper stopped answering my emails, my calls, or SMS. With one final message that he thinks he doesn't owe me anything.
At this point, I started understanding the person Kauper is and the threads in the German Oase forum. Because whenever someone complained about the kite, the bar, or something else. Kauper always blamed it on the user of his product. But with quite plausible explanations so it sounded like he is right. And there I understood, even though too late, whenever someone will have a problem with a product of Rainer Kauper, he will always blame the person using it and not his product. This basically means whenever someone will have a warranty case he will have a hard time with Kauper. And for myself, that means even if his products are cheaper than the rest, I don't want to make business with someone who makes me pay for the repair of a faulty product he sends me.
Maybe this story helps someone who is deciding on buying a Kauper product or not.
Cheers
mountain_lake