The General ACS Minima Thread

MediumRoastSteam Thank you for the context. Obviously I understand the background a little better now. You were lucky that Kinu had a spare grinder to send on to you. I doubt ACS have that luxury. What price was the grinder? Unfortunately a courier problem is a courier problem. Has @Abstracted any follow up information on the erroneous delivery?

Abstracted - it baffles me how can someone possible accept delivery of such a large item if they were not expecting one. 😬

Hopefully it works out in the end. What a terrible experience; whatever happened.

MediumRoastSteam Maybe they thought they were getting a free espresso machine LOL

TL;DR: A month and half later and it was delivered today. And of course it’s beat up. The front feet don’t touch the counter:

Whole story: Maria mistakenly shipped the machine to a past customer of theirs, with a name similar to mine, but different: Like if my name were “Jon Cole”, she shipped it to “John Coleman”. When I saw the name and address on the invoice, it was so different I assumed it was a domestic distributor that would forward the machine to me. I was wrong.

Anyway, at the last minute I thought I should double-check and I emailed Maria to confirm that it was going to be forwarded to me. She said that it wasn’t, and asked if I hadn’t recognized that the address was incorrect on the invoice (intimating that I was at fault). I said no, and told her to contact DHL before it’s delivered to have it rerouted to me. She said that it was a holiday in Italy and that she’d email them. Of course that wasn’t prudent enough, and it was delivered a couple days later in Florida. And for those of you in the UK, that’s the equivalent of it being delivered to Moscow.

A couple of days later, I of course had to reach out again for the status (because Maria being Maira isn’t the most proactive). She came back with a rather vague and mysterious response, saying that the woman won’t be home for two weeks, so I’ll have to wait a while until UPS can pick it up from her. After reading that, I was a bit confused and concerned, to say the least.

Two weeks go by and Maria sent me a copy of the actual UPS shipping label (instead of just the tracking number). And the name and address of the woman it had been picked up from was printed as the return address. So I googled her and found her phone number. Texted her and asked if we could chat. She said yes, so I called her, and she told me the whole story.

Turns out the guy it was sent to was her ex-boyfriend and no longer lived at her house. He was contacted by ACS, and told him that DHL was going to deliver the machine to his old address. But by the time he let her know, the machine had already been dropped off and had been sitting outside for two days. She found it, moved it inside, kept it there, and didn’t open it. But she was so busy that she later had to use a day off to wait for UPS to come and pick it back up.

A week later it was delivered to me here in Southern California. But after this whole terrible experience I knew the handwriting was on the wall, and it was going to be damaged. So I video’d the whole unboxing. Sure enough the legs are bent.

I’ve now emailed Maria asking what my options are, though I’m not expecting a prompt response nor a very good one.

But I’m pretty much done with them. There’s a reason why I paid with credit card and not a wire. And this is it.

Acs produce some great products,

But as of late stuffs been slipping, I read there’s been illness etc and it’s only a small form, but it Lance blows them up with a good review then they really need a sole person dedicated to just the social media,emails website and customer service side.

I want to ask, what is the water flow rate of the machine without flow control device?

Abstracted

hi Jon

of course i understand that it’s a bit frustating that after long time you have received the machine a bit bent.

i would like to clarify something, just because from this side there are some people that works hardly everyday and your message seems to be a sort of disqualifing of our effort and i cannot accept it.

considering our error, we have sent a proforma invoice before the shipping where the details was wrong and you said that you are thinking that it was our US warehouse which should have our name obviosly, this type of documents are also sent to check, but it’s ok.

there are several emails with tracking number and so on and of course if we ship with DHL express ¾ days the machine normally will be delivered. When you contact us again about the wrong address it was too late and we contacted immediately DHL, you have to think that we can contact DHL Italy than they contact DHL US than DHL US will reply to DHL Italy and DHL Italy contact us, so you can imagine that this sort of couminication take a bit long time due of different time zone and also the ammount of request that DHL should handle, surely they are not waiting for us.

you take care about how to contact the lady (the ex girlfrined of our customer) and you didn’t tell us anything about that, of course she told you what she want, but she forget to tell you that,

1 we contact our old customer and he said that he no longer live there due of broken relationship.

2 when we tried to contact her she replied after a couple of day saying that the machine sit there.

3 when we asked to collaborate to ship the machine to a right place she replied saying that she didn’t find the machine and want from us the proof of delivery…..

4 she refuse to give us her phone number, and only when we said that we have the proof of delivery and we will open a ticket with DHL for stolen delivery she will reply that the machine will be outside of her house ready to pick up and she will not take care about eventually damages or stolen. “very friendly”

5 when we complain about that she will agree to take the machine stored but she will be away for one week….

6 finally we was able to pick the machine asking to one of our dealer in the __US to take care the shipment because from Italy we cannot manage shipment inside of the US.

in every case it seems that Maria always replied as soon as she had some information, due of email delay for time zone and also the time to elaborate the information from DHL.

we accept credit card, wire transfer and so on just because we do not have any problem to serve our customers as much as better we can, sometimes some wrong things can happen and i suppose that from the other side our customers can empathy with us, which not in some case.

Maria told you also that if the problem was not solved we are open to ship another machine to you which means a totally more than lost profit, of course it’s our mistake and cannot be charged to our customer even if we have sent some documents with wrong information before the shipment, even the name and surname was wrong as you mentioned.

this small machine are shipped with wooden pallet, did you get the machine with small pallet? if not this is the reason of the problem of the small bending base. If you are unable to fix this problem understanding where it’s bent we will ship another machine. there are no problems. of course we cannot send a wooden set as a gift for your frustating experience, but if you find a way the way to fix this small issue we will more than happy to ship a gift as collaborative customer.

Minimize always the work of the people it’s not a good point to start, we have tons of positive feedback for our pre and after sales service and if finally you got your machine it’s a result of 2 people that works on the side to fix the problem.

my apologies for the inconvenient, of course if you want your money back we can pick up the machine no problem.

Paolo Cortese

Cuprajake

even if you read only Maria reply in the back there are other 2 people for service enquiries, and social media. You have to consider that, there isn’t only one forum to follow, there are also instagram, facebook, emails, whattapp messages, telegram messages, to follow and Dave that knows perfectly our company can explain what we do daily, the effort and diligence that we put in our work. Unfortunately we are a small company and i cannot handle another couple of workers in order to reply smoothly and fast avery request.

no i understand that, and its a hard balance to find.

unfortunate a global presence and peoples need for instant gratification doesn’t help when running a business,

Loonster Looking at how badly things could have gone for you, you are fortunate. The lady could have kept the machine. She didn’t. ACS could have told you to pound sand. They didn’t.

Mistakes suck. Unfortunately they happen. Reading about how ACS is handling this, I am very impressed.

@Abstracted I realise you are upset at having had to wait a long time for this to be sorted out…but sometimes life just happens in the wrong order for things to go smoothly.

I think @Loonster gives a fair way of looking at it….ACS are a small company, this will cost them dearly to the tune of two machines…for which 1 has been paid for, so really they are a whole machine down on the deal, plus the time and expense of multiple air/land shipments…Something they can ill afford. However, they still got your back, still prepared to make good on the deal and are not leaving you out in the cold.

I even wonder if the machine was unboxed and then repacked incorrectly by the lady concerned (minus pallet as they are band strapped on…we will never know. You have seen the thickness of the stainless on the base…so it must have had some super rough handling. I’ve known of some Italian box shifting retailers who try and make their customers deal with the courier companies when there is damage!!

Evgenibgr

here the pump details with flow diagram. the machine it’s set at 9 bars.

ACS are almost invisible in the USA, and their expensive machines received mixed receptions when they were distributed here. However, stumbling on this thread aroused my curiosity and too many hours spent reading it, and then many other such threads. My conclusion based on owner comments, photos of the internals, and reviews, is that the Minima is a gem, a true standout for build quality, reliability, serviceability, high performance in this price range. Thanks to all who posted here for elucidation. I am greatly impressed.

They certainly seem to be a quality-oriented firm, and to have profited by their experience curve. Learning about the Minima clarified much of the enthusiasm for ACS in Europe for me. A firm worth watching ;-).

BrendaninBrooklyn They certainly seem to be a quality-oriented firm, and to have profited by their experience curve. Learning about the Minima clarified much of the enthusiasm for ACS in Europe for me. A firm worth watching ;-).

They also care about their customers and continuous improvement of the products

Yes, that aspect also impressed me. Clearly customer-focused. I’m delighted to have one more premium option ;-)

It seems that we have finally fixed the issue with “abstracted” due of the impossibility to bent the frame back we have shipped a brand new machine with wooden accessories as a gift for the problem occurred. I hope that in the end he is satisfied.

Loonster In the US, unordered merchandise is considered a gift. The lady that received the machine was in her legal right to keep it.

That may not actually be correct in this case from what I gather: remember it was delivered by mistake to an ACS customer with a similar name (not to that woman), so not to the woman at the address and he was no longer resident there. She actually had no right to accept the machine and the US System should not have delivered it without proper identification! The following ruleset probably applies, but she certainly couldn’t claim under the other law you mentioned.

39 U.S. Code § 3004 - Delivery of mail to persons not residents of the place of address

However, at least it has been made right, @abstracted has his machine and of course mistakes do happen. ACS for getting the name/details wrong and the customer @abstracted in not spotting this and correcting them. Ultimately it’s whether it is properly resolved…sure it can be frustrating and sometimes take much longer than we would like.

Just for ACS benefit, if it were my company (which it’s not), as soon as I found out the machine had been delivered to the wrong address, I would have shipped a new unit immediately…I would not have wanted a customer to wait 6 weeks s to get their machine. Hopefully ACS have learned and would do this next time as I know they always wish customers to be happy and satisfied.

I believe that would have led to a far better outcome for everyone. I say this because it was almost 100% certain that the machine would arrive damaged from the lady who was so uncooperative about admitting she had the machine or forwarding it. She would have probably opened it and have been unable to replace the pallet, which is band strapped on.