Right now I'm about as HOT as the pellet stove turned up to the Turbo Setting. I finally heard back from Peggy at Pennington Seed, after mailing everything requested (address cut from 1 bag, a bag with a sample of the product showing extra long pellets & sawdust, the original sales receipt for 2 tons). Now, remember I was told by her about 4 weeks ago when I mailed everything, that I would get a FULL REFUND for the 30 bags that we had burned. This is what other buyers have been getting: a full refund for a defective product. I was to return the other 70 bags to Home Depot.
Those 30 bags were absolutely terrible: 3-4 cups of sawdust in each one, PLUS very long pellets. We don't know which caused our pellet stove to go out EVERY 5-6 hours EVERY DAY. Both sawdust and long pellets can cause real problems. ... This was our first year with a pellet stove, and thought these bags were typical of all pellets, until Northeastern Fireplace Co. came to fix the problem of the fires going out - and saw the pellets we were using!
Well BACK TO MY STORY... Peggy called and said they have decided that they would only reimburse 10-15% of our purchase price for the 30 defective bags, because we were ABLE to burn them, even though they caused great inconvenience!! I was furious. I told her that this was totally unacceptable. She said she would have Mike, her manager, call me. That was 3 days ago.
Obviously, Pennington is paying out to a lot of unhappy consumers. But that is what their liability policy is for. Had they had better quality control, they wouldn't have encountered this problem. Sure, sawdust will burn - and long pellets will too (if they don't get jammed in the feed chute, as ours did). But the sawdust is terrible on the auger system and can permanently damage it.
For comparison: Imagine you purchased a lawn mower, and the blades kept coming loose (posing a danger) because the mechanism was faulty. However, it did manage to cut grass WHILE the blades stayed attached - but the blades had to be constantly refastened. So, you load it up in your truck and return it. Do you think the lawnmower company would only refund you 10-15% of your purchase price because, after all, it did cut grass?? No, they would refund your entire purchase price BECAUSE IT WAS A DEFECTIVE PRODUCT. May be not the best comparison, but you get the idea.
If you check the history of the posts here, you will see full refunds is what Pennington gave back last spring. However, saying they will do it this fall/winter and actually doing it are two different things....at least if you are an untrustworthy company, as Pennington has proven to be. The company looks good by posting here on the forum, but does not follow through.
The bottom line is this: I was told on 12/12 by phone that I would be reimbursed from Pennington for the 30 faulty bags. They have not kept their word. This is dishonest business practice.
Let this serve as a warning: NEVER purchase any product from this company. BUYER BEWARE. You may be lucky and get a good batch...but when you don't, plan on a big headache.