Sküma Water
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Hidden plastic, poor quality components and awful customer service
My partner and I purchased a Portable Reverse Osmosis System from Skuma through Amazon and received it in November 2024. It has taken six months to receive a full refund for a faulty device that was sold to us with misleading information. The filter developed a fault within a month, causing water to pool around the unit with every use. We reported this to Skuma and after two months of contradictory and unhelpful correspondence, erratically switching between email and WhatsApp, they asked us to fix the device ourselves, instead of issuing a replacement. In good faith, we agreed as they said it would be quicker and we wanted to support the company and their mission. Skuma sent a replacement part without instructions. After chasing, we received an instructional video. Following these instructions, we opened the unit and found that the spout within the machine had cracked through normal use, suggesting it was poor quality. After completing the repair for the leak, the device developed an electrical fault, making it highly unsafe for use as it would dispense hot water at random. It was through this process that we discovered that the dispensing spout through which hot water passes is plastic. This is contradictory to the misleading claim in Skuma’s manual that hot water passes through a “100% stainless steel hot water module” before being dispensed. The suggestion of a lack of plastic in contact with filtered hot water had been a key condition of us purchasing Skuma’s product due to our desire to reduce BPA, plasticisers and endocrine disruptors that leach out of plastic when heated. We raised these issues with Skuma and, after much back and forth (including persistent and inappropriate offers to “personally connect” with their CEO over a phone call), they acknowledged our concerns and agreed to fully refund us, on 25 February. Our refund took six weeks and only arrived after we had chased them several times, despite repeated claims from Skuma that it was being processed. To summarise our issues are as follows: - Misleading product information about plastic - Filtered hot water passes through a plastic spout before being dispensed, despite Skuma’s product information suggesting this is not the case. The plastic spout was only possible to see after manually repairing the inner components of the unit (i.e. this is not evident within normal use). - Low quality product design for expensive product - A significant leak developed within a month of use because of poor quality components. This is not good enough for a product with a current RRP of £459. - Unprofessional, dishonest and inadequate customer service: Skuma have a chaotic and unprofessional customer service approach that does not address issues fast enough. It has been necessary for us to constantly follow-up to ensure action is being taken, which has been unbelievably time-consuming. In addition, on several occasions we have been told that a specific action has been taken, before later finding out that this was untrue (e.g. processing of refund). - Significant delay in issuing refund once agreed - I can only assume that Skuma would not have refunded us without our persistence. I would strongly urge anyone planning to make a purchase from Skuma to take account of our experience and avoid wasting your money and time.