3 On Your Side Investigates: Family hasn’t received $10,000 generator ordered a year ago

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - A family from Flora says they have been given the runaround for over a year after they bought a $10,000 generator from Costco and a local vendor, Generator Technologies.

" It feels like a scam because they are just so non-responsive,” Cheryn Netz said.

What one family thought would be the simple purchase of a generator for their home has turned into a year-long financial burden.

After weeks without power during the ice storm of 2021, Cheryn Netz’s parents went searching for a generator.

“They contacted the Costco in Ridgeland, and they sent out a sales rep to my parents’ home in Flora to talk to them about this generator. The owner of the company, Mr. Battle’s, came to visit my parents,” Netz explained. “So my parents, you know, charged it on their credit card and got a purchase contract with this name of this vendor on it that said, you know, the vendor said they were they’re going to be the ones that were going to deliver it and install it.”

The company that came to visit was Generator Technologies — a local business in Madison that was a vendor through Costco.

According to the contract, Netz’s parents had to pay nearly $11,000 up front for the generator and installation to happen by November 2021.

But now, a year since the purchase, the family said they haven’t seen the generator or a sales rep.

“Our attempts to resolve this matter through Costco, Costco has given us the brush off and said this isn’t their problem, we need to contact the vendor. My parents reached out to the vendor, and since November, they’ve been getting the runaround,” Netz said.

3 on Your Side reached out to both Costco and Generator Technologies. Costco did not respond to phone calls.

Generator Technologies, however, issued a statement saying in part, “We do not receive any payment from the big box store until we complete the installation. We have been short-staffed due to the pandemic, supply chain, and lead-time issues, and we were not able to get back to our customers as we had hoped.”

According to an email chain between Netz and Generator Technologies, Netz reached out on March 14th, looking for an update. For weeks, the two email back and forth, and the family is told to wait a few more weeks.

On May 11th, the company sends an email saying, “We’re working on installing Costco Orders this month. We should be able to schedule in the next two weeks.”

But today, 3 on Your Side learned that Generation Technologies filed for bankruptcy in April.

“But the good news, the silver lining is they are filing to reorganize to keep operating. They didn’t have to file Chapter 13, which usually means, you know, it’s going to be liquidated to nothing, and you’re out. So the company is trying to come out on the other end and maybe start getting back into operation,” John O’Hara with the Better Business Bureau of Mississippi said.

Netz and her family aren’t the only ones having issues with Generator Technology. On the Better Business Bureau website, there are six complaints against the company, with the majority having similar problems to Netz’s.

O’Hara said better communication would have helped in this case.

“When you kind of ghost the consumer, the consumer gets kind of antsy about maybe I’m just not dealing with a legitimate company, or I’m concerned,” O’Hara explained.

“I would literally have to email them three times before I would get a response. And I have not heard a word from them since May. I don’t see how much more patient we can be,” Netz said.

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