Lapsafe

[trekmad]

Not only are we being charged £750 to change the charging units on the trolley we were given a 6 week lead time from the company. This was cutting it fine but still left us a few days to have the trolley ready for the start of term. After chasing them for weeks for an install date they now tell us it won't be until the middle of september (9 weeks from order date) :x

 

So here we are, a loyal customer with 3 trolleys, now left with new laptops which can't be charged for the start of term. I don't know what lapsafe are playing at but I am not impressed. I think it's time to start looking at other trolleys for the future.

 

Still the only bright side is I can watch them squirm when I complain at the Bett show in January when the stand is busy in my nice loud voice.

[Joedetic]

Vindictive.

 

I like it!

[Ric_]

How old is the trolley and why do the units need to be changed?

 

I've found Lapsafe to be one of the best companies around for customer service... any company that is willing to send an engineer out to change a single LED (which has obviously been damaged by us!) free of charge under warranty can't be all that bad.

 

I wouldn't normally stick up for a company but Lapsafe have been very good (both to me personally and to EduGeek).

[trekmad]

The trolley is three years old and we have just purchased new laptops to be housed in the existing trolley. With the new laptops come new voltages for trickle charging and connectors. We have been quoted £750 ex vat for the work to be carried out and at time of order were quoted 6 weeks lead time. We accepted with the plan that the work would be carried out before the start of term.

 

Now they are giving us a date in september which is nearly 9 weeks from order and the trolley will not be ready for the start of term.

 

Normally I would agree their customer service is pretty good but on this occasion we find their upgrade pricing high and the wait time from order to be extremely excessive.

 

Many thanks

 

Stuart

[Guest]

What model trolley do you have? How many laptops does it hold?

[trekmad]

The trolley is a smartline S 30 which stores up to 30 laptops.

[Guest]

So that would be £25.00 per laptop. About the same as a laptop adaptor.

 

I don't thinks that so bad. Yes it is not cheap, but then TBH when compared to other laptop trolleys Lapsafe are not the cheapest to begin with, but IMO have great more features and much better build quality.

 

Yes 9 week turnaround is a bit long but this maybe due to you having new laptops and Lapsafe having problems getting the right adaptors?

 

I am sure if you asked nicely they would give you some discount for the inconvenience

[Halfmad]

Trekmad I know how annoying it is to be let down like this by a company who you've given plenty of notice (and money) to. Happens every year to me by one contractor or another. You just have to accept that sometimes the companies simply can't do it any faster and remind them the next time you use them just how badly the messed up previously.

 

Ultimately with me if they mess up twice then I simply stop sending business their way.

[GrumbleDook]

Are you doing this directly through Lapsafe or via a Reseller?

[Oops_my_bad]

Mind you 3 weeks overdue from original request, this is always a busy time of year for any of these suppliers.

[omeydog]

The trolley is three years old and we have just purchased new laptops to be housed in the existing trolley. With the new laptops come new voltages for trickle charging and connectors.

 

Maybe I am missing something here........but surely with new laptops come new power supplies!!!

[GrumbleDook]

Lapsafe have a number of different models (trying not to go into sales mode).

 

They have the chargeline model, which is basically a 240V socket in each bay, but they also do the Smartline model which has the specific adapter of the model of laptop you want.

 

This can be a lifesaver as you get less damage of power adaptors and none getting pinched.

 

For a school like use that uses mainly one brand now, all the chargers are the same ... so we can have all our trolleys or Ambassador units with the adaptors built in.

[Ghost]

I have spoken to Lapsafe recently and have been reliably informed that the length of time you are having to wait is due to the volume of orders received by Lapsafe from schools throughout June and July (they say that over 40% of their annual business is received in the 2 months and with a build to order product this can only increase lead times). I understand that this doesn't help with your requirement at this moment but may help future purchases from Lapsafe.

[SteveB_NI]

After only 4 days of real service, we have already had our first laptop trolley casulty. A power connector lead managed to get jammed in the door of the trolley & thanks to someone's heavy handed-ness it's been broken.

 

I even got a brief spark from it yesterday as I discovered it.

 

I haven't got round to contacting lapsafe yet to find out a cost of a replacement connector - I imagine it may be a case of replacing the connectors for a full module - i.e. probably expensive!

 

This ever happen to you?

[trekmad]

This has happened on several occasions. We booked an engineer on the first occasion and when he came out he left us with a few spare so we could replace them ourselves.

 

To change them you unlock the back panel, unplug the IEC cable from the power hub for that bay (worthwhile doing now for safety and to be able to use the rest of the trolley). Then unscrew the bay from the front of the trolley and pull out. Then using a socket set with an extension rod you can dismantle the module and replace the individual charging cable. The charging cable has a connector which makes it easily swappable without soldering etc.

 

Hope this helps.

[SteveB_NI]

Out of interest trekmad - how much roughly did Lapsafe charge to come out & replace it?

 

I've got the laptop trolley opened now thanks to your instructions - just gotta remove those bolts in silly positions after lunch!

[SteveB_NI]

Woohoo - a good result!

 

I phoned LapSafe again today, and they immediately took my details & said they would send a connector out to me free of charge - which will be with me ASAP.

 

Very impressed with them - wonderful polite service. (How ironic in a bad experiences forum!)

[limbo]

I have had nothing but trouble with Lapsafe over the last six years.

 

I lost faith in them when I realised that the original ones I ordered all had the same lock not only as each other, but as every other lapsafe ever made.

 

I think it was when their MD told me that a lapsafe is not designed as a security product but merely as a charging station that I realised what I was up against.

 

At the time they had only one engineer who was not only responsible for site repairs of all of them, but he was also the guy that built them all in the factory.

 

Hopefully they have improved somewhat since then, and after much arguing they did agree to come and change all the locks on our original lapsafes.

 

All our lapsafes still work - but whenever we have to have them repaired we know we are in for a rough ride!

[carolj]

They still have one engineer who is the delivery person. We are still waiting after two weeks for a date to come and fix the power supply. The customer service is awful they say they will ring back and never do.

[MrDB]

last time i spoke to lapsafe they had 1 engineer who was pulled of the workline to go out to clients.

 

Also do they still supply every lapsafe withthe same key?

 

Took us 6 mths to get all the locks changed!

 

Also lapsafe are not sold as a secure storage system only charging stations so the Safe bit is a bit misleading!

[Oops_my_bad]

Not sure about all this "one key fits all" business We have several lapsafes and they keys are all different

[Erudit]

Hi All

 

I have just read through this thread with interest.

 

I am surprised that the reseller's whom you purchased the trolley's from haven't dealt with these issues for you? We have been a Lapsafe reseller for 4+ years with many clients and we have always liased with Lapsafe regarding any issues with the systems on behalf of the educational establishments to ensure customer satisfaction.

 

From our close working with Lapsafe we have never had any issues of this kind and Lapsafe have always been extremely helpful.

 

It is the reseller (lapsafe do not sell direct) that sells the trolley and they should be the first port of call if there is an issue that is not under the standard warranty, after all they are the ones who ultimately sell them to you.

 

We always take ownership of issues with anything we sell to ensure our clients get the support they require! After all customer service is one of the largest differentiating factors these days!