Skulpt - www.skulpt.me

OK, so my first contact with Skulpt’s customer service wasn’t overly positive. More than a month had passed since the first investors (of the Indiegogo project) had received their Aims, and mine still hadn’t shipped. When I inquired as to the reason, a representative of the company told me they were still trying to set up warehouses in other countries for international orders. I pointed out that, while American investors got free shipping, international investors had paid for international shipping, and that their units should not be delayed so that Skulpt could make an additional profit. When the representative claimed they would actually lose money on international shipping, I proved the contrary by linking to a specific page on the USPS website. The representative’s answer … was to not answer at all.

When I finally received the unit, quite a while later, it was in a USPS flat-rate box, which confirmed that shipping cost less to Skulpt than what they’d charged international investors. The discrepancy between ‘free shipping for American investors’ and ‘inflated shipping for international investors’ was grating, yet at least part of the original deal. On the other hand, the fact that international investors not only had to pay more than American investors but also had to wait a couple more months for their units to ship was *not* part of the original deal, and made me feel like a ‘second-class customer’ twice over.

At this point, you might wonder why I gave the company four stars. I’m getting there. The product worked fine the first time I used it, but then didn’t hold a charge anymore. I got in touch with Skulpt, and received a quick answer. The representative first tried to make me solve the problem myself (most ‘technical problems’ being indeed due to users making mistakes), but since I’d already tried to find solutions online I knew what she was going to ask me to try, and that it wouldn’t work. I took a video of myself inserting the unit properly in its cradle, and another video the next day (more than 24 hours later) of the unit holding its charge for less than five minutes.

At this point, I was expecting I’d have to send the unit back, with all that entails of time and money wasted (especially since shipping anything from France is stupidly expensive). But no. Skulpt sent me a new unit immediately, and even paid for express shipping (though I told them it wasn’t necessary). When the package arrived, customs kept it hostage until I paid taxes on it (and taxes are, even more than shipping, absurdly high in France: You often end up paying 50% of the price of the item in VAT, custom taxes, and other taxes I still haven’t been able to make sense of). I mentioned it to Skulpt, so they would remember to declare the unit as a replacement unit next time they needed to send one (though I need to warn you that customs don’t always care; they often tax replacement units as they would an original purchase). What I didn’t expect was for Skulpt to ask for a scan of the receipt. I sent one, and they reimbursed me for all the taxes (and that was a lot more than shipping: 52 euros!).

So there. This company (Skulpt) definitely stands behind its product (Aim). I should also mention that the ‘defective’ unit I first received appears not to be defective, after all — it charges just fine with the new cradle, and only lost one bar out of three after I tested all the muscles on both sides of the body. So it seems the problem was not with the unit, but with its cradle. Which is a little weird, because the cradle is very simple, so less likely to be defective. The original and replacement cradles look exactly the same, too, but I do need to press the units (I tried both) very firmly in the original cradle for the charging notice to finally appear, while I just need to place them in the replacement cradle for the charging notice to appear immediately. So maybe there’s a faulty contact inside the original cradle.