Sure Petcare
4 reviews
Bricked HUB because Sure changed servers – I wanted to share my recent experience with Sure Petcare, which has been quite frustrating. I own a Petdoor Connect with a HUB that hasn't been used for a while. When I tried reconnecting it, the HUB wouldn't connect, so I reached out to support for assistance. After following their initial troubleshooting steps, which didn’t work, they escalated my issue to Tier 2 support. Three weeks later (after I followed up due to no response), Tier 2 determined that my HUB was trying to connect to an old server, and there was nothing I could do to fix it. Since my HUB is from 2021, they informed me it was out of warranty and suggested I buy a new one—without even offering a discount. The frustrating part is that the issue is on their end, not mine; the HUB would work perfectly if they hadn’t changed their server setup. Here’s the first response I received from customer service: "Thank you for your patience, and I sincerely apologize for the delay in getting back to you. After reviewing your case with our head office, we have identified that your HUB is currently stuck on our old server. While we hoped the manual firmware update would resolve the issue, it appears that the problem persists. Unfortunately, as your HUB is out of warranty, we would recommend purchasing a new HUB to restore full functionality to your system. We truly regret any inconvenience this may have caused and are happy to assist you with the purchase process or answer any further questions you may have. Thank you again for your understanding. Best regards, [Name Removed]" After I requested an escalation and asked for a warranty exchange, I received the following response: "Hello Michael, Thank you for reaching out. Upon reviewing your case, we have an outcome. I’m sorry to inform you that we’re unable to replace your Hub since the warranty expired on February 17, 2021. Unfortunately, you would need to purchase a new one. If you have any questions or need assistance with that, please let me know. Thank you, [Name Removed]" I expected better support from Sure Petcare, especially since the issue stems from changes on their end, not a malfunction of my HUB. It’s disappointing that there was no offer of a goodwill gesture, like a discount, for something that’s beyond my control. Yes, they had an outcome. The outcome was "Sorry, we don't care."
Great product. Unfortunately Customer Service think they are better than their customers – I have four Surefeeders due to having cats with carious health issue requiring condition specific diets. The first one that died I heard that Customer service was poor. So I didn't bother...even though it was 230 to replace. That was a year ago...another one has died prior to warranty date. So I hit them up. I was asked to jump through hoops.. as seen in other reviews. Living in rural area we don't have a large selection of shops to get specific batteries from.. and it seemed ridiculous since I have had 4 units for 2 years that it would actually require a specific brand of battery. ..but I didn't argue.. I drove to the next town..2 hours out of my day, $30 in fuel, $20 for batteries. Sent the video.. bla bla. So they agreed to replace .. but they wanted flap and battery doors sent back at my cost ...another $10 So we're going on $60 already. I asked to keep those items as I have multiple feeders and spare parts are essential... and offered to send the faulty product. I could not believe the smart response. .. and also I have to wait a month for replacement..well supposed to be available mid month and its past that time.. As far as I am concerned it's an essential health item so am forced to purchase one in the meantime!! $240 on top of the 60 already spent. I got in contact with my cat group who promoted these feeders and 3 have responded with similar experiences regarding rude service. The problem is that they own the market. I cannot wait for competitor to come on the market and it might settle their attitude a bit.
- Store Location: Pet circle
– My Surefeed Microchip Pet Feeder ️malfunctioned just on 12 months. I asked for a replacement, i did not even ask for a refund as i believe after paying $150 expect something to last more than 12 months. I explained it was not the battery as changed it twice with new batteries and it was not on training mode. The customer service officer did not even want to acknowledge that it was a faulty product, but it was something i was doing wrong but how come it was working for 12 months? Below is the response and what SUREFEED New Zealand wanted me to do before they would replace their faulty product...
Please describe what the actual issue is in as much detail as possible to help with identifying the fault.
Please note that when the lid remains open and the orange light flashes orange, this indicates that the feeder is in 'training mode'. Please press and hold the 'Fn'/training button for 10 seconds to deactivate the training mode.
If the problem persists, please can I ask you to forward us some more details to help us diagnose the issues you are having:
1. Full Purchase date 2. Your full delivery address and mobile phone number 3. What brand of batteries you are using (please make sure you are using 4 Energizer or Duracell alkaline batteries)? 4. What is each cat's microchip number and roughly when was the chip implanted?
Please send us a video illustrating inserting the batteries and performing the operation listed on point 5, 6 and 7, ensuring that we can see the status of the light and the button pressed.
5. Please press and release the Learn Button: Does the lid open and the green light start flashing every second? Please press the button again. The lid should close, and the green light should stop flashing. 6. Please press the training mode button: Does the lid open fully, and upon subsequent presses does the light flash and the door close more each time? (See description under Increasing lid movement for normal behaviour) 7. Please press on open/close button, can you please advise if the lid opens and closes as it should.
If you cannot send us the video via the case, you can create a https://wetransfer.com link and send the link to this case
Please take note that if you are told by the retailer you have to deal with SUREFEED directly this is NOT the case. The retailer has to resolve the problem.
Fails to stay connected – We purchased three SureFeed Connect Microchip Pet Feeders, as well as the Sureflap Surepet Connect Hub that is required to connect the feeders to an app on your mobile device. Setup was quite easy and it was promising that this would be a good product, however. After one night one of the devices had unpaired from the app removing all eating history and requiring setup again. The next night the same thing happened but with a different feeder.
I reached out to Sure Petcare's customer service and asked how to recitify the issue and was told they would push through an update and to wait for a follow up email on the next steps. It took several days for them to email me again stating the update has been delivered and to reset the hub and reconnect the feeders. All instructions were followed but again the same issue occured.
Additionally I cannot set up portion sizes any more as the app fails to work properly. I requested assistance with this problem also but recieved an email telling me to reset the hub and the devices and to wait for their next email.
I am beyond words with how disgusted I am with their customer service let alone this lousy product that cost me an arm and a leg.
To note as well, inside the booklet that comes with the SureFeed Connect Microchip Pet Feeders it states you can set up an option to stop other cats from invading others food bowls while one cat has it open and eating. This is a flat out lie, there is no option to do so.
Sure Petcare has a lot to answer for, this is a misleading product that also fails to function correctly.
Extra Information
ProductReview.com.au has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence our content moderation policies in any way, though ProductReview.com.au may earn commissions for products/services purchased via affiliate links.