Ice Cap out of business

http://reefbuilders.com/2010/12/15/icecap-lighting-officially-business-closes-doors/
 We knew it was coming. Here it is. The worst part is the people that bought there stuff and will not get any warranty service.

 

I've had my icecap ballast repaired by them (twice) for free in the past 5 years. If it goes again, not sure what I'll do.

 

At least you know what you AREN'T going to do.....send it in for repair. I read on RC where a guy stopped by yesterday and the offices were gone and the inventory all boxed and in the loading dock. (He was able to browse the boxes for the bulb he needed)

 

Could be a good reason for me to get LEDs I guess!

 

At least they finally got around to admitting it. They left a lot of people hanging, and destroyed a great reputation on the way down.

Great Sadness /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default//emoticons/sad.gif.

 

What I don't get is why is Reefbuilders saying they are closed but glassbox-design is saying that they are "restructuring" and suspending business? http://glassbox-design.com/2010/icecap-suspends-operations-restructuring/ /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default/emoticons/unsure.gif

 

That is a good question.

 

Sad to say but it wouldn't be the first time RB got something wrong.

 

I don't know much about this kind of thing, but by all accounts, IceCap is done. They sold their outstanding invoices for pennies on the dollar to a holding company. The holding company probably had no interest in building Icecap back up...they were interested in collecting the money owed.....

Translation: The owner has realized the end is near and has fired everyone in order to make a deal that lets him get a few more grand out of the company. When convenient, the new management will appear to make a good faith effort for a few months in the hope of increasing receivables before they proceed to liquidate the company. (pasted from a RB comment)

 

Dear Salt Water Aquarium Enthusiast,
IceCap, inc. is not out of business but has idled its operations to assess a path forward. There are those in the industry that would like to see the demise of IceCap, Inc. to profit from the absorption of IceCap’s customers and to provide me-to products they will have readily available. If IceCap fails, the Salt Water enthusiast with IceCap products will be hurt in the end as they will have to purchase a different brand of product and/or not get service.
To the benefit of the enthusiast, if IceCap fails I will disclose all product cost information about IceCap’s and similar products in the industry and the associated mark-ups. I will expose the suto-white knights that artificially showed interest to acquire IceCap only to turn their backs to wait for a demise to feed off the opportunity of desperate customers. I will gladly share this information to allow the enthusiast to leverage pricing and cost knowledge to assert pressure on retailers, distributors, and manufacturers to gain a better consumer pricing advantage for an expensive venture.




Posted by: Chuck Troiani 
December 16th, 2010 at 3:47 pm 








That was posted on RB.. if thats true I guess RB was wrong again?

 

Dear Chuck Troiani of Icecap,

FU.


Sincerely,

PotRoast


(seriously though, Chuck, that was a very weak response from a CEO. The spelling is awful too)

 

To be honest I could care less if they make it especially after the last part of the response. Pretty much if they go down he wants to take all other companies down. From what I have been hearing a good portion of Ice Caps lighting products are just rebadged chinese lighting that is extremely marked up. I know a lot of the stuff we buy comes from overseas but a lot of the products actually go through a design process and are made to a certain spec.

 

What has he done to you to deserve that kind of response?  Aside from the word "suto", I didn't see anything else that was misspelled; I have seen worse on this site.

 

There is a difference in what they did.
Lots of companies sell chinese goods.
What icecap did was buy chinese junk, label & market them as a high quality US product instead of a cheap inferior product.
They did the same thing with Calfo & the bulbs.  Origionally when Calfo signed up with them to make & market the Calfo series bulbs, they were made by UVL.  Then the switched to a chinese manufacturer & 1 out of 3 failed within a month.

 

I have a burnt out timer and a dead fan I would like warranty service on. But truth be told, they are both a month out of warranty (now) so I am letting it go. Not the end of the world.

However, I think the CEO showed poor judgement with this letter. The letter itself is poorly written, and is vindictive. If the guy would have told me that to his face, I would have told him "FU"

Further, the company closed and sold its receivables. Give this six months and the brand will be sold. If Chuck wanted to plead his case, he could have done it better. That is all.

 

When i started in this Hobby about a yr ago, I believe IceCap was labled as one of the top brands out there. How did so much change in such a short time frame. I mean if i am reading everything correctly they went from a top brand to basically ripping people off.

 

I look at it this way. When I got into saltwater I kept hearing that Ice Cap was the best, period. As time went on I starting hearing how there stuff did not last long before it had problems, then problems with getting stuff repaired. Top that off with some bad publicity and degrading customer relations and now this. Even if they rebuild and make a comeback how can I trust that they will provide me with quality equipment, good service and honor the warranties? Shaun

 

Icecap 440 ballast for sale: Cheap!

 

For those interested, Coralvue is going to be doing repair work on 660 and 440 ballasts going forward. Here's a link to the RC post (http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=18137974)

--AJ