Warranty and Availability
Acu-Gen has allegedly created new requirements for people who want to take advantage of the money-back guarantee. The attorney Barry Gainey, of Gainey & McKenna, says that Chang Wang, Acu-Gen's President, is "making people send in the original birth certificate. He's making them get blood tests from the newborn baby. And there's other requirements that he's now adding to the refund in order to avoid paying back these people and giving them the 200-percent refund." None of those requirements were on the boxes shipped to early customers, but the requirements have since appeared on Acu-Gen's website. Gainey has filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of 40 people who claim they received inaccurate results but were unable to obtain refunds from Acu-Gen.
There have been conflicting reports about how often the company has refunded money to consumers who received an erroneous result with the test. In February 2006, Wang said, "We don't mistakes . Period." Yet in October 2005 he had stated his company had issued four refund checks, including one for a case involving a vanishing twin. The PregnancyStore.com states that none of the refund checks were issued as a result of the test being proven wrong by a live birth. Their website states:
| “ | To date, Acu-Gen has issued 200% refund checks to a few customers—NOT for incorrectly identifying the baby's gender at birth, though. Two are for cases involving vanishing twins, one case due to insufficient blood sample, two cases caused by incomplete reactions and three reversal cases of no obvious reasons. All of these eight cases are currently into their second trimester of pregnancy. | ” |
In March 2006, Wang wrote in an e-mail to NPR, he has "decided to defer all his energies regarding the BGM product and service for one more year, when results of actual births compared to the results provided by Baby Gender Mentor should answer any concern about the accuracy of the test."
Initial news reports and the Acu-Gen website touted a 200% money-back guarantee. In May 2006, Baby Gender Mentor website was modified to show a different warranty than the one that had originally promised to refund 200% of the purchase price of the test. The new warranty states:
| “ | We guarantee that all test results are 99.9% accurate. If your test results are legitimately incorrect, Baby Gender Mentor will refund you all costs that include laboratory and purchasing expenses.* A valid registration code and a birth certificate are required for the refund. You MUST read and follow all kit instructions. Baby Gender Mentor is not responsible for any consequences resulting from failure to follow kit instructions. To claim the refund, the birth certificate should include BOTH the address and name of the purchaser. In some instances, Baby Gender Mentor may request the finger press of the baby to conclude the refund process... | ” |
PregnancyStore.com also updated their website to state that the warranty was only 100% of the purchase price. In July 2006, the PregnancyStore.com reported that the test was "currently out of stock", and In-Gender.com, a commercial sales blog, reported that the test has been completely pulled from the market in India. As of January 2007, PregnancyStore.com no longer contains any mention of the kit on their website, although the BabyGenderMentor.com website does contain a form for on-line purchasing of the kit.
Read more about this topic: Baby Gender Mentor
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