MAUNAWAI Wasser filter System

So I had nothing but stress dealing with this company MAUNAWAI© Wasserfilter-Systeme.

This is a German company (here is their site) and their CEO is Mathias Knoch.

This is my review of MAUNAWAI and their water filtration system.

Maunawai GmbH
Adolf-Damaschke-Straße 69-70, D-14542 Werder (Havel), Germany
Telefon:+49 (0) 3327 570 880

E-Mail: info@maunawai.com

I originally got their information from Stephan Lanka’s PDF and I thought cool, it must be a good water filtration system since it was tied to Lanka.

Almost from the beginning I had issues with them not responding to e-mails or Skype messages, but I know that in Europe they don’t care as much about their customers as companies do in America.

I had to call over and over again just to get the girl, Sabine who was helping me, to respond.

She would tell me that there were no e-mails or messages which I found very strange. She was sweet, so I ignored the warning signs because I figured this was a good quality filtration system. It was a countertop fountain type like Nikken, and I was used to Nikken because I had used it before.

She also gave me the wrong information. I told her my one concern was how the water tasted. She told me someone was a rep in the country I was living in so I could talk to this person. I figured I would ask them if I could try the water before buying the unit. After trying to get this person for weeks, it turns out she lives in Germany, NOT where I lived. SMH

Even once I decided to purchase their expensive water filtration system, I couldn’t get in touch with anyone.

One thing that DID concern me is that MAUNAWAI’s refund policy was terrible. It was ONLY 15 days. Who gives a customer only 15 days on such an expensive item?

I figured I would know within 15 days if I liked the taste of the water which was my biggest concern. I made sure to tell them that I want that 15 days to start once I receive the package because I had no idea how long it would take for me to get it.

They told me they would give me a better price on a system that wasn’t 100% brand new. They said it had some defects in the MAUNAWAI glass, but that everything else was brand new.

I paid a lot for shipping ($75 USD) and it took a month to arrive to me.

When asking Sabine to help me track the package because when I clicked on the link to DHL it wouldn’t give me any information, she made it seem like it had already arrived. I got no notification from my post office, so I had to waste my time calling them up only to find out that it did NOT arrive. So that was MORE misinformation I got from Sabine.

Once I got it, Sabine became somewhat of a problem. I didn’t read their instructions and instead was speaking to her on Skype figuring she would give me all the information I needed. I started to realize she wasn’t as smart as I thought she was.

She didn’t tell me I had to soak the charcoal pads along with the other items so I lost a day because of that mistake.

Then one of the screw parts was missing. Two days later I finally found it attached to another part. Why attach a part to another part when it showed in the instructions that I needed that part.

Also, their white tablet smelled like chemicals after I put it in the water.

Because it was late Friday when I realized there were issues, I wasn’t able to use the machine for another 3 days and they were already closed, so I couldn’t get any answers from them.

Fine, that wasn’t the BIGGEST problem with MAUNAWAI.

At first the water tasted great, but then after 3 weeks it started to taste bitter.

I wrote to them and told them, but of course once AGAIN I got no response from e-mail.

Then I eventually got a response after e-mailing, calling and instant messaging on Skype. They had been closed for a whole week for Easter, and never put up a vacation message to let customers know. sigh But every time I e-mailed them it could take up to 5 days for me to get a response. Of course this delayed everything including my window to dispute the charge with Pay Pal which was the only way I could pay them.

I really wanted the unit to work, so I said I was going to wait a bit longer to see if things cleared up. The girl who was e-mailing me (Katja Striegel) wasn’t great at English and she didn’t answer my questions so I had to e-mail again to get my questions answered and clarify things with her because I thought she wanted me to change the charcoal pad even though it was brand new.

Now the unit wasn’t producing clean water within the normal 4 hours. It was taking 2-3 days. This meant that for it to filter from the top container to the bottom container it was taking forever.

I finally said the machine isn’t working for me. It’s just sitting here and I can’t use it. Mathias Knoch said he would make an exception and allow me to return it. I thought that was nice of him as it had been well over the 15 days.

Due to the lockdowns, I wasn’t able to get it shipped out right away.

I packed it very very tight with lots of different packing material that I had, and put fragile stickers all over the outside of the box.

Did I pack it professionally like a company would? No, I didn’t. I’m not a company, I’m a woman and I’m not an expert packer that you would find at a company.

It took a month for him to get it and I e-mailed and found out that it was in customs. It took one to two weeks to clear customs which was a long time.

The next thing I know, Marcel Been writes me a very unprofessional nasty e-mail saying that I didn’t pack it properly and he’s shocked at how I just threw everything in the box. That was his first lie.

Then he tries to throw it in my face that he did me a favor and then lied saying that I DEMANDED that he take it back. The next lie. I NEVER demanded anything. I told him it wasn’t working for me. In fact, I never even asked to return it, Mathias Knoch had offered. There was NO demanding involved.

He also blamed ME for the customs that charged him duty as IF I did that on purpose and I am in charge of German customs. I never wrote on the customs that it was a return and he never told me to do that. I forgot one needs to do that.

He sent me pictures showing me the packing material, but at the time I didn’t think that anything was broken because I thought he was just complaining about my packing material. I was shocked at his demeaning e-mail and his insinuation that I packed it improperly ON PURPOSE.

I think one of the charcoal pads broke, so I had no problem with him taking off a couple of euros because of that.

It wasn’t until hours later after I had e-mailed him telling him what I thought of his nasty behavior that I looked at the pictures again and saw that the blue glass had broken.

Instead of him coming to some agreement with me where I get at least 50-75% of what I paid for because they have parts which they can use for other things, he just ignored my last two e-mails.

Pay Pal won’t help me because it’s been over 180 days, and my bank won’t do anything for me and so NOW I just lost over $539 USD because I paid for the unit, I paid for the shipping, I paid for duty and taxes, then I paid for the return of the unit AND I have no water purifier either because maybe I could have figured out how to make it work.

Mathias Knoch said he would accept the return of the item and now he’s gone back on his word and Marcel Benn treated me like garbage.

Michelle