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| - This is a review about their sales practices only, which focuses on fear tactics and misleading/false claims. The process began by an Aqua Bright representative contacting me about having a "technician" come out for a free water survey. When I asked them what they got out of it, he reluctantly told me that they could offer some water treatment solutions (AKA - get you to buy stuff). I'm ok with this, because I don't expect a business to just give away free services; that's not really how capitalism works. My concern was how evasive he was being about that simple statement. Once we set the appointment, which they require all household members to be there for, they called three separate times trying to reschedule because they had overbooked themselves.
The salesman (or technician as they call them - I'm not sure how qualified they are) came out and ran several tests. The first was a water purity test, in which he said we had a level of 700. After doing some simple research after he left, I found out that he was referring to total dissolved solids. The fact that he didn't use this term or explain it to us (it's really simple) makes me question their technicians' qualifications. He told us that anything over 500 was illegal and unsafe to drink. After he left, I did some research and found out that was simply untrue. The EPA sets a limit of 500 mg per liter for aesthetics (taste, odor, etc.), however, this is a non-enforceable guideline. The World Health Organization states that anything below 1000 is safe for human consumption. While a high TDS level can cause scaling in appliances, there is nothing undrinkable about the water.
He then started talking about chromium 6 and Erin Brokovich. If you haven't seen the movie, it depicts the real-life case of a Californian business basically disregarding its environmental impacts (specifically the introduction of large amounts of chromium 6 into the drinking water), leading to a large number of cancer cases. The salesman stated that Phoenix has the highest amounts of chromium 6 in the country, which is partially true. What he failed to mention is that Phoenix has the highest amounts of any large city (population over one million) and that amount is still well under the EPA limit (EPA limit is 100 parts per billion and the highest detected amount in Phoenix is 1.7 parts per billion).
Bottom line, through a series of misleading and outright false claims, the company attempts to scare you into buying their product. The reason for having all family members present is that if they can frighten at least one of you, then they know they have a foothold. When he left, he actually said not to drink the water until we have a system installed. There are many valid and true points the salesman did bring up, such as hard water damage to appliances, which led to me eventually buying a water softener (not the $10,000 kit he was trying to sell that basically turns your home into a water purification plant). However, the fear-based approach that capitalizes on half-truths and lies is highly unethical. I've included links below for anyone who wants to fact check the numbers I cited above.
https://www.phoenix.gov/waterservicessite/Documents/Chromium6_FAQs_Sept_2016.pdf
https://www.abc15.com/news/region-phoenix-metro/central-phoenix/report-phoenix-has-highest-amounts-of-chromium-6-in-water-of-any-city-nationwide
http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/chemicals/tds.pdf
https://www.epa.gov/dwregdev/drinking-water-regulations-and-contaminants
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