Pacific Office Automation – Seattle

STEER CLEAR! This company defines «sleazy copier salesmen». If your needing a copier, they use an «Evergreen» clause to self-​renew the lease, not giving you a heads-​up it is happening. Then if u try and get out of it the drag their feet for months, while they suck up your money, then try and sell you again, then drag their feet some more. It took me more than 4 EXTRA months of paying them to get out of mine. This company has NO INTEGRITY, stay away.

Pacific Office Automation parked in the bike lane this morning (southbound Dexter Ave N at Harrison St in Seattle) and failed to transfer me to a person to deal with the situation when I called to complain. Pictures:

My office is/​was looking into a new printer and I reached out to three (3) different vendors to be able to compare products, service, cost, etc. I was given the name of someone who works in the Portland area (2.5 hour drive from Tacoma). The person was highly confused and kept saying «I don’t know why they told you to call me» and I was eventually connected with a local representative, Sean G.
Sean was quick to return phone calls and set up a meeting to speak with me to learn more about our needs. After our initial meeting we identified a day where he would return to my office to deliver the product information and pricing. He later emailed me and asked to reschedule because of an unexpected business trip, I obliged, and confirmed the date/​time of the new meeting. The time for the meeting came and Sean never showed up. I waited 20 minutes and never had an email or phone call. I followed-​up to him in an email (the one that had the communication chain about our meeting (s) and need to reschedule) inquiring if something had happened and if he needed to reschedule. I also called and left a message inquiring. It is a week later and there has been no response to either method of communication.
Perhaps this is an unfamiliar and unique experience, but I have no desire to do business with the company. Which is good, since they have shown little desire to do business with me (and my organization).

THE WORST, SUPER AGGRESSIVE SALES REPS!
My former employer was wooed by the sharp dressing rep that will appear unannounced but like the other reviews did whatever she could to have another vendor buy out the contract. Unanswered service calls, bad equipment, etc. Is seemed once she was reeled in and the contract signed they guy was no where to be seen. Fast forward, I now get to be ‘the person who makes decisions for your office printer’, and these guys are relentless! I thought they were bad enough until today — they are really bad. I was running an errand and one of new reps (high turnover) popped into the office and left his card and spoke with my manager. I am sure he thought it was a done deal… nope. I have worked here for over two years and the reps just will not take no for an answer — I have asked on many occasions to take us our their list, I have told them not to call back. Well the rep does not know how to follow directions. He called and I explained once again we have no interest, please take us of your list. He then had the audacity to come into the office, in a very angry manner and wanted to know why I won’t talk to him, like his bullying tactics were actually going to change my mind. No problem, we have many large construction guys who are more than happy to help remove people like this from our property. Wow! I have dealt with aggressive sales reps over the years but never to this extent. Run Far away from this company…

We switched to Pacific Office Automation for our copier business at our law firm based upon our contacts with their sales person who was professional, knowledgeable and responsive. One the copier was installed, however, the service was without question the worst we have every experienced with any vendor during my 30+ years of practice. We have a small firm and it is essential that our copier be available. However, in addition to the copier constantly breaking down, the service department was completely unreliable. On multiple occasions the department would promise that a technician would be here by a certain time but he simply would not show, with no call from him or the company to tell us he would not be coming. On at least one occasion schedules here were changed so we could be here when the technician promised he would be here only to have him not show, and not even make it the next day. They finally had to take the machine away to fix it and provided us a loaner which was of lesser quality. The machine was gone far longer than promised and the same problems with service continued.
We finally had no choice but to go with another company who agreed to take the POA machine out of here and make the payments on the remaining year or so on the lease. But even with that our headaches with POA continued. They, or the company to which they had assigned he lease, REFUSED TO ACCEPT PAYMENTS FROM OUR NEW COMPANY, causing the account to become delinquent. I have talked to the lease company, and to POA and emphasized that we understand that we remain primarily liable on the lease but the payments will be coming from another source. Who cares where the money comes from so long as it gets paid, right? But the lease company has refused to accept the payments, claiming that they only will accept payment from our firm! And now they are seeking penalties and interest for late payments, after they have refused to accept payments from our new company which were timely made. When I just talked to their representative and asked how much of the current amount due was for interest and penalties, she refused to give me the information and insisted that I look at their web site or past invoices. BOTTOM LINE — IF YOU WANT TERRIBLE SERVICE AND AN UNREASONABLE AND UNPROFESSIONAL LEASE COMPANY — GO WITH PACIFIC OFFICE AUTOMATION.

I am the person who doesn’t leave the house without checking Unilocal to make sure the activity I am about to engage in will be worthy of my time. But I am so glad that I didn’t do that before signing our office up with Pacific Office Automation. I can’t vouch for anyone else at their company, but the reviews here are not at all indicative of my experience with Aaron and his assistant Suzie. These two are awesome! In fact, the whole reason I finally visited this page on Unilocal was to leave them a great review. My colleagues couldn’t be happier with the service we’ve been given so far. Everything has gone exactly like Aaron said it would and when I have a question, Suzie gets back to me immediately. On top of that, we are actually paying less for a better machine through Pacific Office. I feel really bad for everyone who did not receive the same service as I did, but I wonder if something changed at POA after they saw this page. Whatever happened, I couldn’t recommend them more.

I agree with someone else who said if only there were negative stars.
Pacific Office Automation is one of the worse businesses I have ever dealt with as far as service is concerned. We needed a plotter fixed and we had been trying to get the estimate to have it fixed from Pacific Office Automation since Augutst of 2014 and thought we had it figured out a week ago and the service tech was a no show. This was after an employee from our company called the tech and he said *oh yeah” I will be there in a few minutes and he still did not show up. This was also after I could not get any information from a previous technicians inspection who was at a training for a week and a half. A. There was not a written estimate and B. it was a company trianing and you could not call the individual on his company cell phone? This information came from the techs manager who is the head of the service division in Tacoma WA.
This plotter is not under a service contract they stand to make money here but I guess business is good and they don’t care about negative reviews. I feel the whole company should get raining on communication skills, customer serivice skills, and follow through. I would suggest if you are looking for a copier or whatever go somewhere else and hopefully save yourself money and frustraion.

If only I could give a negative review. I don’t have many good things to say about this company except: my lease has ended.
Not only is the staff incompetent but the entire business is run like a sinking ship. I can say the sales person who half-​heartedly tried to assist me never returned calls and actually completely ruined the contract we spoke about and I ended up being over charged. I spoke to someone named Kim and the situation got worse and I had to over extend a lease that should have ended months ago because she claimed «I would owe money if I left now»
Just run away, listen to everyone’s Unilocal reviews and do your business with a professional company.

A minus star was not a possibility so I gave them a one. They got their reputation the old fashioned way they earned it. I agree with everything all the other negative reviews and more. they are a scam company and liars to boot. I so regret that we ever did business with them.
Run away from them as fast as you can I only hope to spare someone else the time and trouble we are having with them after spending more than $ 2, 000 for a fax printer that still is not working properly after waiting for weeks for it to be repaired. It was supposed to be new but now I am even doubting that.

We have had nothing but problems with this company since we started using a copy/​fax machine from them for our business. We are still waiting for them to get the correct part in for the device we are supposed to have and the replacement they provided was programmed to show the name of another business for the fax. We have had countless calls into service and often wait several days to get anyone to show up. Then when they are finally here, no one is able to fix anything. Their service is appalling and I suggest for anyone to find another company to work with.
Really they deserve 0 starts, but this is not an option.

If only there were negative stars.
Without getting into all the gory details, I’ll just say you’d be horrified and would run the other way if you knew what it was like to do business with Pacific Office Automation.
We’ve worked with sales people that don’t listen or follow up, service people that can’t fix something when it’s broken (we’re talking six or seven attempts here), a service manager that didn’t follow through, accounting people that don’t have the correct information, and complete lack of communication between POA and their leasing company.
We’re not sure if they are dishonest, inept, or both.
We’ve sent dozens of emails and spent countless hours dealing with POA. It’s clear they are broken on many levels, and can’t seem to accomplish even the simplest of challenges without messing up.
Everyone makes mistakes. But in over 20 years of working with business, I’ve never come across a more poorly run, indifferent company.
Stay clear of Pacific Office Automation.

This company is horrible. Don’t do business with them.
My former business partner got us into a copier lease to replace an older copier that we were leasing from POA.
There’s a reason she is my former business partner. She was totally hoodwinked on this lease and we basically are locked into a lease until 2017 at a really high price.
Since our demand for copies has dropped by 75% I tried to negotiate a price for a smaller machine and was told that they wouldn’t even talk about it until mid-​2014. The sales rep absolutely refused to even consider making a change or entering into negotiating for a lower lease price.
One of their tricks is to have an escalating clause that starts off your lease at a low rate then increases each year. Never do this.
Also, I needed help programming a few things and they wanted to charge me for it.
Once this lease is done, I will never do business with PAO again. There are smaller companies with the same exact Konica copier we have for substantially lower rates.
Keep in mind in 10 years you won’t see photo copiers in offices. Printing documents are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Buy a multi-​format printer from Costco and save your money.

If I could give this place 0 stars, I would. I am so frustrated with their service and now their products. We are leasing printers from them but they are SO slow to get techs out, they want to get you to do a service contract but then some things aren’t covered, the products are rarely new, they are just serviced and then put back in rotation. I have two different issues at the same time and I’m getting the runaround on both. It’s taken OVER a MONTH to get help on one thing (still not solved) and then our other issues was blamed on the fact that someone was on maternity leave. Real nice.
Anyway, don’t go with these folks. They’re awful. And incompetent. And they pass the buck.

Over a year ago, I made a huge operational mistake in my business. I agreed to lease a Canon machine from Pacific Office Automation. The details are many so let me not bore you with that and and I’ll summarize: The sales person knew NOTHING about the machine, its capabilities or up front needs for install. He admitted after the problems began at install he really «hadn’t had any training» on it. So much for the on-​site training for me and my employees. My fault for buying into the fluff and puff instead of pushing for details. The field tech support was/​is lackluster at best. I became real concerned when one of the techs mentioned to me recently that (wait for it) he really hadnt had any training on my system and wasn’t familiar with it. Oh boy!
I have several machines in my business, mostly leased through another known dealer that comes with full product knowledge from its salesperson and capable tech support and administrative staff. Why didnt I stick with them? Why? If you want your time spent on chasing down tech support, studying for hours the internet PDF files so YOU can learn all about the problem you just signed up for then go with POA.

I had been using them for years and was generally pleased with the service. Until my recent lease renewal. That’s when the trouble started. The new machine gets delivered to my office but you need a degree in engineering to understand how to run it. Do you think that anyone at Pacific considers this when leaving this complex machine at a small office? Nope. Within a couple of hours it is abundantly clear that you cannot operate even the most basic functions on the damn thing without a complex instruction manual. We cannot get even basic copies made because not only are we struggling to try to figure it out, but the feeder has been harmed in delivery. So begins almost TWO MONTHS of trying to get the numerous mechanical problems fixed. We have to constantly have different people coming out and showing us how to perform various functions on the machine. One person apparently cannot do this sort of training. Instead, I am sometimes have two and three people a day in my office trying to get everything working and meanwhile, we have afternoons where no copying or scanning can take place at all, and that puts a severe cramp in my ability to run my office. The «techs» that come out are nice enough, but only know about 1 or 2 things each. Then you have to yet another person to come out and install something and then another person come out to show you how it works. The machine was installed about two months ago and I still do not have the functionality that was promised to me when I renewed my lease and some of the functionality was only installed today. My staff has spent hours and hours trying to get this thing running correctly. I have wasted several hours of my time. And yet, have I been offered a single thing to compensate me for all of that wasted time? Nope.
DO NOT USE PACIFIC OFFICE FOR YOUR COPIER NEEDS UNLESS YOU WANT TO WASTE HOURS AND HOURS OF YOUR TIME!!!

We have the exact same problem… seems like a pattern. Tech comes out over and over. Machine says something like memory full. Tech says the machine has to be replaced there is no way to fix it. We had a internet sales person come in on another sales call. she said oh I know how to fix this! She pressed a couple buttons. PRESTO!!! Works again. Pacific Automation said we had to buy a 16 000.00 new machine :(Maybe they need to hire the sales person from the internet company

My office leases our Konica Minolta copy machine from Pacific Office Automation. The machine itself is pretty awesome. We use it for copies, printing and scanning; we can load envelopes and several sizes paper into it; there are tons of options for adjusting the image and format; and it is pretty user friendly. It has the capability to do way more than we use it for, though additional software is probably required for some of the more advanced functions. It hardly ever has issues and when it does the error codes usually help us resolve it without having a service call.
I’ve had to make a service call twice. The first time was a great experience. The tech showed up within a few hours of my call and explained what he was doing. He was personable and professional. He also told me it was a good thing we had a service contract because the part he replaced was a couple thousand dollars — we could get a new machine for that much! Then about a month ago I called again and had a much more frustrating experience. I called on a Monday and the tech did not arrive until Thursday! We could only use the copier/​printer sporadically for several days which was very inconvenient for everyone (and we would have been screwed if none of us had desktop printers). I was getting extremely irritated with POA since I called multiple times and was repeatedly told that I would get a call back, and then never did. I think the tech called on Tuesday to say he was getting a part and would be there the next day, but that did not happen and he did not communicate this with us. When the guy finally arrived about 3:30pm on Thursday, he seemed very flustered. It took him an hour to complete the repair and he had a personal conversation on his Bluetooth the whole time! He acted like he was in a remote part of the office but he was just a few feet away from my desk and we thought it was very unprofessional that we knew about his issues with a coworker and his camping plans for the weekend! In the end he fixed the machine and also ordered ink cartridges for us, but I was not impressed with the entire ordeal.
I have never seen our Pacific Office Automation bill so I cannot comment on the leasing/​billing problems mentioned by the other viewers. I do highly suggest that you enter into a service contract because it will probably cost you less than repairs or replacement parts. Aside from my last experience I have been very satisfied, so A-​OK 3 Stars it is.

We leased a high end copier from Pacific Office automation for five years. They did a good job of servicing it. But then we started to negotiate with them about the lease renewal rate 6 months before the end of the lease, they dragged it on and on. When we decided to go with another provider once the lease was over, they told us that the lease was outsourced to another company and we had missed the lease renewal date, so we were stuck with the $ 500 monthly lease rate for an additional year and it was a contract with another company and they couldn’t do anything about it.
It seemed highly deceptive and their managers did not return our phone calls when we complained. It was a $ 13,000 machine 5 years ago. Now you can buy it for $ 800 on ebay and we are stuck paying $ 500 per month (lease only, service and copies are extra) for an entire year because their sales agent didn’t know or didn’t tell us about this hidden renewal clause in the fine print of the lease. Don’t lease from these folks unless your attorney writes the lease!