Every now and then, among good products you find bad ones - I found one of the bad ones when I showed some interest in a battery charger that harvested kinetic energy, called the NPower Peg, made by Tremont Electric of Cleveland OH, http://NPowerpeg.com. I bought one, and it hasn't worked a lick; and I've tried to contact Tremont for warranty service (1 year), no joy. Now I'm going to simply mail it back to them and cancel the $159.89 credit card charge, which is my prerogative, and put it down as an unsatisfying online experience. However, if the money had made it out of my account, I would be claiming fraud on the part of Tremont. They say every dissatisfied customer tells a dozen people of his woes, so read on:

Do a Bing or Google search on "NPower Peg" and you will turn up pages and pages of glowing reviews of this promising technology - hey, Tremont has or had a great PR agent, because on a closer look you'll see that no one actually reviews the NPower Peg, they just print the tech specs and post the picture. But I am fascinated by alternative energy, and felt I had a need for a way to recharge my cell phones without solar panels or access to the grid - the NPower Peg sounds like a way to do that. The NPower Peg resembles a baton, about 12 inches in length and it generates electricity by the movement of a magnet weighted center mass along a pole: enough to recharge a cell phone after carrying the NPower Peg around in your backpack all day. Neato - I'd give it a try.

Back in October 2010 I responded to one of these ad placements in a local Seattle news paper, looked up the NPower Peg, and put in an order on their website. The site mentioned they were in the early period of rolling out commercial NPower Pegs and would fill orders as fast as they can. Then I pretty much forgot about it, and month followed month. Then in March, I got a phone call, from the NPower Peg people - they were sorry for the extensive delay, but were ready to send me my NPower Peg, was I still interested? Yes I was; we confirmed my address, credit card info, and they asked me what I intended to recharge - they would include some iGo(TM) adapters in the NPower Peg shipment to get me started. A week or so later, there it was, my NPower Peg - but no iGo tips, so I had no way to get started using it right away. Not to worry, I went on amazon.com and bought a couple iGo tips, and those arrived quickly enough. I was ready to go.

I read the instructions, they recommended that I initially charge it via the USB cord provided, at least 2 hours. An LED light would turn green when it was fully charged. Check. Then attach it to a cell phone or other device, press a button, and it would begin to charge it. Check. Then, 2 minutes into the process, the NPower Peg showed red LEDs - fully discharged! Oh no - so I start again, fully charging it via the USB cord, then attempting to charge my cell phone - again, no joy. I repeated this process twice with each of two cell phones, a Motorola and an LG. I suspected at best, I got a bum NPower Peg; at worst, I began to realize I had been taken, but with new technologies, there's always room for error, and some understanding for the manufacturer.

I emailed info@NPowerpeg.com on May 17, explaining my problem and asking if I had missed something in the instructions. I said if I got a bum NPower Peg I'd like to return it for a good one. By May 21 I hadn't received any reply, so I sent another email message. Still no reply this afternoon, so I called their phone number 888-214-3137 during stated business hours, and only got various voice mail options. I left a VM with the operator number, telling them I was returning the NPower Peg.

I can only assume Tremont Electronic is no longer in business, and your guess is as good as mine whether anyone ever actually answered calls at 888-214-3137, because they surely didn't answer mine. I can only assume they are either so busy that they can't respond to my emails or calls, or they are so out of business now it isn't funny. I'm not out anything - I have adequate protection from my credit card provider, Tremont won't see a cent from me - but someone who put down hard earned cash or who paid their credit card before realizing the apparent scam that is the NPower Peg may not be so lucky. I write this product review mostly for you folks as a cautionary tale - don't get caught by the Tremont Electrics of this world. Don't purchase an NPower Peg. Wait for some of this miraculous technology to prove itself in the real world - because the online world is so easy to manipulate and load with glowing 'reviews' of a junk product, its not even funny.

Lono - *NOT* an investor in or reimbursed by Tremont Electric of Cleveland OH, or NPower Peg.