We all wanted to love it, the pen-shaped vape that actually looks like an oversized pen and could almost vaporize some marijuana.
But it was too good to be true, as learned several times over the course of 5 years, 4 non-working vapes with lifetimes warranties, and countless emails unresponded.
Four Months of NON-COMMUNICATION
The crew (person?) over at Grasshopper have ghosted even their pro-bono customer service helper, as posted recently on FuckCombustion. Vgoodiez Scott had been helping the Hopper IO folk with their never-ending cycle of warranty replacements and repair, but even he has run out of patience.
User Vapviking asks blatantly in the Grasshopper thread:
Back in March you said you were going to try to “see what’s going on.”
The rest of us only have pure speculation on which to hang our hats.
Have you learned anything that you’d care to share?
Is the ride over?
IO’s have not been available for months, pretty much only batteries are going out…We’ve noticed that Hoppers are no longer on your site, though your profile still says
To which Vgoodiez responds:
Sorry there is nothing I can do. I was ghosted for too long like the rest of you. The mods can remove my stupid second badge this site requires and I’ll take the above out of my profile. I tried and genuinely thought this would get better when I took this on (without compensation mind you) but unfortunately I was wrong.
Kudos to Scott for investing his own time and energy for the sake of the community.
The situation is still developing as FC administrators consider flagging the thread as “DISCONTINUED”.
However, this wouldn’t be the first time Grasshopper has ghosted the industry, screwed over warranty services, left people ripped off, only to return as if nothing had happened. This would actually be the 3rd time. Maybe even the 4th.
The Grasshopper has never been reliable enough to recommend or review.
If this is jumping the gun and Grasshopper comes back, vote with your wallet and spend your money elsewhere. The vape, and the company, is a dud.
Trying to get a response from them since Dec 21. Am an original indiegogo backer and wanted my GH titanium to be serviced, but no response for 8 months. Too bad
The Grasshopper was my first vaporizer after I got out of a 5-day hospital stay for pneumonia. I was fortunate; it always worked but my experience with it was, meh. A boring experience. Then I found DynaVap and the rest was pretty much history.
Original igg backer, really lucked out in that I got (almost) everything I ordered and it’s always worked beautifully, exactly as promised. The stories I’ve heard about others’ experiences means I’ll never, ever recommend it, but I will love mine until it quits on me.
I’ve had a grasshopper since 2020. It still works. My husband bought one earlier this year and it stopped working after a few weeks. No support. Could never register the device because there was no number on the box. Really poor customer service and support. I can see why they went under.
Yeah, count me among the suckers who took a chance. Not wanting to fund a startup, I waited ’til it looked like they were up & running. I ordered & received a unit, which worked fine for several months, until it didn’t. Then for a while, when they were still communicating sporadically, I got word service regarding warranty repair/replacement (something about ‘request pending review’. This was about the time of ‘the fire’. Now I wonder if there was a fire. I wonder what happened to these yahoos & if they’re on the run, been beat down, sued, killed or what. My last three messages to them, via ‘my account’ at their website have been ignored. If anyone is around to answer for them, I’d enjoy a trip to Colorado to give them/him a damned good verbal (at least) spanking. Come on! I though we were adults! Get honest with the folks who trusted you.
Like for real. All they had to do was be an adult about it and say something like, “Hey, things aren’t going very well right now. We’re not making any profit and a good percentage of our units are failing. We also don’t have the manpower or resources to service work orders. We’ve failed and need to close the company. Sorry to all of our backers and fans.” You know, the truth. Everybody would have been ‘ok, that sucks, but thanks for trying.’ Instead they take a coward’s way out and ghost everyone and run away. “Honesty is the best policy” isn’t just a saying.
You know what else is a dud? All the hype reviews that never actually gave people a real idea of how bad the quality control on these vapes were.
They unanimously sang the hoppers praises and look how it all ended up.
Vape reviews that do not revisit the vape months later are trash and should be ignored.
I have been waiting for almost 3 years at this point. I purchased one of the original grasshoppers and actually really liked it. I broke it once and they even replaced it for me. I ordered the new one in a purple color and was told it would be here in a few weeks, then after a few months I was told they were having problems with their anodizing plant and they could send me a plain one, then finally… nothing. Is the company completely dead or just terrible customer service? I don’t want to be an asshole, but is anyone else interested in a civil suit or small claims court?
Yeah, I’d be interested in pursuing legal action.
Total crap. I had two and they didn’t worked more than a week or two. Sent them back to Colorado 6 times. Always worked on return but never more thana few weeks.
Shame on all the vape site that praised this crap. Especially the New York Times.
good news!
I bought one because at the time it was the only flower vaper available that would work with small loads. It worked fine, and it was a pretty cool gadget. When it stopped working, trying to get a response from them was frustrating, but I was fortunate enough to live pretty close to their place in Boulder so I knocked on their door until someone answered. They were reluctant to acknowledge my presence, but did replace the part for me. Then they moved to a place that appeared to be perpetually vacant, and I never got another response from them. Someone had a cool idea, but actually running a business wasn’t as interesting or fun. Too bad.
OMFG, what a piece of GARBAGE. Mine is a 1st-gen Grasshopper I got for funding via Kickstarter. It worked for awhile but then refused to, no matter how many new batteries I ordered. I reached out to the company over and over and over again, to no avail. Never heard anything back. They just don’t care. I’ve been reluctant to just throw away the damn thing but it’s utterly useless. Such a disappointment. Those people can go shit in a hat.
Thanks Troy for posting this. I had a similar experience. I bought one when company was fairly new, enjoyed the device for a while, until it malfunctioned. Sent it in, waited, waited, had very sporadic customer service communication, but did eventually received the repaired device.
Finally lost it, which was meant to be, w all the bad karma attached to it.
In these times, with plenty of avenues to communicate ones displeasure for a product or service, the folks at GH seemed to know Very little about the importance of taking care of your customers. I’d imagine money was always an issue with the company, and with an inferior product, the returns, staff, quality control and so on, buried them.
But to not man-up and let the public know what’s going on, to just blow off paying customers shows a serious lack of integrity and conscience.
Grasshoppers are so amazing…
when they work.
I have two of them.
Both operational for two years, now.
But it took me three years of replacing things
over and over,
to get it right
(so I purchased them in 2017
and didn’t get them working correctly
until 2019).
I now fear their failure,
as I really do love my Grasshoppers:
water-cooled vapor is just unlike anything else
and, IMO,
is the premiere way to fly.
But whoever ran that company is a con artist.
Well. I just stumbled across this thread, and surely cannot endorse Hopper Labs with their crappy customer service. I assume they are out-of-business now having screwed so many folks. That said, I do have two working and one overheating Hopper portable vape. The titanium (10 second or so heat) and io (instant heat) I have actually work flawlessly. The company sucks and doesn’t. I could not get them to respond to my request a year or so ago to repair my original stainless steel hopper I bought when they first came out (it gets really hot so I’m concerned and don’t use it). But they did send me a replacement nozzle when one was stripped a couple of years ago at no cost. Only issue I really have is that the batteries are proprietary and expensive…but they last me a year or more and I can get a few rounds of maybe 4 or 5 hits on each charge, so rotating two, I’m always good to go. I know they are not on their game and figured they are more or less out of business…but still love my two working hopers, how they feel and how they work with my homegrown flower here in Maine…might buy another battery or two at 50% off from Chosty, after all it is 4/20! Peace. (posted on reddit too)
got mine in like 2017-18 and loved it but it crapped about in like a year. The support was still okay then and i got it fixed/replaced. died a few months later and havent gotten anything from them since. I realize I’m a bit late to this, I’ve been using the thing as a pen for my ds cuz its otherwise useless, I just wanted to see what happened to the company when i found this post
My life has changed in so many ways since I originally backed this company. Im currently sitting with 3 non working vapes. Sad and unfortunate that I can’t get a replacement to love. These were actually the BEST water cooled vapes on the market.
got mine around 2017-18. I simply loved it while it worked. The best hits I’ve had from a vape and I’ve owned might, crafty and dynavaps (a few of each). I also have experience with the firefly 2. Nothing came close to a water called hit from a powerful grasshopper with the performance mounthpiece.
The problem was it broke every few weeks.. got it services 3 times I think until I gave up. service was free back then but shipping from Israel was still expensive and I had to wait a month for it each time.
At some point they also stopped responding to my requests.
I seem to be in the minority that had a decent experience.
I am a very infrequent smoker (total sessions with my GH would be around 30, if that). Cleaned every 10 sessions roughly. Have 4 different batteries. Always kept it upright during use which is what I suspect kills so many but can’t be sure. I feel like it’s just a design flaw that they never ironed out before production.
Had one issue where I couldn’t close the cap properly because the interior screen became loose, contacted support and they told me to clean it. I did but still had to fix the thing myself and then it worked =/
Overall, I’m hopeful it doesn’t break but it’s fine if it does. Vapes are cheaper now. I might not be able to find one as discrete as this one, but it’ll definitely be more feature rich and from a more reputable company.
I bought mine during the startup for $85 then had to send it in for repairs. I got very little communication from them then was finally told about a fire and they think mine was in it. I kept trying to reach them to just pull one out of inventory and send it. I had upgraded to the titanium model. It was brand new when I sent it in but was offered a stainless replacement. Like a fool I insisted on what I paid for. I’ve given up on ever getting it back.
I foolishly preordered the external charger (and paid for the international shipping), which I never did receive. Not that it would do me any good now, my vape hasn’t worked in 3 years. I’m still waiting to hear back about the warranty repair… Reading these comments has made me feel a little less bad about being swindled. Screw those jerks.
Mine still works well. I bought new batteries right before they shut down.
Hello,
I have my grasshopper pen since 2019. Then, my order took severals mounth to be delivered to France. The grasshopper is my only vaporizer and it’s still works in 2024! I have only 2 tired batteries. I use it once a week since 5 years !!
In 2020, I bought my second batterie and the « hopper glass bubbler» but I never receive the bubbler despite my reminders to the client service…
Today, I bought 2 batteries from chosty, I hope they are serious.
To use my GH with my old batteries, I have to take long and soft inspiration to have enough heat.
I love my grasshopper, it’s so rare !
Peace !
Wow Brice!! You’re one of the lucky ones. I’m glad Chosty is maintaining batteries and stuff. All of my original grasshopper vapes are dead now :(