Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is a brilliant device as an alternative to pumping, chemically treating, or boiling water in the backcountry. My negative rating comes as a result of issues I had making contact with the SteriPen customer support representatives when a problem arose. On three of the most inopportune occasions (once in Nepal, twice in the Montana Rockies), my SteriPEN refused to treat stream water and instead gave me the "bad or damaged bulb" signal. By the time I returned home, the unit would inexplicably begin functioning again. Over the past 10 days prior to this writing, I tried to contact SteriPEN three times by phone, each time getting a recording saying all representatives were helping other customers and that they would call me back. I also tried twice by email, each time receiving a computer-generated response saying I would receive an email reply within 48 hours. All five attempts resulted in no call back or email reply from SteriPEN. I had registered my device with SteriPEN shortly after my purchase so the unresponsiveness could not have been as a result of my failure to follow their registration instructions. However appealing the SteriPEN is as a means of making stream water suitable for consumption, this product is a waste of money if the manufacturer fails to back up its assurances that their product will work.