DH spoke with HJ today and was pleasantly surprised by their customer service. He explained the situation and they are sending out a new motor head. They'll send a return label to return the broken one at their expense. They made us pay the shipping to them for the 4 jacks the last time.
It seems that they have had many issues, and a recall of the brushes (?) is underway. Hoping this will be the last problem with these.
As for bashing, I wasn't. I just expected to get the run around. They were very understanding and apologized for the inconvenience.