So I get an email from Chrissy saying her retailer won't send out a replacement unit. She has to buy a 2nd one and then wait til they verify the first one's a dud before getting a refund on the broken one.
Bogus.
Share the retailer so we know to avoid them?
I'll ask Chrissy if she minds sharing that info.
So I get an email from Chrissy saying her retailer won't send out a replacement unit. She has to buy a 2nd one and then wait til they verify the first one's a dud before getting a refund on the broken one.
Bogus.
Maybe I'm reading into this wrong, but it doesn't seem wrong or odd to me for a retailer to ask for a product to be returned before sending out a replacement. Sounds like standard practice. Company issues an RMA for the bad product, you send it in, they process the RMA and return a hopefully good product. If you need a replacement shipped out immediately before returning the defective, I wouldn't hold it against the retailer for charging you. How else do they have any kind of collateral?
dB-
True. I think it just rubbed her the wrong way because she needs the unit soon and unless she buys 2 units and waits to see if they refund for the first one, she's at their mercy for resolving it and sending out a replacement which probably won't get to her in time for her next show. I'll just wait for her to reply here with the details.
Apologies for the delay in my reply. Just wanted to let everyone know that I originally bought the r-09 from minidisco.com. Before George introduced me to the world of r-01 / r-09 recording, I'd buy MD stuff from them all the time without any issues (so I trusted them with my r-09 purchase). But I feel they handled this problem (the only problem I've had with them) the wrong way, so they've lost my business.
I ended up buying another r-09 from a local Sam Ash store in order to get it in time for the show I needed it for (thank you for all the offers btw... I didn't see them till after the show though
). I bought the second unit after I returned the first to minidisco, but before minidisco issued me credit, so I had 2 charges on my CC for a while. As I said, I needed it for a show and couldn't wait for another one to be shipped out... so I just paid the extra $20 or whatever it was in sales tax to have a working unit in time.
The reason why I will NOT do business with minidisco.com any longer is because (as George said), they rubbed me the wrong way. They have my CC # and a load of past business on record with me (back to 2002), so they should have been willing to ship out the second r-09 before receiving the first one back. That's just good customer service. I shipped the r-09 back to them the day after I called, but as someone else mentioned, if they didn't receive it within a timely manner, they could have charged me a 2nd time at that point.
Whenever I called them a person by the name of Matt answered. When I originally told him about the problem his tone was one of disbelief. He said that I needed to ship it back to them and they'd issue a credit "IF" it was broken. He was very careful to say "if" every time. And I understand why he needs to say that, but the tone he was using sounded like "I know more than you do, so just return it and I'll tell you if it's broken or not". It was obvious that he was skeptical of my claims, and that really worried me b/c the r-09 wasn't a little purchase for me and I definitely received a dud. I don't appreciate that kind of arrogance, especially when I'm giving you my business... so that was strike number 1. In addition, Matt was about to get off the phone with me before offering to issue me a prepaid UPS label to return the merchandise... so yea, I had to ask for that... strike #2. Before getting off the phone with him I asked Matt if he could email me or call me when he received the package. He did neither. And when I called to check on the status of the return, Matt answered again and said "oh yea we received it... I see the box sitting on top of the returns right now... but we haven't had a chance to look at it yet". Granted it was right after the 4th of July weekend, so maybe they were really really busy. But in my experience with handling customer service requests, you take care of the requests that keep coming up first to get them out of the way. Maybe that's just my style of work, but that seems to make the most sense. Why make frustrated customers more frustrated (especially in this case when the issue was simply powering on the r-09)... strike #3. Matt said they'd get to it the following day, so I said okay. When I didn't hear back from him the following day I called... again. Matt answered and said "oh... yea... it's a dud... we'll issue you a credit now... and it'll appear on your statement soon". FINALLY! If I remember correctly, it
only took about 2 (maybe 2.5) weeks for the whole process to be sorted out.
While I am happy everything worked out in the end, it definitely should have been handled differently and more quickly, so I'm done giving minidisco my business. I like dealing with companies who respect their customers and do what's necessary to encourage repeat business. Up until this point I felt minidisco.com was a quality company, but considering the importance of this purchase, I didn't feel that they were really concerned and I got a vibe that they felt I was a nuisance. I'll be sure to check this board from now on for better companies.
Thanks again for everyone's help! The new r-09 that I got is working beautifully!
-Chrissy