An Update (The Letter Part 2)

A few days ago I posted a candid account of my experiences thus far with B&H Photovideo (which can be found here).

Since then they have been in contact with me (primarily through email as the time difference makes any other communication quite difficult) and have taken on board most (if not all) of my concerns.

They are currently re-lodging a request with Fed-Ex for the refund that was promised, personally I suspect that it will not be successful, but I think the lesson here is to not use Fed-Ex for my international shipping requirements in future. They are decent at getting something from A to B, but add in any requirement of actual customer service in there and they fail quite terribly (which is a shame really as it's the "last-mile" that most clients get to see)

In addition to this B&H are going to cover the cost of returning the defective camera to them, including the return import fee, as I mentioned I was quite surprised when this was offered during the initial RMA process (as it's not documented on their RMA website) but I am pleasantly surprised they are following through with it.

Interjection:

I feel having worked quite closely in a customer service field myself has given me some appreciation for (and value of) actual good customer service. The company I worked for prided itself on being the very best at what it did and there was a real cost associated with that, especially when a consultant would promise the customer something we might not be able to deliver upon, but we would then endeavor to satisfy anyway simply as reassurance for our customers that we deliver upon our promises (essentially what good customer service boils down to).

/Interjection

Now, B&H were recommended to me by a good friend of mine and despite the order being quite large I had confidence in their ability to deliver. In addition to this I had heard they were very good if you do run into any problems. Which is why I purchased from them rather than some HK discount operation...

When I received my camera and it was faulty all of that seemed to fly out of the window and despite the problem having very little to do with B&H (it says a lot more about Canon's quality control more than anything) the outcome could have been quite the nightmare, if they hadn't handled the situation so professionally and with such empathy.

The RMA process was quite straight forward, I simply described the defect and indicated that I wanted a replacement unit and not a refund a few days later (the time difference adds about 24 hours to any responses either direction) it was approved.

Since then I've been in contact with the B&H customer service department a few times and they have really done an exceptional job of looking after something which, considering the physical distance between us probably could have been easier to just fob-off.

I think I need to summarize this post before it becomes a novella, but I think quite simply if you are going to be buying any photography gear, B&H will be able to help you, not only that, in the event you do have any problems they'll be there to make sure they are resolved.

TL:DR version

- Awesome customer service (or lack of) does have an explicit cost (either to you or the retailer)

- B&H have really gone the extra mile to make sure I'm happy and my issues are resolved.

- When buying online ALWAYS consider the customer service/returns side of things as-well as it could cost you a lot of money.

New Camera Woes - The Camera Strikes Back

In-case you missed Part-1 of the Camera saga you can find that here http://shaddowofadream.blogspot.com/2010/12/new-camera-woes.html

If you're like me and kind of lazy, here's a tl;dr version

- Wanted a DSLR

- Found online retailer with a good price

- Shipping company really dropped the ball at the end of the journey

- Camera itself ended up not actually working properly anyway

- Lodged RMA with online retailer

Okay now that you've caught up, I can start explaining how much more fun this tale becomes....

So the online retailer, who I'm happy to divulge at this point in time is B&H Photo/Video based in NYC and for their part have been exceptionally understanding and helpful in all aspects of the purchase (with the slight exception of sending me a faulty unit, but that isn't entirely their fault).

So they reply to my RMA request saying yep, camera looks defective, send it back and we'll organize a replacement (YAY), they even comment that they will cover the cost of shipping it back to them, despite the website saying otherwise (here's hoping they actually follow through with that!)

So now I just needed to find someone willing/able to post my package to the US for me that can do it fairly quickly (the RMA has a 10-12 day expiry on it), cheaply (in-case they don't follow through with reimbursement) and that I could track/insure (it is a $2000 camera after all).

My initial thought was to try Australia Post, they are usually fairly reliable and their online prices don't look too terrible... and I can track and insure it too, wonderful...

-I feel I need to interject here-

Anyone who has never been to an Australian Post outlet might not quite comprehend the sheer frustration of the queuing system, I'm not sure what it is but it seems every single Australia Post outlet is ALWAYS busy

-End Interjection-

Where was I, okay so I went to Australia Post and lined up like all the other complacent sheep in the store, waited my turn (felt like eternity, was probably only 10 minutes) only to be told by the kind cashier that since my package contained a Li-On battery they would not be able to send it for me (more details on that here)

She mentioned if I wanted to send it I'd have to remove the battery from the package and send it separately, something I'm fairly sure that B&H wouldn't appreciate in their RMA process...

After heading back to work with my continued defeat in tow, I tried calling a few other international courier companies (DHL, Fed-Ex etc) only to be told the exact same thing, it seems Lithium batteries were seriously scary shit!

There is one shipping company which is allowed to send Li-On batteries but their prices aren't exactly the cheapest, so... I've contacted B&H again and asked them if they are okay if I just send the camera sans battery and they can just dock the battery out of the replacement kit, however given they are about 23 hours behind me I wont find out until tomorrow morning....

The real icing of the cake in this situation is that if they don't declare the replacement camera properly I'll likely have to pay import duty & GST again, so to heed that off I'm going to try and make it super clear that they do that for me.

tl;dr

- It's okay to send Lithium batteries INTO the country via air, but you definitely can't send them back out again, no no!

New camera woes

I think I've always had some interest in photography and in the more recent years purchased increasingly better (and more expensive) hardware to accommodate.

Quite a few people I know have their own Digital SLR's and I've always been a little jealous of the amazing photo's that they can produce and so I decided that I would make the move from simple point-and-click photography into the scary realm of SLR.

After a fair amount of research I narrowed down my choices to two Canon bodies, the EOS 550D and EOS 60D and after considering the pros and cons of each I felt the 60D probably offered the best long term choice.

From here I started looking around at various places that sold cameras, both online stores (within Australia and international) and also retail stores. Unsurprisingly the online stores completely smash the retail stores for price competitiveness, with the difference being nearly $800 for exactly the same product...

Then it was simply getting approval from my better half (yay) and then placing the order, which I finalized on the 6th of December. The online retailer (based in New York City) estimated that delivery of the package would take about 4-5 working days.

Now that the order had been placed, I was anxiously watching the tracking page for any updates, no matter how seemingly insignificant and then on the morning of Friday the 10th the package arrived in Perth, I was pleasantly surprised that it got here so quickly and I'd be able to play with my new camera over the weekend...

Little did I know that I would encounter problem number 1, that being the complete inability for the shipping company to pass on information between its various internal departments. I called the customer support team early that morning to let them know to call me on my mobile number once it got released from customs.

After 6 hours had elapsed and the end of the business day was fast approaching I was getting noticeably frustrated at the lack of updates, so I again called the customer service line who repeated they'd call me once it had processed through customs, at this point I felt I should just call customs myself and find out wtf was going on...

Another 5 minutes wasted on-hold and the companies customs department informs me that the package was cleared at 9:30 AM this morning and they've been trying to call me all day to pay the duty/GST...

So after 3 calls and about 45 minutes of life wasted on hold, I finally had my item released and ready for pick-up (YAY!)

Little did I expect Problem Number the Second, as my work had their Christmas function on, I couldn't exactly unbox my (very expensive) new camera and play around with it so I waited until the following day (today) and methodically unboxed everything, made sure it was all there and put my camera together for its first use...

The result is below...

Now at first I thought it might just be my lack of experience with a DSLR and the myriad of settings now at my finger-tips, but no after some more experimentation (and confirmation from some nice guys online) they confirmed my camera body is borked and definitely should NOT be producing those results....

So here I am now, with an amazing camera, lenses and tripod all ready to "enjoy" my new toy but completely unable to do so....

I've since lodged a RMA request with the online vendor and I believe that will work out okay as they have a really good reputation but at this stage it feels like I've bought a brand new Lamborghini and gotten a flat tire halfway home....