the story of my camera battery
Last September I bought a casio digital camera from the online branch of Dixons, just a little point and click job but enough to take the photos on here. Last month I took it with me when a few of us went sailing (it never went near the water) but when I came to take a photo the camera didn’t turn on, not even a beep greeted my continual attempts to press the power button. Assuming the battery was out of juice, I took it home to charge but when I put the battery in the charger it simply started flashing at me (when it’s charging properly there is a light, but it stays on until the battery is fully charged). I searched through the quick start guide, I downloaded the pdf manual and couldn’t find any mention of a flashing light and what it might mean.
So I emailed the Casio support team with a quick description of the problem. A couple of days later I got a reply. There was a fault with my battery, simple as. They offered that if I let them have my address (which I had actually put into the original support request form but never mind) they’d send me a freepost envelope in which to send back the battery for a replacement (all under guarantee obviously). They’d also need a proof of purchase.
Now I assumed that any proof of purchase required something with a date on it. I had a look but couldn’t find the normal A4 invoice/receipt that usually comes with something from say, Play or Amazon. All I had was a simple delivery note containing name, address, order number. I’d kept a printout of the order confirmation screen but as that only had a date of printing and not an order date on it, I thought I’d give Dixons customer services a call and ask them to send a copy of the invoice/order so that I’d have some proof with a date on it. Big mistake…
During my call to Dixon’s customer service line, I was told that my order didn’t exist and that a washing machine was the only thing they’d ever delivered to my house. I was then told that there was another order, for exactly the same camera which had my address as the billing address but was apparently delivered to somewhere else with someone else’s name. Despite having given the correct billing address, I was told that I couldn’t get any details on that order because it wasn’t mine and ‘they don’t get things wrong’. In hindsight I should have asked for a refund, because if they hadn’t delivered me a camera, what had I paid them for?
Still, the battery went off and another one (a working one) has comeback. So that’s a big thumbs up for Casio who have been all very nice and helpful an a big thumbs down for Dixons who don’t appear to realise that part of the data protection act is to keep your data correct.
