I never in my life thought customer service could possibly be this bad. Aside from blog entries, I haven't previously written up this experience for one simple reason: until now, I couldn't have done so without it being a stream of the vilest cursing imaginable. Only now, several months later, am I able to contain my anger well enough to state the facts without non-stop invective. So sit back, pull up a chair, and listen to the worst customer service experience I have ever had—and as regular readers know, that's saying something!
Our story begins in November of 2004 when I bought my wife a Panasonic PV-GS400 DV-Cam for her birthday. She had wanted a video camera for some time—she loves our dogs and always wanted to tape them —so I did the research and concluded that it was the best option, albeit slightly beyond our price range. It was more than I would normally spend on a birthday gift, to be sure, but she had been wanting it for years, the dogs weren't getting any younger, and we had plans to start a family. In short, lots of precious moments that could have been immortalized on video were slipping by, and other far more precious moments were hoped for in our future. The $1,400 I spent was painful, but I figured it would be worth it.
Given the kind of cash involved, I decided to buy the best warranty deal that I could, so I got her the works. I bought the four-year, full-coverage warranty, which meant that even if it was her fault—even if she dropped the bloody thing in the ocean on purpose—or if it stopped working for any reason whatsoever, we were covered completely. I normally don't buy extended warranties, and especially not warranties so broad in their terms and pricing, but on an item this important, it seemed only prudent. We were covered, period, and that's what I wanted.
When the camera starting acting up in early May of 2006, I thanked my lucky stars that I had bought the warranty and congratulated myself for being prescient. The problem itself didn't seem that significant, insofar as it was merely having problems playing back one particular tape. But when playing that tape it would show visual artifacts, the sound would sometimes skip, and on rare occasion it would display blue bands horizontally across the LCD display. My biggest concern was that my son, who had been born in the summer of 2005, would be enjoying his very first birthday party in a couple of months, and I didn't want to miss taping it.
I called Panasonic technical support and was told it was likely a case of dirty heads, so I ordered a head cleaning cassette and gave it a whirl. It did improve somewhat, but it didn't clean it up completely. So after a few more calls to Panasonic technical support, I was advised that I needed to send the camera in for service. Since it was outside the one-year term provided by the manufacturer's warranty—such things always are, aren't they?—I was going to have to dig out my purchase documentation and contact the third-party warranty vendor instead.
That was my first surprise; I thought I was buying a warranty from Panasonic, but, in fact, I was buying a warranty from a company named Mack Camera, whose role in this story (viz., villain) should be obvious from its title. The first time I contacted Mack Camera, I ran into a little something I like to call "the registration card wall". That is, they weren't happy at the lack of any warranty registration card on file for me, and they weren't interested in honoring the warranty I had purchased because of it.
But the truth is that I never received any such card! I purchased the camera from Central Digital, and I still had every scrap of paper that came with it—including the original packaging! For whatever reason, I did not receive a warranty card; I don't know why. But I can tell you with absolute certainty that I never received the precious card, without which Mack Camera wouldn't do a thing for me. Thankfully, my warranty number turned out to be on my purchase receipt, and I eventually talked Mack Camera into honoring it after sending them a photocopy as proof.
So that's lesson number one: when you spend the money for the ultra-spiffy warranty, be sure to get the right documentation in place from the outset. Yes, it's a pain, particularly when it seems merchants can't be bothered to provide the documents, but it would have saved me a surprising amount of anguish.
After climbing that first wall, I filled out their on-line service request form, packed the camera very carefully, and shipped it across the country at non-trivial expense. Or to be more precise, I spent the $50 to send it via FedEx two-day shipping because I wanted good turnaround time. As I had explained to the Mack Camera representative on the phone, my son was changing noticeably every day, and I didn't want to be without that camera for any longer than was absolutely necessary.
It was received by their facility two days later and entered into their system. I was pleased to see its status change on-line a day later to indicate that it was sitting on a technician's workbench. But then it sat, and it sat, and it sat. I called and left a message, which wasn't returned. I called and left more messages, which weren't returned. Eventually, I finally got through to a human being, who transferred me to their service manager, who apologized nicely and promised to look into it and call me back the same day. When his call never came, I moved heaven and earth to get through to him again the next day and was told that the camera had been repaired and would be shipping out to me by Friday.
Sadly, it didn't actually ship out on Friday, so I was even more upset when I eventually got to talk to their service manager on Monday. It didn't help matters that he told me why it hadn't shipped, namely, because they didn't know where it was! Yes, you read that right: they didn't know where my camera was. I don't know why he told me the previous week that it would ship out by Friday, because it now seemed that my camera had been confused with some other camera, and they had no idea where my camera was. "So let me get this straight," I asked, completely incredulous, "you're saying you've lost my camera!?"
"No," he intoned calmly, "that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying we simply don't know where it is." Oh, gosh, that's completely different, then, isn't it?! After dismissing the possibility that Bill Clinton may have taken a side job in camera repair—it depends upon the meaning of 'lost' you see—I pressed the point further and was assured that "these things happen", but that it would probably turn up somewhere. Gee, how comforting.
At that point, I wanted to hop on a plane, fly out to New Jersey, and start knocking heads around until somebody gave me my camera. But I hadn't even an inkling as to just how much suffering was yet in store. Had I known then what I know now, I just might have done it. It might have left me rotting in jail, but at least I'd have extracted my pound of flesh, not to mention several gallons of blood, I might add.
Now to be fair, I must give credit where credit is due: I did actually receive a call a single day later—How about that, they do know how to work a phone!?—and was told that my camera had been found. All that remained was for it to go through quality control testing before it would be shipped out. What's more, because of the delay, they agreed to ship it to me FedEx overnight, so that I could have it by the weekend. That helped cool my ire, and I anxiously awaited my package. By now, for those who are keeping track, my camera had been gone just over a month, during which time my son had been doing some good work on walking, none of which I had on tape.
It took their quality control department a whole day to do their thing, but sure enough I received it from FedEx the day after they issued their stamp of approval. I opened the package, removed the camera from the wrapping with great care, and immediately lost my cool at finding my formerly-pristine LCD display was now marred by scratches. I forced myself to calm down, however, reasoning that scratches on the LCD would be a small price to pay to have my camera back and working after a month without it.
I put a fresh tape in the camera, connected a fresh battery, took it out into the living room, and taped some of my son's antics. After a minute or so of footage, I switched to playback mode, rewound the tape, and was thrilled to see a blank, blue screen. Actually, 'thrilled' isn't the right word; I think 'stunned' is more accurate. You see, when I sent the unit to Mack Camera in the first place, it was having a few artifacts on playback with a single tape; when I got the unit back over a month later, it wouldn't play back any tape and had some "great" new scratches on the LCD to boot. To say I was pissed is a huge understatement.
So I called Mack Camera the very next day and demanded to speak with the service manager. This time I got a different individual; I don't know what happened to the former service manager, but I dealt with the new fellow throughout the rest of the ordeal. He was very apologetic and assured me that the problem would be repaired. They would send me a shipping label, after which I would merely have to box up and send my camera off to them again, and all would be made right. I explained to this fellow how terribly important it was to me that I get this camera back in working order as quickly as possible; we were losing moments of my son's life every day. He promised me they would make sure it was right this time.
I sent the camera off for its second trip in the second week of June. I should have known they were full of crap by this point. Not only did Mack Camera fail to fix my camera, not only did they lose it and generally fail in virtually every respect, but the shipping label they sent me was UPS ground! So after all that lip service to how they took my concerns seriously, they sent me a shipping label that burned another week in transit time from one end of the country to the other. Just great.
I almost shipped it back myself by FedEx, but there was the principle of the thing: they screwed it up, so they should pick up the tab. I gritted my teeth, muttered a few choice phrases, and used their shipping label, but I wasn't happy about it. I tracked the package all the way across the country, every excruciating day, until it finally arrived at their facility.
As before, its on-line status soon changed to indicate it was on a technician's desk, and it stayed on said technician's desk for a week, though I don't know what that really means. I don't know if that means he was working on it for a week, if he spent ten minutes with it and ordered a part that took four days to come in, or something else. What I do know is that they didn't actually lose my camera the second time. Just over a week after they received it, the camera headed to their quality department for final approval, and this time it stayed there for nearly a week. I had good feelings about it by the time it was approved. I mean, if they spent a week repairing it and a week testing it, they would have to get it right. Right?
My good feelings abated somewhat when I saw they had shipped it back to me, or to be more precise when I discovered they shipped it back to me via UPS ground. Bear in mind, folks, that I had sent the camera in to them in the first days of May. I didn't get it back until June after the first episode, and it was now July. By this time I had already missed two months of my son's life—and two very significant months in terms of his development, no less. Every additional day was weighing heavily on me without that camera. But, I consoled myself, a week wasn't so long to wait after all; I would soon have my camera back, it would surely be working, and I could put all the ugliness behind me.
The package arrived, and I removed the camera from its packing with no small amount of trepidation the instant I got home from work. My nerves were soothed somewhat when I saw that they had actually fixed the scratches on the LCD, or replaced it, I suppose; whatever the case, the LCD was again pristine. I put in a fresh tape, attached a fresh battery, and powered it on. I taped a quick forty seconds or so of footage, mostly just panning the camera around my office, switched to playback mode, and rewound the tape for the crucial test.
A five-hundred pound weight dropped from around my neck the moment I saw the ugliness that is my office on the LCD. It worked! It really worked! After two months without my camera, I was once again video-capable. I smiled and jubilantly let my wife know that we were again good to go. Because it was so close to dinner time, I turned off the camera and set it aside to eat with the family. During the meal we talked about taping some footage that night, since my son had learned yet another new thing that day. All was good with the world; I had emerged from my time in purgatory at last.
The only problem was that I hadn't earned my wings; quite the contrary, I had graduated to full-blown hell. After dinner, I retrieved the camera, brought it out to the family room, turned it on, and... turned it on, and... Wait, it wouldn't turn on. Pressing the power button wasn't doing anything. I tried swapping batteries. I tried connecting it to the wall-wart power supply. Nothing helped. Still, I figured this had to be a momentary glitch; the camera had just worked an hour or so before. In digging through the manual, I found a troubleshooting note that said I should essentially "reboot" the camera if it wouldn't power on. I followed their instructions and, sure enough, the camera powered on once again.
My sigh of relief was cut short by my cursing when the camera wouldn't play back. Or record. Or release the tape. Or power off. Or power back on after disconnecting the battery. I spent the next two hours trying various combinations of troubleshooting procedures from the manual, my annoyance turning to rage all the while. By the time I gave up on it, the periphery of my visual field literally had a red tinge. I wanted nothing more badly in the world than five minutes in a sound proofed room with the employees of Mack Camera.
I haven't had thoughts that black since I was a teen, working for an abusive old man at a car wash. He's the only man in this world I have ever genuinely hated and actually thought about killing. And I don't mean the sort of idle overstatements of which I'm guilty today. No, I mean actual, highly detailed, step by step plans as to how I could kill him and get away with it. But I digress. He's long dead now, his car wash business failed years ago, and I've forgiven him his cruelty. I bring it up only because it took his being abusive to me every working day for over a year to produce that kind of hatred; Mack Camera had taken me to the same state of mind with a minimum of interaction.
I have to say that I'm surprised at how I handled the phone calls the following day. I was restrained, even gracious. I have no idea where that came from, certainly not from my character. Surprisingly, I was calm and agreeable as I discussed the situation with the service manager at Mack Camera, who couldn't understand how this could have happened. But after walking me through a few troubleshooting procedures, he said that the problem was likely an issue with the camera's logic board itself. We talked for quite a while and ultimately agreed on the following:
Unfortunately, this was going to take even longer than the last time. It would take a week just to get the camera to them, after which it would probably take another week to get it to Panasonic—apparently, they were unable to use FedEx or other overnight/next-day modes of shipping for some unknown reason—after which it would take ten to fourteen days for the repair, and so forth. I didn't have that long, but I was tired of fighting this ridiculous process.
I talked it over with my wife and headed out to Best Buy that very night. We're not made of money, but we weren't going to go without video footage of my son's first birthday. We had already missed two, big months in his little life, and we weren't prepared to miss any more.
So I did some research and found that the PV-GS400 had since been discontinued in favor of the PV-GS500, which was a new and "improved" version without some of the enthusiast features that made the PV-GS400 such a hit. In truth, I didn't realize just how good a job of picking a camera I had done until that evening, but I found several PV-GS400 units selling on EBay for as much as I had paid for it originally. Excuse me for a moment while I gloat.
Gloating aside, those facts cast the situation in a new light. We figured we would extend ourselves financially and buy a second camera. If our unit came back in working order, we could obviously sell it on EBay for a good price. And in the worst case, we would receive a check that would cover the cost of the new camera anyway. We really didn't have the extra money, but we figured we could float it on a credit card for a month or two, and that's all that would be required to bring the whole situation to a close.
So I hooked up with a salesman at our local Best Buy and bought a brand new PV-GS500 on the spot. He gave me a great deal on it and, despite the nightmare experience with Mack Camera, I bought Best Buy's maximum warranty coverage. I hope we never have to use it, but if we do I won't be shipping the bloody thing anywhere; I'll be driving to my local Best Buy and handing it to them. Best of all, because the PV-GS500 uses all the same gear as the PV-GS400, I didn't have to re-buy any of the accessories I had purchased for my original camera. I got out of the store with the unit and warranty for about $1,000, which was a really good deal at the time.
I brought my new camera home, double-checked all the warranty paperwork was present and filed properly, and fired it up. We had a good time that night, playing with my son and taping his trademarked, drunken-sailor walk. I didn't have to care anymore. Whatever happened with the old camera, we were all set for my son's birthday. We had a huge purchase on the credit card, for which we didn't have the money, but life was again good.
The only things remaining to bring this awful tale to a close are the final insults. Nearly two months later, I finally got clarification from Mack Camera as to the status of my old unit: it was repaired by Panasonic and on its way back to me. I should have it within the week. When it didn't arrive (naturally), I went through all the hassle of contacting their service manager yet again, only to find that he was on vacation for three weeks. The person with whom I spoke told me some tale about how Panasonic had lost the unit and then, after finding it, decided they couldn't repair it after all, or at least that's what I was told.
That was bad enough, but the final insult, Mack Camera's coup de grace, was being told that a brand new, Panasonic PV-GS500 was on its way to us. I was pissed! I didn't want a brand new, Panasonic PV-GS500 because I already had one! Apparently, because service manager guy was on vacation, and was either too lazy or too stupid to make a simple note in the log as to our agreement, they couldn't cut me a check without his authorization! So they had already closed out my account and sent me a new unit as compensation.
After the service manager got back from vacation, I called him and spoke at length about getting my money, but he wouldn't budge. He did apologize that I had been sent a duplicate unit instead of the check he had promised, but he wouldn't budge. That pleasant-voiced son of a bitch wouldn't honor his commitment, so I got stuck with a second camera. There was "nothing he could do" because the unit had already been replaced. That man should thank God I don't live anywhere near New Jersey. I haven't hit anyone in years, but for him I would make an exception.
The worst part was that the PV-GS500 wouldn't sell. If Panasonic had fixed my unit, I would easily have recovered my money from the purchase of the second camera. Or if the bastards at Mack Camera had actually cut me a check for the full value of my warranty ($1,000) as promised, I would still have recovered my money. But no, they sent me a PV-GS500, and the most I could get for it turned out to be $550. So in the final analysis, I paid $100+ for a warranty that ultimately cost me an additional $450+ in order to arrive at a unit that does less than the unit I purchased originally!
I have never previously in my life encountered the kind of rank incompetence that I got from Mack Camera. I sent them my unit, and they sent it back in worse shape. When I sent it to them again, they again sent it back in still worse shape! When I sent it in a third time, I was ultimately screwed yet again when they reneged on the deal we had struck. And that's not even mentioning the week-long ground shipping back and forth, losing my camera twice, lying to me, and rarely bothering to return any of my calls.
The bottom line, if somewhat inelegant, is that Mack Camera sucks! As near as I can tell, they're a bunch of disingenuous clowns who break cameras, not fix them. Avoid the bastards at all costs if you value your camera, your wallet, and your sanity. Or, should you find they hold the paper on your warranty, go buy a gun and a one-way ticket to New Jersey. You'll want those things soon enough.
11/22/2006