In March a ccd imaging device was ordered from this company, at a cost of $645. Payment was made by VISA creditcard.
In June the item was delivered to us in the UK. It was subsequently used very lightly and, due to other family committments, I eventually packed it away in its box in October to await more free personal time to use it.
In January serious faults developed which we could not analyse. Many emails sent to the company were never answered. No-one similarly ever answered the phone. The problems were posted on the customer/camera owners forum, with very little effect.
Eventually we were forced to post aggressive messages in the forum to get the company owners to respond.
When they did, they eventually agreed that we could send it back.
Due to the high costs of shipping gear backwards and forwards from UK to USA, we asked for a refund instead of repair; since we envisaged that the problem might not be fully solved and that we might be faced with repeated shippings.
The ccd imager was returned to the company at the end of February. I spent from March to early May chasing the company to find out if it had arrived back; never got any responses.
I was then informed by another imager-owner that the company had ceased answering their standard email boxes due to spam.
That customer then gave me the address of a messaging-board (which I had never heard of, and never even been informed about), which I subsequently used to send a message, demanding a response regarding the returned goods.
Two mailings went unanswered, until I threatened to involve my creditcard company.
A response finally came in early May and we were offered $350, almost half the original price.
Due to the massive aggravation, we decided to cut our losses and accept it. However, the money was never refunded to our creditcard.
When pressed, the company gave the lame excuse that they did not want to do a chargeback because it would cost them $50, and could they send us a dollar cheque.
I replied no, because dollar cheques are expensive to negotiate in the UK banks.
Then the company asked if we had a Paypal account; which we do not.
At this point, I compiled a large report and posted it to VISA (London). After several weeks, it seems that they had agreed to allow SAC to refund to my creditcard account without the charge.
I was advised to email the company and let them know.
That was the 1st August. At the time of writing this report, I AM STILL WAITING for the refund.
Almost six months have gone by now, and as well as filing this report, I am now in the process of going back to VISA and asking them to up the pressure.
So much for American business, when they can't even deal with a currency other than dollars.
This company has since set up agents in Europe and one or two other places; unfortunately that doesnt help my case because I purchased my product from the USA direct at a time when the agents did not exist.
I believe this company is short of cash, short of people and short of ability to deal efficiently with its customers. I am extremely irritated to find them launching new products when they cannot even service the customers properly who have bought from them in the past.
There are doubtless customers who will sing their praises for the wonderful products, but in my opinion they are worth nothing when one has to go through all this hassle and time-wasting to get a refund.
It just isnt tolerated in the UK.
Chris
Bristol
United Kingdom
0 comments