Whilst on holiday in Florida I visited a small electronics store and I asked for a price on a Sony hard disk camcorder. The sales guy said for a few dollars more I could buy a high definition (HD) Panasonic memory stick camcorder that was much smaller. He also said that the hard disk camcorders were end of line as nobody was making them anymore. I later found this piece of information to be totally untrue.
My main concern was that I had a valid warranty for the UK. When I asked he said that as it was Panasonic I could take it into PC World or process the warranty through the manufacturer's UK website. Happy with this I agreed to purchase this camcorder and paid the bill using my Barclaycard.
We spent the rest of that day at a water park and it wasn't until the next morning that I realised what I'd actually bought. It wasn't Panasonic at all, but a cheap market stall' type camcorder branded Cybertec. The sales guy was careful to show me only one side of the camcorder which had a Panasonic CCD (Charge Coupled Device) sticker on it and the person who took the payment was very careful not to show me the box, which was also marked Cybertec. The receipt was stamped with Special Order and looking at the small print there are no refunds on special orders, which was all part of the scam.
The next day I went into the shop to complain. The same sales guy was there and when I asked for a refund he called the manager over. I told him the sales guy had told me it was a Panasonic HD (High Definition) unit, but it was neither HD nor Panasonic. The manager tried to tell me that the camcorder was Panasonic, as it had a Panasonic CCD. He also claimed it was HD as it could take HD still pictures. As the video resolution was just 640x480, it was far from being a HD resolution camcorder.
When I asked about the warranty the manager stuck to the same story that the sales guy gave me, that PC World or Panasonic would honour the warranty. I pointed out to him that PC World does not sell this no name product and Panasonic have no obligation to process the warranty either. I asked him why Panasonic would fix a camcorder just because someone built it using one of their CCD's. He even claimed that Cybertec was a premium brand in the United States and just as good as Panasonic. I told him I'd looked at the big US price comparison websites like mySimon and could find no reference to this brand or model, but he still stuck by his story.
I asked him why they had stamped my receipt with special order when they'd taken the camcorder straight out of their storeroom, but he couldn't explain this and avoided the question. I can understand why stores won't refund special orders that they've had to order items in at cost to themselves, but in this case the 'special order' stamp was a device used to avoid giving refunds.
As I was not happy with their stories about warranty and the fact that they misled me when selling this camcorder, I again asked for a full refund, but they refused point blank to refund my card or take the camcorder back.
This company misled me when selling this camcorder and they charged me more for this camcorder than I could have paid for a top brand camcorder such as Panasonic or Sony. The manager's claim that It was just as good as a Panasonic proved to be untrue. When I returned to the UK I viewed some video footage from this camcorder and it was not just grainy, but pretty much unviewable. Not only did they trick me into buying this no name camcorder, the goods they supplied were not fit for purpose either.
Brit77
London
Europe
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