Boy was I about to make an idiot of myself.
I contacted DJI the day I received my new batteries for my Phantom 4 from them and let them know I had received a DOA (Dead on Arrival). I was requesting info about where I could get support in Australia as I didn’t want to have to send the battery back to Hong Kong.
You may not know, but it’s a pain in the ass to send a lithium battery anywhere, especially when it’s not installed in a device. They are considered a dangerous good and can’t be sent via regular post… though they can magically be delivered by regular post.
The cost to send it back to Hong Kong for service would have been around $90 which would have pretty much negated my whole reason for buying it from there in the first place (cost saving).
On my first contact with DJI they said Nope, we can’t help you, you bought it out of your region so you can’t get support for the battery in Australia, nor directly from DJI, you need to go back to your dealer to get support. They don’t have global support for their products.
On that advice I wrote them a semi-heated note the next morning saying how bad their service was and how I’d expect more from a global company, and how even had I bought it from DJI directly it would have come to me from Hong Kong because that’s where they are for our region.
And then I didn’t hear anything more. I was annoyed and saddened that I’d have to send this unit back to Hong Kong, at my expense because it had arrived DOA.
This morning I was ready to rail on them because of their lack of response. I was going to go full social media blast angry.
Then I clicked on a link in the original reply saying they couldn’t help, it lead to their support ticket site. I didn’t know my login, and requested a password reset.
Logged in and saw a bunch of replies from Alice, who was my rep at DJI… there was even one five minutes after her initial email saying “nope we’re not going to help” this new reply said… “We’d love to help you, checked it out, the dealer you bought from does have a presence in Australia and our Australian support team will come and collect the unit, test it and send you a replacement.”
I never received the notice via email… her other correspondence, which I also didn’t get, was basically her reiterating that reply and asking when they can come and get the faulty battery.
So while I do have to apologise to DJI for all the bad things I have been thinking bout them for the last few days… I would like to say, something in their system is broken.
Long story short, I bought from http://www.e-infin.com/au/ their prices were almost a third less the cost of a battery directly from DJI and DJI are supporting the replacement… YAY.
Of course some folks have said that DJI take around 6 weeks to get you your replacement item, they insist on testing the returned item first. So I’m still in for a bit of a wait for the battery to come back.