DroneFly.com Customer Service?

[HollyFlier]

I purchased my PV from DroneFly. It has the Invalid Battery issue and the camera loses power intermittently. I sent DroneFly an email on Tuesday with no response. I called on Wednesday to inquire about a return / exchange of my defective unit. They said I would have to wait 2-3 days to get approval from DJI for a return or exchange. They also indicated that the firmware 'fix' would be out next week and that would cure the Invalid Battery issue. I am beginning to get nervous that I just blew $1200 on a defective product that I won't be able to return!
Has anyone else dealt with DroneFly on a return or exchange of the PV or any other product? Was the experience good or bad? Just trying to get a feel for where I stand.
Thanks,
Eric

 

[Sidewinder]

I've been getting a little uneasy feeling as I have one that the camera refuses to work. Haven't even flown it other than about 10 min when the camera failed so didn't get to opportunity for the battery fault yet. But, been on the phone several time (like 4-5 times) and the promise is "we will get in touch with DJI and get back to you. Two weeks and a half and no get back. Getting a little antsy here and now looking at making some demands. I think I've been more than patient. I want them to fix the camera or send me a new machine OR just take the thing back and refund my money .... ALL OF IT.

They advertised that you could pre-order and they would not bill until the Phantom shipped. However, in my case they billed and took the money weeks before they had the first Vison in stock. That got my attention and when I called them they said it was just an error but didn't correct it. They did ship the Phantom the first day they got them so I was okay with that as I was going to pay sooner or later. Just was not comfortable the way it happened. So, I wrote it off to error ... no harm (other than Dronefly having my money several weeks with no product). Now, approaching three weeks and I see no evidence or have I heard from them concerning my camera problem. Understandably, with the battery problems and some phantoms dropping out of the sky I know they have a hand full but as a customer it's not my concern I want to be made whole and get my bird fixed and working as advertised.

I've stayed quiet now for a while but my patience is wearing out.

 

[Sidewinder]

I didn't even have a hard landing ..... the camera just stopped working in flight and never regained consciousness. One landing ... smooth and been dickin around with them for over two weeks. One guy over at RC groups had a bad camera and they exchanged for a new one. Mine never really liked to stay logged onto the system .. it takes about 5 min of logging on ... dropping the wifi logging on ... etc totally aggravating PITA. These threads here and at other sites about all these problems has set me off I'm calling in the morning and not leaving it alone until I get a fix or I have to go file some action next week to get my dough back.

 

[Gizmo3000]

Well for those of you who are new to DJI and this is your first Phantom, welcome to the early adopter/"beta test stage" :mrgreen:

DJI (as well as GoPro last year) seems to have a bit of a history of putting out not-quite-ready-for-release products, so it's up to the early adopters to discover the sometimes-serious flaws. Give them time and it'll get sorted, hopefully sooner than later.

Give the dealers a little bit of slack if you can, as they're more like the middle-men who have to deal with DJI-coperate in China, and are set up kind of like independent car dealerships. They're probably equally as frustrated when the product is defective.
(DJI USA is merely a sort of a propaganda division, they don't deal with customers at all).

 

[Sidewinder]

Well, when you call and it's like starting the process all over again, one gets a bit frustrated. "what's your name again? It's doing what? Try (step 1. ... step 2. etc) all over again .... it's like talking to someone with Alzheimer''s. The problem ain't going away, the camera doesn't power up. Gimble works, quad works just no camera and the wifi won't stay connected. How hard can this be?

I paid $1200 hard cash for something that was questionable to begin with and a major feature failed in less than 10 minutes. There's no damage, there's been no crash, there's not a single scratch on any part including the blades. Several contacts with dealer and no resolution in sight. I'd think they'd at least call every once and a while and say " hey, we're still working on your problem and update me on what's being done to correct this.

They've been very nice on the phone but have accomplished nothing to address my problem.

@Holly Flyer asked if anyone has had experience with DroneFly. I can only relate my own experience and my perception based on an almost identical problem. This may or may not represent a typical customer service interaction with said dealer. I don't know. I do know I will be reluctant to deal with DJI in the future on a RTF product. I suppose DroneFly is somewhat hostage to DJI and their reputation suffers in this case because the lack of response from DJI. Would I deal with DroneFly again? Yes. But that too depends on how this is resolved. DJI .... that's another case. They are industry leaders in components for now but that may not last as this is a rapidly moving technology and there's plenty of R&D going on out there.

From my POV, you're better off building your own machine (depends on what you want to do with it). I just bought this for taking stills and the extended flight time. I got neither .... up to this point.

 

[Dave Pitman]

Well for those of you who are new to DJI and this is your first Phantom, welcome to the early adopter/"beta test stage" :mrgreen:

DJI (as well as GoPro last year) seems to have a bit of a history of putting out not-quite-ready-for-release products, so it's up to the early adopters to discover the sometimes-serious flaws. Give them time and it'll get sorted, hopefully sooner than later.

Give the dealers a little bit of slack if you can, as they're more like the middle-men who have to deal with DJI-coperate in China, and are set up kind of like independent car dealerships. They're probably equally as frustrated when the product is defective.
(DJI USA is merely a sort of a propaganda division, they don't deal with customers at all).

While this may be true, they sell product for profit. Profit is defined as earning money for taking risk. They (the dealers) are big boys, and need to step up to the plate when things get tough, period.

 

[Reckless...]

I just bought my first DJI Phantom 2 Vision (11/14/2013) and have been reading all the posts good and bad about the vision itself and the dealers that sell them. I was told that there is an software update coming soon but today I found out they DJI only supports the PC not a Mac. The dealer that I bought it from said I need to install some type of PC program to download the upgrade. I had to hesitate a moment before I responded to his statement because I was laughing so hard. Not compatible with a Mac, Really. I haven't heard that since about 1995. I can see this is going to get interesting.

More to come....

 

[Gizmo3000]

I definitely agree,. would be nice if there was a dealer that really went out of their way to satisfy customers.
but it definitely does seem as tho they're working with one hand tied behind their back.
(I heard one person state that some dealers ended up losing money on certain returns, which sounds whacked,. maybe DJI makes them pay for shipping products back to the factory?).

What would be nice if if DJI USA actually served their purpose and did more than produce promotional material!@#

and I definite agree, they make almost no effort to educate potential buyers just how necessary having a PC is, and that Mac users have to run Windows under emulation to do more advanced things.(and updates)
But that's how it is for many chinese RC hobby things, it's as if Mac's don't exist in China

 

[Reckless...]

But that's how it is for many chinese RC hobby things, it's as if Mac's don't exist in China

Mac's only seem to exist in the factories in China where there made.