Don't you just love it when you order a "premium" product (The Bragi Dash Pro), pay $470 AUD (plus international transaction fees), have it arrive TWO MONTHS later, then when it finally arrives it's DEFECTIVE?
No, nobody does. It's right up there in the horrible experiences diary, along with amputated bug in your pizza, and having to play it cool while out on a date after using a public toilet that had no toilet paper. They all stink. Oh but there's more... You tell the company (Bragi) you bought it from that there is a problem and expect them to sincerely apologise and organise to send you one that isn't broken. NOPE, they try to use the Jedi mind trick on you and tell you that there is no defect, and that it's how electronics are supposed to work. WTF? A couple of emails later he tells me that he misunderstood and thought I was referring to the Dash and not the Dash Pro. Remember this for later. I should probably explain that the Dash Pro is a wireless pair of headphones much like the Apple AirPods and the problem I was experiencing was a distinct and annoying constant white noise coming from just the left earbud when playing music in low volume. Around the same time, my wife (who bought me the headphones for my birthday), jumped on Facebook and messaged them to complain. She already had a chat going with support as I mentioned earlier they arrived two months after ordering. She hadn't noticed that the shipping estimate of 45 days was in work days. Poor thing she felt so bad when they didn't arrive on time. Seriously who estimates shipping in WORK DAYS? Who do you think you're fooling (besides my wife), you clearly think it sounds better than under 2 months, but it just leaves people who didn't notice annoyed. I would love to know how many people made that mistake. Interestingly their 14 day returns policy is not in working days. But I digress... They STOPPED RESPONDING to her on Facebook. Haha as I write this, my wife informs me that they just responded today. SEVEN days since their last response! What's hilarious about this is that a different person responded to her with EXACTLY the same Jedi mind trick response they had used with me earlier EXCEPT this time they swapped out the Dash with the Dash Pro. Response from Josh to me >> "I understand that The Dash is having some irregularities in the background noise. I will try to explain why this might occur when using The Dash..." Response from Nina to my wife >> "I understand that The Dash Pro is having some irregularities in the background noise. I will try to explain why this might occur when using The Dash Pro..." Another side note about Bragi - I believe they started on Kickstarter like 3 or 4 years ago with The Dash. It was a great idea but ended up having a lot of problems with connectivity and sound quality so they redesigned it and released the Dash Pro - which is supposedly meant to have resolved all the problems with the previous one. Apparently not. Is it a DEFECTIVE pair or is this NORMAL? I don't think anybody expects to pay such a large sum of money for headphones that are advertised as being ultra premium yet emanates such an annoying white noise from only one side. Yet they're not willing to replace it with a working set, and make excuses like "There is always a background hiss in electronic devices". That tells me that this is a common problem with the new Dash Pro. They don't feel there is a point in replacing it, since its likely the replacement would have the same problem. I have to Pay for Return Shipping?! After some back and forth with the customer service representative, I requested to escalate the problem, to only be told that the rep. I have been speaking to is the "Senior After Sales Manager", and escalations would go to him. Sigh. Oh did I mention He diagnosed me with a hearing impediment in my left ear... "Your unit might not be faulty because this could be that your ear is just more sensitive to that specific noise." What happened to basic troubleshooting? How about telling me to try it in both ears? Or ask someone else to try it to be sure? No the evidence is apparently conclusive, and I should probably see an ENT. In his last email to me he advised that he is now allowing me to get a replacement, but I have to pay for return shipping! After all, it's my fault they sent me a busted device, isn't it? It's not their fault I have a hearing impediment. However, their reasoning for making me pay for return shipping was "we are still a growing company". I'm sorry, but how is that fair? I did my part and gave you a whopping amount of money for a product that you sold me on being of premium quality. You failed to do that. Yet I have to pay for your mistake? Preempting a hell no response from me, he slapped me with their terms and conditions and pointed me to the "Returns and Refunds" section. But he knows I was asking for a replacement, given that he said no at first then yes. So why didn't he point me to the "Defects; Warranties; " section? Which doesn't seem to say anything about paying for return shipping of a defective set. Are they also going to charge me to send a new and hopefully non-defective set? I now have to respond again and ask him...why is he given me the run around? Again all this makes me feel like it's to be expected from the new and improved Dash Pro to make such a noise in the left earbud. Are they having manufacturing problems where a large number of their headphones are defective? What's fair? Either send me a new device and I return the one I have at Bragi's expense, since it was their mistake OR admit that these are not as premium as they have claimed, and that this defect is in fact normal or a regular occurence. N.B. - I will be posting both full conversations with Josh via the customer service portal, and Moritz and Nina via FB messagener when I get my head around this blogging tool. Where to from here? I would really like to give Bragi the benefit of the doubt and put it down to a couple of bad customer representatives, or miscommunication. I have shown my support for Bragi by giving them a LOT of money for their product and service, but so far I have been let down by both. However, I am still willing to hear a fair and reasonable response from them, and I would love to talk to someone who isn't just going to copy/paste standard responses and completely ignore what I'm saying. I don't want a one-sided conversation. I hope this post helps them understand how frustrating that is. End of vent. |
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My name is Peter Youssef and I'm an average guy who lives in Australia and occasionally needs to vent. ArchivesCategories |