In short: Postal fraud and poor communication
I ordered two Xiaomi Yi action cameras from Gadgets 4 Geeks, reasoning that I was less likely to experience problems I'd been having importing products with Li-Ion batteries in them, if I ordered from an Aussie retailer. Wrong :(
One camera arrived with brown smearing of the image (probably a faulty sensor)
When I contacted them, G4G asked me to troubleshoot problems with equipment that was defective on arrival to try to resolve the defect before eventually agreeing to replace the camera.
The "Managing Director" of the company (Simon Tory) was the one sporadically answering my support emails. He kept referring to their "support team", but I got the niggling feeling that it might just be him on his own. There would be no contact for a week, I would ask them to keep in touch, and then it would happen again. They didn't even let me know when my replacement has been posted.
I wasn't especially happy with the communication from the sender, so I had sent the return via registered post.
When I picked up the replacement package from post office, it was the same package as I had sent, with the destination blacked out with texta, and "RTS" (Return to sender) written on it. I flagged this with the postal staff, and they examined the package and found it to be re-sealed to avoid paying for return postage. They informed me that it was postal fraud, and that both parties could be charged at their discretion.
I am furious that a supposedly legitimate business would commit fraud to save $5 in postage, and put their customer at risk of being charged with fraud for it.
In the resealed package the defective camera had been replaced with an older model - I suspect it was a refurbished one, but it worked, and I had so little trust left in Simon that I didn't want to bother asking for a new one.
I have since ordered the same product from overseas. Similar delivery time, 30% cheaper, no problems. read more