Zen Micro Warranty - What a load of....

Question

Word of Warning to those that have bought Zen from overseas as I have.
Some history first. I bought 4 Zen Micro in Feb'05 for my frens thinking the function and the look and feel of the player is better than IPOD and I know the Creative Brand.
I bought the Zen from overseas to bring it back to Australia to use while I was on Holiday. Which I'm sure is a normal thing these days. Thinking to myself that Creative is an international brand surly like any electronic goods now days if something happened to it. I will be covered by some sort of international warranty or at least even take it to Creative in my county to fix.
Anyway out of the 4 Zen Micro players 2 played up ( is ok after firmware upgrade, still acting up and the 3rd one only switched on to the Logo and stuck there. The player is pretty much Died)
To cut the story short I wrote to them with regarding my player is dead, they replied back with some solution (which I received very quick response from creative) but it was still no good. When I asked now that I have a Dead Player that was only purchased not 6 months ago what can I possibly do, this is the response that I received.
"As regards to your enquiry, we would like to extend our utmost serviceto assist you. However, please allow me to explain the situation to you,so that you can have a better understanding in terms of the servicingyour product.We would like to inform you that Creative do not provide internationalwarranty coverage for our retail products. We have an agreement with ourauthorized dealers and distributors that user are to send faulty productto us for servicing through them. In this way, all the freight chargeswill be bear by the distributors/dealers and Creative. This is also toprotect our users? investment in purchasing the original product from anauthorized dealer/distributor in their country.As such, we recommend and encourage our customers to purchase ourproducts in their own countries, and to utilize the service of ourauthorized dealers/distributors. In your case, you are sending the product to another channel but werenot purchased from them but through another dealer, they reserve theright not to take in your product. However, if they are willingly toservice your product, you will have to pay for the product servicecharge of AU$55.00 subjected to their approval. Moreover, if thewarranty period had expires, there will be a replacement cost incurred."
So basically I have been told that my player is dead. And only way to get it fix is for me to fly it back to the place of Origin (and NOT to Creative I was told but rather the shop where I bought it).
I tried calling up Creative in Aus and the customer service there gave me the same answer basically there is NOTHING they can do. But instead they gave me a Mobile Phone number to some guy that can "FIX" my player.
So after spending 400 bucks buying 4 players, I am left with 3 that are with faults and dead player.
If anything else happens to the other 3 player I'm pretty much stuffed.
Unless I go and pay for another 500 Plane ticket, to fly back where I first purchased the player hand over my receipt to the "Reseller" sit there and wait for them to go back to Creative and then come back to me with an Answer there is nothing much I can do.
Thanks alot Creative.
Another Faithless Customer

Answer 1

mupsai wrote:
Says it all when you buy 4 and they all develop faults.
How comes u never bought in ur home country but bought 4 at once abroad? Have they been cheaper than usual? Have u wondered why is that? It seems strange 2 me because I have and it works perfectly, 4 out of 4 seems very strange!Message Edited by ruff on 08-8-2005 :3 AM