Horrible experience with DJI buyer beware

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Long post but the end is worth it trust me....
In early April I purchased my phantom pro 4 v2. This is my second addition to my DJI fleet. I purchased then care refresh plan because I will be using this drone for more difficult jobs so I wanted the added protection. June 23 I crashed the drone and it fell into a creek ultimately totaling it. That day I applied to have it repaired or replaced via my DJI care refresh. The drone was received by them July 2nd. On July 5th the repair progress inquiry stated drone has been replaced and is preparing to be shipped this will take up to 1 business day. Every day I checked this status update until a week passed. I decided to contact dji at this point just to check on the process. It’s at this point I begin getting frustrated, then angry.
The first phone call I made was July 12. The customer service representative answered the phone by saying “hello”. I proceeded to tell her the reason for my call and waited for her to respond, she did not say a word until a minute later I said “do you need my case number or something” to which she responded yeah sure go ahead. She placed me on hold and hung up 4 min later.
I gave them the benefit of the doubt and called back on the following Monday 3 days later. I spoke with a man who said his name was Joe. Joe was actually very pleasant and said he would look into the case. After placing me on hold he told me that I had not paid for my $1000 repair bill yet. I informed him of the timeline and that in fact I paid my refresh fee over a week and a half ago and the inquiry says it was supposed to have shipped the 5th. He placed me on hold again and came back saying that DJI is out of batteries to replace mine with and they were waiting for the replacement. I told him I have plenty of extra batteries and to please send the drone alone if he can. He said he escalated my case and I should hear back within 48 hours. I must say to DJI credit Joe was actually very nice and helpful.
48 hours passed and I contacted them again because I had not heard anything via email or phone. This time I spoke with Mark. Mark was extremely rude and condescending stating that the battery is not covered under the care refresh. I know this is the case. I read the policy and know the battery is not covered. My qualm is with it has now been 2 and a half weeks from when you received my drone, and 2 weeks since you claimed your going to ship it “within 1 business day”. Why then are you telling me now that you are not shipping it because of the battery. He could not explain this, or the prior rep Joes statement on the battery stall. Why was I not contacted saying I have the option to pay for a new battery? Why was the drone not shipped back with the old battery or no battery? At this point I ask for a supervisor and mark informs me he has escalated my case and I will hear from a supervisor.... you guessed it.... within 48 hours. I was not surprised when in 72 hours I had not heard from them yet.
Finally I sent a complaint email stating all of these grievances. I got the automated response that I would hear from a rep in 48 hours. This time I received an email saying my case has now been escalated and will ship. A week later. Mind you, this is over a month now they ship the drone, giving me 2 separate case I’d number one for the battery and one for the drone. I thought maybe they did the right thing and sent me the battery for my trouble.
No such luck. They shipped the old battery (which I am okay with by the way). However, they shipped the new drone back in the same case!!!!! The same case that has sand all in it from the creek! So there is sand stuck under all of the sensor stickers, prop stickers, under the motor, WOW. This is unacceptable service and I will follow up once again but feel as if I am banging my head against a wall.
I understand they control the market. But competition will come, and soon. If you can do not purchase a drone from this company and support terrible service like this.
Lastly, if this is made right by them in some way I will unbiasedly report back and edit this post. Until then I am one extremely disgruntled customer/ small business owner who will not be giving DJI anymore of my hard earned money.
Thanks for listening and good luck/ fly safe
 

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However, they shipped the new drone back in the same case!!!!! The same case that has sand all in it from the creek! So there is sand stuck under all of the sensor stickers, prop stickers, under the motor, WOW.
This portion would be my issue, if I were involved. You as the consumer should have cleaned the case prior to shipping. That is not their responsibility. Or, use a different method of shipping. Most of the remainder of your rant is fairly legitimate IMO.
 
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I do agree their Customer Service leaves you with a lot to be desired, but you will find that their drones are second to none. Many of us purchase their drones, just because of that reason and use third party repairmen to get our drones serviced, just not to deal with DJI. Just remember you have that option.
 
This portion would be my issue, if I were involved. You as the consumer should have cleaned the case prior to shipping. That is not their responsibility. Or, use a different method of shipping. Most of the remainder of your rant is fairly legitimate IMO.
I mean. This is debatable whether it was my responsibility to clean it or them to replace it (like I thought they would). I understand your point though. however the sand was so embedded into the crashed drone it had filled even the led casings on the bottom. So some spillage was unavoidable into any container it was shipped in. Flip side, common sense should have told the repair center to not ship it back in a case with this obvious of an issue. Call or email should have been made. I would have had no issue paying for a new case if they contacted me and told me your point. I appreciate the feedback though.
 
I do agree their Customer Service leaves you with a lot to be desired, but you will find that their drones are second to none. Many of us purchase their drones, just because of that reason and use third party repairmen to get our drones serviced, just not to deal with DJI. Just remember you have that option.
I agree, this was my first experience with them as I am very meticulous with my drone. Which is why I purchased the care refresh. I’m the future I will avoid the care refresh and use local repair services. Thank you for the advise.
 
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This is debatable whether it was my responsibility to clean it or them to replace it (like I thought they would).
My reasoning for my statement was the fact that I worked for a time at a trail camera repair center. Specifically, we would receive as many as 50 camera's from the field in a single box. Many of these were from the rain forest area and many were filled with termites, insects, etc,,etc... and at least once a live small mamba snake. Granted these were from conservationist societies and so forth WWF in particular. No one wants to work on such items, including myself. Most times they were completely trashed anyway. It is the principle involved and the "service" people have no idea what the article has been subject to. I understand and agree with your comments, except for the portion that I mentioned and this is why I said what I did.
 
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My reasoning for my statement was the fact that I worked for a time at a trail camera repair center. Specifically, we would receive as many as 50 camera's from the field in a single box. Many of these were from the rain forest area and many were filled with termites, insects, etc,,etc... and at least once a live small mamba snake. Granted these were from conservationist societies and so forth WWF in particular. No one wants to work on such items, including myself. Most times they were completely trashed anyway. It is the principle involved and the "service" people have no idea what the article has been subject to. I understand and agree with your comments, except for the portion that I mentioned and this is why I said what I did.
Well, if everyone agreed about everything the world would be a pretty boring place. Agree to disagree. Either way. Glad we agree the rest of the service was awful.
 
Well, if everyone agreed about everything the world would be a pretty boring place. Agree to disagree. Either way. Glad we agree the rest of the service was awful.
Yeh i would have to say its not hard for a company to hold box upside down and blow with a compressor,,surely they have one,thats just lazy on there part,,yeh sure you could have cleaned before shipping but dirt and grit still would have come from the drone and would have been visable to them,,thats like putting nice lunch in a dirty lunch box,yes i would tell them being me,,good luck,it wouldent have taken them 5 mins to give qick clean to shipp back to you
 
I am glad that I never spend any money in the care refresh program and I certainly will never spend my hard earned money in another DJI drone. I have a spark, mavic pro platinum and an Evo. I love more the Autel Evo. But I also use the mavic and the spark. I am not going to buy any more drones until my small fleet are gone.
 
This portion would be my issue, if I were involved. You as the consumer should have cleaned the case prior to shipping. That is not their responsibility. Or, use a different method of shipping. Most of the remainder of your rant is fairly legitimate IMO.
Your comments don't even make sense about cleaning the case, DJI should have never processed the repair this way. Do you work for DJI?????
 
Your comments don't even make sense about cleaning the case, DJI should have never processed the repair this way. Do you work for DJI?????
No. I do not, nor would I. If you read the full statement in Post#6, you would notice the reasoning. It makes perfect sense.
 
I have found DJI service to be quirky like this. It's like they have 13yr olds working there. I've had to escalate things to get a reasonable action.

I had a bad experience with DJIs refresh policy too. They wanted to charge me a refresh fee for a warranty repair. It took an extra 10 days of escalating to upper management to get a rational decision to repair my pristine craft that had a failed gimbal, under warranty, just 4 months old. I'll never buy a refresh policy again. Some of the DJI repair folks are idiots IMO. The sandy box incident is added proof. However, DJI makes the best drones, no question. Love the product.

Just to be fair, DJI was good and reasonable on the 3 other warranty returns I sent over the last 4yrs.
 
I have found DJI service to be quirky like this. It's like they have 13yr olds working there. I've had to escalate things to get a reasonable action.

I had a bad experience with DJIs refresh policy too. They wanted to charge me a refresh fee for a warranty repair. It took an extra 10 days of escalating to upper management to get a rational decision to repair my pristine craft that had a failed gimbal, under warranty, just 4 months old. I'll never buy a refresh policy again. Some of the DJI repair folks are idiots IMO. The sandy box incident is added proof. However, DJI makes the best drones, no question. Love the product.

Just to be fair, DJI was good and reasonable on the 3 other warranty returns I sent over the last 4yrs.
Agreed they make the best drones at the moment. Key words being at the moment. Competition drives better products and lower prices so I truly hope a valid competitor enters the race here soon. Maybe even in Vegas this fall?
 
Agreed they make the best drones at the moment. Key words being at the moment. Competition drives better products and lower prices so I truly hope a valid competitor enters the race here soon. Maybe even in Vegas this fall?
Autel is next in making a good competition to the mavic products and their customer service is light years ahead of DJI.
 
Autel is next in making a good competition to the mavic products and their customer service is light years ahead of DJI.
Autel has 4 people in their warranty support group. They aren't much better, and dinky in comparison to DJI. Sure you might get a better experience, but the wait time is still 2-4wks for warranty repair turn-around.

The drones from DJI (MP, M2, M2, P4P) are very sophisticated, and amazing performance in range, battery, software app, and reliability (overall). I see absolutely no other company even close to DJI for capabilities in the same price range. I was hoping Broadcom would disrupt the market with drone modules, as they were touting a couple years ago at NAB, Vegas. They have the communications expertise for a Lightbridge/Ocu-Sync type of communications, but since their announcement, saying "we're talking to many new drone companies" I've seen nothing from them, nor any viable drone manufacturer using their products. I just don't see the interest from any company after 3DR bit the dust 3yrs ago. GoPro was laughable.

Autel had a nice prototype a couple years ago at NAB, showing their X-Star with retractable landing gear and 360 rotating camera (400MM size drone), however that was never released. Their biggest issue is they still use WiFi and have never invested into a better communications protocol like Ocu-Sync for better video signal integrity with extended range of 4-5 miles. Until a drone manufacturer can equal DJI's performance for range, battery, and s/w, nobody is going to have a chance at growing very big, even with a 25% tariff on China. I expect DJI to be the leader for at least 5yrs, even though they haven't had any exciting releases in a while.
 
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Autel has 4 people in their warranty support group. They aren't much better, and dinky in comparison to DJI. Sure you might get a better experience, but the wait time is still 2-4wks for warranty repair turn-around.

The drones from DJI (MP, M2, M2, P4P) are very sophisticated, and amazing performance in range, battery, software app, and reliability (overall). I see absolutely no other company even close to DJI for capabilities in the same price range. I was hoping Broadcom would disrupt the market with drone modules, as they were touting a couple years ago at NAB, Vegas. They have the communications expertise for a Lightbridge/Ocu-Sync type of communications, but since their announcement, saying "we're talking to many new drone companies" I've seen nothing from them, nor any viable drone manufacturer using their products. I just don't see the interest from any company after 3DR bit the dust 3yrs ago. GoPro was laughable.

Autel had a nice prototype a couple years ago at NAB, showing their X-Star with retractable landing gear and 360 rotating camera (400MM size drone), however that was never released. Their biggest issue is they still use WiFi and have never invested into a better communications protocol like Ocu-Sync for better video signal integrity with extended range of 4-5 miles. Until a drone manufacturer can equal DJI's performance for range, battery, and s/w, nobody is going to have a chance at growing very big, even with a 25% tariff on China. I expect DJI to be the leader for at least 5yrs, even though they haven't had any exciting releases in a while.
I am just talking about the Evo competing with the mavic... Yes the mavic pro 2 of course is better but the camera on the Evo is amazing. Second, the support that Autel offer is just fenomenal. I got a fly away on my Evo and they sent me a refurbished drone without any care refresh program. That's tell you that they care for their customer. If you have a fly away in a DJI drone... You will need to have care refresh, logs, bunch of proofs.
 
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The styrofoam case and a cardboard box used for shipping a drone is really, really cheap. Shame on dji for sending a drone back to a customer in a damaged case.
 
I am not sure where you sent it but the repair facility at Cerritos, CA has been excellent for me on two occasions. Just want to pass on my experience.
 
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I mean. This is debatable whether it was my responsibility to clean it or them to replace it (like I thought they would). I understand your point though. however the sand was so embedded into the crashed drone it had filled even the led casings on the bottom. So some spillage was unavoidable into any container it was shipped in. Flip side, common sense should have told the repair center to not ship it back in a case with this obvious of an issue. Call or email should have been made. I would have had no issue paying for a new case if they contacted me and told me your point. I appreciate the feedback though.


I would have likely put the drone in a trash bag before shipping it back to them.
 
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