Read this before you buy anything from DJI

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DJI No Care

I want to warn all potential DJI customers that their support is mostly terrible and their care for customers is more or less non-existent

First - I have a long history with DJI

I have bought 4 Phantoms (two flew away for no reasons and never to be found).

I have bought 1 Inspire 1 (have a history of malfunction batteries and RCs that never worked (even when I got a new secondary RC for camera control) and also the carrying case where handle broke after 10 times of use and my screen on my iPad broke.

I have bought 2 Osmos (never any problem so far)

I have bought 1 Mavic (so far so good).

The problem

Over a A month ago I ordered a Spark Flymore just for the purpose to bring on my trip to Singapore this week. I even ordered DJI CARE.

I got the 12 of july and same day I ended up sitting chatting 3 hours on support as the remote did not pair with the Spark (first line off suport knew less then me) second one gave up after a couple of hours and told me that I need to send it to Holland and that it should be no problem to get me a new one in time. It sounded ok.

But everyday I have been mailing and chatting with Sales , aftersales and the Netherlands support department.

The pattern is like ”Ok but you need to talk to those guys and they will see that you get a new in time”. So I start to talk to the next place and they will tell you ”We will refund you in a few weeks and we suggest that you order your new Spark on our website”. And every time I will come back and say ”Hey if I order a new one, will I get it in time for my Singapore trip the 26 july, it says 11 working days on your site”. Then they will come back, Ok then talk to those guys at XXX and they will help you.

It is either ”they will fix it if you contact that department ” or

”We apologize for the delay on your request, don't worry we will do our best to speed up this request.
We would like to inform you that your replacement is still ongoing with the approval process, and we will be getting in touch with our replacement team to have this case escalated.
But don't worry, we will update you as soon as we have received a feedback from our service center.”

”Don´t worry” in the DJI world means we are doing nothing to help you so why worry?

I am shocked over the years that DJI provide such bad or non existent service. But some of my Chinese friends tell me ”But this is how it is in China, you can not expect anything else as the staff has no possibility to make own decisions or do anything that is not the standard procedure.”

I mean how difficult can it be to send a new SPARK with DHL?

So if you are about to buy anything from DJI you need to be aware that you are not doing business with a European or American company so don´t expect them to care for you or help you even if you are a long time loyal customers.

So if you are lucky you will not need to use their support, and then I have to admit that some of their products are great. But if you are unlucky and get a product that is dead on arrival or is malfunction - boy you are about to get disappointed and angry.
 
Last edited:
A couple of things I want to point out ...
First, it's your first post here, welcome to Phantom Pilots.
It's a good place to get lots of help with DJI related matters from a large group of users and a wide experience base.
You might not have noticed something in our community guidelines: Community Guidelines
So I'll point this out ...
Manufacturer/Distributor/Vendor and Customer Disputes
This forum is not intended to be a mechanism for people to vent frustrations about manufacturers, distributors or sales from private parties. Please settle your differences with the seller, manufacturer and distributors through other means but not through our community.


And .. I have bought 4 Phantoms (two flew away for no reasons and never to be found)
It's very unusual for a Phantom to fly away for no reason. The recorded flight data in the app makes it possible to investigate such incidents and often find out exactly what really happened and sometimes even pinpoint a likely search area.
If you'd came here with details someone may have been able to help.
 
A couple of things I want to point out ...
First, it's your first post here, welcome to Phantom Pilots.
It's a good place to get lots of help with DJI related matters from a large group of users and a wide experience base.
You might not have noticed something in our community guidelines: Community Guidelines
So I'll point this out ...
Manufacturer/Distributor/Vendor and Customer Disputes
This forum is not intended to be a mechanism for people to vent frustrations about manufacturers, distributors or sales from private parties. Please settle your differences with the seller, manufacturer and distributors through other means but not through our community.


And .. I have bought 4 Phantoms (two flew away for no reasons and never to be found)
It's very unusual for a Phantom to fly away for no reason. The recorded flight data in the app makes it possible to investigate such incidents and often find out exactly what really happened and sometimes even pinpoint a likely search area.
If you'd came here with details someone may have been able to help.

Perhaps newer apps might have those possibilities you mention, but the former apps did not have that. (DJI never asked med about having access to app-info).And also if you loose connection then after that you have no clue where to look as it only stores last know location. And mind you, a phantom can fly far in 10 minutes.

For me this is not a dispute. I just want potential customers to be aware that even if many of DJIs products are great, the buyer need to be aware that if they get trouble the might be into a major disappointment. So that a buyer goes in with open eyes with low support expectations.

Also be aware that the provided Spark manual and Quick start manual has fontsize 4 pt helvetica and is more or less impossible to read.
 
Perhaps newer apps might have those possibilities you mention, but the former apps did not have that. (DJI never asked med about having access to app-info).And also if you loose connection then after that you have no clue where to look as it only stores last know location. And mind you, a phantom can fly far in 10 minutes.
Since the Phantom 3 series we have been able to investigate cases of lost Phantoms, often with surprising accuracy.
Even with loss of signal there is often enough evidence to join the dots and even find lost drones.
And from many investigations, it's clear that Phantoms rarely (if ever) fly away for no reason.

And the manuals are available as .pdf files to download from DJI and view at whatever font size you like.
I've not seen a printed manual for any that I've bought so far.
 
I have a phantom 4 for over a year, hundreds of flights, and hundreds of videos captured.....and its great, never flies way on its own........usually its a pilot error or inexperience that results in this type of behavior.
 
Since the Phantom 3 series we have been able to investigate cases of lost Phantoms, often with surprising accuracy.
Even with loss of signal there is often enough evidence to join the dots and even find lost drones.
And from many investigations, it's clear that Phantoms rarely (if ever) fly away for no reason.

And the manuals are available as .pdf files to download from DJI and view at whatever font size you like.
I've not seen a printed manual for any that I've bought so far.

So please tell me how you investigate a lost Phantom 3? Do you go in on the DJI GO app and collect the data? And then when in what DJI GO app version did that possibility occur?

And in early days DJI had lots bugs in their software so I can assure you that many Phantoms have flown a way for the reason of buggy software. And of course that is a reason.
'(And I know that in most of the cases of fly aways is due to not waiting for GPS signal and calibration of compass).

I know that you can download a manual. But then why print and provide manuals in the box? Then it is better to put a pice of paper "Download and read the manual from the net".
 
Seems like this guy just joined the forum to cry and moan about DJI, not to contribute or find answers to problems.
 
So please tell me how you investigate a lost Phantom 3? Do you go in on the DJI GO app and collect the data? And then when in what DJI GO app version did that possibility occur?
It's been possible with every app version since the first release of the P3 series.
Here are just a couple of examples of what's possible:
We see similar cases every week.
And in early days DJI had lots bugs in their software so I can assure you that many Phantoms have flown a way for the reason of buggy software. And of course that is a reason.
We couldn't investigate the flight data before the P3 series but having looked into many reports of lost Phantoms, I can say that a genuine fly away is extremely rare and would expect the losses of earlier Phantoms to be for similar reasons to what we see these days and I'm not buying the "buggy software" excuse either.
It was just easier in the past to say it just flew away because no-one knew any better.
'(And I know that in most of the cases of fly aways is due to not waiting for GPS signal and calibration of compass).
Not waiting for a home point to be recorded shouldn't usually be a problem because the Phantom will record a home point as soon as it's got GPS (and that doesn't take very long these days).
If you launched without GPS, you'd have a homepoint probably before you could fly 30 feet away and that won't cause anything that would be confused as a flyaway.
As for calibration of the compass, it's not necessary and repeated unnecessary compass calibration puts you at risk of having an unfortunate incident.
It causes more problems than you'd think you were preventing.
I'd like to have a dollar for every lost Phantom story that began with: I calibrated the compass as I always do ....
btw .. the manuals these days have corrected the poor wording that made people think they have to calibrate the compass.
 
Seems like this guy just joined the forum to cry and moan about DJI, not to contribute or find answers to problems.

Well I am here to stay. Mind you I have more experience from DJI and DJI products than you have as I have bought 8 of there products over the years. Still I want others to be aware of their services if you have had any problems. And I see that you don't have that experience as it does not seem you have needed. So i repeat. Great products and if you are lucky so you don't have problems then it is great.

Listen, if a company don't provide services then in Internet 2.0 they will be forced to give better service as other becomes aware - this is called consumer power, so it is not about crying, it is contributing to a change to the better.
 
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It's been possible with every app version since the first release of the P3 series.
Here are just a couple of examples of what's possible:
We see similar cases every week.

We couldn't investigate the flight data before the P3 series but having looked into many reports of lost Phantoms, I can say that a genuine fly away is extremely rare and would expect the losses of earlier Phantoms to be for similar reasons to what we see these days and I'm not buying the "buggy software" excuse either.
It was just easier in the past to say it just flew away because no-one knew any better.

Not waiting for a home point to be recorded shouldn't usually be a problem because the Phantom will record a home point as soon as it's got GPS (and that doesn't take very long these days).
If you launched without GPS, you'd have a homepoint probably before you could fly 30 feet away and that won't cause anything that would be confused as a flyaway.
As for calibration of the compass, it's not necessary and repeated unnecessary compass calibration puts you at risk of having an unfortunate incident.
It causes more problems than you'd think you were preventing.
I'd like to have a dollar for every lost Phantom story that began with: I calibrated the compass as I always do ....
btw .. the manuals these days have corrected the poor wording that made people think they have to calibrate the compass.

Thats great. My phantoms that flew away was Phantom 2 Visions .
I also lost a third one into the sea, bur I think it was the wind turned it over when lift off and turned it upside down. I was careless to take it up and fly away without checking condition of engine and at flew for a few minutes before dropping like a stone into deep water.

But I am sure the Phantom 3 are better and DJI Go is better nowadays.

ps. I still think a provided manual with 4 point helvetica is a joke
 
You're the first person I've heard of that has mentioned getting any paper manual.
Maybe it's a new thing for the Spark?
But previous models never got one.

So you mean they have been printing manuals only for one person?
I am talking about the Quick start guide manual. That is normal to supply in the box.

For me it is normal to download the complete manual and also great way to do updates.
 
We couldn't investigate the flight data before the P3 series but having looked into many reports of lost Phantoms, I can say that a genuine fly away is extremely rare and would expect the losses of earlier Phantoms to be for similar reasons to what we see these days and I'm not buying the "buggy software" excuse either.
It was just easier in the past to say it just flew away because no-one knew any better.


.

So please explain to me then why my first Phantom 2 flew away
It was my first flight.

I flew around for like 5 minutes 50 meters above the lake, everything was going fine.

Then I wanted to fly further away, so I fly full speed away from me. After like 500 meter I got "Lost connection" and my Phantom just continued in towards our town not responding to RC.
I could still see it it was flying away from me, I lost visual sight efter a while.

I was terrified it would hit someone or something.
Before I bought next Phantom I obtained a government permit to fly and a Zurich Insurance.

So please tell me the pilot error reason?
 
But it
Show me the flight data and I'll have a chance to find an explanation.
Unfortunately it was a P2 so there is no data to look at.

I wish I could.
But if I understand you right I can obtain flight data for Inspire 1 V1 and Mavic?
I will look into it as it is very good to know if something happens.
 

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