Advice: Don’t buy from DigiDirect.com.au.

A month ago I purchased a new Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-W300 camera from DigiDirect. I did my research and decided that this was the best buy for my budget and gave me all the functionality and quality I would like.

Since then, I have spent the month making numerous phone calls and sending emails to figure out where my camera is. The last time I called, it was sitting on their desk and was about to be shipped off that day. Two weeks later, here I am, still waiting.

In today’s phone call in which it seemed their staff don’t begin work until 10am, I discovered my order was flagged for “security.” Because I used digidirect@carljoseph.com.au as my email address and didn’t have a land line number.

Using companyname@mydomain.com is my standard practice when purchasing from an unknown company. It allows me to track whether an organisation sells my email on to someone else. Similarily, GMail users can do something similar by using the account.name+whatever@gmail.com format.

Even with these concerns, they still took my money and sat on it for a month!

My complaint isn’t only about the time it has taken or that my order was flagged as potentially fraudulent. My complaint is that I have had no communication from DigiDirect at all during this period. Were it not for me continuously bugging them, I wonder how long it would’ve been until they told me there was an issue.

Lesson to be learnt: Even if there is a problem, communicate it. It is far better to know that there are issues with something (even potential issues), than to be left in the dark believing it’s all okay, or worrying that you’ve been had by a crooked company.

Update 5th June 2008: Finally spoke with the MD today. He was somewhat apologetic and I now have a tracking number to show that my digital camera is en route. I find it unfortunate that I needed to escalate this to the company owner/manager in order to get action. Not only is it painful for the customer, it’s an extremely unsustainable business practice.