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.

On the weekend I went out shopping for two things, our first BBQ and a new mobile phone. E. got me a voucher for Barbeques Galore so that was where I was going to purchase our new cancer-maker from. The nearest store was near Southland so I figured I might as well get my new phone from the Crazy Johns near there too. The adventures begin …

Barbeques Galore

The story begins when a salewoman approached me and began her sales pitch. She rabbited on about a bbq I just happened to be walking past at the time. I finally got to talk and began to describe what I was actually after. We looked at a few models and I made my selection.

“So, what price can you do for me on that?”
“Ahhh, no discount I’m sorry.”
“Why don’t you check with your manager?”
“Nup, still no discount.”
“How about this, I’ll pay you the full price now and even purchase the wok burner attachment?”
“Nup, still nothing I can do for you.”
“That’s a shame. Can’t you even throw in something small like a cover to seal the deal?”
“Nup, sorry, can’t do.”

This actually went on for a few minutes. Disappointed at my lack of success, I handed over my gift voucher.

“Ahhh, this is over a year old. I’m not sure that we can accept it.”
“It doesn’t have an expiry date. You have to accept it.”
“I’ll need to check with my manager.”
“You do that.”
“OK. Should be alright to use.”
“Thought so.”

I was getting quite agitated now. Channeling Veruca Salt I wanted this BBQ now. The saleswoman went to check the stock. It seemed that only half of the BBQ was there. They were out of stock for the pedestal section. How they could stock half a BBQ is beyond me. So, what were my options?

1. Wait two weeks for one to maybe arrive, then drive in to pick it up
2. Drive to Richmond to pick one up myself

Neither option appealed to me. They couldn’t even transport it from their Richmond store. Apparently it costs too much! I expressed how disappointed I was with the experience. Finally I felt like I had some traction. “What can we do to help?” she asked. “How about you throw in a cover?” “Nup, can’t do that, sorry.” Bastards!

So, I picked up my half a BBQ, drove to Richmond and picked up the rest.

Crazy Johns

I usually avoid shopping at the “crazy” places but I thought I’d try my luck this time. Nothing could be worse than buying a BBQ from Barbeques Galore.

The sales guy here was pretty good. He actually asked me questions about what I wanted and how I wanted to use the phone. We selected the i-mate JasJam and sat down to go through the paperwork.

They had to give me a new SIM card for the new phone and it seems that their computers weren’t working properly today. The guy said he’d put through the paperwork in the evening and I could drop by during the week to sign it and pick up my paperwork. Defeated once again, I began to drive home to Mornington.

Having nearly reached home, I realised my mobile wasn’t working. I couldn’t get any network service. I did the only thing I could do, drive back to Crazy Johns and blast them for cancelling my SIM.

As soon as I walked in the door, the guy apologised. He had tried to put it through again and didn’t realise it went “all the way through” transferring my account to the new SIM card. I was pretty pissed off with having to drive over 50km for this mistake.

I signed the contract, got my new phone and asked for a deal.

“I’m pretty upset that I had to drive so far because of this mistake.”
“Yeah, I’m really sorry about that.”
“So how about this, you give me a good deal on a micro-SD card for my phone.”
“No problems. We don’t have them in stock at the moment though.”
“That’s cool, just post one to me when you do.”

Feeling good about this, I drove off back home again. After 5 minutes, I got a phone call from Crazy Johns. He accidentally gave me both copies of the contract and wanted me to drop one back to him. Damn it!

I turned around, pulled up out front of the store and he rushed out to grab their copy of the paperwork.

“Look, I’m really sorry about this.”
“That’s ok. It just means an even cheaper memory card for me!”

They’re now organising their Mornington store to get a memory card ready for me, which they are actually provided free of charge. Awesome!

What a difference

What a difference compromise makes. I will never ever recommend or purchase anything from Barbeques Galore again. I will always recommend Crazy Johns as my preferred phone supplier.

I was in Sydney last weekend as a gift from my gal. Aside from being a wonderful weekend, I could help but notice the effects the terrorism message had.

The lonely briefcase
We arrived at Sydney airport and queued up at the end of a very long line to catch a taxi. The line stretched around a number of barriers so we pretty much started 2 metres away from where we eventually finished. As the line continued to shrink, and we continue to get closer to the road, someone pointed out an old black briefcase sitting all alone in the queue.

There were no shrieks of “argghhh, it’s a bomb,” although the people near it, immediately took a few steps back, us included. Almost like it had become a natural instinct. Once guy summonsed the taxi rank manager dude. He was pretty much a traffic director who hadn’t yet passed his test to direct traffic on an actual road.

He looked petrified and urgently called for security. Yelling out for someone to claim the case, one tall gentlement who was on the phone stepped forward. The taxi rank guy blasted him, telling him he must never ever, under any circumstances leave his bags unattended. It became immediatley obvious to me that this guy took his job, and protection of Australian from terrorist acts, extremely seriously.

The tall guy took his briefcase and moved back to his position in the line. He obviously didn’t like this briefcase because less than a minute later, he placed it on the ground and walk away from it again.

Ice cream
I love a good ice-cream when it’s raining, so, on one of our walks we purchased some. Now, they had two scoops which were huge. I finished mine pretty quickly as I often do, but E. was struggling to finish. I convinced her that it was okay to throw the rest away so as we walked, we looked for a bin.

There were no bins near us so I took the ice-cream and carried it for E. We were just near Central station with plenty of people walking all around. I proceeded to try to give the ice-cream away but no-one took me up on the offer.

As we walked to the train platform we continued looking around for a bin (or a parent who would let their child eat our gift of fresh ice-cream.) The ice-cream was slowly melting so I decided to keep it in check by having some of it as we walked. I was already full so didn’t want to consume the whole lot.

There was not a single bin in sight so we proceeded to the train platform to look there. We reached the platform and couldn’t find a single cylindrical device to throw this melting ice-cream into. It was then I remembered that Sydney removed most of the public bins for fear they would be used to plant bombs. How annoying was this.

Rubbish bins have been removed from Sydney’s underground stations but remain on many suburban stations.
Sydney Morning Herald

Well, the train arrived and we boarded. By the time we got to our station, the ice-cream was gone. No, I didn’t leave it under a seat, I had to eat it.

After that trip, I felt really ill. It didn’t worry me however. I just reminded myself that it was my duty as a citizen to help keep bombs out of Sydney rubbish bins.

Difference of opinions
We started our trip back to Melbourne. Arriving at the airport, we proceeded to the security scan area. Regardless of whether I’m carrying a bomb or not, I always get nervous walking through those doorways. On the way to Melbourne, both E. and I got pinged. I had to take off my belt, E. had to take off some bracelets.

E. was better prepared this time. She placed her bracelets on the belt to be x-ray’d. I thought I’d try my luck again. I nervously walked through the doorway and to my surprise, I passed! E. passed through as well (but she had cheated!) Interesting how different airport scanners pick up different clothing material.

I picked my backpack up off the belt. Before E. could grab hers, she was escorted aside to go through her back. They spotted something on the x-ray which looked suspicious. Working methodically through the bag they placed her wallet, diary and phone into a tray, and rescaned the lot.

The suspicious object still appeared, and it was still in her bag. They continued to work through it and eventually found, hidden in an inside pocket, a large nailfile. It would’ve been at least 3 inches long.

So here’s my conclusion, if you want to smuggle some metal object onto the plane, place it in your hand luggage if your departing from Melbourne. Then, as you go through Sydney, transfer it to your person and you’ll be right!

From Boing-Boing …

Many months ago I started a debate with a technical guy at the Westpac Bank. They were changing their already cumbersome internet banking interface to one which required you to use an online keyboard to log in with.

The online keyboard is incredibly difficult to use. Beside the fact that it isn’t in QWERTY format, it simply encourages poor strength passwords.

Since my argument discussion with the Westpac tech-head, I have since moved banks (yes, because of this one issue.) Thinking about all their propoganda on how this change is to protect our security, I am now happy to tell them - “I told ya so.”