wheelman

After hearing so many great things about the Hero2 camera, seeing so many great videos made with Heros and reading about all the new features coming with the Hero3, I committed and preordered a Hero3 Black back in September of 2012.

I received the camera a few days after release in mid-October and, after playing around with it for awhile, found some bugs. My intent was to use it as a dash cam and it worked well for that, except for the two most glaring issues: the camera would randomly stop recording and freeze all button input. The freeze would also happen at other, random, times. Contact with GoPro confirmed that I was using a correct memory card and that I wasn't doing anything wrong. After a week or two, the freezing subsided some and so I figured I'd wait for the firmware update rather than starting the exchange process so soon.

Turns out that the firmware update just exacerbated the problem and now the camera was freezing twice as often as it was previously. Over the next six weeks I spent well over twelve hours on hold with GoPro, not including time spent actually talking to someone, with one hold time reaching 2 hours and 5 minutes, trying to get the issue resolved. I finally decided that I'd done enough to try to get the camera working and an exchange for a new one was in order. I kept my calm with GoPro through the entire process, never once raising my voice.

I followed their instructions to the letter, making sure to include my RMA information, that the camera was wrapped very safely, etc. Two weeks later I'd gotten no response from GoPro so I called them again, waited on hold for another half hour, explained the situation, and was then told that the camera had been sitting in their facility for a week, but for some reason hadn't been "connected" to my account so nothing had been done as of yet. The cs agent checked my account, said everything is in order and that he'd ship my replacement camera out right away.

A week later, I hadn't received the camera, nor any e-mail notification, a call or anything about my camera. So, I called back, waited another half hour, explained the situation to a snotty cs agent and asked if I could get a tracking number for my replacement order. He tells me I should receive the information within 10 minutes. Six hours later I received the e-mail, but it only had the initial scan and no additional scans. I figured that my camera hadn't actually been sent a week prior, but that it just got sent out after my last call, which is why it probably took so long to get the e-mail, which looks like something that just got sent. Sounds logical, right?

Three days later I check the tracking number and it is still the same: no additional scans/updates. So I call GoPro back, wait another half hour, describe the situation again, and am told that the package was definitely shipped, but that FedEx has apparently lost it, that I'll have to deal with FedEx, but that I'll receive a call from FedEx or GoPro within 48 hours. (Wait, you or FedEx lost the camera that YOU shipped and I have to deal with it?) 48 hours go by, no call.

So, I call GoPro back, wait another half hour, and get a really nice cs agent who tells me that he's got me covered, that he'll handle this issue from here on out, but that the "decision-makers" (managers) had all gone home for the day, so that he'd have to get back to me in the morning. (Really? They've all left before 4PM PST?) Okay, I'll wait. He also offers my a mounting accessory for all of my trouble. That's great, but the next day, I've still gotten no call by 6PM.

So, I call GoPro back, wait another half hour and explain the situation for the thousandth time. I am assured that both the camera and the free accessory will both get immediately overnighted in the same box. So, I arrange to have my sister-and-law at my house to receive the package in the event that it needs to be signed for. The day comes and goes, no package. I did receive an e-mail indicating shipment, so I figured that it was probably sent the following day, so I'd receive it a day later than I initially thought. So, I ask my sister-and-law to come over again to receive the package. The day comes and goes, no package.

So I get home from work, call GoPro and while waiting on hold I look at the e-mails more closely and see that only the accessory was shipped, by ground and not overnight, so I ask what happened to sending both together. Well it turns out that the Black Edition was then backordered and they tell me that I'll just have to wait for them to be back in stock and that there's nothing they can do about it. And when exactly were you going to tell me this? The answer is never because everyone there is too chicken sh*t to call someone with bad news. So that's when I lost it.

Here I am putting money into their pocket before the camera is even released so that they can run their giant holiday ad campaign, so they can oversell there product, which wasn't ready for release, as evident by the massive overload on their customer service line starting shortly before Christmas and not subsiding until late January, but I'm last in line to receive a camera and you don't have the ***** to tell me so? I told the manager that if he couldn't find a camera in his facility to ship me right then and there, that I'd be forced to take the only avenue open to me: forums on the Internet. I paintball, snowboard and drive a Mustang, all groups of action cam users. I really, really wanted to like GoPro, but this is BS and they deserve this and much more from me.

So, here I am, venting, but note that I didn't just jump on here angry in the middle of the process. I waited until its conclusion and am doing what I promised that smarmy cs agent. I've since gotten my replacement camera, about a week ago and a day before I received the mounting accessory. I'm so frustrated with GoPro that the camera has been sitting mounted to my dash for a week and I haven't even turned it on, while I was using it (or at least, attempting to) every drive previously. I've also invested a few extra hundred dollars in Hero accessories and what not, but I'm seriously considering selling it all and finding something else, out of pure principle. Not sure if anything else has all the features I want though and I don't want to compound my problems by losing money on it all by selling. Thanks, GoPro. Sorry for the length of this post. /rant

kcoTiger

People talk about a lack of common sense in today's world; clearly, customer service is just as rare. I don't understand the concept of not treating customers well. Companies lose untold amounts of business simply because they don't show their customers respect.