Customer service skills in this country are pretty hard to find sometimes, especially for online companies where the face of that company could be an email address!

Well, for those who go off recomendations when deciding to use a new company, here’s one to avoid – thedigitalcamerashop.co.uk. This is my story of why.

On the 25th of Feb 08, I placed an order with thedigitalcamerashop.co.uk for a Slik Pro 700 DX and a Manfrotto 676B Monopod. Total cost was £117.89. The online shop didn’t have a live stock system so I had no idea if either of the items were in stock, that wasn’t really and issue as I reaslise that small businesses can’t have the same or similar setups as some of the larger online shops + waiting for a week or two wasn’t really an issue either!

A few days later, a parcel arrived for me :) Prompt delivery I thought. Upon opening the package, I realised that I’d only had sent to me, the Slik tripod. So, the next day I called up to enquire about the Monopod as I hadn’t had any notice that the Monopod was out of stock – or so I thought. The person who took my call was pretty rude and after I’d quoted my reference number ‘kindly’ pointed out to me that it was printed on the bottom of the delivery note that the Manfrotto would be delievered in a few days due to a lack of stock. FIne I thought, I got the main item I was after and as mentioned before, I could wait a few days.

A few days came and passed, no Manfrotto and no contact from thedigitalcamerashop.co.uk, something I later find out not to expect from thedigitalcamerashop.co.uk, no contact that is – oh and no Manfrotto either but more the lack of contact :)

Weeks later and no frotto still, no contact still so I thought, hey, I’ll check on the status of the order so again I gave thedigitalcamerashop.co.uk a quick call only to find out that, surprise surprise, they didn’t have it and still didn’t know when it was going to turn up. At this point I just cancelled the remainder of the order and went into Jessops and bought one.

Some months later I was checking through my bank statements and thought I’d make sure the refund had gone through for the Manfrotto knowing what thedigitalcamerashop.co.uk was like with their lack of contact. Fail, they hadn’t refunded me! So again, I called and this time got voicemail, time, after time during that day. No phone call back and to be honest, I very much doubt I would have got one so I emailed them to ask them what was going on. At this point they were quick to respond – with a basic apology and a promise to refund me the remaining balance of the order. Great, I also asked them to refund me the delivery cost for the order due to the 5 months they’ve now had my money for the order with no contact on what was happening.

22nd July 08, They responded, yipee! They agreed to refund me the cost of the Manfrotto – how could they not but they totally ignored my request for the delivery charge to be refunded so I emailed them again, asking once more, for the delivery cost to be refunded, to this day, they’ve ignored that email as well.

So, in short, avoid buying from thedigitalcamerashop.co.uk, they DO NOT contact you when asked or to give you any updates on orders which don’t get processed immediately, they have no idea about customer service and don’t seem to care one bit.
DO NOT USE thedigitalcamerashop.co.uk!

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