Digital Media Store www.digitalmediastore.co.uk Review

Overall Rating

Continual battery problems. After using 2 compatible replacement batteries purchased from this store for my Lumix camera the camera kept shutting down even when the batteries had plenty of charge left. The battery terminals were excessively worn making the contacts poor, thus the charging signal was degraded. After having the camera fixed twice with no fault found, I stumbled across the answer as the camera always shut down just after indicating low battery. Digital Media Store saw the photos and read the evidence but did not give a refund as they said it was statistically improbable that I should have received 2 duff batteries, and had only had 7 faulty batteries out of 1600 sold. They also said that anything will wear down with continued use. I disagree with their findings and am sad that they did not offer a refund. Having said all that, at least they had the courtesy to reply after giving it a bit of thought which is more than can be said for some other suppliers.

Members' Comments onGuest's Review

• digitalmediastore on 28th Jul 2009

  Whilst we appreciate this customers disappointment one fundamental issue has not been mentioned in the review; the batteries were out of warranty (and not by just a few weeks). Many companies would simply have ignored the issue because the goods were out of warranty and yet having been thorough, honest and helpful we have been criticised.
  
  We've sold over 1,600 of these batteries and of the 7 faults we have had reported none were remotely similar to this customers issue. What we actually stated was "for one customer to have two batteries that both are faulty is unheard of and it is so incredibly unlikely that it is effectively a statistical impossibility.". We categorically did not say "anything will wear down with continued use." - what we said was "wearing down of anything is a result of one item rubbing against another." i.e. it cannot simply be blamed on the batteries without consideration for what is actually causing the friction.
  
  We're sure that anyone will understand that if one person has a problem with two identical items yet no-one else reports the same issue then the problem is isolated to the equipment (and/or use) that one person has.
  
  The customer gave no indication that no fault was found in the camera when he emailed us stating he "had the camera repaired twice but I believe the fault is due to the batteries".
  
  The very fact that the customer chose to get his camera repaired (twice!) before considering the batteries suggests to us that there was an issue with the camera and, contrary to his review, it was repaired but by that point the damage to the batteries had been done.
  
  To summarise the situation; the customer wanted us to replace his out of warranty batteries despite the fact that there was no evidence that the batteries themselves were at fault.