So I was pretty surprised by this: I bought a brand-new Digitone a few months ago, and noticed right away that it had bad pixels on the display. I guess I was hoping it might resolve on its own (I actually had that happen with my Squarp Pyramid) plus with the pandemic I wasn’t psyched about going to the post office, so I waited past the 30 days I could have sent it back to the store.
Anyway, I just contacted customer support for a solution, and was told I need to send it in to Elektron for repair–but at my own expense (for shipping and insurance). Is that normal?? It seems crazy that I would have to pay anything for a unit that was defective from the beginning, but as I learned during 6 years living in Germany (I’m in the US now), there are different expectations around customer service in Europe than in North America.
Anyway, just wondering what others’ experiences have been with defective Elektron gear under warranty, vs. other brands, etc.
You may be reimbursed once they determine if it is indeed a defect. I imagine that they receive a lot of units where people believe something is wrong and it’s actually user error or not covered under warranty.
It would be good if they were clear and up front about this too though.
I’m making an educated guess, I don’t actually know their policy in regards to this FYI.
I’ve been going back and forth with Mario in customer service and he was very clear they’d only pay for one way (return to me). I sent him photos of the defective display, and he acknowledged it was a defect. The unit is only 3 months old, and it came that way!
Sure, I could pay the 30 bucks or so it would cost to ship back (plus insurance), but it kind of disappoints me that Elektron doesn’t stand by their products more. I really didn’t expect this from a company I otherwise really liked.
So Mario just relented and sent me a return label. Very cool of him to understand, so Elektron is definitely back in my good graces! I’ll ask to close this thread.
Did you buy direct from Elektron?, if not the retailer should pick up the tab for shipping.
I think the problem is as a customer it is your responsibility to spot any faults/bugs within 30 days, this can be difficult with a new machine as until you know the device, limitations and faults can be hard to distinguish, I know I waited at least a year when I bought my Digitakt before I could tell that the faults with my device were not going to be fixed in a firmware update.
