::: bisonium.com :::

Here is the latest company to completely miss the customer service boat. I have owned a BookEndz docking station for my 15" TiPB for about 2 years now. I must say, it has been a rock solid and overall decent product. I have always used my docking station and connected it to a CRT monitor via the VGA port instead of the DVI port.

I just recently received my new 23" Aluminum Cinema Display (which will be used with my Dual 2.5GHz G5 whenever nVidia decides to get their act together and Apple ships me the box). So in the meantime, I figure I'll hook this bad boy up to my BookEndz Docking Station and take advantage of the real-estate on the desktop. When I hooked in the new monitor to the docking station via the DVI port, all sorts of weird stuff started happening. The display output was crackling and the video looked like it had some serious interference issues going on. I confirmed that the problem was not with the monitor by jacking into the TiPB directly and everything was fine.

I put a call into Photo Control and got a call back fairly promptly the next day. After explaining my situation to Paul, he had me read him some numbers on the bottom of the docking station. Those numbers confirmed that there was indeed a defect with the docking station I received. Although the unit has a 1 year warranty, I had no way of knowing that I had a defective product. I never received any notification via email, or snail mail that there was a potential problem with my unit. So now, after 2 years, when I finally do get a DVI monitor, it doesn't work due to a MANUFACTURER DEFECT. This is not like I hosed up the unit folks, they FULLY ADMIT that there were about 500 units that shipped before the problem was discovered. I am of the belief that this should be covered by the manufacturer at no cost due to the nature of the problem being their poor quality control and manufacturing for these few units. What was their compromise? They offered to swap out the logic board for about $50 or so. As if this damn piece of plastic is not expensive enough already, now I have to pay for their mistake? These guys are starting to take their cue from Microsoft it seems.

The worst part of this is that they considered $50 to be a deal (normal price is $75). I was getting the special treatment because I was an Apple consultant. Wow. Be still my heart. Well folks, let me tell ya....I come into contact with SEVERAL HUNDRED customers on a weekly basis, heck - it may possibly be into the thousands. What do you think I will be telling customers about my experience with BookEndz products? Bad move Photo Control. You have a decent product, but your lack of customer service has not only lost you my business, but potentially a significantly larger customer base as well.