Saga of the Faulty Mini 0801

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Iain

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I bought an 0801 last year. It had the usual problems with switching off when the card was half full. I tried different firmwares but none sorted it until the Decemnber 2013 release. Unfortunately, that firmware covered the screen (and the recording) with a pink overlay.

Eventually e-prance (who I'd bought it from) agreed to replace it. I sent it off to them on 21/12/2013.

The say it reached them on 10/01/2014 but despite saying they would send a replacement "next week" the replacement didn't reach me till 17/02/2014 and was posted in the UK two days earlier.

The new 0801 has the 20131230 firmware and seems to work just fine, but now it does not detect the GPS mount in the car.

The mount has been stuck to the windscreen all through the camera's trip to China, and not powered up, so it has hardly been subjected to a lot of use or abuse.

I emailed e-prance about this and they have the nerve to ask me to pay $16 for a replacement GPS mount!

So the moral of this story is that you should only buy from Amazon, don't take any crap about the supplier wanting to help you and fix a problem: just return anything that isn't perfect for a full immediate refund and buy another one.

Me, I'm sticking with the Mobius - better, neater, cheaper and MUCH more reliable. Its only downside is the lack of GPS, but my 0801 has no GPS now either!
 
Depending on how old your original one was the GPS may actually be different, the hardware was changed last year
 
It was bought from e-prance on 26/09/2013. Took ages to arrive, though. The Mobius was here in a week, the 0801 took almost a month. And just a mere four and a half months later I got one that works. As long as you don't worry about the GPS, that is. e-prance say there hasn't been a change in the gps fitting. Whether that is the case or not, I would expect to be supplied with one that works. And I haven't been.
 
There is no doubt the mini 0801 is cool. I myself originally was looking to buy it until I came here and read about the firmware mess. That led me to the Mobius, which I have only good things to say, it's a great little camera, you will enjoy it. If you still love with the mini, they are coming out soon with a newer model with a newer processor. What remains to be seen is if it will have new mounts.

My only suggestion in general is to buy local with someone who has a good reputation like JooVuu.com. He carries a lot of models, including the mini, the new mini and is an official dealer of the Mobius. Sure it's a few bucks more, yet in the long run, it will save you time, money and aggravation if you have a problem.
 
Correct me if I am wrong. Joovuu gives only 1 month warranty,so not much long term peace of mind in case of a faulty dash cam
 
I saw it is somewhere on their web site
 
If you buy from a UK seller, you have the protection of the Supply of Goods Act. They can't just offer a one month warranty.

e-prance have flatly refused to do anything about my non-functioning GPS mount, unless I pay for a new one. If they were in the UK, I'd have Trading Standards on to them in a flash.

So if anyone is considering buying from e-prance, I strongly advise against it, but if you must, buy through Amazon. They won't treat you with the contempt that e-prance has for their customers.

Though the Mobius is SO much better as well as cheaper. The quality of the recordings is much better. It's neater and more reliable. It has a wider range of mouting options. And the screen on the mini is a waste of space. Perhaps when the new, more powerful version of the mini arrives, it might be better quality, but the other snags will remain.
 
Iain said:
If you buy from a UK seller, you have the protection of the Supply of Goods Act. They can't just offer a one month warranty.

e-prance have flatly refused to do anything about my non-functioning GPS mount, unless I pay for a new one. If they were in the UK, I'd have Trading Standards on to them in a flash.

So if anyone is considering buying from e-prance, I strongly advise against it, but if you must, buy through Amazon. They won't treat you with the contempt that e-prance has for their customers.

Though the Mobius is SO much better as well as cheaper. The quality of the recordings is much better. It's neater and more reliable. It has a wider range of mouting options. And the screen on the mini is a waste of space. Perhaps when the new, more powerful version of the mini arrives, it might be better quality, but the other snags will remain.
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Dear Iain,
Unfortunately we have a very different understanding one that we have looked into and sought professional advice.

My understanding that the Sale and Supply of Goods to Consumers Regulations implemented in 2002 superseded the Supply of Goods Act requirements by changing the criteria for warranty and exchange/refund/return of goods. The new conditions stipulate:

(a) it is established that the goods did so conform at the time of delivery, or (b) the measure is "incompatible with the nature of the goods or the nature of the lack of conformity.

In other words, if the goods are faulty or become faulty within a REASONABLE amount of time the seller is liable. There is NO definition that we are aware of that defines what is a reasonable length of time. I have read that small claim court judges have said anywhere from 30 days up to a year depending on goods etc. In an ideal world we would LOVE to provide everyone with a year or two year warranty/guarantee. Unfortunately we cannot. We have consulted on this and considering our price range we believe a 30 month guarantee is suitable. Of course if you are unhappy with this you are more than free to go elsewhere. By buying from us you agree to these terms (as stipulated in our ToS). We provide unlimited support and as many people will attest are very active on forums and our support page helping customers however to look after our business interests we have to have a cut off. If you feel we are breaking the law please contact Stockport Trading Standards (that is where we are based). It usually takes about 3 days or so for them to respond.

We will yet again seek clarification on this matter but we have done from two different places and both have advised the same thing. The one thing we are looking to implement is a seller guarantee and then hopefully we can work with the manufacturers to provide a further manufacturer warranty. However, this would involve the goods being sent back to China or wherever we source them from. This would of course only happen after the seller guarantee has stopped.

I would also like to just say this is NOT having a go at you. But we have been asked this a lot and accussed of a lot. But as I said, as far as I am aware/have researched/sought legal advice etc we are more than complying with the law. If for any reason you feel we are not please contact us or refer us to Trading Standards. We are very open and honest and always do what we can.

Kind regards,

JooVuu
 
Also I would like to highlight something else: we provide support for everyone at every stage - even people who have not bought from us. We have had a few customers who have been pissed off from e-prance come to us and we've helped them out (given discounts etc). Also depending on the fault we also do provide extended warranty - for instance a person had a camera that started smoking. He had it for four months but we replaced it completely free for him.

I know 30 days may not seem a lot but realistically it is all we can provide without going bust. We really would like you to use us but if you need a longer warranty then unfortunately at the moment we cannot officially provide you a longer one.

We are in the very early stages (as in I had a meeting this week) about providing a service where you can buy a year warranty but this will not be implemented within the month.

Kind regards,

JooVuu

PS
Again this is NOT HAVING A GO at anyway, this is just me trying to explain the business point of view etc and that we're not evil just trying to survive.
 
Iain said:
I bought an 0801 last year. It had the usual problems with switching off when the card was half full. I tried different firmwares but none sorted it until the Decemnber 2013 release. Unfortunately, that firmware covered the screen (and the recording) with a pink overlay.

Eventually e-prance (who I'd bought it from) agreed to replace it. I sent it off to them on 21/12/2013.

The say it reached them on 10/01/2014 but despite saying they would send a replacement "next week" the replacement didn't reach me till 17/02/2014 and was posted in the UK two days earlier.

The new 0801 has the 20131230 firmware and seems to work just fine, but now it does not detect the GPS mount in the car.

The mount has been stuck to the windscreen all through the camera's trip to China, and not powered up, so it has hardly been subjected to a lot of use or abuse.

I emailed e-prance about this and they have the nerve to ask me to pay $16 for a replacement GPS mount!

So the moral of this story is that you should only buy from Amazon, don't take any crap about the supplier wanting to help you and fix a problem: just return anything that isn't perfect for a full immediate refund and buy another one.

Me, I'm sticking with the Mobius - better, neater, cheaper and MUCH more reliable. Its only downside is the lack of GPS, but my 0801 has no GPS now either!
Click to expand...

I bought mine from Amazon from e-prance. I was disappointed with Amazon's intercession into my e-prance issue. I tried to work with e-prance first. And once that got nowhere, I filed claim with Amazon. They said it had been too long. I told them this behavior reinforces Amazon customers to DISPUTE/CLAIM EARLY, and why would they NOT want the customer to TRY and resolve with the VENDOR?

I have all of this in emails, of course, but they are long and boring. Bottom line is I purchased a new GPS mount from finestop on ebay and my issues are resolved. E-prance eventually capitulated and refunded $12 of the 0801+GPS package I bought from them through Amazon. I also am VERY happy with my new Mac Dashcam software of which I found out about here on the great dashcamtalk discussion boards.
 
JooVue, You would not get that past Trading Standards, I can assure you. They would take you to the cleaners.

There are clear guidelines about what is a reasonable time, and no consumer electronics falls below six months or a year, even for 99p items. For what you sell two or three years is a reasonable expctation.

I've not bought from you, and if you have so little faith in your products that you expect me to pay £70 for something that isn't guaranteed to last more than a month, I never shall. So I'll not get the chance to complain the Stockport Trading Standards.

If you choose to sell what you consider to be unreliable crap you will have to increase your prices so you can afford to comply with the law. Increase the price to allow for the warranty, so that you are within both the law of the land and what is decent and reasonable.
 
I think for the most part a lot of these types of devices either fail early or not at all so it's either dealt with early or lives out its reasonably expected life without a problem
 
Iain said:
JooVue, You would not get that past Trading Standards, I can assure you. They would take you to the cleaners.

There are clear guidelines about what is a reasonable time, and no consumer electronics falls below six months or a year, even for 99p items. For what you sell two or three years is a reasonable expctation.

I've not bought from you, and if you have so little faith in your products that you expect me to pay £70 for something that isn't guaranteed to last more than a month, I never shall. So I'll not get the chance to complain the Stockport Trading Standards.

If you choose to sell what you consider to be unreliable crap you will have to increase your prices so you can afford to comply with the law. Increase the price to allow for the warranty, so that you are within both the law of the land and what is decent and reasonable.
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Dear Iain,
This is news to us. If you could please provide us where in the corresponding regulations it states all this that would be great and we will amend our policy today. Again we are not here to cause trouble only to clarify our position and where we can - improve. We do not sell 'unreliable crap' which is why we have sold thousands of items and had a return/refund percentage at less than 0.1%. You are of course entitled to your opinion and your ability to vote with your wallet. We are always willing to improve and of course to abide by the law but we will not be bullied into changing our policy until the law states we must. You also do not have to have bought from us in order to contact trading standards. We have a very good reputation we have worked hard to build. Furthermore, 3 YEARS WARRANTY FOR AN £85 car camera (our most expensive one currently) is completely unreasonable. My new canon mark 3 5d comes with a year guarantee and then a further year guarantee by the manufacturer. And that cost me £2500 so please do not try and draw unrealistic contrasts to prove a point which you have not evidenced.

Kind regards,

JooVuu

PS
We are not going to get into a mud slinging match with anyone. We will of course answer any civil questions posed to us on here or on our website.
 
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jokiin makes a very good point. Chances are that unless the thing is supplied faulty (as the one e-prance sold me was, but they did replace it eventually) it will last a long time. After all, there are no moving parts to wear out.

However, the legal assumption is that if something fails in the first six months, it is up to the supplier (not the manufacturer) to prove that it was not defective when supplied, not for the buyer to prove that it was.

The guidelines about how long something should last are measured with reasonableness, and there is no clear regulation, but for the sort of thing you are selling it would be between one and three years.

If your failures really are less than 0.1% you could easily offer a warranty for no more than 1% of the price and still increase your profits. I'm sure adding 85p to the price for a decent warranty would vastly increase your sales.

Only you have the information to work out what it will cost to offer a legal and decent guarantee and then add it to your price. Do that and people who want to gamble can buy direct from China, people who want a genuine, reliable, guaranteed product can buy from you.
 
Iain said:
jokiin makes a very good point. Chances are that unless the thing is supplied faulty (as the one e-prance sold me was, but they did replace it eventually) it will last a long time. After all, there are no moving parts to wear out.

However, the legal assumption is that if something fails in the first six months, it is up to the supplier (not the manufacturer) to prove that it was not defective when supplied, not for the buyer to prove that it was.

The guidelines about how long something should last are measured with reasonableness, and there is no clear regulation, but for the sort of thing you are selling it would be between one and three years.

If your failures really are less than 0.1% you could easily offer a warranty for no more than 1% of the price and still increase your profits. I'm sure adding 85p to the price for a decent warranty would vastly increase your sales.

Only you have the information to work out what it will cost to offer a legal and decent guarantee and then add it to your price. Do that and people who want to gamble can buy direct from China, people who want a genuine, reliable, guaranteed product can buy from you.
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Past all the legal garbage, I think JooVuu's reputation is solid. On this and the RC forum, I have heard nothing but compliments on his customer service. Not sure why he should have to quote law, when he has helped many people outside the time of return. Novotm in the US is another example of great local customer service, even replacing a board for free on a customers Mobius. I would definitely recommend SpyTec, I had a great experience there and enjoyed talking with TJ.

Some Chinese distributors on the other hand don't have a good reputation and the fact that they are far away in another country should make it obvious that we have little or no recourse if they choose not to help. So the gamble buying so far away is riskier.

Everyone has a choice, except buying a UK or US made dashcam. Past that I'm supporting the local guy and keeping as many jobs and as much money local. They have also proven to have great customer service and worse case scenario, I have a face to complain to.

The best dashcam system so far, to me, is the Mobius with their Authorized Resellers. It's simple to buy the real thing and know the good sellers, not to mention the Chinese one on eBay is directly connected to the developer.
 
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JooVuu said:
This is news to us. If you could please provide us where in the corresponding regulations it states all this that would be great and we will amend our policy today.
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The law is clear. It says that the item must be sold without faults, and the guarantee has to cover as long as a reasonable, impartial person would expect the item to last.

So if you are selling a windmill intended to be stuck in a seaside sandcastle, that would not be long at all. But for an electronic device with no moving parts, it would be several years.

If you honestly believe that a reasonable, impartial person would think that a digital camera costing the best part of £100 should only last a month before wearing out, I find it hard to agree with you.

I suggest you start by reading http://sogahub.tradingstandards.gov.uk/sites/default/files/SOGA_explained.pdf
or http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/wales...s_-_if_you_want_a_repair_or_a_replacement.htm
or http://www.theguardian.com/money/2011/feb/05/how-long-electrical-goods-guaranteed

But you may be wise to contact Trading Standards. In my experience, they are usually very helpful, though none of our ecommerce clients are based in Stockport, and it can vary from town to town how helpful they are.
 
 
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