Sandy B

Defective product right of exchange not honoured

Be careful purchasing electronic products from this store - if they are defective and you try to return it the owner might refuse (like he did in my case). On 24 December 2020 I purchased a gift intended for my son for Christmas - a flying ground and air stunt motorcycle ("drone toy") for R399.99. On Christmas day, once my son had opened the gift my husband then tested the product to make sure it was working fine and to teach my son how to use it. The motorcycle however did not listen to the instructions per the remote i.e. when requested to fly forwards it would lose control and fly off to the left. My husband suspected it is because the propellers on the drone toy are not in synch. We explained to my son that the product is not working the way that it should and that we would need to return the product and exchange it for a working product before he could play with it. We repackaged the product back in its original packaging on 25th i.e. same day it was opened and my husband attempted to exchange it on 2 January 2021 at the store. He explained to the owner of YSL moments (who needed to authorise returns) what the issue was with the drone toy. The owner refused to accept that the toy was defective in the first instance and insisted that we must have crashed the item and that is why it was no longer working, despite my husband explaining it never responded to the instructions from the remote control from the start i.e. the product was defective from the start. The owner did not even attempt to take the product out of the packaging. If he had he would clearly have seen this is not a product that has been misused. There is a scratch on the one propeller - possibly as a result of the drone toy not listening to the remote and therefore crashing which was also clearly explained to the owner - it could also be possible that the scratch was there before we even purchased the product. The worst is that my son received this as a gift for Christmas and he never had a chance to play with it and keeps asking when we will exchange it. We also always try to support small businesses, but this experience has left me with a sour taste as I have effectively wasted R400 and nothing to show for it. Had I gone to a bigger toy shop I would have been able to exchange it for a working product and would have a son happily playing with his Christmas toy.