UPDATE 18th February

DigitalRev does the right thing. Credit where it’s due

I have received a final response from DigitalRev, now that they have concluded their internal investigation into exactly what happened and whether it had happened to anyone else. As detailed in their response, I have been compensated. I have been given several choices, including a full refund, and have accepted a credit of £600 towards further purchases. At no point did I ask for compensation, but I think a refund of the difference between “new” and “used” price was appropriate and they have exceeded that. I want to make it clear that this was not a bribe to tell me to shut up, and I have not been asked by DigitalRev to take down this article, moderate it in any way, or say nice things about them. I don’t hold a grudge. I judge a company not by its mistakes, but by how they deal with them. In my opinion, they have responded in a decent manner which reassures me as a consumer. I’d like to highlight the following:

1. DigitalRev has admitted to their mistakes. They have also uncovered two further cases where this happened, and this gives me confidence that the behaviour was not standard policy. The fact that they uncovered further cases also demonstrates that their promise of a full internal investigation was sincere and not a charade.

2. DigitalRev has told me they will continue to post photographs with their EXIF data intact. You will also notice that the image I originally referenced in this article is still online and still has the EXIF data available. DigitalRev could have deleted the image or scrubbed the metadata, but they chose a policy of openness and transparency instead. On the subject of openness, some readers may note that the company has deleted comments from their Facebook and YouTube accounts which link to this article, but I don’t blame them for moderating such comments on forums they control.

3. They responded quickly and politely, despite the admittedly sensationalist tone of my article. They took the higher ground. At no point have they refuted my claims or asked me to retract what I wrote, despite the damage I may have caused to their reputation.

4. DigitalRev has apologised to me and given me 3 options to rectify the situation which I believe are reasonable. I am choosing to keep my camera, as I don’t believe it was damaged during Kai’s shoot.

5. DigitalRev has taken significant and practical measures to ensure this mistake is not repeated, including the recruitment of an internal auditor.

I may have caused DigitalRev some embarrassment, but I am not sorry that I wrote about my experiences, because I believe the company is now a safer place to shop. In fact they may be one of the safest, as their reputation has been put on the line and they have now implemented measures which other companies have not.

The debate about what qualifies as “new” will continue, no doubt, but I hope that other retailers follow DigitalRev’s example and tighten up their policies. Since writing the initial article, I have read numerous horror stories about other big retailers selling clearly used stock as new. I am not opposed to some minimal testing in-store, but even then the purchaser should be made aware that the box was opened, so they can decide for themselves whether a few clicks of the shutter is a deal breaker.

Will I shop at DigitalRev in future? Actually, yes I will, provided that they continue to respect their customers. I’ve seen lots of people swear they will never shop there again because of my experiences, but I hope those same people will agree that DigitalRev’s response shows they do care deeply about their reputation – as they should. If something like this happens to you, then make it public. We have tremendous power as consumers, and if we all share our experiences, good or bad, then that will help to shape the companies we deal with.

Below is the final response from DigitalRev, published with their consent (I removed the sender’s name because I don’t think that’s relevant):

“Dear Rob,

I’m heading the marketing and PR for DigitalRev Online Store. Thank you for your patience while we conduct our internal audit.

As mentioned in my colleague’s last email, the equipment used by DRTV’s production team comes from a number of sources such as: press units, display units from distributors, partners, rental companies as well as units donated by or borrowed from the DigitalRev Online Store. I would like to emphasise that it is not our policy to sell equipment that was lent to DRTV in our Online Store. How it usually works is that the equipment used would be either sold to third party companies or written off as DRTV equipment.

During the last couple of days, we have looked into logs as well as our sample photos to see if there have been any violation of the policy. We now know that at the time of the production, the DRTV team was only assigned one 5D Mark III camera (for Lok). Although Kai does have his own 5D Mark III, he sometimes forgets to bring it. When the extra 5D Mark III camera was lent to DRTV, it was at a point decided it will be kept by DRTV for future use instead of returning it to the online store. However we discovered that the supervisor of the logistic department, realising the camera was out of stock, decided to recall that camera from DRTV without the acknowledgement of the management.

We have an internal performance indicator called CED Score (CED stands for “Customer Expect Delivery by”), and it is used across the logistic department. If a customer’s order gets delayed, the CED score is negatively affected. This performance indicator is directly linked to the logistic team’s annual performance appraisal, so everyone works very hard to make sure orders get delivered to customers quickly. When the 5D camera went out of stock on that day, the supervisor decided to get one back from DRTV despite that the camera has been used in two videos. One less delayed order means higher CED score, and little did the management know that a performance indicator designed to encourage best shopping experience has created a very negative one. Although the camera had only been used to take about two dozen shots, I agree that the way it was used on the YouTube show is definitely not something you should witness. From the audit, we have also identified two other similar violations of policy. One of the other two customers have contacted us after reading your story, and we are going to contact the other one today or early tomorrow to recall their cameras.

Although what we have discovered so far are a few isolated violations of internal policy, we take this matter extremely seriously. Warnings have been issued to the persons who violated the policy, but more important we have made it the management’s top priority to make sure more trainings are provided and no further violation is going to happen. A job position has been posted on JobsDB.com today to hire an internal auditor who will ensure internal compliance of the operation. I wish to emphasise that DigitalRev Online Store does not deal with used or refurbished products, and we value the trust our customers have placed in us. We sincerely apologise to you for what has happened this time. Going forward we’ll also make sure that the third party companies we deal with abide the same high standard we set for ourselves.

To rectify the inconvenience caused we would like to propose a number of solutions for you to choose from:
1) You may return the camera to us for a full refund. We’ll send a courier to collect.
2) You may return the camera to us for a replacement. We’ll send a courier to collect.
3) If you chose to keep the camera, you may choose product(s) on DigitalRev Online Store for a sum up to £600. We can send you a cash voucher, or you can simply let me know by email and they’ll be on their way to you.

Last but not least, I wish to again apologise to you for the inconvenience we have caused you. And more importantly I wish to thank you for helping us becoming a better company in the process. You said that you wish to see DigitalRev goes strength to strength, and we truly appreciate your support. Instead of discrediting us, you are genuinely interested in helping us becoming a better company – for that we are very grateful.

Yours sincerely,

—- —-
Marketing & PR
DigitalRev Online Store”