Complaint Review: Dino Direct

In June 2011, I bought a PC tablet from Dino Direct.  After reading the reviews and noting that there was a 30-day money back guarantee, I went ahead and bought it.  When it arrived, I was mostly pleased with the item, however, the touch sensitivity was really screwy and I couldn't find any settings to adjust it.  So I wrote to them - the only way you can contact them is online through their website.

I started to notice that the reviews that had been posted were the same people, over and over so I got a little bit suspicious.  Since the user 'manual' was barely legible and in very poor English (which I didn't hold against them) and I couldn't find anything online on how to recalibrate the sensitivity, I opened up an RMA case. 

Immediately they did not want this back and wanted me to send it back at my own cost and they would replace it (at my own cost of shipping).  Because I had started to feel uneasy about this website, I told them I just wanted my money back.  After a few back and forths about it, they agreed and approved the RMA but wouldn't change the status of it to Approved, which would've allowed me to print a shipping label, but they refused to do that too.  So I had to dig around their website to find the return address.

It cost me $25 to FedEx the shipment but then FedEx called me (over and over and over) because the phone number I had provided was not working.  Apparently, in China, the package has to clear customs and the company has to contact them.  Everytime FedEx called, the message said the phone was 'powered off'.  They tried for weeks and then I found a number for a California location, which I called.  She was so rude but she did tell me yes, we'll pick it up.

More time goes by, I still keep trying to contac them via their customer service feedback form online in the RMA and sometimes they responded, but mostly did not.  Finally after close to 2 months, I decided to have the item returned so that was another story.  The Chinese customs wanted me to keep sending them letters about why I wanted it returned, so I finally gave up and said abandon the package.  Even then, the Chinese customs wanted ANOTHER letter saying why we were abandoning the package.

NEVER AGAIN will I make this mistake.  At least it only cost me $25 because I went to my bank and got the charge revsered - although it hasn't been long enough to figure out if the bank is going to charge it back to me again since the package was abandoned.  Hopefully nobody else will have to go through this.