Okay, I lied. It wasnt a deliberate lie; I simply misinterpreted Reef Photos (ambiguous) response.
So I E-mailed and told them the hasps on my housing were rusty. They wrote back saying, and I quote, Ikelite is sending us replacements, which we'll forward at no charge. End quote.
I took this to mean I was being sent a replacement
housing. What I received were replacement
hasps ...with no accompanying installation instructions.
Ill admit Im a pretty incorrigible shade tree mechanic but the prospect of swapping those hasps without so much as torque specs for the nuts gives me the heebie-jeebies. So I E-mailed back to Reef Photo asking what I was to do with the spare parts. The response was basically, Dunno. Ill ask Ikelite.
Which put me to wondering, Okay, you sent me replacement parts even
you dont know how to install but you sent them with no instructions? This is customer service
how???
A month and a half came and went and I had no answer from RP so Monday I E-mailed Ikelite directly (as usual, almitywife, the woman was right)
. They replied yesterday, saying I had no business replacing the hasps myself and I should send it to them.
Great. Reef Photo just got moved to my DO NOT BUY FROM list.
Im (still) happy with the pieces parts of my original purchase, which was based almost entirely on guidance from them. Ill give em that. But I ordered the UW camera kit in advance of my first trip to Bonaire, a significant enough event that I thought it worthy of the expense of an UW digital photo kit.
I struck the blow two weeks ahead of my departure, which Id have allowed was enough time for the camera to reach me here in Curacao (USPS from the states usually takes 7 calendar days at the outside). When it hadnt arrived on the day of my departure, I E-mailed RP to check on its status. And I got an, Oops! Itll go out today.
So a week after my trip to Bonaire, the package finally arrived. Understand that this is my first UW rig so I dont know a lot about housings and ports and such. But I couldnt find anything in that box that would allow me to attach the strobe arm to the housing.
So once again I E-mailed RP to ask what I was overlooking. His reply was, My mistake. I was thinking that housing had a built-in tray. I guess not, huh? You want I should send you one? Tray, eh? Whats a tray?
So it was another two weeks before I had the entire kit together. In all, the initial transaction took a month too long and involved
way more drama than was necessary.
But now Im snakebit; Im convinced something will go awry
every time I deal with Reef Photo. And the simple solution is just to stop dealing with them.