My crash helmet has built-in Bluetooth, allowing me to make and receive phone calls, listen to music or receive directions from Google Maps as I ride. This is – of course – all very useful.
It will also allow me to have conversations with other motorcyclists who are in our riding group and who have the same comms package. Unfortunately, this isn’t so useful, as none of my riding pals have this.
But, anyway…
Anyway, my helmet developed a fault and would not charge correctly. Of course, it has done this six months outside the warranty period.
And so, after much, much scouring of the Internets to see if anyone else has had this issue (and possibly fixed it), I managed to find not one single example of someone else having the same problem.
I decided to contact the manufacturer. On their website, there was a Support page where I could ask my very simple question: “The LED no longer goes blue when the helmet is fully charged. Any ideas?”
But, to ask this very simple question, I had to traverse a range of text boxes asking for all my details.
I tried to ignore them all: all they needed was my question, the model number of the device and my email address so they could contact me back.
But no… every field was mandatory.
In order to submit my simple question to them I had to fill in each of the following:
First Name
Last Name
Phone Number
Email Address
Home Address
Country
City
Postcode
Model Number
Date Of Purchase
Where Purchased
And then, after giving them all my unnecessary personal details, they asked me to tick a box saying that I agree to their privacy policy!
Of course, I only gave them the bare minimum of genuine info – as I mentioned above – putting fake details into the remaining boxes. And – of course – I used an email address that I reserve for such things, so that my main email doesn’t get spammed more than it already does.
So, I was amused yesterday when I received an email from them saying:
“Dear Timothy Hetherington-Smythe . Thank you for your enquiry. Please try doing a firmware upgrade.”
It annoys me that all these companies feel the need to have all our personal details on their databases.
In turn, it pleases me that several of these companies think they have my details, but in reality, what they have is a load of old rubbish.
The firmware update worked, though. 🙂
Did you know that a ” warranty” isn’t actually that useful…may make life easier if something goes wrong within that time, but otherwise the Consumer Rights Act 2015 covers a multitude of problems. I listen to the ” consumer” show on BBC 3 Counties with JVS and he is always banging on about it!
Main point are…..Must be fit for purpose, last a reasonable amount of time, and I think the last one is about value. Also he is always saying that your contract is with the retailer or whoever you gave your money to and they should be the ones sorting it out. Sounds like you are sorted for now, but worth knowing about for the future maybe?
Thanks Frances.
Yes, I’ve heard things to that effect in the past. Like most people, I tend not to follow it up though. I might possibly do so if the faulty item in question was pretty expensive, I suppose.
Another successful covert operation by Shh. You know who.
Er… no, no I don’t.
Interesting. If your helmet’s gizmos stop doing gizmoing, is it still a helmet? Do you throw the helmet away for the lack of gizmo? I feel the need for some insight. Me? Oh, I use a pair of Bose in-ear Bluetooth earbuds for all the same gizmoing you get from your built-in-ness. But, although there’s a decent built-in microphone, I don’t do calls on the bike. That would be too distracting.
Yes, it’s still a helmet, silly… just without gizmos.
Well played, Mr Hetherington-Smythe!