Photography

My Broken Godox Flash: A Tale of Bad Customer Service


Back in July, my Godox TT350O flash went wrong. I simply got an E9 message on the LCD and it wouldn’t work at all. It was annoying as I had enjoyed using Godox flashes and wireless transmitter up until then and had even recommended them to others.

I emailed Godox customer support and got a fairly swift reply:

Hello Neil, a

E9 on the LCD, procedure is gone wrong by improper operation, you will have to re-upgrade the Firmware, and that ought to reset your flash.

I couldn’t upgrade the firmware as I got the “Does not recognise the USB device” error message every time I plugged in the USB to my PC, so I left the flash a few days with the batteries out and tried again with no luck. So emailed back saying it didn’t work. I got no reply after 10 days, so I emailed again.

After another 5 days later, I finally got a reply:

Hello Neil,

I am sorry but i am trying to sort out this problem with Godox China.

Anyhow, the engineer is requesting a video clip to have a better understanding

Would you be as kind as to do that? thank you!

It took me a week to get around to filming it and sending it as the file was too big to email and I feared the one week limit on the download link would expire before they got around to downloading it on their end if I used WeTransfer’s file-transfer service. I did and got this reply 8 days later:

Hello Neil,

Terribly sorry, but there seems to be a technical problem to open your video clip (see below note from Godox-China) could you please be as kind as to re-send it.

I think we can all guess what the ‘technical problem’ was here.

I was getting annoyed by this point and had some personal stuff going on so, left I it for a week before I sat down and tried again. To be fair, I got a reply that day saying it had been forwarded on to the engineer.

2 weeks passed and I got a reply:

I am very sorry about this long delay, At long last Godox – China has come with a solution, they haver agreed to ex-change your faulty TT350 flash

Could you please be as kind as to send me back your faulty unit, to the below address.

So I sent it off at my own cost a couple of days later and waited for a reply.

And what I got in response, after all that, was somewhat disappointing:

Hello Neil,

Just to let you know that, I have received your faulty flash!

My plan was to send you straight away a replacement, but unfortunately, we haven’t got in stock any longer.

So i have taken the liberty to enclosed a quotation for a new V350o flash unit, there’s a difference of £22.00 though.

Please let me know if you would like to proceed with this, otherwise, we will have to wait until i received the replacement from Godox, within 12 weeks.

12 weeks! That’s 3 months! Either that or I pay them more money and get a flash that is identical except it uses a built-in battery, for which I’ll have to pay out more money to buy a spare.

I had enough by this point and sent the following:

Hi Juan,

I ‘m afraid waiting 12 weeks is unacceptable. I have been waiting since the 1st July for this to be sorted and have missed a large part of the insect macro season without my flash set up.

I will have to ask for a refund (I paid £69.00 on Amazon) and would like the £4 postage I paid refunded as well.

Kind regards

The response a couple of days later was:

Morning Neil,

I am not justifying the slow process , unfortunately, sometimes this things happen.

Did you buy the unit from us. Photomart i.e.

Now life got very busy for me at this point and dealing with a constant back and forth trying to get a refund on a £70 flash just wasn’t a priority.

But on a recent effort to clear my email backlog I sent a reply:

It was bought from Amazon via Letwing Digital Studio

Unfortunately for me, despite the fact it was purchased through Amazon UK, Godox decided suddenly, now that I had asked for a refund, that this was an issue.

Hello

Well since it was purchased from Amazon , this product is a grey import, as Letwing is a Chinese dealer, you should have take it with them directly.

Regards

Juan

After all this time, they decided it wasn’t their problem. They now have possession of my flash, which I posted to them at my own cost and had me waiting for weeks (even taking into account delays at my end).

So I then asked them this:

So will you not replace the item either then?
regards
Neil

The reply was:

I am afraid the answer in no.

I made you an offer, that you declined …! So i have taken the liberty to enclosed a quotation for a new V350o flash unit, there’s a difference of £ 22.00 though.

Regards

Juan

I find this hard to read as anything other than “you had your chance now give us more money or get nothing.” I didn’t expect top-level customer service paying what I did, but this is just beyond poor.

I sent the following for clarification a few hours ago:

So just so I’m clear: basically its pay £22 or get nothing?

Regards

Neil

We shall see what the reply is… but needless to say, I will be avoiding Godox in the future.


About the author: Neil Phillips is a wildlife photographer, naturalist, and environmental educator based in the UK. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can find more of Phillips’ work on his website, Facebook, and Twitter. This article was also published here.





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