I bought a nice Casio Waveceptor watch about 18 months ago from a great discount online store in Wales called The Time Zone. It’s a combined analogue/digital job and syncs the time using those big transmitters scattered around Europe.
The watch worked fine for a few months and then the analogue bit started losing hours and hours. I returned it to Casio UK who replaced the battery and sent it back. In no time at all the problem returned. I sent it back again and they replaced much of the innards. All was well for another few months and then it started losing time again!
I sent it back last week with a statement that I wanted a replacement watch since it was either flawed by design or by manufacture. It was returned this morning with a note saying they could find nothing wrong. Here we are 2 hours later and it has already lost an hour!!
Maybe as part of their “extensive testing” they should put it on someone’s wrist for half an hour.
What the hell do I have to do to get this bloody watch fixed? And yes, it is still under warranty.
It’s probably cost me as much again in postage every time I return it. For the moment, all I can say is avoid Casio Waveceptor watches like the plague. Catherine got a cheap digital Casio at the same time as me and apart from a battery change has worked perfectly since.
Technorati Tags: watch, casio, waveceptor, casio+uk, customer+service, design+flaw, customer+rights, warranty
May 10, 2007 at 6:39 pm
I have also recently experienced what can only be described as appaling service from Casio UK. I have experienced pretty much exactly the same problem as you. I recently noticed that mt Alarm on my waveceptor was only beeping once in the mornings. Being from an IT background I did various “tests” and discovered that after a night in darkness the watch seems to exhibit all the symptoms of having insufficient power to generate the alarm. I wrote a comprehensive letter and sent my watch back. I used the online tracking tool and could see they were waiting for parts. After nearly a month I rang them and told the watch was repaired and would be returned to me. I received the watch a week later with a latter stating that they could find nothing wrong as they could not recreate the fault, despite me having explained clearly how to do so. I recreated it again the following morning without a problem. I wrote them a stiff letter and received a reply telling me to check the manual! I rang their support centre and the guy in the phone confirmed that there must be a fault as it was clearly not operator error. I wrote to them again and demanded post paid packaging which they sent. I returned the watch again and today I have received it back with another letter saying they cannot find a fault. Quite frankly the level of disinterest and incompetence in their support centre is staggering. They have in my mind surpassed BT for their level of uselessness. I am currently formulating a reply letter to them but I am looking also to send this to the MD of Casio UK if I can find his name somewhere. I refuse to let them get away with this!!!
May 10, 2007 at 7:23 pm
I hope you get some come-back Conrad.
On the fourth return they replaced all the analogue parts despite my demanding a replacement. With all the parts they have replaced it would’ve been cheaper and better PR to give me a new watch.
It appears to be stable for the past few weeks but then that happened before.
I’ve just realised that if you search for “Casio UK” on Google, this blog post comes in at number 4! Yet I am still waiting for a refund on my postage costs. They really are utterly clueless.
November 24, 2007 at 10:44 pm
I have expericenced the same problem. My Casio AMW 320R does the same thing. It will work fine for days and then loses time. I parl it for a month and it works fine. When I depend on it it loses time. This is my second Casio first one lasted 8 years. This one started havi g a problem after 1 year. It is doubtful I would purchase another Casio
November 24, 2007 at 11:48 pm
Six months later and no cost refund from Casio. On the upside, the watch has been reliable in that time. But after 4 attempted repairs, it’d be a bit ridiculous if it wasn’t.
Casio clearly taking the Ryanair approach to customer service. Unlike Ryanair, they won’t get repeat business.
December 1, 2007 at 11:28 am
And the story finally comes to a end with the watch dying last night. If it is the battery then it is a bad joke. If not then it is dead for good. That’s the last Casio I ever buy. I recommend the same to the 600 daily readers of this blog.
December 10, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Hi,
I bought the all singing, all dancing, sun powered version of the Casio Wave Ceptor so that I could do my bit to help save the universe. I wanted to enjoy watching the hands whiz around as I landed in another country in a fuel inefficient, fume belching jet plane and see it find the time zone as if by magic in an environmentally efficient manner. Or to wake up when the clocks change and be amazed as the watch has reset itself all on it’s own – having first switched on the lights and central heating to see what I am doing in comfort.
In fact it has never done either of these things.
To achieve either requires a string of seemingly random and hard to remember manual button pushes. I also liked the idea of a stopwatch on my wrist for football matches. This has become a 7 day recurrent source of irritation as upon attempting to stop and reset the stopwatch at the end of the first half one of the buttons, button C, has always remained jammed in. I can then be seen banging the watch on a steel rail at which point it pops back out and the watch can be restarted. Of course the clanging sound produces jeers from the players who wonder why I do not ring a bell to let them know the first half is up. The watch has survived the maltreatment I have given it but stubbornly refuses to be operated as it says should in the instruction book, handily provided in a thick lump in dozens of languages.
I have given up on it ever being fit for its purpose and, sooner rather than later, will put an end to it’s recalcitrance as I flatten the damn thing with a lump hammer.
August 6, 2009 at 9:04 pm
I’ve had a lot of problems with my Casio AMW 320R though my other Casio AMW 320D has always been a fantastic watch.
I’m in the middle of protracted correspondence with CASIO whose service department are appalling. They finally appear to have fixed my watch but not without chipping the glass first. I’d also like the name of the Casio UK MD to write to.
I like the AMW range as they have an analogue face with digital alarm.
August 11, 2009 at 10:51 am
Interesting to see that Casio still are really rubbish at customer support even after all this time. My watch still works but I have no confidence in the alarm as I have seen the same power issue even after some time of nagging Casio. Finally given up but will obviously not spend any money with them again. What is strange though is that they cannot be blind to the fact that they offer a poor service and yet nothing is done.
November 13, 2011 at 9:10 am
I have a solar powering waveceptor and it has been losing time recentlly, although up to now it only seems to be 15 minutes. Maybe it have nothing to do with the battery and a problem with the analogue time piece itself.
June 14, 2012 at 8:54 pm
I purchased this AMR 320 about 4 months ago from Walmart and it has been losing around 5 minutes per day. It worked ok for the last two days and just today it lost 15 minutes! You would think that it’s only purpose is to keep time so it should!
Anyway, I had problems with an expensive Citizen loosing time so I thought I would buy the good ole reliable Casio and this is what happens. They don’t make things like they used to, thats for sure.