a story by Howard Wolosky
The background
After we finally started getting the hang of not swimming, kayaking really started to become quite a lot of fun. At some unknown tipping point, we got to the point where what we were doing would look rather cool on video (as opposed to funny). It was at that point that I began my well-known multi-month-long investigation into the right video camera and helmet camera setup so that I could indeed begin to record our whitewater antics.
After, quite literally, months of looking, I got an excellent deal on a Sharp VLZ3U MiniDV Camcorder for about $190 from Amazon after combining some coupons and rebates. It was a great, and unfortunately, irreproducible deal. I then had to find the right helmet camera. I searched all over the net for recommendations and options, but found little information out there for whitewater users. Some of the sites that I did end up looking at:
I eventually went with bulletcam.com, even though their prices were generally more expensive than the others, they were the only ones who provided a full kit including the watertight casewatertight case.
I placed my order with them on April 15, 2004 for a grandtotal of $379 ($369 + $10 shipping), in preparation for the rafting trip down the Wenatchee river we were going to be taking on Saturday May 1, 2004. My order kept getting delayed because they didn’t have all of the parts ready to go to make the case. They eventually overnighted the package to me so that I got it Friday April 30, 2004.
Becoming an extreme director
The first couple trips with the helmet cam were experimental in nature. I had to try a couple different angles on the camera until it wasn’t always pointed up or down the whole time. I did manage to get some great video during those trips, although the Yakima rafting trip was probably a waste of tape.
And then came Saturday May 22, 2004. I got pinned against a log and ended up swimming a bunch of the Wenatchee river, having the helmet camera going the whole while. When I finally got in my car later that day, I noticed that the inside of the case was damp and that the camcorder no longer worked. The case had leaked and ruined everything.
And so began the process of refunds
I was bummed the whole time about the loss but I wasn’t overly concerned, because I knew that I had a 90 day full refund policy via my credit card (American Express Blue) for any reason. I got the process with them started for the camcorder, but I decided to go through BulletCam.com for the refund of the helmet camera since they had a policy that superseded that of my credit card. So I contacted them via email and they asked me to send the whole kit back to them for investigation.
The history of the beginning of this process can be tracked in this unresolved Better Business Bureau complaint that I finally filed - they had three failed attempts in contacting BulletCam for a resolution and they now have a mark on their record after months of no response. Essentially, they acknowledged receipt of the kit, and then took over a month to look into the issue and give me a response. When they asked what resolution that I wanted, I finally said that I wanted a refund, and I never heard from them again. I called and left over fifty voicemails over the next few months, and as many emails as well. I never received any further responses.
I tried contacting my credit card company at this point, but they said that they only handle problems within 90 days of purchase; after that, all information would have to be faxed and would be considered on an individual basis (didn’t look good from my standpoint, but still could be a last ditch hope).
I was really giving up hope. I did some searching on the next, and started finding little tidbits like this one (google cache) where other people were getting similarly screwed out of refunds by the same company.
Grabbing at straws
Every once in a while I would go to BulletCam.com to see if they still appeared to be in business (they did). I tried sending emails to them from other email addresses pretending to be a new inquiring customer, just to see if I could get a response (I didn’t). Finally, one day I noticed that the website had changed! Eeeeenteresing.
There’s a link at the bottom of the new site going to http://www.develonet.com/, the website designers for the new site. I started calling and talking to the main designer, Kirk Ziegler (no relation to Craig, I asked). I talked with Kirk a couple times, explaining my situation and asking if he could get me into contact with Mike Doherty (the owner/operator of BulletCam). He said that whenever he calls the number listed on the website, he gets through to Mike right away. I explained that whenever I call, I get voicemail after a number of unanswered rings. So, I gave my contact info to Kirk and asked him to pass it along to Mike. Mike never called me back.
On future calls to Develonet, Kirk told me that Mike remembered me but said he never got any voicemails from me, nor any emails. So, I emailed Mike cc’ing the webguys. Kirk said he got the email from me, but never saw a response from Mike, and neither did I.
Again, I was feeling that I was just completely screwed. I was really just grabbing at straws
A mind like a steel trap
Then, one morning at work (12/9/2004), I remembered an article I read on http://slashdot.org a while ago. It talked about a new consumer service for caller-ID spoofing called Camophone.. I don’t know why I was thinking about it that morning, but my mind just connected the dots immediately on my way to work.
There was another article on Slashdot that appeared before the one about Camophone, but it was in regards to Star38.com which isn’t available for use by the general public.
I’ll be blunt. Camophone doesn’t look like a legitimate site. It looks very plain and rather suspicious. But the forums on the site looked fairly active enough to be legitimate, and hey, it was only going to cost me $5 to find out ($0.05 a minute, minimum of 100 minutes to charge your account with). Within one second after the paypal transaction, my account on Camophone had the credits, and then, with a lot of trepidation, I placed the call.
Ring 1 (no answer)
Ring 2 (no answer)
At this point, I was losing hope. Two more rings and it would go to voicemail like all of my other calls…
Ring 3: “Hey”
I did it. Mike picked up the phone and answered like he was expecting to talk with Kirk.
I asked if it was Mike, he said yes, but seemed a little hesitant, and then I went into the schpeel quickly. I reminded him who I was and that I wanted my refund. He let me know that he never got any of the voicemails I left, but never responded to why he didn’t answer my emails or call me back when Kirk gave him my contact info. I didn’t push. He was already being too nice at this point.
He said he’d do the paypal refund right there on the phone. We agreed on $369, and then he tacked on another $15 to cover the transaction fee from Paypal (that was actually a nice gesture that I hadn’t even asked for). As soon as he sent it, I accepted the transaction and immediately initiated the withdraw into my bank account (didn’t want to give him a chance to rebuff the refund).
We got off the phone, and that was it. I finally got my refund after seven months of trying.
However, I made a mistake on the camophone website, and I guess I initiated a second call to Mike (BulletCam) either during or shortly after my main one to him. It went into my voicemail and you can listen to his less than enthusiastic response to it.
Wrapping up
I highly recommend http://www.camophone.com if you think you have a legitimate reason to spoof your caller ID. Spending 5 bucks there was well worth getting my $370 back. The interface is rather lackluster, but boy does it do its job well.
AVOID bulletcam.com. Customer service is horrendous and business practices lean towards illegal.
Additional References
* Beating Caller ID - http://artofhacking.com/files/BEATCID.HTM
Additional ideas on how to get around Caller-ID