Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Just a heads up if you own a DJI product or plan on buying one, you should consider the following even though it's a bit long: On 10/10/17 I bought a DJI #MavicPro, and was really excited to use it. It acted erratically periodically without warning, but for the most part worked well. When I took it out on 1/2/19, though, it flew up to about 70 feet, then spiraled to the ground like a rocket despite no warning indicators and no input on my part that resembled anything like what it was doing. If it had been in an area with people in it, it's not hard to imagine someone getting badly hurt if it hit them; as it was, it kept trying to fly while upside down on the ground after it wrecked and I had to remove the battery while what was left of the propellers were still going full speed. I reported this to DJI Support right away and the representative told me that they would do a data assessment to determine the cause of the crash and repair it even though it was outside of the warranty by 3 months. He sent me a mailing label to send it in, and I thanked him. "What great service this company has," I thought. Upon sending it in, the company told me they would no longer do any assessment and charged me approximately $390 for the repair. They told me that the first rep was "misinformed" and refused to relay their ID, name, or notes to me but did say they would 'discipline' them. Though they made it clear that they had not performed a data assessment to determine the cause of the crash, they said they had determined it was "user error" but would not tell me how or why, or what assessment they had performed to arrive at that conclusion. They said they had not and would not perform a data assessment of the product to determine the cause of the crash unless I paid; I asked to know how much that would cost and they told me they did not know and they would get back to me with the cost but never did. This seems fishy to me, as does the fact that they determined the crash was my fault but can't tell me how or why and didn't do the test that determines the cause of the crash. They did offer to take 25% off repair costs, lowering it to about $300, but will not assess why the crash occurred and the product will only be warrantied for 30 days. So, if there's something still defective in the unit itself (beyond just replacing broken parts) I'm still stuck with it. The did request that I send in the flight record info, and then ignored it. Look, I get that people do stupid things with drones. I tend to be very careful with mine - there were no obstructions, no on-screen warnings, and I wasn't flying near anything that interfered with it. I had just taken off. I also get that it's three months out of warranty - that being said, this is a pretty expensive piece of equipment - too expensive to not work correctly in a way that causes it to self-destruct. If I had any other product that destroyed itself less than three months out of warranty because of a malfunction, I'd expect the company to care enough about it to do something about it, particularly if their rep initially told me they would. DJI isn't a small company, or (I would have thought up until now) a fly by night company. I'm curious how many other people have had similar experiences; because of the fact that people can wreck a drone easily, it seems it would be easy for them to attribute crashes to user error rather than acknowledging any manufacturing mistakes. I'm really disappointed with them, and with their products. While I'm sure there are plenty of people that will chime in that they had great experiences with theirs (I'm happy for you if so, not all products are faulty!), or speculate that it's not DJI's fault without having seen the wreck, the flight record data is pretty clear, as is DJI's behavior following the crash. It's a shame they don't value their customers and the quality of their products more.