So, remember that issue I posted about last week, with my Profoto B1 light? If not, read about it here.

In a nutshell:

I bought a Profoto light for a stupid amount of money, because Profoto lights are amazing
My Profoto light broke from pretty much nothing, because the case was defective
I sent it in, they refused to fix it and wanted me to pay for it
I complained about it on twitter, Profoto (Global) said they agree with the assessment
I wrote a long-ass blog post about it and it gained some traction on the web

So, after that, I told the local Profoto guys to fix the light at my expense. They then dropped me an email saying that they "are under rule from international standards for their warranty on all their Profoto Equipment. There are some hard costs that they need to pay regarding my repair, but to ease the costs of this repair and to show their good faith regarding my unit, they are willing to give me a 5% discount on my next Profoto purchase".

Errr, I don't know how 5% is supposed to make me feel better about Profoto refusing to acknowledge that their light is faulty, but thanks, I guess?

Now, as I said before, my next Profoto purchase would be an octa. I don't need another light. The Octa is somewhere around R6500 here. 5% of that is R325. For the foreigners - that's like $30.

Thirty. Dollars.

Sure, I could use that 5% when I buy another B1, but that's never been my next planned Profoto purchase.

Now, I'm not complaining about the 5%. It's only 5%, which doesn't mean much on this scale, but whatever. Money isn't the issue here. So, thanks Profoto for the 5%. It's certainly better than nothing, but it sure as hell doesn't make me feel any better about the fact that they refused to fix my light.

Now here's where the story gets absolutely nuts. And I'm sorry, but this is where my tone will stop being as warm as it's been, and as it was in the last blog post.

I got an email from who I believe is the head of Profoto here in South Africa. The email started off nice and friendly. Stuff like "We're glad you chose to accept our 5%", and "Even though the repair assessment didn't go in your favour, we strive to give our customers the best service", blah blah blah. And then, the winner - Are you ready for this? I hope you're sitting down for this one:

"We kindly ask that you respond on your Blog and social media posts to also include the courtesy offer from our side to give additional discount. No mention of this has yet been made and we would like for you to conclude this matter now with some positive feedback. We believe in building bridges here, not burning them and we could very well see a strong relationship with you in future".

Okay, so let me just wrap my head around this one. They refuse to fix a light that should never have broken, I complain about it on the web, a stack of people see me complaining (Including Profoto), they then offer me pocket change for a discount, wait a couple of days, and then ask me to blog about "their courtesy offer"? Seriously? It feels like Profoto is trying to buy some good rep from me.

Sorry Profoto. I'm not on your payroll. I'm just an artist trying to make beautiful photos. I'm not sponsored or endorsed by you guys, and you absolutely can NOT buy a good blog post from me. Want a good blog post? Acknowledge the fact that your light was defective. Don't throw a few bucks at a photographer that spent $2500 on your light and think that you can buy some good rep.

Geez.

Anyway, let me end this post with this: Despite all this crap, and despite the fact that I've pretty much lost all respect for this company, I still believe that their lights are amazing. I'm still happy that I bought the B1, and as I said, I'll probably still buy more Profoto stuff. But the people behind Profoto need to reassess the way they run this company.

Anyway, that's my rant.