Barska Binoculars Died

I purchased a pair of Barska Deep Sea Binoculars a few years ago and this year found that they had fallen apart internally when I went to use them. To say the least I was very disappointed. This morning I was feeling slightly froggy and decided to address the situation. I put a review on opticspanet.com where I had purchased the binoculars and sent the below email to the manufacture, Barska. I am interested in seeing what kind of response I get from them. Right now I couldn’t see ever buying another barska product based on the quality of the binoculars I have right now. To spend over a hundred dollars on a set and then have them fall apart just sitting on the shelf is almost criminal. I hope it is a isolated incident in their product line. If they take it seriously then I will probably consider it to be fluke product and will give them kudos. If they don’t reply or blow it off I will take it as an indication that it is probably a fairly common occurrence that they don’t have much interest in rectifying. I run a business and it is amazing the difference in your customers response based not on never having a problem but on your response to a problem. I will post any replys I get here.

Dear Sirs,
I just wanted you to know how disapointed I am in one of your products. I purchased one of your deep sea with compass and range finder binoculars a few years ago from opticsplanet.com. I had it on my boat for about 6 months and in that time removed it from its case and used it maybe 4 or 5 times. It worked well the few times I used it.  It was then stored in its case in my air conditioned office for the next 2 years. When I went to put my boat  back in the water this year I pulled the binoculars out of the case to check the battery for the integrated light and found that I could not see through them correctly. One of the internal lenses had fallen out of its mountings in the binoculars.  I was shocked that this had happened on such a lightly used unit. I could see it being damaged to falling and hitting the lens and scratching or breaking it, but to just fall apart while in storage in an climate controlled environment is pretty far down my expectation
scale for these binoculars. The model number of the binoculars is KBV2 AB10160. I do not know if they are still under any sort of warranty, If so I would like to see about getting them repaired or replaced; if not I wanted you to know about my experience with them.  I am sure that this does not reflect the standard to which you wish your products to be built.

Sincerely,
Scott Carle

Well I got an email back on monday.

Here it is

Hello Scott,

Thank you for contacting Barska. You can send the binoculars in to our
facility for inspection and repair. Do you still have the proof of purchase
for this item? If you do, the warranty charge will be $20 and that will
cover the inspection and shipping and handling back to you. If you’d like to
send them in, please reply with your full name, address, and telephone
number so we can send you an RMA number. I look forward to your reply. Thank
you.

Best Regards,

Jason
—
BARSKA Customer Service Team
1721 Wright Ave.
La Verne
CA 91750
USA
Tel: +1 (909) 445-8168 | Fax: +1 (909) 445-8169
service@barska.com | www.barska.com

I sent back the following reply.

Is it standard procedure if it is still under warranty to charge a $20 fee? If I need to I will pay it but I was curious about this as it is fairly unusual in my experience.

Scott Carle