I ordered the JLab Epic BT Headphones based on a review by Wirecutter, which site I had found to have thorough reviews and evaluations in the past. These headphones failed 13 days outside of the 30 day warranty return-for-refund period. They did this after working just fine, no bluetooth connectivity issues, good sound – out of the blue the right earpiece of the headphones started cutting out. The headphones did this once, then again, then repeatedly, until the headphones were unlistenable.
I ordered a second pair of headphones, to see if the ones I got were a fluke and because apparently I’m not convinced of the evidence of my own eyes and ears the first time. Fortunately the second pair was offensively unusable right out of the box – so instead of wondering about the quality and engineering I could get an immediate and direct experience and return them…
Wow.
I set up the return for the brand new pair which was defective, no problem.
The first pair of these headphones was past the 30 day return for refund period, so I started the repair warranty process – and I was send by return email the terms under which I would be able to gain satisfaction:
Once we receive and inspect your defective product, we will continue processing your claim. If the product failure is determined to be a manufacturing defect covered under warranty, we will email you a store credit discount code equal to the price of the product including tax, as sold on JLabaudio.com. It is your choice if you want the same item or if you want to use the coupon for other JLab products. The choice is yours!
Please note the entire coupon value must be used on a single order. Any remaining balance leftover will no longer be valid once the coupon is used and will not be reissued or reimbursed. JLab also will not issue credit for purchase price from any 3rd party seller and will only issue credit for the price as stated for a direct replacement of your item on our online store.
So…
I am definitely out $100 (actually $92, as the headphones were discounted to $89 then taxed). But I do maybe get to choose the same or another product and pay shipping, both to return the defective product and probably, though not certainly, to receive the coupon-ed product, from the same company that sold me the defective item in the first place. Somehow I’m not overwhelmed by the level of customer support here.
I gave the item a scathing 1 star review on amazon, including this quote describing what you get if your item is defective.
Then I registered with the Wirecutter site and submitted another scathing review in the comment section – these are Wirecutter’s top-rated wireless headset, and they are truly abysmal both in the quality of the product and the support available. …And… The review/comment disappeared… I tried again, and this time the comment stayed – the usual website daemons.
Here’s the comment on Wirecutter:
I wish there was some more direct way to fix this – the Wirecutter article is as of today still recommending these headphones despite all of this, and that’s just sad.
One unusual thing to note on the amazon listing for this item – the reviews include a “wired” version – which doesn’t seem to be the same item at all. All of this manufacturer/seller’s reviews I think are being lumped together making an evaluation of a single product impossible. If you click on individual items reviewed they are all over the amazon site, and don’t necessarily reflect this product at all. Yes, there’s buyer beware. But at some point you’ve passed that.
—doug
19 April 2016:
Did I mention these JLab Epic Bluetooth Wireless headphones are not worth the money, don’t buy them?
You can literally pick out of a Chinese manufacturer’s catalogue designs for bluetooth headsets and then stamp your “OEM” marks on it and call it $100 headset (discounted to $82, you save $18 or 20%). For example pick from these pre-designed items, or or these. But it can go deeper than this into picking cords and earpieces and controls, making this item potentially a commodity hardware.
This creates lots of opportunities, but also areas where without experiencing the item you can’t tell the quality. Two headphones. Both are manufactured in China. One has designed for quality, the other has picked an item for packaging and margin. One has failures at a reasonable level and stands behind their product. The other has a very high failure rate. As long as those failures are mostly just beyond the 30 day period and are corralled into no refund but instead replacement through values set on your own website and making the consumer pay any shipping, you do fine. The customer will get frustrated and give up before you actually go out of pocket in most cases.