Hello Friend,

                                 "|Ripped off in Peru".

      Yesterday I got an email  from a customer who had been in the store, well over a month ago, and after
discussing what his budget was with Alex, in the store, chose to buy a portable compact Meade ETX 80
backpack telescope.

   Excellent choice for many reasons;  It is quite portable, easy to use and would be ideal for taking home
on the plane. 

And we get very positive customer feedback on this particular instrument.

    So he said that he had been using the scope for the past month, then for "no apparent reason" a lens inside
the optical tube, had fallen out. (This is something we've not seen occur in the past several years of selling this instrument).

And now he felt that we had sold him a "bad scope and was feeling ripped off" and  demanded to know what
we were going to do about it.

    Now, we want to help him solve his problem, and get his telescope up and running again, and it's quite
possible that the problem can be solved locally, with some instruction from Meade Instruments, because
of the distance involved, obviously it does not make sense to ship it back.

Now, anything could have happened when that telescope left the store; maybe it got bashed around in the cargo
hold of the airplane, or by the airport handlers. 

    Who really knows?

Point is, he sort of came at the problem the wrong way.  First by making some false accusations, and ranting
about the problem, as though we had created it intentionally for him.

   And I can certainly understand why he might be upset.  He's got a new telescope, and now it's not working.

   I'd be  a tad bit disgruntled as well.

 If you have a problem or technical issue with telescope you purchase from us, we will do our best to get it resolved
with the manufacturer. 

We have good working relationships with them, and know the right people to talk too to get results.

Clear Skies,

Ray "It came from the skies"  Khan

PS Meade Instruments is making a very strong push forward this year.  I'll tell you why and what's going on
     at "Big Blue" in a future email.