Hello everyone, I just need to vent my frustration regarding the tradeup program.

I've owned a Phantom 4 for a couple of years now, and it's great in all aspects, except its size. It's simply massive, and very cumbersome when travelling. As such, I decided get a Mavic 2 after doing the DJI trade up program while I was in China (big mistake) because I could get a better price for it there.
So, I sent my beloved drone off a few days before I came back to the states, figuring there would be no problems and I could have some DJI credit to pad the expense of the Mavic 2. Well, it's been weeks and I have heard nothing from DJI, except for one call right after I sent my drone out informing me that I needed to register the batteries separately on the trade up website. This let me know that they are in possession of my drone. I registered the batteries immediately. This was a month ago. I have received no other calls, no emails, nada.

Rather frustrated and worried about the lack of communication, I have called their China number a couple of times, which is difficult due to the time difference and my busy schedule, and I have been given the runaround. I have been told that they will call me back, and of course I have not received a callback. Worse, I called THEM back and was told that I need to contact the tradeup company, which is separate, directly. I failed to ask for their number, which was another mistake on my part.

It should not be this difficult to at the very least keep me updated on what is going on with my drone. This is an expensive piece of equipment, and to not even have eyes on it is immensely frustrating and unprofessional on DJI's part. I understand if they need to take time to go over the unit; maybe they are backed up on tradeups. However, the fact that they cannot even tell me where it is, and what's going on with it, makes me very suspect. I am very concerned I may just be out a Phantom 4 with nothing to show for it; maybe I made a mistake thinking that DJI is a company I can trust.

Maybe an admin can find out more.

I assume you have the dates/proof of posting, along with the serial numbers of products returned.
Might pay to post them here for admin to check/use(send to a personal admin account for your own security).

KEJ Posted at 2-21 08:47
I assume you have the dates/proof of posting, along with the serial numbers of products returned.
Might pay to post them here for admin to check/use(send to a personal admin account for your own security).

Yes I have both. I can send them to an admin if they message me or post here.

William The Bastard Posted at 2-21 08:55
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DJI support in China told me they don't use order numbers, they track with the tracking number from the shipping company. They arrange all of the shipping over there, that part is quite convenient. This is my shipping receipt with tracking number.

At least now(in theory) someone(M, F or T) in the Admin department should be able to chase/track and update you.

The annoying part is just not knowing or being updated, its frustrating if someone tells you it will be four weeks, but when you just don't know, its a bit poor to be honest.

Good luck.

KEJ Posted at 2-21 08:59
At least now(in theory) someone(M, F or T) in the Admin department should be able to chase/track and update you.

The annoying part is just not knowing or being updated, its frustrating if someone tells you it will be four weeks, but when you just don't know, its a bit poor to be honest.

I hope so. My past experiences with DJI have been all positive, starting with my first little spark, which I still have. That is why I sent my Phantom off without any worries.

Regardless, thanks for your help and good wishes.

Hi, William sorry for the issues you had with the trade-up. You may reach the trade-up company via email and send it to djitradeincs@litong.com for checking the status. Kindly attach the confirmation number that was given when you process the order. If you have any remaining questions, feel free to email support@dji.com . We hope to have a resolution for this since it took weeks already and that I know is really frustrating. William, we appreciate your patience and understanding. Thank you.

William The Bastard Posted at 2-21 09:02
I hope so. My past experiences with DJI have been all positive, starting with my first little spark, which I still have. That is why I sent my Phantom off without any worries.

Regardless, thanks for your help and good wishes.

Fingers crossed - Diana's on the ball!

DJI Diana Posted at 2-21 09:27
Hi, William sorry for the issues you had with the trade-up. You may reach the trade-up company via email and send it to  for checking the status. Kindly attach the confirmation number that was given when you process the order. If you have any remaining questions, feel free to email  . We hope to have a resolution for this since it took weeks already and that I know is really frustrating. William, we appreciate your patience and understanding. Thank you.

Hello Diana, thank you for the information. I have emailed djitradeincs@litong.com, hopefully they will respond soon. I never did receive a confirmation number, unless I simply did not pay attention to the confirmation page. I assumed I would receive an email with any information I needed, as that is the norm when submitting anything anywhere. I have never received any emails regarding my trade up.

On the mainland Chinese trade up page, there is no option to track trade up orders. This is different from the US page, which displays a tracking link underneath the trade up link.

I was told by China DJI phone support that they use the shipping tracking number as the tracking number. This is all appears very unusual to me.

William The Bastard Posted at 2-21 11:57
Hello Diana, thank you for the information. I have emailed , hopefully they will respond soon. I never did receive a confirmation number, unless I simply did not pay attention to the confirmation page. I assumed I would receive an email with any information I needed, as that is the norm when submitting anything anywhere. I have never received any emails regarding my trade up.

On the mainland Chinese trade up page, there is no option to track trade up orders. This is different from the US page, which displays a tracking link underneath the trade up link.

Hi William, I will also formally ask and forward this to a higher level of support to check and see. Obviously, I'd like to resolve this as much as you do because this has been weeks already and that saddens me reading that. Don't worry, I'll keep an eye to this one. Thank you for your patience.

DJI Diana Posted at 2-21 13:40
Hi William, I will also formally ask and forward this to a higher level of support to check and see. Obviously, I'd like to resolve this as much as you do because this has been weeks already and that saddens me reading that. Don't worry, I'll keep an eye to this one. Thank you for your patience.

Thanks Diana.

I just got this email reply:

Dear Sir，

This is DJI Trade Up in North America, if like you description in the mail you attend the trade up program in China please contact with DJI Trade Up in China. Thank you!

Best Regards,
The DJI Trade Up Team

Update: I finally found the trade up number to call on the DJI China website. It doesn't help that I read Chinese at a 4th grade level, hah. So, I called them and asked about my drone, and they quoted me a price. They claimed that they messaged me, but I never received a message. I simply don't understand why I was never emailed regarding the trade up, and why they just didn't seem to care about following up on the transaction after they messaged me once, if they ever messaged me at all.

Oh well, I have the DJI credit in my account. Just be wary of trading up in China!

William The Bastard Posted at 2-21 18:26
Thanks Diana.

I just got this email reply:

Hi William, apologies for the troubles you had. Reading your post in #12 made me fully aware of the situation, I sincerely thank you for giving me the opportunity to help in my own little ways and bringing this concern for us to address the issues straight forward regarding trade-ups. Thank you for your continued support.

William The Bastard Posted at 2-22 05:01
Update: I finally found the trade up number to call on the DJI China website. It doesn't help that I read Chinese at a 4th grade level, hah. So, I called them and asked about my drone, and they quoted me a price. They claimed that they messaged me, but I never received a message. I simply don't understand why I was never emailed regarding the trade up, and why they just didn't seem to care about following up on the transaction after they messaged me once, if they ever messaged me at all.

Oh well, I have the DJI credit in my account. Just be wary of trading up in China!

At least you finally got some action on the case.

Wow, just wow. I checked out the DJI website, since I heard about the new Mavic Mini and it's pretty interesting to me, and I go to my account and guess what? ALL MY CREDITS WERE DISAPPEARED. ALL of them, including the above frustrating trade up, $44 from my father's Phantom 4, which he crashed, and a couple of miscellaneous credits from purchases. ALL of them.




Worse, I never received any email confirmation of the credits from the trade in of my working Phantom 4, because it was done in China, as mentioned above. The credits simply appeared in my account, and I dropped the matter since I trusted that they would be safe in there. Oh, how wrong I was.

The worst part: I spent over $1,100 RMB, over $150 USD, repairing my Phantom because there was a small problem with the motherboard, before I traded it in, because I would have gotten a better value for the tradein after a repair.




The above screenshots show the repair invoice (which DJI happens to provide a handy PDF for), and the email chain of me telling the tradein company to send my Phantom 4 back the first time.

As mentioned in the above forum posts, I never received confirmation of my second tradein after repair, because I never received any emails regarding it! I simply trusted DJI once I saw the credits in my account, a big mistake.

This whole thing is extraordinarily frustrating. I shouldn't have to be dealing with all of this hassle because DJI keeps screwing up.