Clean Your Windscreen, Guv?

I can't believe they did this, but Konica-Minolta have returned my broken Dimage F300 -- repaired. This after I specifically told them not to repair it. And they've taken £199 off my credit card, after I authorised a payment of just £7 for them to return the camera unrepaired.

The saga reeks of incompetency, from start to finish. First I contact them about the problem, specifically describing what I did, and asking for a rough estimate. They advise me to send it in for assessment, when they could, in my opinion, have just quoted me on a replacement lens/zoom assembly.

So I sent it in, complete with a covering letter explaining that I had dropped it onto a tiled floor etc. At no point did I ask for or suggest that this would be a warranty repair.

Two weeks later, I phoned them to chase it up, having heard nothing, and the girl told me over the phone that the camera was in the workshop being repaired under warranty.

O-kay...

Couple of weeks after that, I get a letter with an estimate for repair costs: £199, because upon examination the camera was found to have suffered impact damage. Except I already fucking told them that.

My options are to tick "please repair" and pay the full £199, or "do not repair" and pay £7 to have it returned to me. This I did, but judging from their apparent incompetency I kept a photocopy -- just in case.

So yesterday, finally, the camera arrived back in a battered, split, cardboard box. I would have been forgiven for removing the memory card and thinking no more about it, but I noticed that the lens, which wouldn't retract, was now retracted into the body. So I switched it on. It seemed slower than before, but I'm not sure if this is because I've been trying some newer models, and they're pretty quick at starting up, in comparison. But it works.

So I phoned to check my credit card statement, and lo and behold, they've snatched £199 off my account.

Not fine! The most I'd have paid for a repair was, maybe, £50. Instead, I bought a brand new camera, as mentioned below, the Dimage G600. On the phone to Minolta yesterday, they offered to refund me half the cost of the repair. But it's as if I stopped at the lights, and one of those street people offered to clean my windscreen for a pound, and I said, no. And they clean it anyway and expect me to pay for it.

I'm so pissed off with Minolta now that I want to return the G600 and buy another brand, any other brand, because I don't want them to have any of my money. Because though the F300 is repaired, it seems to be limping, not performing "as new".