For all the hate we direct towards “the man”, sometimes the little guy is just as bad. When I e-mailed Amazon last week about my issue with the 35L they sent me, I did not expect them to do anything about it but they surprised me by refunding 20% of my purchase price. At that time I thought my luck was rolling because a week prior to that I e-mailed Radio Poppers about an issue I was having with my transmitter. The radio popper unit has plastic “stoppers” after the hotshoe mount to prevent the unit from coming off after you slide it in. Well, my stopers got pushed in and the thin plastic that connects them began to show fatigue which made it impossible for the RP to stay mounted to my hot shoe. To remedy this problem, I used a piece of gaffers over the stoppers to thicken the “hook” part. This worked for a while until the screw on the hotshoe somehow got stripped and the unit stopped making contact during a shoot. Yikes, right?
Phi, I am sorry to hear that your JrX transmitter is having some issues. Rather than trying to rig the transmitter with a temporary fix, I am just going to replace your unit with a new one. Expect an email shortly from admin with further details.
So I e-mailed RP asking about replacement parts and to my surprise they told me that they’d fix it. Awesome right? 
Nope. I sent the unit in this week and it arrived at RP today and instead of “replacing [my] unit with a new one” they want to charge me $20. Talk about a bait and switch. 
Honestly, I don’t mind paying to have it fixed. I initially e-mailed asking for prices and availability of replacement parts but to say they are going to replace it and then turn around and say they aren’t is pretty grimey in my book.
Hello Phi,This is in regards to your RM 13xxx. We have received your JrX Transmitter and in preparation for repair we found that the damage on the bottom part of the JrX Transmitter is not from typical use, as one “stop” is torn off and missing, and the other is bent down. We can repair your loose screws under warranty, free of charge. However if you would like the bottom part of your JrX Transmitter case replaced so that the unit is able to stay on your camera’s hotshoe more securely the repair fee will be $20.00
At this point, I don’t even think I can recommend RPs to people anymore. The transmitter hotshoe design is awful and they obviously do not even stand by their product. I’m going to pay to get it fixed (mainly for resale reasons) but I don’t see how this issue isn’t going to happen again; the design is just not durable in my opinion.
My response:
In my initial e-mail I stated that the stops had been pushed down, a problem I remedied by putting gaffers tape over the stops. While shooting I then discovered the problem with the screw which was found to be stripped/loose on further inspection. I was inquiring about replacement parts for the transmitter. Brent replied by saying, “Rather than trying to rig the transmitter with a temporary fix, I am just going to replace your unit with a new one.” When I prepared the transmitter for shipment, I removed the gaffers from the stops, at this point the right stop came off. I don’t see how Brent would agree to replace a unit with stops pushed down but now it is not OK. Functionally the condition before and after gaffers tape is the same; the unit would not stay in the hot shoe securely, which is what my initial e-mail was addressing anyway. Basically what this boils down to is Brent telling me not to worry about jerry rigging the transmitter to work and send it in and now you are telling me that unless I pay I will have to jerry rig it to work.
Do you see how this is contradictory? If Brent had told me in the first place that it would be $20 to replace the bottom plate after telling him that both stops were pushed down I would have just used superglue or loctite to secure the screw and continued using my gaffers tape solution on the stops. Instead I was baited into sending the unit around and now the terms of RMA are being changed. If RP doesn’t want to keep their word, I am not sure what I can say other than that I am really disappointed. My biggest regret is that I have recommended radiopoppers to people based on value and customer service.
Regards,
Phi Dong
I doubt they’ll do anything about it. Instead of paying $20 on top of the $10 shipping I’ve already paid, I bought a used transmitter for $60 so for $40 more I get a working transmitter and one that doesn’t lock. Hooray. 
Update (8/31/2010): RP called me and apologized. They explained that they figured “someone got impatient and just broke the RP off”. I guess their tech support department is separate from their RMA department so whatever. They are keeping their word and repairing the unit free of charge. Hooray I guess.