Where did BigBlueSquid.com go???

Despite growing fantastically fast and selling to hundreds of customers on every continent (yes we even had kit going to the Antarctic!) in our first year, BigBlueSquid came to an abrupt halt after SeaLife Cameras (Pioneer Research) sold us several thousand pounds worth of their new cameras and strobes which proved to be completely faulty.
Leaking housings, failing strobe switches, sticky camera buttons, faulty LCDs and uncooperative cables meant we had a huge number of returns. While this in itself was not a major issue to stop us trading, SeaLife Cameras reply to these faults was to send me an e-mail stating that these faults were nonsense and it was more than likely my customers failing to operate the cameras correctly.

After numerous e-mails back and forth I had already lost out on the cost of shipping and the faulty products which SeaLife refused to acknowledge. I refunded as many units as possible but a large number of customers understandably wanted their equipment repaired and returned.
Finally SeaLife appointed Cameras Underwater as the official repair centre (following the demise of Sangers earlier in the year) and I was able to send the equipment to them for repair or replacement.
I had now lost the cost of sending a large amount of camera equipment away for repair.
Several of the cameras sent for repair were then returned to me untouched because they were water damaged, not faulty - this was due to the failure of the housings which leaked. This is a clause nearly all underwater housing manufacturers are reluctant to mention!

While I was within my rights to return the broken cameras to the customers and pass on the blame to SeaLife I was not prepared to associate BigBlueSquid with such poor service. While it did take several months to repay some customers I was prepared to give up BigBlueSquid to ensure my customers got their money back with the aim of one day returning to selling online.

In the meantime we continued to sell the other major brands of housings despite price fixing by Sea & Sea in England and a repeated failure to uphold insurance claims by Fantasea including the loss of my own Nikon D70 camera and underwater housing.

With Christmas drawing near we had proposed to drop SeaLife products completely and concentrate on Fuji, Fantasea, Canon, Sony and a wide range of accessories such as Peli cases. We had also secured a new account with Olympus that would allow us to supply the complete range of underwater housings and accessories. (This had been delayed due to a reluctance on the part of their sales staff to convert prices to Euros. After visiting their stand at the Focus show and explaining Northern Ireland uses pound sterling they were more than happy to give us prices!)

Unfortunately this was not to be as the large number of returns being paid out from our PayPal account automatically triggered a freeze on receiving payments as part of their security policy. This effectively shut us down so we could not take online payments, thus reducing refund times further and stopping trading over the Christmas period. Despite explaining the situation to PayPal they were very slow to react and as a result we were not able to trade over Christmas.

This combination of events finally forced me to look for alternative income but I was fortunate enough to be offered a job as a Photoshop professional for one of the top PR photographers in Northern Ireland which I readily accepted. My inital pay then went toward refunding the remaining customers and I finally took BigBlueSquid down.
We still have some stock left of accessories and parts which I will sell off on Ebay as I get the time.

If you're interested in Peli cases however they will be returning shortly to BigBlueSquid.com and will be available for shipping throughout the UK and Ireland.

I am also continuing my product photography and Photoshop work for clients in the evenings and weekends.

Finally, projects Sea Urchin and Blue Reef are still under wraps. Sea Urchin is temporarily shelved but will retain it's patent while I work on Blue Reef.
Blue Reef has moved on from prototype to material sourcing and pricing. Hopefully later in the year investors might be found to co-launch it but when it's ready it will appear here first!