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35 of 36 found the following review helpful:
 With Buddies like these who needs enemies? Aug 14, 2008
By Brian Shaw
"Aspiring RC Fisherman"
My wife ordered me an Aviva fishing buddy in January 08 after seeing an ad for it on the outdoor channel. She paid over $70 for it at the time. I was skeptical but so excited. I love RC toys and love to fish even more. Doing both at once sounded too good to be true. Unfortunately, it was.
It arrived within a few days (even though the commercial stated it may take 4-6 weeks for delivery) so I was pleasantly surprised there. I immediately tore it out of the box like a kid on XMas, charged the batteries, and rushed to my local fishing hole. Since it was the middle of Winter and nothing would be biting, I opted not to attempt any fishing. I just wanted to give it a spin. It performed moderately well. It drove around on the water at a moderate speed and turned left and right like it was supposed to. Nothing too complex. There was nothing really special or different about the boat than the one's you see in department stores for much cheaper, other than it has a couple of knobs on the back that you can tie a line to. It came with a couple of simple rigs for live bait. I figured it would probably do just as well with small jigs or spinners, but I would get to that later. I Had 30 minutes of fun that day cruising around the lake and put the boat up until things began warming up. I let it dry out, disconnected the batteries, and everything else the directions stated.
I was really psyched for springtime and all the fun I was going to have with my new Buddy. I talked about it endlessly and marked the days off the calendar for the beginning of springtime. Things finally began warming a couple of months later and the fish began moving into the shallow water and preparing to spawn. The perfect conditions for my Fishin' Buddy. I recharged my batteries, reconnected them exactly like the Aviva manual stated and followed the rest of their instructions diligently. Then off to the lake we went, all rigged up to get a stringer full. I tied my lure on, powered up my boat and remote, found a good spot with some visible bream beds, and put her in the water. I hit the GO button and NOTHING! The boat wouldn't move. It was dead in the water....
I consulted all the troubleshooting tips in the manual to no avail. I did all I could to get my Buddy moving-recharged batteries, reconnected everything-dired the hull (even though it wasn't wet), but it just wouldn't happen.
So I called the helpline listed in the manual. It was a recording referring me to Aviva's website. I used the contact link from the site to alert them to my problem. I gave all the details of my purchase, problem, use, etc. in my original msg. About a week later they emailed me back with a standardized msg asking me all the questions I had originally answered in my first msg. I answered them again. About a week later they emailed me back letting me know there was a 90 day warranty but it had expired the day before. Well, yeah, it did since I ordered the product in winter, made sure it worked at the time, but waited until spring to actually use it. Also, I reminded them, the warranty was not expired when I first contacted them but it had expired in the weeks it had taken them to answer my messages. At this point, I really wanted to speak to a human by phone but that was never possible. After several more correspondences like this- including my having to describe the problem to them over and over and getting the same generic trouble shhooting advice- make sure the hull is dry-make sure the battery is charged- make sure the remote is on, make sure the antennae is not covered- etc. I finally received instructions to return my "Buddy". The instructions required me to return the original packing slip which came on the box. I had moved to another home by this time and the box was long gone. More emails with slow replies finally corrected this problem (all they had to do was look up my order to get the packing slip info they wanted) and I sent exactly what they asked for in order to exchange my boat(after all this I still just wanted a boat that worked!) which consisted of the remote antennae and the antenna holder from the boat, another written description of the problem (about the 5th one I had written by this point), and hard copies of all my email correspondence with the company(all 20 something pages of it). They didn't even want the boat or remote back. This seemed odd to me, like this kind of thing happens often and they know these boats are defective pieces of junk they can't fix or are not worth fixing. I sent everything they asked for, just like they asked for it. 2 months later I had received nothing back. I was expecting a new boat, soon. Funny, it only took them 3 days to get the first one there. I emailed them again. They then wrote back that they had not received my return. More slow emails back and forth and finally a msg that I would not be getting a new boat but a return credit to my card. I still haven't received it. I still have the defective boat and remote-just no antennas-and can't bring myself to throw it away.
Finally I just bought a much higher quality boat on Ebay for less than half the price of the Aviva and plan to modify it to fish (which, after seeing Aviva's modifications should not be difficult). Anyway, to make a long story short get yourself a cane pole and some worms and steer clear of this product. You'll catch nothing but a headache.
11 of 11 found the following review helpful:
Horrible - save your money. Apr 25, 2009
By ravot
If the antenna is more than 6 inches away from the remote control, it doesn't' work. We re-charged both batteries to ensure they were properly charged and it still didn't work properly.
Don't purchase this item!
7 of 8 found the following review helpful:
the "Amazing" Fishing Buddy May 26, 2010
By curly
"zatman"
Because it would be "Amazing" if you could keep this piece of junk going long enough to catch a fish. This company should be ashamed of itself for ripping people off. I'm sure there are good RC fishing boats out there, but this ain't one of them.
7 of 8 found the following review helpful:
Disapointment for a birthday gift Nov 22, 2009
By Uncle C
Aviva Fishing Buddy (R.C. Boat)
This was a birthday gift for my 13 year old nephew. We have been fishing together since he could walk. He loves the sport. This seemed like the perfect gift! Big mistake.
I returned the first boat because of a malfunction of the controlls. We tried a second boat with very limited success. There is very little run time before the battery needs to be recharged.
We both had planned to have a great time with this boat. It turned into a time of frustration and disapointment.
Uncle C.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Chinese Garbage Jul 23, 2011
By Chinese Garbage
Aviva Fishing Buddy
Sounds great! Buy it and charge the battery! Works great ONCE! My kids are in tears with this boat. We followed all the instructions and tried the boat ONCE! The second time we tried to use the boat it would not work. HERE is the kicker...
Its a BOAT that is not supposed to get wet! The truth is the boat's "engine" shorts out shortly after the boat is used. It is typical chinese plastic junk. 1 use is all you will get. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
See all 9 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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