The following is a letter I sent to Eagle this morning.

I would like you to know that, after having been a repeat customer of Eagle and Lowrance for over 15 years, I will no longer do business with your company.

I just contacted your company with regards to a depthfinder, an Accura 240, serial number 10395358, that I purchased from Cabelas last fall, at the end of September, when I purchased my new boat. The unit has developed a problem with fogging.

When I contacted the customer service representative to request a return authorization, I was informed that if I had called before 7/23/02, I would have been fine, but, because of your factory ship date of 7/23/01, as of 7/23/02, I could not return the unit without an itemized sales receipt. Well, I don't have that. I would be surprised if many of your customers do have receipts for all the goods they purchased 10 months ago.

Since the unit left your factory on 7/23/01 last year to Cabelas, if one assumes a week in transit to Cabelas, the very earliest that I could have bought the unit would have been 7/30/01, or 2 days ago. In fact, I received it on about 9/24 or thereabouts. But heavens, I can't prove that, and I may be trying to steal service from you which I am not reasonably entitled to! Gosh, Katie, bar the doors!

It may well be that some of your customers are dishonest and try to cheat you out of service that they are not due. However, I am not one of those, and I am mighty pissed off from having been treated like a shoplifter at Walmart trying to get credit for stolen goods. By the way, that is exactly the example that your Customer service rep used with me.

Over the years, I have purchased a Lowrance Flasher in about 1982, a Lowrance paper chart recorder in about '85, an Eagle depth finder in about '86, an Eagle Loran in '90, an Eagle GPS in '98, and this depth finder in the fall of 2001. I have been a loyal customer, and have recommended your products widely during that time. By my reckoning, I have purchased about $2000 worth of your product over the years, with an average time between purchase of about 3 years. I was just about to order a second Eagle DF for the back end of the boat. Fortunately, we had this little encounter before I made that error.

So, here is what I am going to do. I take about 50 people a year out fishing. I am going to keep the fogged up unit in my boat, and I am going to ***** about it and tell everyone who sees the fogging the story about how Eagle made it hard for me to get a good unit.

I also participate in several fishing bulletin boards on the internet. Questions continually come up requesting advice for purchasing equipment on these boards. I will be ready and willing to share my experience there.

Think I can direct any sales to other vendors? I do, too.

You have saved the costs of repair of this unit. I hope your CFO is pleased.