Gobii ereader - PLEASE DON'T BUY

I bought my dad a gobii ereader from [URL Removed] over a year ago. All of a sudden it refuses to boot up and sometimes even switch on. We have tried charging, resetting, rebooting and even tried a few electronic stores to see if they could possibly assist. To our dismay we were told the only people who can help us are the gobii agents. So I logged a return request with takealot for them to repair the device. My return request was declined due to the purchase being over a year ago and they gave me an email address to contact for repairs.. fair enough... what's not so fair is the fact that this service centre is based in CT and I'm in JHB. So I need to have it couriered, pay for an assessment thereafter pay whatever amount they quote me to repair(not like I have any other way to get it repaired)... IS this really the only line of support for the gobii?? What a mission! Learnt my lesson the hard way but I will never ever buy anything gobii again. Completely unreliable and very limited options for support if it stops working for whatever reason..