I appreciate your bringing this issue to our attention. We (my daughter, who is the Creator, Designer and President of Celestial Buddies, and I, who help out with the rest) stand by our products and are quick to respond when someone properly brings a claimed defect to our attention. When I say 'properly,' I refer to the 'Contact Us' tab at the bottom of our home page, to which we respond at least as rapidly as we do to a negative review. If indeed there is a defect, we stand ready to replace the product.
That said, I am troubled by a couple of things:
Batteries do die, but as you apparently recognize, they are easy enough to replace after removing the screw that holds the battery pack together. I think you will agree that batteries that die with use ought not to be the basis for a one star review.
The real issue is the lights, which apparently worked well for the first three weeks that you had our Polaris. Thus, whatever the problem with the 'on-off slide' (or whatever the feature that controls the switch ought to be called) may have been, it was clearly not missing when you bought Polaris and for the first three weeks it resided with you. The switch, as I understand it (I'm no electrician) is in the foot, and is so marked with the words 'On-Off'. Squeeze it, the lights go on. Squeeze again, and they go off. Perhaps the lead was pulled loose during the battery replacement process, or perhaps the position of the switch within the foot was moved as you took the battery pack apart . . . feel around the foot a bit, and you might locate it and massage it back into place. Those are just guesses, but whatever the explanation, it can not be that the device was missing when you bought Polaris or at any time during its first three weeks with you, or it would never have worked at all.
You say that there was 'no help on the internet,' but you never contacted us to explore remedies. When we say 'contact us' on our website, that is a sincere invitation. It's not a guarantee that we could have fixed the problem, but we could at least have walked you through some possibilities, and, if those failed, discussed a resolution.
One of the unexpected consequences of my helping out my daughter with her company has been the scores of emails I have received from the parents and grandparents of kids on the autism spectrum . . .and sometimes letters, emails and drawings from the children themselves. It has been quite an education for us, and we have been gratified to learn of the joy that our little company has brought to so many people. Thus, we are sympathetic to the anguish this episode has caused your son. I just wish you had brought it to my attention in a way that doesn't reflect so negatively on my daughter's company.