Problem with warranty!

Hello,

I own a K-M Z3 and on Aug. 25th my year's warranty is up on this camera. Not too long ago I

noticed some dust inside the lens. So, I sent my camera in for repair and timed it so

they'd get it before the 25th. I thought everything would be okay, but today I received an

acknowledgment/repair copy from Minolta. On this form, they had a charge of $148 to fix my

camera and it said on the form that it was an "out of warranty" repair. It actually said in

another place, "No warranties apply, not a US model".

Now I don't know what is going on with that, or what my recourse is, but I am upset and

wondering just what to do.

I bought the camera from A&M Photo and when I bought it, I was supposed to call and confirm

the order. Well I tried, but the line was always busy. Finally I just wrote the order off

in my mind, because they hadn't charged me anything yet and I figured it just didn't go

though. Then one day one of their employees called me to confirm the order. At that time

they asked me if I was aware that I had ordered a Korean model. I told them I did not order

a Korean model, I ordered the Z3 they had advertised for $385. They told me that if I

stayed with this order I'd get the Korean model, manual and all, but if I paid $39 more, I

could get the english version. I accepted paying the extra money, because I was anxious to

get the camera since I had already given my Z1 to my daughter.

Well, in November of last year, I sent my Z3 in for service on what I considered problems

(low flash strength and dark movies). At that time they didn't say anything at all about it

being a foreign purchased camera and returned my camera with postage paid in about ten days.

However, they didn't fix anything, but they had worked on it, or at least looked it over,

because it had a message on the paperwork from the technician that said he was unable to

duplicate the problem. But not a word about the warranty not being any good.

Now, I don't know what to do, except make a fuss and I doubt that would do me any good. But

I don't understand why they didn't say the warranty wasn't any good because it was not a US

model, when I first registered it, right after I bought it...nor did they say anything the

first time that I sent it back.

I did purchase a Mack extended 5 year warranty when I bought it, but I'm wondering if

they'll give me the same story.

Any advice?

Jerry
..

I don't understand your problem. What does the original seller or the language have to do with the warranty? Did you read your documentation? The warranty is from KM. Have you tried calling them to straighten this out? Maybe I have just been lucky, but I have had good experiences with (2) KM warranty situations, both times in countries different than where I had bought the cameras.

Corkcampbell said:

I don't understand your problem.

Click to expand...

My problem is that my warranty is under an international warranty through K-M.

Corkcampbell said:

What does the original seller or
the language have to do with the warranty? Did you read your
documentation?

Click to expand...

I registered the camera with K-M right after I bought it and that was so I'd be sure to be covered.

Corkcampbell said:

The warranty is from KM.

Click to expand...

Yes it is, but they apparently are having problems with international borders,

Corkcampbell said:

Have you tried calling them to straighten this out?

Click to expand...

Not yet, I plan on calling them tomorrow....I just recieved the mail Saturday from them informing me that it wasn't covered because of being bought outside the US, which it wasn't.

Corkcampbell said:

Maybe I have just been lucky, but I have
had good experiences with (2) KM warranty situations, both times in
countries different than where I had bought the cameras.

Click to expand...

I sent my camera to them last November and never a word was said about not buying a US version.

Jerry
..

KM will not fix it unless you have paper work for a "USA Warranty". It sounds as if you purchased a "Gray Market" camera. A gray market item was not to be sold in the U.S. and did not come through the authorized importer. Consider yourself lucky that KM fixed it at all. Many manufactures will not only not honor the warranty on gray market products, but will not even work on them. Remember, "you get what you pay for".

ddan said:

KM will not fix it unless you have paper work for a "USA Warranty".
It sounds as if you purchased a "Gray Market" camera. A gray market
item was not to be sold in the U.S. and did not come through the
authorized importer. Consider yourself lucky that KM fixed it at
all. Many manufactures will not only not honor the warranty on gray
market products, but will not even work on them. Remember, "you get
what you pay for".

Click to expand...

Hehe.....You weren't the guy I talked to from minolta today, were you? ;-)

At first the service said the bill of sales was acceptable and she wrote up the paperwork for the techs to go ahead and fix it. Then later on, a tech called me on the phone and said they wouldn't fix it regardless of what the woman said to me earlier. I asked to talk to his supervisor and he told me about the gray market and he told me I had bought an illegal camera that was illegally brought into this country without paying all the taxes. I don't believe the gray market is a legitimate reason not to fix a camera. Here's why...KM-Japan makes the cameras and they are distributed by Korea, Europe and the US. So, KM-Japan makes the same amount of money on the cameras that they sell to Korean buyers, European buyers and US buyers. The cost of fixing each of these cameras is factored in on the price they sell them to these areas for. It should not make any difference to KM if A&M Photo brought the cameras in illegally without paying proper taxes, Japan has already made their money on the camera and the people that, cheated is the US government, if the proper taxes weren't paid. Now, I can't see how our government could let this policy of importing without paying proper taxes, continue. But if the KM support specialist is right, the government is dragging their feet on something that could relieve some of the tax burden on the rest of us Americans.

I caloled A&M Photo and told them they sold me an illegal camera (according to KM) and that I intended to file a Federal Consumers Protection complaint against them, since the charged me $39 more at the time of purchase for a US camera. The guy denied it and hung up on me.

So now, I don't know what to do.

Jerry
.

Is this your "A & M Photo"?

http://www.resellerratings.com/seller1988.html

If so it looks like others like their prices but not much else!

A&M has an awful reputation. I'd hate to see what you paid in shipping and insurance charges for your grey market camera from these guys (and I hope you didn't fall for the overpriced batteries, etc.).

As the old saying goes, if a price looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Be glad you didn't buy a Nikon model from them. Nikon will refuse to service a grey market camera (one not intended for sale in the U.S.), even if you are willing to pay them for the service.

At least KM will fix it for a charge.

--
JimC
------
http://www.pbase.com/jcockfield

Athegn said:

Is this your "A & M Photo"?

http://www.resellerratings.com/seller1988.html

If so it looks like others like their prices but not much else!

Click to expand...

Yep, and I wouldn't recommend them, even though they might have what is seemingly the lowest price on an item. If they do you like they did me, youll end up paying a lot more for the product....at least I did.

With ratings like that link showed, I don't see how they do any business, unless others are just as gullible and careless as I was.

When I bought my camera, they advertised it at $385 which cheaper than anyone else that I could find. Yet, after I ordered it, they called and said I'd have to pay $39 for the US version. I did and didn't think of checking the bill of sale. Today, I find out that the bill of sale says the camera and shipping came to $469 which is more than others were selling it for and it had no mention of a $39 charge for an english version. I can't prove that the extra money they charged me was for the US version, unless I could show the prices they advertised on the web at that particular time.

Jerry
..

Jim Cockfield said:

A&M has an awful reputation. I'd hate to see what you paid in
shipping and insurance charges for your grey market camera from
these guys (and I hope you didn't fall for the overpriced
batteries, etc.).

Click to expand...

Nope, at least I didn't fall for that, because I had a Z1 and knew what the batteries sold for...but I must admit, I didn't even see the batteries adverstised.

Member said:

As the old saying goes, if a price looks too good to be true, it
probably is.

Click to expand...

Yep, I'm afraid that's true.

Member said:

Be glad you didn't buy a Nikon model from them. Nikon will refuse
to service a grey market camera (one not intended for sale in the
U.S.), even if you are willing to pay them for the service.

At least KM will fix it for a charge.

Click to expand...

My next camera will be purchased from the local camera shop which has been there for as long as I can remember. It might cost me a lot more than buying from the web, but I feel that they are honest people and that alone, should demand my attention.

I did get my Z1 from an honest online dealer and I have continued to buy other things from them.

Jerry
..

But, unfortunately, there are a lot of bad ones, too.

As a general rule, most of the scam artists are located in Brooklyn. So, if you see anything to indicate that's where a vendor is located, I'd use extra caution. ;-)

It's always a good idea to check out any vendor using http://www.resellerratings.com

If a vendor is not listed there, I'd avoid them. Ditto for a vendor with a small number of customer reviews (as vendors have been caught trying to pad their own ratings with glowing reviews). It's not uncommon to see brrand new internet vendors with the same addresses as the known scammers

For some reason, they seem to be able to get away with these tactics in Brooklyn (even though I've seen buyers say they've reported them to the Attorney General, etc. for years). If I lived there, I think I'd be voting some politicians out of office.

--
JimC
------
http://www.pbase.com/jcockfield

The problem isn't taxes paid to the US government. The problem is that the importer is the one who advertises the product, builds the network of dealers and repair facilities, and does repairs. Those costs are shouldered by the importer.

As a condition of being an importer (forced by KM-Japan), the importer has to agree to service cameras that were properly imported into the region where it was sold (the "International" warranty). So the UK importer doesn't have to service a US camera sold to someone in the UK (they may, or local laws may force them to).

And the US importer doesn't have to service a camera which was sold to the Korean importer and then brought into the US market in a way to bypass the US importer. But the US importer will help out someone from the UK traveling in the US if the camera was a UK model (note that the "EU-ification" of Europe is making changes in "proper" markets).

So your camera was sold to the Korean importer, who probably got a bigger discount by ordering more cameras than they needed and dumping the extras on the grey market. Someone then bought these cheap "dumped" cameras and brought them into the US, bypassing K-M US. Repairing this camera is a complete loss to the US importer, and since they have no contractual obligation to fix it for free, they don't have to.

Now mind you, some US importers typically will fix a camera for free under warranty even if it is grey market. Last I knew, Canon USA would do so - essentially as a PR effort. On the other hand, as another poster mentioned, Nikon USA not only won't fix it for free, the just flat won't fix it for ANY amount of money.

So your K-M warranty is of no use. Try getting Mack to service it - that's why A&M sold you the Mack warranty - they KNEW K-M would likely not fix the camera! Well, they also knew that they'd make money on the Mack warranty, too...

Jerry Cargile said:

I don't believe the gray market is a legitimate reason not to fix a
camera. Here's why...KM-Japan makes the cameras and they are
distributed by Korea, Europe and the US. So, KM-Japan makes the
same amount of money on
the cameras that they sell to Korean buyers, European buyers and US
buyers. The cost of fixing each of these cameras is factored in on
the price they sell them to these areas for. It should not make
any difference to KM if A&M Photo brought the cameras in illegally
without paying proper taxes, Japan has already made their money on
the camera and the people that, cheated is the US government, if
the proper taxes weren't paid.

Click to expand...

Jim Cockfield said:

But, unfortunately, there are a lot of bad ones, too.

Click to expand...

True.

Member said:

As a general rule, most of the scam artists are located in
Brooklyn. So, if you see anything to indicate that's where a
vendor is located, I'd use extra caution. ;-)

Click to expand...

From now on, I'll certainly watch for the scams.

Member said:

It's always a good idea to check out any vendor using
http://www.resellerratings.com
If a vendor is not listed there, I'd avoid them. Ditto for a vendor
with a small number of customer reviews (as vendors have been
caught trying to pad their own ratings with glowing reviews).
It's not uncommon to see brrand new internet vendors with the same
addresses as the known scammers

Click to expand...

That's a good site...thanks for posting it.

Member said:

For some reason, they seem to be able to get away with these
tactics in Brooklyn (even though I've seen buyers say they've
reported them to the Attorney General, etc. for years). If I lived
there, I think I'd be voting some politicians out of office.

Click to expand...

You'd think that they would have it cleaned up by now, unless the politicians is on the take from the crooked stores.

Jerry
..

My last on-line camera purchase was from:-

http://www.resellerratings.com/seller1914.html

I would use B & H again.

Gary Berg said:

The problem isn't taxes paid to the US government. The problem is
that the importer is the one who advertises the product, builds the
network of dealers and repair facilities, and does repairs. Those
costs are shouldered by the importer.

Click to expand...

When I mentioned taxes not paid on imports, I was saying what the KM ssupport specialist told me. Base on that, if it's true...KM-US is not getting hurt at all, the US gov. is. Japan has made their money on the camera whether it's purchased by Korea, Europe, or the US. It is a manufacturing warranty not a distrubution warranty...at least that's my contention.

Gary Berg said:

As a condition of being an importer (forced by KM-Japan), the
importer has to agree to service cameras that were properly
imported into the region where it was sold (the "International"
warranty). So the UK importer doesn't have to service a US camera
sold to someone in the UK (they may, or local laws may force them
to).

And the US importer doesn't have to service a camera which was sold
to the Korean importer and then brought into the US market in a way
to bypass the US importer. But the US importer will help out
someone from the UK traveling in the US if the camera was a UK
model (note that the "EU-ification" of Europe is making changes in
"proper" markets).

So your camera was sold to the Korean importer, who probably got a
bigger discount by ordering more cameras than they needed and
dumping the extras on the grey market. Someone then bought these
cheap "dumped" cameras and brought them into the US, bypassing > K-M

Click to expand...

I can't see where getting a bigger discount by buying more, is wrong. All kinds of wholesellers is this country does that when buying from jobbers.

Gary Berg said:

US. Repairing this camera is a complete loss to the US importer,
and since they have no contractual obligation to fix it for free,
they don't have to.

Click to expand...

maybe not, but a dissatisfied customer should be some king of obligation to them, if simply not from negative advertising.

Gary Berg said:

Now mind you, some US importers typically will fix a camera for
free under warranty even if it is grey market. Last I knew, Canon
USA would do so - essentially as a PR effort. On the other hand, as
another poster mentioned, Nikon USA not only won't fix it for free,
the just flat won't fix it for ANY amount of money.

Click to expand...

KM is not one of those who will fix one as a PR effort.

Gary Berg said:

So your K-M warranty is of no use. Try getting Mack to service it -
that's why A&M sold you the Mack warranty - they KNEW K-M would
likely not fix the camera! Well, they also knew that they'd make
money on the Mack warranty, too...

Click to expand...

I don't have the camera, KM still has it and now, I don't even know how the Mack warranty will stand...I just don't know yet.

I didn't get the Mack warranty from A&M Photo, I bought it from Digital Foto Discount Club where I bought my first Minolta camera. But I agree that A&M Photo probably knew how KM would react toward the warranty, because they've probably been though the same problem with other folks, many times over.

Jerry
..

Gary Berg said:

Jerry Cargile said:

I don't believe the gray market is a legitimate reason not to fix a
camera. Here's why...KM-Japan makes the cameras and they are
distributed by Korea, Europe and the US. So, KM-Japan makes the
same amount of money on
the cameras that they sell to Korean buyers, European buyers and US
buyers. The cost of fixing each of these cameras is factored in on
the price they sell them to these areas for. It should not make
any difference to KM if A&M Photo brought the cameras in illegally
without paying proper taxes, Japan has already made their money on
the camera and the people that, cheated is the US government, if
the proper taxes weren't paid.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

I think this is all outrageous. In my opinion KM shouldnt be able to get out of repairs like this.

Companies such as KM should get off their backsides and do something about grey imports if they dont want to cover them warranty wise.

It isnt the consumers fault they purchased a grey import if they purchased in good faith.

Who are KM in the USA? who are they in Europe? Are they not just trading arms of KM Japan?

It was indicated importers in the country of sale such as the USA fund advertising etc. If the companies are infact all linked then at the end of the day you own a KM Z3 and it should be repaired.

If it was such an issue they should have pointed something out when you registered the warranty with them.
--

If life really is like a box of chocolates why is my box full of hard nutty ones?

Remember Only losers give up.

There are usually contractual reasons that some companies cannot repair grey market imports in the usual way; it has to do with protecting their normal wholesalers and retailers. Also, there is nothing illegal about selling grey market.

Plantzzman said:

I think this is all outrageous. In my opinion KM shouldnt be able
to get out of repairs like this.
Companies such as KM should get off their backsides and do
something about grey imports if they dont want to cover them
warranty wise.

Click to expand...

I agree with both of the above comments and no just because my camera's involved.

Plantzzman said:

It isnt the consumers fault they purchased a grey import if they
purchased in good faith.

Click to expand...

Nope...not at all. If something unscrupulous happened, it is now the purchaser's fault. If something crooked happened, chances are it was covered enough so an unsuspecting customer wouldn't get wise.

Plantzzman said:

Who are KM in the USA? who are they in Europe? Are they not just
trading arms of KM Japan?

Click to expand...

Yes, they are all arms of Japan and Japan should step in and straighten this warranty mess out.

Plantzzman said:

It was indicated importers in the country of sale such as the USA
fund advertising etc. If the companies are infact all linked then
at the end of the day you own a KM Z3 and it should be repaired.
If it was such an issue they should have pointed something out when
you registered the warranty with them.

Click to expand...

That's exactly what I told them. Not only did they ignore my online registry (which they can't explain) they also did not bring this issue up the first time I sent it in for repair last November (whcih they also can't explain.

Plantzzman said:

If life really is like a box of chocolates why is my box full of
hard nutty ones?

Remember Only losers give up.

Click to expand...

I'm not giving up, but I feel like I'm up against two different entities who could care less about me as a customer.

Thatnks for your comments.

Jerry
..

Corkcampbell said:

There are usually contractual reasons that some companies cannot
repair grey market imports in the usual way; it has to do with
protecting their normal wholesalers and retailers. Also, there is
nothing illegal about selling grey market.

Click to expand...

According to the KM guy, these companies bring stuff in the gray market without going through proper channels and avoid paying necessary import taxes on the products. This in turn hurts the people who are importing and paying the proper taxes and can't sell as cheap as those that are sold in the gray market.

That tells me that the whole thing is, that it's all about the buck and not really gray market, because KM Japan sells the camera to the different distributorships and the cost of warranty repair should be paid in the initual sales of the procuct, not the final sale.

I think KM Japan could straighten out the whole thing about who pays warranty repairs, in a heartbeat. After all, they didn't get big enough to branch out because they didn't know what they were doing. I just think they're too big to mess with petty problems like this.

Actually, who loses...me? No, I'll get my camera fixed by someone.

By the way, what sould my firmware have said if my camera was Korean?

When I upgraded the firmware to 1.02e, the original firmware said 1.01e. By that, it would seem to me that it was a European camera and not Korean. Wouldn't the Korean models say 1.01k?

Jerry
..

The way I see it is one of the problems is to many people just dont fight back against these kind of companies. They get away with such things to often because many people just put it down to life and move on which is a clear option- but is that the right idea? Personally I would say no it isnt the right way to do things and I would fight them all the way.

--

If life really is like a box of chocolates why is my box full of hard nutty ones?

Remember Only losers give up.

Plantzzman said:

The way I see it is one of the problems is to many people just dont
fight back against these kind of companies. They get away with such
things to often because many people just put it down to life and
move on which is a clear option- but is that the right idea?
Personally I would say no it isnt the right way to do things and I
would fight them all the way.

Click to expand...

I'm in your corner on that.

Jerry
..