The NIKON lesson...

It's always a good idea to purchase expensive items, such as cameras, locally from a reputable dealer. One of the reasons I've never been a Nikon enthusiast is precisely their service and warranty policy.

I guess my question sounded a bit like a flame - it wasn't intended to be. I gather that you'd have the same experience with Canon or anyone else. Has Nikon treated you unfairly? IMO, yes. A defective item is a defective item and it shouldn't matter where you bought and where you are now trying to get it serviced under warranty. While I understand that products are intended for use in specific countries, for example, the AC adaptor simply won't work in every country but only specific ones. Still, even as a gesture of goodwill I would hope that Nikon addressed this problem to your satisfaction.

I suggest you find the name and address of a real person at Nikon and contact them. I had a situation with a Creative Zen MP3 player my teenage son bought. He saved his money for quite some time in order to buy it and it was not working correctly within five months. Contactind tech support for Creative is only through email. I sent the first request for support and was told that within 48 hours I would hear back from them. Never happenned. I emailed them daily from that day one to no avail. They simply ignored my requests. I surfed a bit and found a blog someone posted about his problems with Creative and he listed some names and email addresses of some real people at Creative. So, I tried his tactic and emailed each person. Lo and behold, I was called by one of them and the unit was replaced with a new one - not even a refurbished one as the warranty states my sone would have received.
--
My humble photo gallery: http://ntotrr.smugmug.com

I just went to Canon USA and checked the warranty on the SD700. It has a Canon USA/Canon Canada warranty only. Not an international one. It is a one-year warranty.

--
Darlene
Nikon
D70 and D50 DSLRs
8800 and 5700 prosumers
995 and 4500 macro-makers
4300 pocket camera

http://www.pbase.com/imacatmom

You are absolutely right. Now all you need to do is take the camera personally back where you bought it and let them effectuate the warrantee, simple solution!
--

' You don't have to have the best of everything to get the best out of what you do have'.

1. @$%&* off at MYSELF for not reading the fine prints, for being blinded by the low price, for miscalculating the risk.

But then again, you stated that you saved enough money that you would do it again! Your "Travel gallery . . ." signature tells me that you are a veteran of such type of purchase. Contrary to your claim of "brief stopover", you actually planned everything. Unfortunately, your daring finally caught-up with you.

Where I live (Michigan, USA), I can purchase a BMW in Germany thru any BMW USA dealer. But I have to personally pick-up the car in Germany. All I have to do is show-up at the pick-up point in Germany, sign the papers and go on my merry way and wait for my car delivered to my designated US dealer. Naturally, I can drive the car while in Germany, even in several European countries. My local BMW dealer takes care of shipping, freight, customs, dealer preparation for US usage, etc. I enjoy full warranty throughout the continental USA and Canada. I am sure several readers are aware of the saving and practice.

Unfortunately, VW, Audi, Mercedez does not have the same program. If I decide to buy in Germany, I have to do all the above . . . at my own risk, same applies to the BMW if I took the risk of NOT going thru my USA BMW dealer.

A couple of thousand $ camera, hmmmm, I might take the risk. $60k or more for a car, I am NOT that crazy.

I think you got the picture.

ecube

Gediminas 8 said:

That's why I suspect the distributors are less than willing to take
such matters up to Nikon Corp. And the latter cannot - does not
want to - be reached. Circle closes.

--
A travel gallery of my country and some others:
http://www.pbase.com/lithuania

Click to expand...

It never ever ceases to amaze me how people defend this ridiculous situation of blatant price fixing in different parts of the world.

And the "politician's excuse" the other guy does it as well, does not change the FACT that it's wrong.

You can all bleat about having read the terms and conditions etc, but when you are on holidays in a different country and the Authorized repair centre point blank no ifs or buts REFUSES to fix your camera at any price, I guess you will think about the issue in a different way.

There is NO EXCUSE for any manufacturer to not repair any equipment under warranty. The real reason is price fixing, pure and simple.

All the cr@p about "grey market" surely the manufacturer DID sell it to the grey marketeer in the first place.

It was MADE by the manufacturer in it's own factory, we are not discussing a fake made by someone else.

If it is dead on arrival it surely is the manufacturer's responsabilty to make good, no excuses accepted.

While people unwisely continue to defend these disgusting practices, the manufacturers will keep screwing us.

Wake up people, this is simply WRONG WRONG WRONG! complain loud and often else it will not get any better.

Could not agree more. It is just a license given to a local importer to screw you as it pleases him. Why are duty free shops allowed to sell photography gear then?

Gromsky II said:

It never ever ceases to amaze me how people defend this ridiculous
situation of blatant price fixing in different parts of the world.

And the "politician's excuse" the other guy does it as well, does
not change the FACT that it's wrong.

You can all bleat about having read the terms and conditions etc,
but when you are on holidays in a different country and the
Authorized repair centre point blank no ifs or buts REFUSES to fix
your camera at any price, I guess you will think about the issue in
a different way.

There is NO EXCUSE for any manufacturer to not repair any equipment
under warranty. The real reason is price fixing, pure and simple.

All the cr@p about "grey market" surely the manufacturer DID sell
it to the grey marketeer in the first place.

It was MADE by the manufacturer in it's own factory, we are not
discussing a fake made by someone else.

If it is dead on arrival it surely is the manufacturer's
responsabilty to make good, no excuses accepted.

While people unwisely continue to defend these disgusting
practices, the manufacturers will keep screwing us.

Wake up people, this is simply WRONG WRONG WRONG! complain loud and
often else it will not get any better.

Click to expand...

Some on this forum have a little Nikon chip implant in their brains that make them say "YES" "YES" "YES" all the time.

Gromsky II said:

It never ever ceases to amaze me how people defend this ridiculous
situation of blatant price fixing in different parts of the world.

And the "politician's excuse" the other guy does it as well, does
not change the FACT that it's wrong.

You can all bleat about having read the terms and conditions etc,
but when you are on holidays in a different country and the
Authorized repair centre point blank no ifs or buts REFUSES to fix
your camera at any price, I guess you will think about the issue in
a different way.

There is NO EXCUSE for any manufacturer to not repair any equipment
under warranty. The real reason is price fixing, pure and simple.

All the cr@p about "grey market" surely the manufacturer DID sell
it to the grey marketeer in the first place.

It was MADE by the manufacturer in it's own factory, we are not
discussing a fake made by someone else.

If it is dead on arrival it surely is the manufacturer's
responsabilty to make good, no excuses accepted.

While people unwisely continue to defend these disgusting
practices, the manufacturers will keep screwing us.

Wake up people, this is simply WRONG WRONG WRONG! complain loud and
often else it will not get any better.

Click to expand...

I once bought a Seagate hard drive in America because it was a lot cheaper than I could get one for in Australia. After a few months it went bottom up so I sent it to Seagate Australia who promptly informed me that they had no record of its serial number and they would have to send it to Singapore at my expense for warranty service. Singapore replaced it so I was quite happy.

I recently bought a grey import D200 in Australia because the Australian Nikon distributor was unable to meet demand and supply the market with sufficient officially imported cameras. I'm well aware that Nikon & Canon (possibly others) provide only local warranties on digital cameras though for some reason lenses have international warranty. Before the D200 purchase I queried warranty provisions with the grey import supplier. They advised that for warranty work I would return the camera to them and they would provide warranty service in Singapore, the country of origin. Hopefully I won't need it but believe the importer will stand by their word.

Stop your whining, or is your intention to simply BASH Nikon? This seams to be the goal of many who post negative comments about Nikon on this site.

When you buy gray market products this is the chance you take to save a little money! Most manufacturers state that you are on YOUR OWN if you purchase a gray market product, whether it is a camera or an automobile!

If you purchase a product in a country other than the country in which it was intended to be sold, it is YOUR PROBLEM if something goes wrong! If you wait months after you purchase a product before you take it out of the box, it's YOUR problem as well if something is not right, especially these days in which technology products such as digital cameras can be obsolete in as little as a couple of months.

Grow up and learn from your mistake of being CHEAP! If a price seems too good to be true, GUESS WHAT? IT IS and YOU found out the hard way! Don't blame the company for gray market products. For all you know you may have purchased stolen property! Enough said.
--
Blame it on the dog . . .

I have a Rebel that developed a sticky on/off switch.

After having the product for 6 weeks, Canon USA quote me a repair bill to fix of $260.

I have a 20d that produces 95% of the images I take soft from internal mechanical movement, or 1/4 of the images sharp in continuous shooting. Canon's comment: "within manufacturing specifications". A pro I know got the problem fixed after more than 6 months of bitching to Canon. I bought a Canon 1Ds that had terrible vignetting in 2 corners, probably from a misinstalled AA filter. My wife's Canon P&S has suddenly decided to mis-focus on most of its shots. I really think this sort of stuff is rampant in digital technology right now. As margins and prices shrink, the companies that persist in this behavior will just cease to be profitable.

--len

KEITH-C said:

I can't accept that your summary is correct. This is not so much a
legal issue as a moral one. Nikon are a large company whose make
huge profits - what does it do for their reputation to treat
customers of their products in this way ?

This particular matter is compounded by the fact that this camera
has/had known reliability issues.

Click to expand...

That being the case if Gediminas and/or his brother had done their homework first this whole sorry mess would never need to have occured.

KEITH-C said:

& as such Nikon should have
acknowledged their responsibilities & taken appropriate action

Click to expand...

Companies like Nikon dont get rich by fixing their faulty products for nothing...They almost certainly build their products with built-in redundency (such as shutter mechansims that only last for around 30000 shots before they need replacing...With some Canons products) so that they dont last too long.

That way when they inevitably go wrong, consumers have little choice but to either pay through the nose on ludicrously high repair bills or they have to buy a new or upgraded camera instead which costs even more.

You would think that most would simply swap brands if they are unhappy and are being treated so badly but of course the majority of customers would never consider doing that as brand loyalty can be an extremely powerfull marketing tool, and the manufacturers know this all too well.

Once they have got a consumer hooked on their brand and they have invested lots of their money on their prodcuts most are extremely reluctant to switch if things go wrong, and the manufacturers are fully aware of this.

Their are brand exceptions of course (no prizes for guessing which!) that not only make their products to last but if on the rare occasion that they fail then they go beyond their remit and will often replace the faulty products for brand new ones at no cost if the cost of repair bill goes too high.

--
DSG
--



--
http://sigmasd10.fotopic.net/

Peter A. Stavrakoglou said:

I guess my question sounded a bit like a flame - it wasn't intended
to be.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I actually took it in the wrong way

Pete Stavrakoglou said:

I suggest you find the name and address of a real person at Nikon
and contact them. I had a situation with a Creative Zen MP3 player
my teenage son bought. He saved his money for quite some time in
order to buy it and it was not working correctly within five
months. Contactind tech support for Creative is only through
email. I sent the first request for support and was told that
within 48 hours I would hear back from them. Never happenned. I
emailed them daily from that day one to no avail. They simply
ignored my requests. I surfed a bit and found a blog someone
posted about his problems with Creative and he listed some names
and email addresses of some real people at Creative. So, I tried
his tactic and emailed each person. Lo and behold, I was called by
one of them and the unit was replaced with a new one - not even a
refurbished one as the warranty states my sone would have received.

Click to expand...

I am glad it worked out well for your son.

Indeed such an approach should help (I still have some hope left) but first I have to find a living person behind those "Ask Nikon a Question" fields.

--
A travel gallery of my country and some others:
http://www.pbase.com/lithuania

Tim La Marca said:

Stop your whining, or is your intention to simply BASH Nikon? This
seams to be the goal of many who post negative comments about Nikon
on this site.

When you buy gray market products this is the chance you take to
save a little money! Most manufacturers state that you are on YOUR
OWN if you purchase a gray market product, whether it is a camera
or an automobile!

If you purchase a product in a country other than the country in
which it was intended to be sold, it is YOUR PROBLEM if something
goes wrong! If you wait months after you purchase a product before
you take it out of the box, it's YOUR problem as well if something
is not right, especially these days in which technology products
such as digital cameras can be obsolete in as little as a couple of
months.

Grow up and learn from your mistake of being CHEAP! If a price
seems too good to be true, GUESS WHAT? IT IS and YOU found out the
hard way! Don't blame the company for gray market products. For
all you know you may have purchased stolen property! Enough said.
--
Blame it on the dog . . .

Click to expand...

--
A travel gallery of my country and some others:
http://www.pbase.com/lithuania

See no bashing here at all. As I understand you try to say - Do not purchase anything abroad. If everybody is following your rules no foreigner will spend a dollar in USA ;-)

Tim La Marca said:

Stop your whining, or is your intention to simply BASH Nikon? This
seams to be the goal of many who post negative comments about Nikon
on this site.

When you buy gray market products this is the chance you take to
save a little money! Most manufacturers state that you are on YOUR
OWN if you purchase a gray market product, whether it is a camera
or an automobile!

If you purchase a product in a country other than the country in
which it was intended to be sold, it is YOUR PROBLEM if something
goes wrong! If you wait months after you purchase a product before
you take it out of the box, it's YOUR problem as well if something
is not right, especially these days in which technology products
such as digital cameras can be obsolete in as little as a couple of
months.

Grow up and learn from your mistake of being CHEAP! If a price
seems too good to be true, GUESS WHAT? IT IS and YOU found out the
hard way! Don't blame the company for gray market products. For
all you know you may have purchased stolen property! Enough said.
--
Blame it on the dog . . .

Click to expand...

--
Rumpis )

That is the reason I purchase bodies exclusively here in Latvia although it is much more expensive than somewhere else outside Europe. Some time ago my D70 died. Warranty repair was bit slow but otherwise there was not any hassle.

Lenses are a different story. I assume lense failure is much less expected so it is reasonably to buy them B&H imported ones.

--
Rumpis )

Gediminas 8 said:

Marwood said:

It's standard practice. It may not reflect the increasingly global
approach to trade that the Internet encourages, but that's the way
it is.

Click to expand...

I can live with that - although as I said, a consumer ready to
spend money shouldn't be bothered by limitations imposed for the
convenience of manufacturer/distributor. They should sort out their
issues between themselves, I'd think.

Click to expand...

They could, but prices would rise to ensure they are compensated for the additional repair work that may be required, beyond that for the cameras they import. In effect, everyone would pay extra for a warranty that most don't need.

Gediminas 8 said:

In this particular case, I thought Nikon [Corp] might have simply
asked a local distributor to repair the camera without any cost to
me, and compensated them for the work done. Thus both the
distributor and the customer would be happy.

Click to expand...

Don't know about your country, but in some that would be a "hidden warranty" and run possibly afoul of consumer protection laws.

Plus, Nikon would have to get money from it's Singapore distributor to pay for the work, something they probably can't do contractually.

Gediminas 8 said:

Why should they make such an exception in this case? Because it's
not the same when a non-warranty camera starts working erroneously
after a year or so, and a brand-new camera has effectively never
been used at all.

Click to expand...

Well, they would fix it if you send it to Singapore so they are honoring the terms under which you bought the camera.

Exactly, another one with a Nikon chip implant. I use Nikon, but Nikon is not my God, I am allowed to criticise, as a user I contribute to their profit, so my opinion is quite legitimate, anyone who sees bashing in it must be very dogmatic. Are travellers not supposed to buy stuff while on holiday or at duty free shops because of some stupid protectionism rules?

Rumpis said:

Tim La Marca said:

Stop your whining, or is your intention to simply BASH Nikon? This
seams to be the goal of many who post negative comments about Nikon
on this site.

When you buy gray market products this is the chance you take to
save a little money! Most manufacturers state that you are on YOUR
OWN if you purchase a gray market product, whether it is a camera
or an automobile!

If you purchase a product in a country other than the country in
which it was intended to be sold, it is YOUR PROBLEM if something
goes wrong! If you wait months after you purchase a product before
you take it out of the box, it's YOUR problem as well if something
is not right, especially these days in which technology products
such as digital cameras can be obsolete in as little as a couple of
months.

Grow up and learn from your mistake of being CHEAP! If a price
seems too good to be true, GUESS WHAT? IT IS and YOU found out the
hard way! Don't blame the company for gray market products. For
all you know you may have purchased stolen property! Enough said.
--
Blame it on the dog . . .

Click to expand...

--
Rumpis )

Click to expand...

Rumpis said:

That is the reason I purchase bodies exclusively here in Latvia
although it is much more expensive than somewhere else outside
Europe.

Click to expand...

So do I, at least with regard to SLR cameras. Lenses/accessories are an entirely different question.

--
A travel gallery of my country and some others:
http://www.pbase.com/lithuania

--
A travel gallery of my country and some others:
http://www.pbase.com/lithuania