[Leica] Re:Gray market

[woc2 at earthlink.net (Bill O'Connell)]

When I asked Nikon about this they said the policy was if you purchased the
camera in another country from an authorized dealer from that country, it
would be fixed under the international warranty. Part of the reason was
exactly as Felix mentioned, he lives in Spain, buys the camera there and is
in the US when it fails.  In the same respect, were I in another country
when something of mine failed, they would attend to it as well.  What was
not covered was buying a camera from another country and having it shipped
here, or buying it here from someone other then Nikon USA that imported it.
According to them the logic is, all the costs associated with the camera
come out of the profits they make selling the cameras they import.  Buying
one from the internet or a gray market dealer gave them no profit, thus they
should not bear the expense of repairing it.  Their agreement allows them to
bill back repairs from products brought into the country by the customer
that bought it directly from a Nikon dealer in another country.  According
to them, all the major players had a similar policy.
I know that during the 80s Porsche and others would not allow their dealers
to work on a gray market car.  Their excuse was the car had different parts,
didn't meet standards, etc and it was a liability issue.  That has faded
into history.
Bill

-----Original Message-----
Behalf Of F?lix L?pez de Maturana
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2005 9:30 AM



>Nikon U.S.A. official policy on gray market merchandise is that they
>will not touch it.  Not under warranty, not paid after warranty service.
>You can of course send it to the country it was officially imported
>into, and of course there are thousands of independent repair facilities
>that will fix for fee.

Don

This is a right manner for preventing grey imports defending his
business and forcing a own coverage as -for instance- BH does. But just
think I've got here in Spain a new Nikon D2H and I'm going to New York
for two years. There I get a camera failure under my Spanish warranty.
Have I sending back the camera to Spain for service? Absurd. My personal
opinion is that a camera rightly acquired must be serviced by brand
representative everywhere. But...and this is a great but a camera bought
in USA or Hong Kong may have a minor price of 30% or more and with the
WEB it's truly easy buying outside. Really transport fees and import
taxes are leveling this but nevertheless there are true bargains. Some
years ago I was wandering buying  at New York a big tele like a 400mm
2,8. The difference in price covered the plane ticket and three days at
Waldorf Astoria -in special weekends offers that is when I use to stay
in this  old and nice hotel-. I think that right now there are not such
a big difference. Otherwise in the last fifty years I have only one time
lens problem -and I use a lot of lenses- when a 15mm 2.8 Canon fish eye
-a truly nice lens- had the diaphragm blades stuck. No problem with
Canon however the lens was not bought in Spain. This is the right policy
IMHO.

Regards

Felix


--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.7.3 - Release Date: 3/15/2005