Nikon Pro services...idiots?

Nikon produces products with US only serials and “imported” or global serials. Places like B&H and others give you the option of buying an imported product at a small discount, but those products tend to only carry the one year warranty card as opposed to the five year warranty card.

NPS regards “imported” purchases as “grey market”, meaning that they were not intended for purchase in the US by US buyers. This is not to say that they are lesser products just that they are intended for non-US sale.

Not sure why Nikon does this (my guess is it has do with economics – everything is about money), but if the gear is serialized as an import then send it in for regular Nikon service rather than NPS and they should service with out a problem.

I think Canon does the same thing to their CPS users.

Nikon Pro services…idiots?

Yes.

But you apparently missed the fine print that lays out just what is considered professional equipment. Much of what I have, isn’t. Hmm.

Have never, ever come across a company that seems so intent on getting rid of its top-of-the-line users as is Nikon.

The problem is I was on assignment and had someone get me a D2X in NYC, not knowing it was ‘grey’, shipped it to me so i could finish a job. I guess Nikon doesn’t understand that being a photojournalist sometimes means getting gear under tough circumstances so you can’t always have the right paperwork.

Guess I should have become a pet photographer.

As I said NPS France and Japan just took my gear and fixed it, no questions asked.

I had loads of stuff serviced by NPS in London and most of the gear was bought here Stateside. No issues. I was at London Fashion Week and not even credited. I just popped in to get my gear looked at. They didn’t care about my Fashion Week access and even gave me gear to cover me for the few hours. Smart. Never bothered here in New York cause of the bad stories.

Haven’t had Nikon repair problems with NPS. But my gripe with NPS in Sweden, which was just started a few months ago, is their lack of responsiveness to my emails and phone calls. Once NPS started in Scandinavia I immediately signed up, knowing how NPS in the U.S. was very helpful to me. At first NPS in Sweden seemed to really care about working with me, letting me test a D300 on assignment for two weeks in Georgia and Azerbaijan. Once I got back I asked if I could continue to test it on another assignment a week later to cover the presidential election in Armenia. They declined and said someone else was going to borrow it. Up until then I was completely pleased and understood that testing equipment should be shared by all Nikon users in Sweden. So instead I wanted to immediately buy a D300 to take with me into the field again. Turns out the D300s were on a four-week back order throughout Sweden and other Scandinavian countries. So I called the NPS rep, hoping he could help me track down a D300 for me to buy immediately. I recall in the U.S. NPS members were always given preferential treatment when wanting to buy new equipment. Instead, in Sweden my phone calls to NPS Sweden were never returned and emails were unanswered. I emailed several more times and called only to leave messages for several more weeks. I have not heard from them yet – almost a month later. Now I have given up. In my opinion ignoring Nikon professional users by NPS is not a way to keep me as a dedicated Nikon user. Stuart, is there a way to contact someone directly at the main NPS service in Japan?

Why not send the camera to another Nikon repair facility (other than NPS), such as Authorized Photo Service in Illinois.

The problem is the camera you have is gray market; you said it wasn’t bought in the US but later indicate that it was, in NYC. If you had bought a camera overseas from an authorized dealer in that country and brought it back to the US – and had the receipt – NPS would repair it (this comes from Nikon officials).

“If you had bought a camera overseas from an authorized dealer in that country and brought it back to the US – and had the receipt – NPS would repair it (this comes from Nikon officials)”

Camera bought in NYC (grey market, although unknown to me at the time since I was in the field in China at the time I needed it), lenses (like nearly all my lens and film bodies bought overseas) plus I have Nikon gear going back 25 yrs, nearly everything more than 10 yrs without receipts.

So brings me back to my question, is this a pro service, or simply a Nikon service? Seems to me it’s better for local puppy snappers than people who travel and have to sometimes get gear on the fly. Sure I could get receipts from the places I bought gear in Bangkok; in fact I could make them up myself as most are simply from store-bought receipt book, but since they weren’t authorized dealers I’d be screwed. Good luck finding an authorized Nikon dealer in Phnom Penh or some other remote town.

This seems to me to be more typical American parochialism. As I said, Nikon Japan and France never required this from ‘Pros’, the accepted any Nikon gear, as long as you were a professional. NPS in the USA seems to work the other way around.

“Stuart, is there a way to contact someone directly at the main NPS service in Japan”

I’ll try and dig up a name but you’ll need to speak some Nihongo!

FYI Nikon Japan often fixed your cameras for free, only charging parts if needed. Ahhh, Japan, where service is King. Even the French Nikon had better service. I guess I didn’t realize with NPS in the US, it’s the gear that has to be ‘pro’, not the snapper!

“Or should I just switch to Canon?”

Not if you might be moving to another country in the future.

Relocating from Europe to Hong Kong I was informed by Canon HK that none of my cameras/lenses were eligible for CPS coverage. The fact that all of my equipment came from official European dealers and was already registered under the CPS scheme in Europe was deemed irrelevant. If I wanted to be a CPS member in HK the only way I could join was by buying new replacement gear in HK. Nikon? Canon? When it comes to service they’re as bad as each other.

inside the US it’s US guarantee or nothing… outside the US, nikon gives a ‘worldwide’ guarantee… that obviously is worldwide, with one caveat, it excludes the US. catch 22 anyone?

NPS is a service not an exclusive club for the super snappers.

Sorry folks, not white glove treatment…just a first come first serve service.

Send it in for regular service if you want it fixed, otherwise….

CPS will treat you the same… buy a “grey market” product and save money, but gain a headache. At least for the US buyer.

I find it disturbing that anyone would put service above image whether canon or nikon. How fickle to say, well I did not receive white glove treatment so I think I will abandon one for another. Get with the program folks, you are just another consumer with a camera. Nikon or Canon, you are just another dollar sign…how fatuous.

“CPS will treat you the same… buy a “grey market” product and save money, but gain a headache…how fatuous”

It’s not about buying “grey market” to “save money”. It’s about the fact that many photographers in the natural course of their work move from one country to another for extended periods. What’s fatuous is a camera manufacturer, whether Nikon or Canon, not recognizing the international nature of the profession.

Yeah, well don’t even get me started on the absolute lack of service from Nikon NZ. They are shocking and I ship my gear off shore now for repairs.

Canon repair service sucks, sent a camera for repair, they charged me $400 and returned it to me, next day I used it and the camera broke again. I called repeatedly to their service, sent emails, they never answered so I had to send it to Nippon photo clinic.
And as for Nikon they did exacly the same when I sent a scanner and return it unrepaired but charge me (LS 2000) when called them they simply said that new computer programs did not support that scanner software, bunch of crooks. Wish they read all these threads and realize that they are going to loose some business due to their lack of honesty

I guess both Nikon and Canon have their negative points when it comes to service but what are you going to do? I don’t think that Pentax or Sony have pro service… Maybe switch to Leica? ;)

rutgher: olympus…their ogps is decent…though that may be because they’re bored.

Here’s what it’s all about.

Nikon and Canon operate as independent businesses in different countries. Because Canon (or Nikon) in the US have far more buying power than the Australian business, the prices are much better. So when I see a lens on B&H in New York going for half the price that Canon Australia wants to charge me, why on earth would I not buy it from B&H? There’s nothing illegal about doing that. I just have to pay my import taxes. If there was just ten per cent in it, then I wouldn’t bother with the fuss of importing, but when I can save half the advertised price, then it’s a no brainer.

In response to this, Nikon negotiated with some suppliers not to export their stuff outside of their market, and both Canon and Nikon introduced this rule about not supporting overseas purchased gear.

I don’t know about you guys, but I have found the standard of professional services from both companies to be no where near a level that would encourage me to pay double the advertised price.

Hey Wade you’re back?

Bloody Canon Australia sucks and all I can say is they are absolutely NOT interested in helping anyone that doesn’t work for one of the BIG consumers of their product- think Getty, Reuters etc. Plus they have an awful habit of overservicing.

All the CPS bullshit- well unless you invest a half a mill in their cameras and shoot BIG budget cocaine snorting advertising campaigns they are just NOT helpful

If I could reinvest in another camera brand I would because the Canon idea of service is non-existent.

And Matt just because we are smaller consumers doesn’t mean that we should be treated like shite. In fact the reason companies like Canon and Nikon have such a share of the market is because people always look at pros in any industry to see what they are using. I was a professional athlete for ten years and I was sponsored by several sports equipment companies. They recognized visibility and what it can do for a brand. Everytime I go out with a Canon camera I am advertising their product as a professional, the least they could do is be polite and reasonable to deal with in their service departments.

I don’t think it is a fatuous statement to expect that.

Nikon or Canon, you are just another dollar sign…how fatuous.

Well, I can see that something was lost in translation: I was not referring to the consumer as “fatuous” more so the corporation but OK.

Lisa, I could not agree more, although I really place image quality above choice of manufacturer and professional users, I will jump from one to the other if it means better quality. I am also that guy who loves to black out my cameras with tape and replace the straps so that I am not a free billboard.

As for NPSUSA…I get better service from the standard Nikon repair centers than NPSUSA. My last Canon was a T90.

Cheers.

I’m generally a calm person and it usually takes a lot for me to raise my voice to a point of me yelling at someone, but Nikon Canada has successfully got me to yell at them a few times. It got to a point where I refuse to have stuff serviced by them. I now get my cameras serviced at a camera repair shop in Vancouver. All my cameras are past their warranty, so I figured if I’m to pay for service I’ll pay someone with who I can have a one to one chat about what they did or are going to do to my equipment.

Leica in Solms Germany is the exact opposite of Nikon Canada. When I send my stuff to them, they are fast, professional, pleasant and give one to one consultations on your equipment. When you send them an email you get an informative non-autogenerated response. And they also tend to overservice but never charge me for it. Cleaning, adjustment and putting a new set of batteries in… Nikon always charged for that, Leica doesn’t. Sure they are a little more expensive, but not by much and you get a feeling that they care about your equipment as much as you do, which is nice.

Hi Lisa.

Just a two week visit, then back to the UK.

You’re right about the stark difference between being a big player or a normal customer. Canon generally treat us (at Fairfax) exceptionally well, but my mates who are independent operators have been treated absolutely appallingly … with three or four month turn around times on basic repairs and no status reports, or returned phone calls.

I dropped a 300 2.8 a few years ago. It spent twelve months with Canon getting fixed.

Matt, how does someone whose last Canon was a T90 speak to the level of service offered by CPS? My experience and many other’s is very different from what you are saying. I’ve had gear that was not only grey market but past the warranty also, and upon telling them that, their response was “don’t worry, just send it in.” It’s very common for them to overlook the fact that gear may be grey market.

Good to hear that Canon is better at customer service than Nikon.

Maybe a bit off topic but I was wondering how many of you factor costumer service in your purchase? I’m recieving my bachelor in a few months and will upgrade my gear.
Since I’m not that invested in a brand, switching is possible without any real money loss (a D70 isn’t worth that much anyway).
I hear a lot of people rave about CPS versus NPS here in Holland. So I was wondering if I should factor that in when it comes to buying new gear? For me when it comes to quality of product Nikon and Canon are generally the same, only downside is that Nikon lenses are quite a bit more expensive than their Canon counterparts so I’m thinking about going Canon because it will save me a few hundred euro’s buying better optics than the cheap glass I currently have. Any thoughts on this one?

With kind regards,

Rutgher