Friday, March 28, 2008

Mount Fuji - Part 1

Well, instead of receiving my camera back in the mail, I received the following:

A notice from Fuji telling me that my warranty is invalid because there is "impact damage" to the camera. They say that there is a dent in the bottom of the camera and that the top is separated. This on top of the pink screen that I reported. They will still kindly fix it, but will charge me $80 including taxes and shipping to do so.

The only thing is that I did not drop the camera.

I had sent it earlier this year to Fuji's California Service Center for repair. They actually fixed it very quickly, but wanted to charge me an exhorbatant amount to ship it back to me. Since the warranty did not say I had to pay, I protested, had a very emotional lecture from the man on the other end of the phone (he did claim that he had had a bad day before our conversation), and we ended up agreeing that I would only pay them $10 to cover actual shipping charges and packaging. I agreed.

The camera was back in my hands for exactly two weeks before the next issue; had only been used once, and had languished on my desk for the remainder of the time. I was shocked that it, once again, didn't work when it was pressed into service. And so, since it was under warranty, I mailed it off, this time to the main Fuji facility in New Jersey. And thereafter waited and waited and waited. Until now.

Now I will tell you that I am hard on stuff. I do break stuff. And I am perfectly honest and forthright about the stuff that I destroy. I will not allow Eric to buy me nice things because there's no point to it. But I did not drop or break that camera. I would never have asked them to fix it if I had. (I have a long history of not returning items for that very reason.) The camera malfunctioned on it's own.

I unsuccessfully tried to reach Fuji's Customer Service Department today about it; with the time change, they had closed for the day and the weekend. I will try again on Monday, and hopefully resolve the issue in a positive manner.

Meanwhile, I have a feeling - because the warranty was so close to being expired - that Fuji is not going to repair it. We'll see, and I'll report back here. I truly hope that they do the right thing. Especially because I think we're all tired of pictures for this blog that are 'borrowed' from the internet.

2 comments:

hot tamale said...

I understand the "not wanting to look like you trying to get something for nothing" mindset, Im the same way but its important to fight for your rights to have the company honor "their" warranty that you had when you bought their product. I use QVC alot, they have awesome customer service, no questions asked and a solution is always at hand. pssst, thats where I bought my digital camera. Dont give in Laura, cant wait to read what they tell you....good luck!
Becky

Anonymous said...

Good luck in resolving the issue. Like Becky says don't give in. What's to say that some yutz on the other end didn't drop the camera and fail to document it?

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