Mount Fuji - Part 2

The saga of the brojen Fuji Finepix continues.

I made the call to Fuji Repair today and got a woman named "Christine" from the repair department. I was very calm and collected, and told her that there must be some kind of mistake. The camera was not dented when I sent it to them. She asked me to hold while she pulled the camera.

When she returned to the phone, she calmly told me that there was a very extensive dent on the bottom "by the port." Since I know in my heart of hearts that the camera was not dropped or dented in any way when I sent it to them, I asked her if she had any idea how it happened. "It couldn't have happened in shipping" she said. "If it had, then there would have been a report."

I calmly explained to her that if it hadn't happened in shipping, then somebody on her side must have dropped the camera. She wouldn't budge on her postion, but when I explained to her that the camera had only been back with me for a couple of weeks after the last repair, she said that if I had the previous repair center fax a copy of the repair report along to her, she would take it - with their notes of any damage on it - to her supervisor. Since there was no damage, I had no problem with that.

I called the last repair center:

Advance Camera Repair
7441 Garden Grove Blvd.
Suite J
Garden Grove CA 92841
Phone: 714-799-6175
Fax: 714-799-6145

and spoke to Harold. He was lovely and helpful, pulling the paperwork and noting that there were no notes of significant damage to the camera on it. He is having "Lisa," his secretary, fax a copy of the report on to Christine later this afternoon.

Meanwhile, I looked up Fuji Repair on the internet. There are a whole host of complaint reviews about them telling the exact same story. New cameras, older cameras, cameras that never worked right from being taken out of the box new. All of the cameras were sent to them under warranty for repair; all of the owners who swore that there was no impact, received a bill exactly like mine, requesting $80 to repair the camera due to "impact damage."

So the saga continues. Will they fix my camera? Will I ever be able to post real pictures to my blog again? Will Fuji do the right thing?

Or will I be forced to buy a new camera because Fuji does not honor their warranty agreement?

Only time will tell.