From: Jeffery Smith
I got flamed on the Leica Users Group forum for mentioning this, but my M8's were anything but reliable. My first one died after about a week, and Leica ignored all of my phone calls and emails until I finally contacted the president of the company personally. If you aren't a professional photographer, you can forget about customer service from Leica. You don't exist. The second M8 body would not recognize any of the memory cards I used. Leica blamed the memory cards and refused to repair or replace the camera. I bought every different brand of memory card listed as compatible on Leica's site, and all gave me a "no memory card" error until I removed the battery, waited a few minutes, and then reinserted the battery (which apparently rebooted the camera). I had to repeat this every time I wanted to shoot a frame. Once the camera was turned off or turned itself off, the no memory card error reappeared. Until a new firmware upgrade appeared last year, the M8 just sat in a drawer. The firmware upgrade seems to have fixed the memory card problem.
Who did you buy the camera from? I mean, NYC mail-order, local dealer or direct from Leica USA?
If I bought a camera that only worked for a week, I'd start with whoever I bought it from, and put the onus on them to make it right. Same for one that wouldn't work at all from the get-go.
The dealer should have more leverage with the manufacturer, and if they don't it's still not MY problem. They sold it, they're responsible for making good.
I prefer to deal locally whenever I can, simply because if something DOES go wrong, I get more stress relief if there's someone I can look in the eye while I'm yelling at him.
I had some problems one time with a major NYC mail-order house getting a problem fixed, but in retrospect the problem had more to do with the difficulties of trying to communicate three ways (dealer, manufacturer & me) across 9 time zones by email. They did finally understood the problem and got it sorted out for me.
I would, and have bought from them since then ... when I couldn't find what I wanted locally.
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