Leon, I've used Phototechnical in the past on a couple of occasions, and
they had been excellent. However, they are only just down the street from
me and therefore I did not have to mail anything!
I have to say that the last occasion I thought they were not very interested
in working on Pentax - maybe they have lost the "Old Fred" who used to know
the brand?
If I weren't going to the UK next week I'd offer to go down for you...
John Coyle
Brisbane, Australia
----- Original Message -----
From: "Leon Altoff" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 3:34 PM
Subject: OAMPS extended warranty and Phototechnical repairs in Brisbane
Hello everyone,
I am currently upset with the service I have received the OAMPS extended
warranty people and their repairer of choice Phototechnical in Brisbane
(Australia).
I have just sent off the email below to the companies concerned but would
appreciate comments about either of these companies or with extended
warranties in general. At present I am not likely to ever purchase an
extended warranty again.
--
Leon
http://www.bluering.org.au
http://www.bluering.org.au/leon
Hello,
I would like to express my dissatisfaction with the service I have
received from Phototechnical and OAMPS. The OAMPS extended warranty was
originally purchased through Michael's in Melbourne (invoice xxxxx) who
were unaware that the repairs were carried out by a Brisbane company.
I recently sent my Pentax *istD to Phototechnical for repair via an OAMPS
extended warranty. It arrived at the Phototechnical workshop on 12/9/2005
and took 7 weeks to be returned to me (The Phototechnical website mentions
a 10 day repair turnaround - I have to assume this is only for your own
extended warranty customers as is your freepost service which I am not
allowed to use). When I rang to check on it's progress I discovered
Phototechnical had been waiting 2 and a half weeks for reply to a quote
which OAMPS had never received and which I fear if I had not chased up
both companies you would still be waiting on.
I originally sent the camera with 9 weeks until I needed to have it again.
There are now 8 days until I need to have the functioning camera back in
my hands and the camera works worse than when it was originally sent.
The camera had been sent securely packaged, double boxed, and was returned
very loosely packaged - I dread what happens to more fragile equipment
that Phototechnical return to its owner. The box used to return it was in
poor condition and had been recycled from a previous delivery and had not
been marked as fragile. If you are going to use this practice I would
have preferred that you reuse the box I originally used (which was new)
and had appropriate packaging for the camera.
The camera had been sent because of a problem with the hotshoe. When a
flash was connected the digital communication was intermittent, requiring
pressure to be placed gently on the left of the flash (looking at the
rear) in order to get connection. Now that it has been returned to me
there is no communication between camera and flash except when the camera
is fired. I tested the original and new faults using 3 different Pentax
AF360FGZ flashes and another *istD body with exactly the same
configuration to clearly identify the cause of the problem.
The original minor fault made using the camera slightly annoying but not
impossible. As I now can not use it with an external flash it is not
functional for my use.
When I rang through to the Phototechnical office today I found no one in
authority to be able to talk to me about the problem and a company
procedure of not letting the customer (me) talk to the technician. When I
asked for a message to be relayed to the technician the answer did not
inspire confidence.
I asked which lens and flash were used to check the camera functionality.
The answer was that they did not know. Before I trust my camera back to
the care of Phototechnical, I need to know that their technicians have the
skill to diagnose faults and test functionality after the repair. I was
not asked to supply extra equipment to help the Phototechnical
technicians, nor should I have to if you are as claimed by OAMPS
authorised Pentax repairers.
If a flash unit had been placed on the camera during final testing, it
would have been evident that there was a problem. I can only assume that
this did not happen, either through poor quality control in the workshop
or through laziness of the technicians - neither inspire confidence in the
ability of Phototechnical to repair my camera on a second attempt.
I await a phone call from Phototechnical to confirm that they have the
equipment required to test my camera's functionality fully after the
repair. Having observed their shipping department's packaging ability I
am not inclined to send along a flash and lens for testing as I do not
believe they would be returned to me undamaged.
If Phototechnical are unable to satisfy me that their technicians have the
ability to do this repair correctly and return it to me by Friday November
11, I shall have it repaired by CR Kennedy and send the bill to
Phototechnical. Failing this I will be seeking a full refund of the
original purchase price of the extended warranty from Michael's (who I
assume will recover it from OAMPS).
