Hi John,
Thanks for the offer, but I decided that I didn't trust them enough to
have another go. I took it to C R Kennedy yesterday and asked for a
rush job and told them the tale.
I got a call this morning saying it is ready to go and no charge. The
hot shoe contacts needed to be repaired in some way, which means that
Phototechnical can't have tested it correctly or the poor packaging they
used to return it caused it to be shaken to bits. Either way they
aren't getting another one of my cameras.
Leon
http://www.bluering.org.au
http://www.bluering.org.au/leon
John Coyle wrote:
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).
