Canon's HORRIBLE service!

The BBQ Pit
1

I shoot concerts. I four Canon cameras - an XH-A1, a HF-R11, a HF-S100 and an HF-200. I shoot from multiple angles, editing the whole thing together.

I discovered that two of my cameras could not work with the newer Class 6 and Class 10 SDHC memory cards. I contacted Canon service to find out if there was a firmware upgrade to enable this. I was told I could send them in and Canon would perform the upgrade for free.

Canon sent me UPS pre-paid labels and I confidentially sent them off. I sweated a bit when Hurricane Irene was headed directly to their service center in Newport News, VA.

Thus I entered into Hell.

I got, by snail mail, two invoices to perform this firmware upgrade for $232.24. Each.

These two cameras cost $399 and $199. The “repair” cost (for a promised free firmware upgrade, mind you) was nearly equal to the original cost. I called the service center and refrained from screaming “WHAT THE FUCK!” at them, refused the “repair” and was assured that I would get the units back soon. Explained that I had a shoot with the cameras Sunday, September 11th so I needed them the next Friday.

Every single person I have spoken to in Canon’s service department has lied to me. Intentionally or unintentionally, I have been lied to.

Monday was a national holiday, but I contacted them Tuesday to find if they had been shipped Friday. No, they were still in service but should “go to shipping” that afternoon. Wednesday, I had not received confirmation on the shipping, so I contacted them again. Wednesday’s liar assured me that they would go out overnight, FedEx. As did Thursday’s liar.

So here it is, Friday morning. No FedEx. I call Canon again, and am told that they are still in shipping, and I will get them “in three to five business days”. They HAVEN’T FUCKING SHIPPED, and they were planing to ship them UPS 2nd Day.

Up to this point, I have been pleasant and polite, but I finally lost it being lied to for a whole week. I finally am transferred to a supervisor who takes the responsibility to contact someone in shipping at the facility in Newport News and find my cameras. He upgrades the shipping to FedEx Saturday delivery.

Until I get the FexEx confirmation and see that it is on a plane, I won’t know if I have been lied to one last time.

2

Sorry to hear about your trouble with Canon, but I had the exact opposite experience:

I have two identical A95 PowerShot cameras. Both cameras were years out of warranty, and I was ready to throw both away because the image chip was outputting distorted and unusable images. Turns out there was a manufacturing defect in the image chips.

Canon paid for the shipping both ways, and fixed both cameras for free. From the time that I initiated the repair, I had the cameras back in just over one week.

3

Sometimes things get miscommunicated, delayed or flat-out not communicated in big companies like that. There are probably 3 or more internal entities involved here- a call center, a service center, and a shipping / receiving department.

Somewhere along the line, someone probably just dropped the ball and didn’t check a box on a form or something like that; it’s unlikely that anyone’s actually intentionally lying to you.

You’re assuming the worst, instead of assuming incompetence… you’ll do better in the long haul to reverse those two.

I’d just stay on them until it’s resolved to your satisfaction.

4

The thing is, “my satisfaction” requires having the cameras in my hands. If they had shipped the units when they promised, even UPS ground, I’d have them.

5

Not to piss on your Canon bawl, but aren’t firmware updates usually provided for download and self-install? Seems a hassle for everyone involved to have to send the devices in.

6

That’s what I expected. When I called them, it was to find where to download the file to put on an SD card and instructions for how to perform the firmware update.

As I said, I was told the upgrade was free. Only after they had the cameras was I informed that “free” meant more than the camera is worth.

7

I’m going to vote for out of character screw up. I’ve had amazing service from Canon, even for issues that are usually my fault.

8

Were you lied to repeatedly for a week?

9

I had the same experience with my single A95, also years out of warranty, and got it turned around in only 5 days. It may have been the best customer service I’ve ever had.

I hope they step up and make it right for you, gaffa.

10

Nope - and I’ve heard consistently good things about Canon service from others. I suspect you ran into a bunch of people having a very bad week and you got the brunt of it :frowning:

11

Canon’s been good to me. I’m mostly a Nikon man myself, but when I had to deal with Canon Professional Services for a shutter that died, they not only fixed the shutter, but the mirror assembly and the control dials, as well as cleaning the camera completely inside and out, for just the price of the shutter fix. Can’t complain about their service one bit.

12

I join the nothing but good things to say regarding Canon’s customer service.

When I waded into the surf with camera still in pocket, I called to see if cleaning was possible, and if so, cost justifiable. Response - salt water not good and repairing was not an option. However due to being a good Canon customer over the years I was offered an excellent trade-in deal for my now dead camera.

Nope, no complaints from me…

13

Also sorry to hear about your experiences, gaffa, but I had a customer service experience pretty much identical to Mind’s Eye, Watering. When Canon couldn’t fix my glitch, they just sent me the new model most in line with my previous camera. And that one’s been working now for five or more years.

I only had to call their customer service center twice (once to suss out the initial issue and a second time to find out what the status was of my repair), but they folks I spoke to were always courteous and honest.

Here’s hoping your cameras show up soon! In your convo with the supervisor, was it ever made clear why there was going to be a charge for a service you were told was free?

14

No, I was so upset by this time that all I wanted was my cameras back to do the shoot. The fact that this whole adventure had started because of a lie never came up.

I did get the cameras by calling FedEx and modifying the shipping so my brother could pick up the package at the FedEx distribution point. They didn’t guarantee they would arrive before noon, and I traveled at 11:30.

FedEx, unlike Canon, has excellent service.

15

By the way, I found the web site where Canon lies about performing this service for free. It does not say you will receive a bill for $232.24 for each camcorder to be updated.

16

Sounds less like a lie, and more like a bill that was sent in error. And judging from the otherwise stellar experiences with Canon mentioned here, it probably would’ve been rectified if you hadn’t demanded the cameras back. (Not to, you know, blame the victim or anything.)

FedEx, on the other hand, has claimed an attempted delivery with “recipient not home” when I was home waiting for the package, and I know the truck didn’t even enter our complex. They did send the driver back when I called to complain, though, so I guess that counts as excellent customer service…

17

That’s what it sounds like to me. gaffa, did you point out to them that the website says the service is to be performed for free? I would have just called them and said, “I think there must be some mistake, or maybe I’m confused, but I just got an invoice for $xxx.xx and it was my understanding that firmware updates were supposed to be free for these cameras, according to the website. Is this not the case?” And see where it goes from there.

Like I said above, Canon has gone above and beyond for me in customer service; they’ve performed more repairs than I asked for, and charged me $150 less than I expected. I suspect yours was just a simple mistake that could have been rectified with some simple explanation, although you haven’t really told us how the talk with the repair center went exactly, so it’s hard to tell.

18

Back in Canon Hell.

I got the cameras back and did the shoot. Now I have another series of shoots in January. So I have a whole month for Canon to get my cameras, perform the firmware update, and get them back to me.

So I’m on the phone. One very polite gentleman takes all this information and sends me an e-mail with a link:

http://usa.canon.com/cusa/online_repair_tracking/consumer/

I proceed with filling this all out, but we hit a snag. Step 3 absolutely requires a MOTHERFUCKING CREDIT CARD NUMBER!

No way in HELL am I giving anyone a credit card number for a FREE service! So I can’t complete the service request to get an RMA number.

So, back on the phone. The person I talked to insists that I can just blithely mail my cameras to Canon’s service center without any sort of authorization other than my phone number (the smart ass starts reading me back my phone number when I ask for an RMA number). Also, he says that if there is anything wrong with the camera (the VIXIA HF-S100 has a slightly lose monitor) that they won’t do the firmware update without fixing everything else with the camera!

After a wait on hold, he finally comes back with a pair of return authorization numbers, so I’m not sending them off into the blue. But he is quite insistent that when I send the cameras in, if there is anything “wrong” with the cameras, they will send me an “estimate” for the “repairs”. If I do not “accept” the “estimate” they will not perform any service on the camera!

So to get this “free” service, I am entirely at Canon’s mercy. My opinion that the slightly loose monitor is fine does not count. Only the party that makes money repairing cameras opinion matters. If I don’t want to accept their “estimate” (which I have every reason to believe will involve an entire replacement monitor and a bill well north of $300) I will never get this “free” service performed!

19

I had a sort of similar experience with Bushnell (the binocular folks), I had inherited a pair of 7 X 50 Bushnells from my father that he had bought way back in the 50’s or 60’s. Decent binocs, but not super ones. Anyway sometime around 1995 or so the center hinge had become very stiff so that it was difficult to adjust the interocular distance.

I contacted Bushnell to see if they would repair this, and they said basically sure, just send them in. They quoted a reasonable price, so off the binocs went.

Months and months went past, and more than a few phone calls were made. Finally I sent them a very warm letter describing in colorful detail what I thought of their operation.

Magically, about a week later, a package from Bushnell arrived. On opening it I found a brand new pair of 8 X 35 Bausch and Lomb birdwatching binoculars, with no paperwork or any explanation. These binoculars were way better than the original Bushells, and I still use them. This went a long way toward ameliorating my mad at Bushnell.

20

Sorry this happened, but like the others that have said so, I have had perfect service from Canon. I had to send off a camera to repair dead pixels on a DSLR sensor and the repair was free and I had my camera back in hand sooner than expected.