Nikon Canada gives good service
Some time in late July the zoom ring on my camera’s lense jammed. I was really bummed. In this the age of disposable gadgetry I assumed this three year old gadget was out of warranty.
“Oh, no,” said the clerk at store #1, “Nikon’s like five years. They’re really good.”
But then she asked me, “do you have your receipt?”
I didn’t. Part of the blur that is my post-Mallory life is a swirl of paper floating about and damned if I could find the piece.
What was worse was that I couldn’t even remember which of the two camera stores on the street near where I work had sold me the camera and the lense.
One had a record of me buying other stuff there, but not the camera. The other had had a computer system meltdown and lost all their pre-2005 client data.
Neither store would take the lense and ship it back to Nikon. I guess, unlike the computer biz camera warranty repairs are not a cash cow.
Eventually on the advice of camera store number three, I just phoned Nikon Canada. The guy hemmed and hawed but said if I could even find a credit card statement for the purchase that might be okay.
“But it’s Japan that decides,” he added, “so I don’t know.”
I dug around for the receipt for a few more days, went back to store number one and beseeched them further (to no avail).
Eventually I got sick of walking my lense up and down Bank Street so I stopped off at the Quickie Mart and mailed it to Mississauga.
My note explained the problem, apologized for the lack of itemized receipt and gave all my contact information.
I heard nothing back from them. One week, two weeks.
Today I got the lense back from them, fixed, cleaned and in perfect working order. No charge.
I used to wrinkle my nose at Nikon – “you’re paying money for nothing but the brand’s ‘stige,” I would say.
Not this week, though.
