Buying a 'Grey' import camera body Yes or No?

should I buy an IMPORT camera body?

  • Yes

    Votes: 70 87.5%

  • No

    Votes: 10 12.5%
  • Total voters
    80
Well there's your first bit of hookyness right there............issuing VAT invoices with a VAT number that belongs to someone else! Very norty
 
admirable said:
Well there's your first bit of hookyness right there............issuing VAT invoices with a VAT number that belongs to someone else! Very norty
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I take it you didn't see my previous post. VALIDHURST are HDEW it is mentioned all over their website including in there terms and conditions. Validhirst Ltd T/A HDEW Cameras. This is a very normal business practice I do this myself our holding company name is completely different form the businesses we trade under.

Also worth noting that HDEW have been around for 30 plus years. I think though that you seem to have other reasons for wishing to discredit them so maybe you should contact HDEW directly, ask for Paul he is the managing director and can answer any questions you might have.

It is also possibly unwise on your part to defame there company name in this way, they will likely see this thread as several of there members of staff are members here and I dare say there could be potential legal issues here with what you have said about them.
 
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Hell no! Absolutely not worth it! It's a totally false economy. You don't get a proper warranty [regardless of what they tell you] and even if you do, if it's not a genuine product, no sane repair centre will touch it with barge pole after the warranty period is up, which means if it goes wrong on the only thing you can do [unless you have a degree in micro electronics and optics] is throw it in the bin or trust it to a shady back room one man band repair shop...
 
But I do also agree with rob-nikon on this. If you're going to buy grey do research and check them out on trust pilot first [and never ever buy anything from Simply Electronics. They are total bandits...] and if they want to sue me for defamation I've still got the customs invoice for "Lithium ion battery packs" that was actually my camera, minus the charger and battery, ironically...
 
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f/2.8 said:
I take it you didn't see my previous post. VALIDHURST are HDEW it is mentioned all over their website including in there terms and conditions. Validhirst Ltd T/A HDEW Cameras. This is a very normal business practice I do this myself our holding company name is completely different form the businesses we trade under.

Also worth noting that HDEW have been around for 30 plus years. I think though that you seem to have other reasons for wishing to discredit them so maybe you should contact HDEW directly, ask for Paul he is the managing director and can answer any questions you might have.

It is also possibly unwise on your part to defame there company name in this way, they will likely see this thread as several of there members of staff are members here and I dare say there could be potential legal issues here with what you have said about them.
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Yes I have just done a quick Google and obviously found more info, including other threads on here. I have no underlying motive here other than I'm VAT registered too and if I thought I could claim the VAT back with HDEW then it would be an incentive. I am also aware that it is an offence to issue VAT invoices when you're not VAT registered. Also, if you receive such an invoice you can't claim the VAT back..............been down that road.
 
f/2.8 said:
It is also possibly unwise on your part to defame there company name in this way, they will likely see this thread as several of there members of staff are members here and I dare say there could be potential legal issues here with what you have said about them.
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He hasn't made any defamatory comments. Nothing to get excitable over. That is all.
 
To put things in context I bought a my 5D MK3 from Simply Electronics back in 2012 [I hardly had any money, and desperately wanted one]. I've had it checked out it's all kosher, and it's been services by an approved canon service centre, but about 5 months after I bought it I had to send it back for repair. I sent them back everything as they requested, and got the camera back two months latter without the charger or battery which I ended up having to replace myself, along with a hefty customs bill for a package marked a "Lithium ion battery packs". The whole thing ended up costing me over £160 [which isn't far off what it would have cost to just pay to have it serviced]. Since then I only ever use approved retailers [and if I don't have the money I buy quality used goods] because I was actually lucky. I was talking to someone a while back who bought an import 7D, and after the warenty ran out sent it off for servicing only to have it returned because the serial number on the body didn't match the electronic's inside.
 
Although i'm no advocate of grey import (personally I chose to pay my taxes) but it has to be said that simply electronics reputation on review sites and camera fora is awful, so they aren't necessarily representative of the grey experience accross the board.
 
NewStreetPhoto said:
Hell no! Absolutely not worth it! It's a totally false economy. You don't get a proper warranty [regardless of what they tell you] and even if you do, if it's not a genuine product, no sane repair centre will touch it with barge pole after the warranty period is up, which means if it goes wrong on the only thing you can do [unless you have a degree in micro electronics and optics] is throw it in the bin or trust it to a shady back room one man band repair shop...
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Or you can get it repaired and pay for it at a Canon repair centre. It is a genuine product. If you came from Japan to live in the UK and brought your 5d3 with you would you expect canon to refuse to repair it in the uk? Technically your camera is grey because you bought it in Japan but you wouldn't expect to have to throw it away if it needed a repair.
 
NewStreetPhoto said:
Hell no! Absolutely not worth it! It's a totally false economy. You don't get a proper warranty [regardless of what they tell you] and even if you do, if it's not a genuine product, no sane repair centre will touch it with barge pole after the warranty period is up, which means if it goes wrong on the only thing you can do [unless you have a degree in micro electronics and optics] is throw it in the bin or trust it to a shady back room one man band repair shop...
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....Has this been your personal experience?

My personal experience with HDEW has been exemplary and the repair was carried out at the Canon approved repair centre which they use and furthermore with my direct telephone contact with the tech guy actually working on my camera body and 'grey' lens. 'White' retailer Park Cameras service (as I have already posted) was very poor and inefficient indeed and so I switched my body repair to HDEW's Canon repair centre where the lens already was.

I can only share my personal experiences for others to either decide for themselves or believe what they want to believe!
 
course comparing simply electronics with hdew is like comparing some no mark ebay trader with MPB ,
 
NewStreetPhoto said:
Hell no! Absolutely not worth it! It's a totally false economy. You don't get a proper warranty [regardless of what they tell you] and even if you do, if it's not a genuine product, no sane repair centre will touch it with barge pole after the warranty period is up, which means if it goes wrong on the only thing you can do [unless you have a degree in micro electronics and optics] is throw it in the bin or trust it to a shady back room one man band repair shop...
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NewStreetPhoto said:
But I do also agree with rob-nikon on this. If you're going to buy grey do research and check them out on trust pilot first [and never ever buy anything from Simply Electronics. They are total bandits...] and if they want to sue me for defamation I've still got the customs invoice for "Lithium ion battery packs" that was actually my camera, minus the charger and battery, ironically...
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NewStreetPhoto said:
To put things in context I bought a my 5D MK3 from Simply Electronics back in 2012 [I hardly had any money, and desperately wanted one]. I've had it checked out it's all kosher, and it's been services by an approved canon service centre, but about 5 months after I bought it I had to send it back for repair. I sent them back everything as they requested, and got the camera back two months latter without the charger or battery which I ended up having to replace myself, along with a hefty customs bill for a package marked a "Lithium ion battery packs". The whole thing ended up costing me over £160 [which isn't far off what it would have cost to just pay to have it serviced]. Since then I only ever use approved retailers [and if I don't have the money I buy quality used goods] because I was actually lucky. I was talking to someone a while back who bought an import 7D, and after the warenty ran out sent it off for servicing only to have it returned because the serial number on the body didn't match the electronic's inside.
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Thank you for registering to give your point of view. I look forward to seeing your participation in the rest of the forum - perhaps you could post some photographs for critique ??
 
This was with Simply Electronics, both horror stories I'm afraid. I'm sure tags there are some perfectly descent import companies out there, until there's some legislation in parcel to hold them acountable I just don't feel safe using them...
 
Gaz J said:
Or you can get it repaired and pay for it at a Canon repair centre. It is a genuine product. If you came from Japan to live in the UK and brought your 5d3 with you would you expect canon to refuse to repair it in the uk? Technically your camera is grey because you bought it in Japan but you wouldn't expect to have to throw it away if it needed a repair.
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The problem is that there have been documented cases where they where not genuine...
 
despite being a 'master of google' i can't find any involving actual non genuine cameras - the closest i could find was

a) http://petapixel.com/2015/08/14/i-bought-a-fake-nikon-dslr-my-experience-with-gray-market-imports/ (genuine camera but with a fake serial number)

b) http://www.worldphotographyforum.com/showthread.php?t=7386 (another case of genuine camera fake serial - possibly the same case as (a)

c) http://petapixel.com/2015/11/23/canon-is-suing-gray-market-camera-gear-dealers/ (more fake serial numbers this time on a 5D )

d) http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/54367435 (another false serial on a canon 5d3)

what is notable is that where importers are named in these cases none of them are the big boys of grey import we tend to talk about here such panamoz/digital rev/ hdew/kerso etc (I did find a case were D rev were accused of selling a used camera as new but that was just a cock up quickly rectified) - of the five dealers mentioned in those cases the only one i'd heard of before was simply electronics who as i mentioned before don't seem to have the greatest reputation.

The moral of this story is that when buying expensive kit grey or white market it pays to do your homework and check the reputation of the people you are trading with - if its extremly cheap but from someone no one has ever heard of then there is a much higher chance of it being snide or there being other problems than if it is sensibly discounted and from someone with a lot of recomendation of TP and other forums.

(edit the proviso to this that there are a lot of reports of fake SJ action cameras coming out of china but these arent really germane to discussion of grey import as SJ don't have a uk distributor so all the cameras fake and genuine are imports anyway)
 
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Unfortunately I don't think I'd be able to find them again. It was when I had to send back my camera in 2012, which is when I read the accounts in forums online. I did try to contact people, talked to them, and start groups and tried even to get people to work together to take out a class action [or UK equivalent] against them. Everyone's happy bitch online, but nobody was ever interested in doing anything about it. I even started a group on Facebook called "Stop Simply Electronics" some guy actually found it once in a search, and phoned me up thinking I could help him. I told him to join the group, he didn't. There's a massive amount of appethy out there, and I did plan on taking them to the small claims court, but there incredibly good at stalling people because they know the average person's to busy in the long run to hold onto all those pieces of paper...
 
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big soft moose said:
despite being a 'master of google' i can't find any involving actual non genuine cameras - the closest i could find was

a) http://petapixel.com/2015/08/14/i-bought-a-fake-nikon-dslr-my-experience-with-gray-market-imports/ (genuine camera but with a fake serial number)

b) http://www.worldphotographyforum.com/showthread.php?t=7386 (another case of genuine camera fake serial - possibly the same case as (a)

c) http://petapixel.com/2015/11/23/canon-is-suing-gray-market-camera-gear-dealers/ (more fake serial numbers this time on a 5D )

d) http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/54367435 (another false serial on a canon 5d3)

what is notable is that where importers are named in these cases none of them are the big boys of grey import we tend to talk about here such panamoz/digital rev/ hdew/kerso etc (I did find a case were D rev were accused of selling a used camera as new but that was just a cock up quickly rectified) - of the five dealers mentioned in those cases the only one i'd heard of before was simply electronics who as i mentioned before don't seem to have the greatest reputation.

The moral of this story is that when buying expensive kit grey or white market it pays to do your homework and check the reputation of the people you are trading with - if its extremly cheap but from someone no one has ever heard of then there is a much higher chance of it being snide or there being other problems than if it is sensibly discounted and from someone with a lot of recomendation of TP and other forums.

(edit the proviso to this that there are a lot of reports of fake SJ action cameras coming out of china but these arent really germane to discussion of grey import as SJ don't have a uk distributor so all the cameras fake and genuine are imports anyway)
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http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/54367435

That's literally from the first search I did, and it took me seconds...

But I think you may actually have mentioned that one! It is actually what I was talking about. The electronic's for whatever reason, weather it's repackaged stollen equipment, or fake doest really mater. No repair center is going to touch it with a barge pole. Also if it is stollen then some pour guy's missing his probably treasured camera...
 
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big soft moose said:
what is notable is that where importers are named in these cases none of them are the big boys of grey import we tend to talk about here such panamoz/digital rev/ hdew/kerso etc (I did find a case were D rev were accused of selling a used camera as new but that was just a cock up quickly rectified) - of the five dealers mentioned in those cases the only one i'd heard of before was simply electronics who as i mentioned before don't seem to have the greatest reputation.

The moral of this story is that when buying expensive kit grey or white market it pays to do your homework and check the reputation of the people you are trading with - if its extremly cheap but from someone no one has ever heard of then there is a much higher chance of it being snide or there being other problems than if it is sensibly discounted and from someone with a lot of recomendation of TP and other forums.
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....Hear! Hear!

That's the answer to the original question in this thread in a nutshell!


 
NewStreetPhoto said:
http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/54367435

That's literally from the first search I did, and it took me seconds...

But I think you may actually have mentioned that one! It is actually what I was talking about. The electronic's for whatever reason, weather it's repackaged stollen equipment, or fake doest really mater. No repair center is going to touch it with a barge pole. Also if it is stollen then some pour guy's missing his probably treasured camera...
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so as i said not a fake camera then - but a genuine body with a faked serial number ... and actually a repair centre wouldnt care in the slightest they would just do whatever they are being paid to do... it wouldnt of course qualify for manufacturers waranty but grey imports rarely do anyway. So all in all not a shining example of best practice but also not the terrible picture you were trying to paint.

We are still waiting for the well docummented cases of the camera themselves being fake...
 
big soft moose said:
so as i said not a fake camera then - but a genuine body with a faked serial number ... and actually a repair centre wouldnt care in the slightest they would just do whatever they are being paid to do... it wouldnt of course qualify for manufacturers waranty but grey imports rarely do anyway. So all in all not a shining example of best practice but also not the terrible picture you were trying to paint.

We are still waiting for the well docummented cases of the camera themselves being fake...
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Doesn't change the fact that no service centre worth the money will touch it with a barge pole, and even if it's genuine, it's posibly stolen, so none of those options are great for whoever got that body realy, are they?
 
Have you got a documented case for your oft-repeated assertion that no service centre in the UK would touch a grey import for out of warranty work?

Or is it just bs you've made up because you read it somwhere online 'in 2012'?
 
NewStreetPhoto said:
Doesn't change the fact that no service centre worth the money will touch it with a barge pole, and even if it's genuine, it's posibly stolen, so none of those options are great for whoever got that body realy, are they?
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Since when do service centres check Camera serial numbers to see if they are lost or stolen?. The only time a service centre will check a serial number is to see if its within warranty.
 
big soft moose said:
but a genuine body with a faked serial number
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How does that hold water?

To be genuine it has to have all its 'bona fides' in place - if the serial number is fake then the camera is too, surely?
 
chuckles said:
How does that hold water?

To be genuine it has to have all its 'bona fides' in place - if the serial number is fake then the camera is too, surely?
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The camera could be stolen / refurbed / wrong territory, using a fake / cloned number to try and hide it's history. The camera would still be "genuine" but downright dodgy :D
 
I have 0 issues buying a grey market camera from a trusted UK shop like Hdew. But I will never buy anything from DigitalRev which could get damaged in transit, after their poor customer service when a lens arrived damaged. It was damaged due to their poor packaging. I contacted them within about 20 minutes of it arriving. They refused to fix/replace it because it was not a manufacturing defect. The lens is usable but the auto focus is slightly off, it cannot use filters and the front lens is damaged.
 
My 5d mkiii was one of the digital rev cameras with a fake serial. The camera was taken back to Hong Kong given to the local canon office and all corrected. I have official canon paperwork to confirm this as well. Digital Rev customer service was excellent
 
chuckles said:
How does that hold water?

To be genuine it has to have all its 'bona fides' in place - if the serial number is fake then the camera is too, surely?
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nope - all the cases so far of DSLRs with fake serial numbers have turned out to be genuine manufacturer products with the serial number changed - I don't think we ever got to the bottom of why or by whom the serial was changed, but I don't remember seeing any reports of them turning out to be stolen (the genuine serial was showing up in the firmware so it would have been easy to check)

To be clear i'm no advocate of grey importing generally - ive been roundly chastised by the mods a couple of times for questioning the legality of the practice (my personal position is that i'm happy to buy from a reputable outfit overseas if, and only if, the goods are properly imported and not misdeclared or taxes evaded in any way), however I am also an advocate of fair play and criticising relatively reputable dealers without any substance to back the allegations of fake cameras up isnt really on either.

I get that new street had a bad experience with simply electronics - but its not really fair to tar firms such as hdew, kerso, D rev, panamoz etc with the same brush based solely on that
 
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JYC said:
Just for future reference, if you pay for something faulty costing over £100 by credit card and Digitalrev (or any other supplier) don't play ball then you can just get the card company involved and get it refunded under Section 75. Not that it excuses Digitalrev in any way btw, I'm not apologising for them just trying to be helpful!

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/section75-protect-your-purchases
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Sadly I didn't pay by via credit card, at the time I didn't have one :(
 
Alisonfd said:
Sadly I didn't pay by via credit card, at the time I didn't have one :(
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You can still do a charge back if you used a debit card, speak to your bank about it, you usually have 120 days from discovering the fault to make a claim
 
big soft moose said:
nope - all the cases so far of DSLRs with fake serial numbers have turned out to be genuine manufacturer products with the serial number changed - I don't think we ever got to the bottom of why or by whom the serial was changed, but I don't remember seeing any reports of them turning out to be stolen (the genuine serial was showing up in the firmware so it would have been easy to check)

To be clear i'm no advocate of grey importing generally - ive been roundly chastised by the mods a couple of times for questioning the legality of the practice (my personal position is that i'm happy to buy from a reputable outfit overseas if, and only if, the goods are properly imported and not misdeclared or taxes evaded in any way), however I am also an advocate of fair play and criticising relatively reputable dealers without any substance to back the allegations of fake cameras up isnt really on either.

I get that new street had a bad experience with simply electronics - but its not really fair to tar firms such as hdew, kerso, D rev, panamoz etc with the same brush based solely on that
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I was informed that serial numbers had been changed by the distributor in the Far East to cover up cameras that were not destined for that particular market.
 
Keith W said:
You can still do a charge back if you used a debit card, speak to your bank about it, you usually have 120 days from discovering the fault to make a claim
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Sadly it is too late. I did talk to them, and Tesco refused to do anything as it isn't fraud. At the time i was too ill to bother arguing with them about it and just had to accept I have a lens with iffy AF, luckily the front lens damage doesn't effect image quality and I have the power of duct tape to secure filter holders. But Tesco have been the worst to do a chargeback or open a fraud dispute with. Every other bank has been really helpful but Tesco digs in their heels and comes out with some really stupid reasons as to why they cannot dispute something.

Someone took £329 off my card in August, they said the transaction took place in London and at the time I was in the Netherlands which you even see from my card statement as I had been using my card at train ticket machines. They told me I had went to London, purchased a photo shoot then went back to the Netherlands. After I explained how I could have not possibly have done that, they told me to ring the reference number because that will be my friend who used the card and I can ask for my £329 back off them. In the end I got to speak to a supervisor cause I mentioned the ombudsman and they disputed it instantly. But the normal staff were a bunch of idiots.

That is just one of 4 incidents including the lens in the last 2 years with them in my family. The one incident was on my parents Tesco credit card, has gone to the ombudsman so hopefully they resolve it soon. Tesco credit card claims a "refundable key deposit" for car hire is not refundable. We have a receipt showing we returned the key and confirms we will be refunded within 5 days, we never received the refund. We have the agreement we signed which states it is refundable in both English and Spanish. The company does not respond to our letters and when we phone them they refuse to speak English (Despite the company advertising to have all English speaking staff). Tesco refuses to do a chargeback for us because "we only have one chance with visa and it isn't refundable as it says they will keep all of it if the key isn't' returned".
 
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There is no difference - it has been said and illustrated many times
 
Surely if they wanted to check if the camera was stolen they could just look up the original serial anyway? As it is still in camera.
 
Alisonfd said:
I have 0 issues buying a grey market camera from a trusted UK shop like Hdew. But I will never buy anything from DigitalRev which could get damaged in transit, after their poor customer service when a lens arrived damaged. It was damaged due to their poor packaging. I contacted them within about 20 minutes of it arriving. They refused to fix/replace it because it was not a manufacturing defect. The lens is usable but the auto focus is slightly off, it cannot use filters and the front lens is damaged.
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and because they are in konkers theres no chance of taking them to court under british law (which is the main difference between grey and white importing with a few exceptions) - i'd have said you had a claim against the courier given that you are techinally theimporter but theres a good chance they werent uk based either and its too late now anyway. - not good alround
 
Recently purchased a 70D from HDEW, it arrived within 3 days. Obviously brand new, but it was shipped in a box designed for a Kit (I didn't buy a lens). Also the accessories looked like they had been re-wrapped.

Box was also not sealed.

I'm still on the fence.
 
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