I know this is my second post today, but hey, let’s go crazy!! I wanted to do a quick post to, yet again, talk to you about my camera. I now have it back, and you can’t believe how excited I was!! Despite a nasty cold I’ve come down with today I literally ran to the door and took photos with it like crazy!! But I wanted to tell you about my experience with Canon as a whole and the problems I had with my camera so maybe it’ll help someone else. These photos are the last ones I took before the camera died completely, so you can see how bad it got in the end by me showing you these photos.
The problems were first evident to me on Christmas Day when I got a couple of lines on my photos. I thought it was a momentary glitch, deleted those pics and carried on. When it kept happening, and increasing in frequency, I knew something was wrong, but it was in between Christmas and New Year, so I knew Canon would be super busy and probably would be difficult to get it fixed then. As you can see in the photos here, they were super bad quality, but the camera automatically switched itself to store them as super high quality, so they took up over 10 times as much space as a normal photo. It also changed colours, put lines across the photos, and finally refused to take photos altogether.
I contacted Canon first in the very beginning of January, explained the problem and was told to send it in immediately – they gave me a list of places I could send it to and we picked the nearest one: Lehmanns in Stoke-on-Trent. It had been there around a week when I received an invoice for £165. Nobody had told me that despite the camera being only 5 months old, the warranty wasn’t valid in the UK because I’d bought it in the US. It would have been nice to be told this before I sent it off, since I’d told them I was worried about this in the first place, but that comment was ignored. I sent an email to which I had a reply after a week, telling me that the problem had been passed on to a higher person at Canon and they would get back to me within 10 days. 10 days passed, nothing. 14 days, nothing. So emailed again, and again, and again. All these emails were ignored. So I phoned Canon, several times, because they kept having to check things and phone me back, then get me to phone them. This went on until around mid-February when I was told – yes, there was a policy where it could be fixed if I spoke to Canon US and they confirmed it was bought in the US. After 3 emails to Canon US who said they knew nothing about that, I was told to phone Canon US – fantastic for someone on a student budget. That took 4 phone calls, being put on hold, passed from person to person, and all I got was still, they didn’t know anything about it. More phone calls to Canon UK followed. Eventually I got put on to a very helpful person called Maureen at the Canon Service Centre who was very understanding of my problem. She looked into it, and as a ‘gesture of goodwill’ said the Canon UK repair centre would try to fix it under warranty. So I had my camera returned from Lehmann’s, with none of my paperwork included. We then had to contact the credit card company and Walmart to confirm that I really had bought it and it was under warranty – this took another week. Finally I got my camera to the Canon UK service centre on the 27th February, 2 months after it broke. I was told that would take a maximum of 10 days for it to be fixed and returned to me. 14 days later, the status website still said the same thing: ‘Your repair is currently being processed’. I phoned the number on the email, the man told me that, yes, my camera was there to be fixed, and no, he didn’t know when it would be done. After another few days, I decided to try Maureen again. She confirmed that they still weren’t sure what the problem was, but if nothing had changed in 3 days, to call her again. 3 days later I did. She wasn’t there, but another member of staff told me that they had only just ordered the part it needed, after it had been there over 3 weeks. Another week later, still nothing. So I phoned Maureen again (she continued to be very polite and helpful throughout, she was only person I received any sort of apology from); she told me the repair had been completed BUT they then checked the camera and realized they hadn’t checked the video – oh, guess what?! That didn’t work now. So another part was ordered. And finally, today, a month after it went into the Canon Service Centre, 3 months after it broke, I have my camera back.
I have ‘owned’ my camera 8 months; said camera has been in my possession and working for less than 5 of those months. Almost half the time I’ve owned it, I have not had it. I was ignored by Canon several times, I was given useless information, and I experienced some pretty poor customer service. To say I’m not happy is quite an understatement, and I generally do not like to make complaints about companies. On top of all that, the camera has been returned to me with a mascara’d eyelash stuck inside the viewfinder, literally inside, so I cannot get to it. Fantastic. And I was never even told what was wrong with it, apparently they never actually worked it out; I was told it was ‘trial and error’ until it worked again. Basically, Canon owners, I hope your cameras never need repairing, but if they do, make sure you speak to Maureen about it.
So remember these are the final pictures before the camera died completely. If your camera starts taking photos like this, be worried.
Blazer: Forever 21
Dress: Topshop
Shoes: Office (sale)
PS: I’m selling this dress on eBay soon, it’s a purple Topshop one – so if you’re interested, I’ll be letting you know when the listing are up!!
Love,
That dress is meant to be purple?! The customer service you received is TERRIBLE. I would complain if I were you. So glad you got it back in the end!
So excited that your camera is finally back home! It sounds like a horrible experience and I’m so sorry to hear about it. Sort of ridiculous. It’d be so hard to be without a camera – I couldn’t even imagine. That sort of customer service in unacceptable. Glad you got it back though!
Callie
http://www.coffeeandcardigans.com
This is awful! I can’t believe how terrible it is!
Becky
xx
http://www.beckybedbug.com
What an awful experience!!!
xx
woah. that is freakin’ horrible. i am sooooo sorry you experienced that. i honestly hope that someone from canon reads this am reimburses you for all your time and energy. it should NOT be that difficult!
That’s really terrible experience. Being passed on from one person to another annoys me so I fully understand what you’ve gone through. No other option but to get that camera on a camera repair shop.
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aw that sucks! I’m glad you fixed it though… I drop my camera a lot so now I’m afraid this will probably happen to me, ughh…
xx
http://daydreamfrenzy.blogspot.com/
gorgeous look! really love the blazer! sorry about the bad experience! that sounds frustrating.
delicatelyfierce.blogspot.com
Oh my gosh, that is a massive pain. When lines like that start appearing it’s normally an indication that the sensor isn’t communicating like it should to the little image processor. It’s totally canon’s fault with a design problem, the same has happened to friends of mine.
Hope it gets sorted, on the other hand, really cute outfit!
xoxo
http://www.awonderingstar.com
love the shoes !! And I’m glad you’ve finally got your camera back.
-P.
Hello Sian! And thanks for the comment on my blog, I’m glad you like the shop I did an ad on ^_^ Unfortunately, they don’t ship overseas but if you’d like to purchase something, do let me know and I’ll lend a hand 😉
Also, if you happen to have followed my blog, could you please do it again? As I just found out that the “Follow” button I had was in fact linked to another girl’s blog! ٩(×̯×)۶
Thanks again and sorry for the long comment haha! By the way, I love how your style is so chic and feminine ^_^
xxx, Maria Veronica.
Man, talk about bad. At least you got your camera back! Major bummer about the eyelash inside the viewfinder though, how stupid is that?
beautiful shoes!!
xx Ellen
oh my gosh how horrendous! i hate having to call customer service people anyway, i find it very stressful, but your experiences would have had me bawling like a baby!!! thanks for the info, i’m actually at the stage now where i’m thinking of buying an SLR camera, and actually cannon are a company you think you can trust. i think i might go for nikon instead now though!
thanks so much for your lovely comment on my bravery post. i’m not really struggling any more but i feel i want to speak out actively against it and fully embrace it as part of me and my blog, to change the public perception and speak out for those that can’t, as i said on my blog. i’d definitely love to have you over guest posting if it was something you felt comfortable with?! xx
Thank you for your comment on my blog. I love this look! Topshop is always an excellent choice. 🙂
-april.
oh my god I love these shoes so much! I am going to hunt some down which are similar 😛 great taste in shoes 😉 xxx
Most of the company are like that, they are good at getting your money but once you got problems with the product, they always end up giving you the runaround.
The good thing is you have been persistent 😀