| rev:text
| - Woke up one morning, went to take a photo of my dog with my trusty DSLR, and suddenly, the camera that had worked the night before, would not take a picture.
This was a Friday. We were leaving for vacation the following Wednesday to tour National Parks. I panicked, we took the camera in to this shop and were told no problem, it would be ready by Monday afternoon, Tuesday at the latest.
Fine. That sounded great. Relieved, I went home and waited for the call.
Monday, no call came. Okay, they said maybe Tuesday anyway, but we called to check on it.
Took a little longer than expected, they said, but definitely done by Tuesday. Gave us a repair price of a few hundred dollars, which seemed reasonable for a DSLR repair.
All sounded fine by us. A bit down to the wire, but fine.
Tuesday. Waited. Waited.... waited.... no updates. Called around 2pm, and they said, 'oh, it's not going to be ready after all. But! Come on down and we'll give you a comparable replacement for your trip.'
Fine, things happen. Upset that they didn't call us to tell us this (if we hadn't called ourselves, we would never have known before they closed at 5pm), but they're making it right by loaning us a camera. This was still fine.
Went down to pick up the replacement camera. The guy asked when we're returning on our trip. I tell him in 6 days. He said, 'oh, it'll definitely be fixed by then!'
Got the replacement camera home and started playing around with it. Find out that it was in NO WAY comparable to the camera we have. It was several steps down, didn't even have a digital display, had nowhere near the amount of manual adjustments and options of our camera. Literally the only thing comparable to our camera was that it was made by the same company, had the right fit for our lens series, and took the same size memory card as ours. LIVID. I felt very much like we were taken advantage of because we aren't professional photographers.
Thankfully, we were able to find a very last-minute camera rental opportunity north of the city, and we got a camera that was one step up from ours for only a couple hundred bucks rental for the week. We didn't even bring the camera shop's 'replacement' with us on the trip.
Over the next week, I expected to receive a phone call from the shop saying we could pick up our camera. But no call. No updates at all.
Finally, the day we arrived home from our trip, we called to follow up. No answers for several more day... Finally got in touch with them by the end of the week and were told the camera unexpectedly needed a part that they had to order in - and it was going to cost another $300!! Total, the repair would have cost us around $700, while the price to purchase a totally refurbished body of this same model would only be $900.
We declined to have this repair completed and picked up our still-broken camera the next day, about 2 and a half weeks after we dropped it off for 'repair in a few days.'
I understand that things happen. Unexpected things happen - you have to do more work than you originally planned, order a part, etc. These things are understandable. What is NOT understandable is the lack of communication we experienced. We were never contacted with updates unless we called the shop ourselves. If things go wrong and you keep me abreast of the situation, I will still be able to support you. If you can't be bothered to tell me what's happening unless I chase you down... I consider that to be unacceptable.
And if you can't loan me a truly comparable replacement camera, SAY THAT. Tell me up front, 'we have a camera we can loan you that's a few grades down, would you like that?' Don't try to lie to me and think that I won't catch on because I'm not a professional photographer. Honesty and communication are key in this kind of situation. I felt disrespected as a customer through the whole process, and taken advantage of because I'm a patient person and tried to give them the benefit of the doubt at so many points throughout the ordeal.
I want to support small local businesses, and we really don't have many camera repair shops in the 'Burgh, but I was so disappointed with our experience here.
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