Am I being unreasonable??

nickjohnwatson

nickjohnwatson

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Apologies for the long post.


Not having a great time with my 6D at the minute.


I’s been up at A&J Johnstone in Glasgow for going on 3 weeks now.


I originally sent it to them as the sensor had loads of marks all over it, they cleaned the sensor and sent it back to me, charging me just shy of £75 including return postage for the privilege. I stomached the cost as I was fed up of the sensor being the way it was. For some reason unbeknown to me they changed the focus screen as well.


Unfortunately when I got it back it was EXACTLY the same so I got on the phone to them only to be told that I was wrong and that it was fine. So I took a photo at f16 and sent it to them showing over 100 marks still on it.


They said I’d have to send it back to them for investigation, So I stuck it in the post and when they received it they determined a new sensor would be the best option to remedy the problem. They quoted £405 for the work, I asked about having the cost of the sensor clean taken off and the response was “I’m sure we can sort something out once it’s been fixed”


So here we are almost 3 weeks later and I get a phone call saying its ready and do I have my card to hand for the £405. I say hang on I’ve already paid you £75 not to mention 2 lots of postage to get it to you for you to clean a sensor which you have then replaced, I think its only fair to have the cost of the first repair taken off.


They hummed and harred then said they’d have to ok it with the manager and ring me back later that day so I waited for a call but they didn’t ring. I rang the next day and they said they were still looking into it and would call me in the afternoon (this was yesterday) They didn’t ring me back so I called them at 5pm and they assured me that they would ring me at 9am sharp this morning to sort it out. They didn’t ring, so I called them on my lunch to be told they they’d spoke to the manager and he had agreed to refund the cost of the postage.


I questioned their logic and they said “Well we did the work on the sensor”, to which I replied “well yeah which was pointless as you then replaced it 2 weeks later”


I flat refused that and said that it was not on that they are expecting that when they failed to check the camera after they had cleaned the sensor, if they had checked it as they claimed they had they would have spotted the marks immediately. They put me on hold then came back and said they’d remove the cost of the sensor clean but they still are going to bill me for the postage and the focus screen (which I didn’t ask them to change in the first place.)


So at present they want £365 off me (£405 minus the sensor clean) but that price includes a focus screen and postage costs.


I flat refused to pay that as I’ve worked it out to be £319 which is the £405 minus the pointless first repair they did, failing to spot the underlying problem.


They’ve said that that’s what I have to pay so I’ve told them they can just keep a hold of the camera until I get some proper advice.


I said to them on the phone “Can you not see this from my point of view? You’ve given me back the cost of the sensor clean as you’ve replaced the sensor but you are still charging me for a part that I didn’t ask you to replace and the fact I’ve had to send it to you twice?” to which they had no reply other than “that’s all we can do”


Am I being stupid? They’ve made a mistake and are now trying to charge me for a replacement part that I didn’t ask for or need, plus the cost of carriage due to me having to send it to them a second time? The difference is £45 which I think is a lot of money, especially when its their mistake.


Whats your thoughts?


Nick
 
I would be questioning why they feel they needed to replace the sensor and I'm pretty damn sure I would have told them to send it back so that I could get a second opinion.
Sensors don't just get damaged unless you've been poking around in there with a sharp object. For all you know, they damaged it when cleaning it.

As for paying £75 for a clean, I think you're mad.
I use one of these on my 6D and it cleans my sensor beautifully.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Eyelead-SCK-1-Sensor-Cleaning-Olympus/dp/B0046VBEE0
 
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not great advice as theres nothing the card company can do - you had the work done, you paid for it

if on the other hand you paid for the original work by card you could get that recharged on the basis that the service provided was insufficient
 
Try speaking to customer services at Canon. They may have some leverage.
 
big soft moose said:
not great advice as theres nothing the card company can do - you had the work done, you paid for it

if on the other hand you paid for the original work by card you could get that recharged on the basis that the service provided was insufficient
Click to expand...
The first bit was a question, mashing virtual keys on a phone caused that issue. Amended post which kind of reflect the second sentence in your post. :)
 
Go talk to your Citizens Advice Bureau. They'll be able to talk you through what your options are. The first thing they'll want to know is whether the marks were there when you sent the camera in for the first time, so any images that can show the condition of the sensor, before you sent it in will be important.
 
I can't understand why on earth you paid that much for a sensor clean in the first place ,a full wet clean with eclipse fluid and swabs should at most including pre and after checks only at most 15 minutes at that rate there charging circa £300 a hour ..
As stated I would have asked for it back and got a second opinion ,not there normal m.o as I have used them before .but we don't know the full facts I.e how on earth did your sensor get that dirty in the first case ,have you changed lenses in a dirty place or beach etc ,do you ensure when changing lenses that the camera is always pointing lens throat downwards, and I presume it's always put away with either a lens or lens cap fitted ..does seem more to this than we are being told
 
Sejanus Aelianus said:
Go talk to your Citizens Advice Bureau. They'll be able to talk you through what your options are. The first thing they'll want to know is whether the marks were there when you sent the camera in for the first time, so any images that can show the condition of the sensor, before you sent it in will be important.
Click to expand...

Not sure how that is relevant. Surely the marks were there, that's why he sent it in for a clean.
 
Be interesting to note whether the marks after the first clean were the same as the marks before it was cleaned. Even if the sensor surface was damaged, there must have been some dust collected on it, so a clean would have removed the dust and left the marks. What puzzles me is why they didn't inspect the sensor after cleaning. I would have thought that an automatic part of the process. There is sometimes a sticky spot or two that need special treatment. I would want to eliminate the possibility that the first time they didn't clean it at all, but rather than admit it and lose money decided to blame the sensor and get some more.
 
tough one, they have your camera and i imagine its worth more than £365.
I would suck it up and learn a hard lesson and once you get it back bombard canon with complaints and see what happens.
 
Yes the marks were there before I sent it to them, hence the reason I sent it in lol. Here's a couple of screen shots where you can see the problem. The first is using the visualise spots tool in lightroom which shows up sensor dust. The seconds image is a zoomed in view of th sly in a sunset image that I took AFTER they came had came back from AJ Johnstone the first time.

They claim that they tested the camera and that the images were fine as they use canon software which gives a pass/fail percentage for dust on the sensor. Fair enough it might show if there's dust on the sensor but surely they should be checking it to make sure that it's ok afterwards?

As for why I paid £75 .......

I had already had it in a local camera repair centre for a clean and they couldn't clean it, then I put in jessops and they couldn't clean it, then I tried it myself and couldn't clean it so I sent it to AJ Johnstone. The £75 included a sensor clean, a replacement focus screen (why?) And return postage.
 
I had a similar kind of experience with Lehmanns. I damaged the rear screen on my D750 and went with them as they quoted £95 for the repair. I thought that was a really good price so went with it. They messed me around for 6 weeks and in the end sent it to Nikon as they couldn't fix it. The cost rocketed to £350! In the end i just paid it as i wanted my camera back and just learned that i would never use them again.

What did me was the way they handled it. It was awful. Lies, confusion, rudeness and basically just a crap experience.

Live and learn Nick and just suck it up. Pay them and go and shoot some pics.
 
Did you authorise them to do the repair in the first place?

As a canon service centre they should have quoted you the cost of the work before they did anything or at least asked for an authorisation amount.
 
I agree, that doesn't look like dust. Dust normally shows up as a circle in the dust visualiser.
Maybe it wasn't anything on the surface of the sensor and instead an internal failure, hence why AJJ never spotted it.

Maybe you should try and push Canon to cover the cost of the repair. Goods should be expected to last a reasonable time and all that, but I guess that depends on the age and shutter count.
 
I wouldn't let them change the battery on my camera!
 
i have had a few lenses in for repair/service and never had a problem with them to be honest this bit you wrote raised my eyebrow but (I had already had it in a local camera repair centre for a clean and they couldn't clean it, then I put in jessopsand they couldn't clean it, then I tried it myself and couldn't clean it) so to sum it uptwo camera shops could not clean it and you had a go and could not clean it that to me would have got me thinking hey maybe its my sensor that has a underlying fault . ifit was me i would just get the camera back and take the hit and take my gear some where new next time
 
We can give advice on here but I doubt any of us know what you're entitled to legally. You agreed to the work (barring the focus screen) so not sure what rights you have.

Also, if you sent it in asking for a sensor clean and they did this what have they done wrong, and IMO you should foot the bill (barring the focus screen). Now if you sent it in saying you have marks on your images and asked them to sort it then it's a different story as you've asked them to diagnose and fix the issue, which they did not do in the first instance.

Querying the case with citizens advice will give you all the info you need.

I've never used the visualise spots in LR so not sure how the different marks look, but on your second image all the tiny black dots do look like dust spots, although I'm only viewing on the iphone at present so would need to view them properly first.

I do think you've probably not done things as well as you could TBH. As above, the fact you'd had several attempts at cleaning it previously should have rung alarm bells that something else was a miss. Then paying £75 for a clean, and then agreeing to a sensor change without knowing what the issue is. I'd put it down to a bad experience and learn from it TBH.
 
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I don't know the company, are they an authorised Canon repairer? I'd question why the whole sensor unit needed replacing? It's very hard to damage the sensor, at worst the AA filter on the front might get scratched but that doesn't require the whole sensor to be replaced?
 
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