Amazon UK supplied me with a grey import - what to do?

Mountkeen

Mountkeen

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I'm a bit miffed.

Bought a Sigma 17-50mm from Amazon at the end of December. It was a pukka Amazon purchase, not one of those "fullfilled by Amazon" jobbies.

Completed the downloaded application on Sigma UKs website for a free flashgun and sent off the relevant details to them. Just had an email from Sigma which says:

"Thank you for purchasing a Sigma 17-50mm f|2.8 lens and applying for Sigma UK’s free EF-610 DG ST flashgun promotion.

Having looked at your application I’m afraid to say the particular lens you purchased has not been imported by Sigma Imaging (UK) Ltd and therefore, according to our Terms and Conditions, we are unable to offer any promotion.

As you will understand, this is a promotion that we, Sigma Imaging (UK) Ltd, offer and therefore is only applicable to lenses that we have imported."

So not only do I not get a flashgun - which I'm not that worried about really - but I've also got a lens without a UK warranty. Before I fire off a broadside to Amazon has anyone had experience of anything similar? What did you do? What would you do?

Remember this was dispatched from and sold by Amazon.
 
Seen it before where Amazon have EU / grey stock, they usually just take back the kit offer a 1000 sorry's and you can request a UK version. If they can't fulfil that then you get refunded.
 
Sigma doesn't list Amazon, as one of their UK resellers or internet stockists :(, so you can't apply for the free flashgun anyway.

Just request a refund from Amazon.
 
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Oh and just to add from Sigma themselves:

"
Sigma January 26, 2016 at 10:05 am

Amazon UK is no longer listed as a recommended internet stockist on the Sigma Imaging UK ‘Where to buy’ section of the website as of December 2015. We have been made aware that Amazon UK is selling grey market products, items not officially imported into the UK, and not eligible for the extended warranty program. Since the UK consumer cannot determine whether the item they are interested in purchasing is a UK serial number we have decided to remove them from our list."
 
Out of interest what was the price difference between Amazon and Sigma Imaging UK?
 
Mountkeen said:
So not only do I not get a flashgun - which I'm not that worried about really - but I've also got a lens without a UK warranty. Before I fire off a broadside to Amazon has anyone had experience of anything similar? What did you do? What would you do?

Remember this was dispatched from and sold by Amazon.
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As regards warranty - your first port of call legally is the retailer anyway - people tend to think reponsibility lies with the manufacturer but in the UK it's normally the retailer. So UK warranty or not then Amazon are your point of confact on this.

If you're unhappy about it being non-UK stock and you want to go after the Sigma deal then contact Amazon and ask for a return. They sell as a UK retailer and the onus should really be on them to clarify that they are selling non-UK stock. As you say if it is merely fulfilled by them or from their marketplace then one would probably assume it to be likely that it is grey market - whereas with Amazon.co.uk one would expect UK stock unless told otherwise. I think you should point this out to them as it's one of the aspects that is important for many people in distinguishing buying from Amazon as opposed to other resellers on their site - and if they have not made it clear to you prior or during purchase as to the provenence of their stock then that you raises the question of whether they can be trusted because the customer ends up with a different product from the one they think they are purchasing.
 
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Just send it back for a full refund, job done. I'd be pretty miffed about the flashgun tbh unless the offer's still running and you reorder from elsewhere.

Out of interest if you check your account and look at your orders does the listing say anywhere that they're grey imports? If no that's VERY poor from Amazon to say the least and surely there should be some law against this?
 
Giblets said:
Out of interest what was the price difference between Amazon and Sigma Imaging UK?
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You can't actually buy the lens direct from Sigma but if you go to Camerapricebuster you'll see the sort of prices being charged on line at the moment. I paid £260 for my copy. Not a million miles from what other retailers are offering it at and a bit more than Amazon's current selling price - which is still "dispatched from and sold by Amazon".
 
Giblets said:
Out of interest what was the price difference between Amazon and Sigma Imaging UK?
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Looking at current prices it's about £30 difference.

It looks like Sigma have pulled support for Amazon UK because of issues like this so send it back and get a refund. Interestingly camera price buster are still showing Amazon prices even though they only compare UK stock. I'm guessing they don't know yet.
 
snerkler said:
Just send it back for a full refund, job done. I'd be pretty miffed about the flashgun tbh unless the offer's still running and you reorder from elsewhere.

Out of interest if you check your account and look at your orders does the listing say anywhere that they're grey imports? If no that's VERY poor from Amazon to say the least and surely there should be some law against this?
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Nothing about it being grey import. As stated earlier this was and is advertised as being "dispatched and sold by Amazon". I note that in the last two weeks there have been two reviews stating that the buyers received grey imports...........which was a bit late for me to find out as mine was purchased between Christmas and New Year.
 
Mountkeen said:
You can't actually buy the lens direct from Sigma but if you go to Camerapricebuster you'll see the sort of prices being charged on line at the moment. I paid £260 for my copy. Not a million miles from what other retailers are offering it at and a bit more than Amazon's current selling price - which is still "dispatched from and sold by Amazon".
Click to expand...

Unless Amazon are one of Sigmas official stockists you can't guarantee it being a UK model that was obtained from Sigma UK. Send it back and get a refund from Amazon. Check who are Sigmas official stockists and buy from them to get the offer.
 
rob-nikon said:
Looking at current prices it's about £30 difference.

It looks like Sigma have pulled support for Amazon UK because of issues like this so send it back and get a refund. Interestingly camera price buster are still showing Amazon prices even though they only compare UK stock. I'm guessing they don't know yet.
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Yes, I use Camerapricebuster quite a bit to check on prices so I was a bit surprised at this myself. Looks like I'll be sending this back to Amazon tomorrow.
 
snerkler said:
Out of interest if you check your account and look at your orders does the listing say anywhere that they're grey imports? If no that's VERY poor from Amazon to say the least and surely there should be some law against this?
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How can there be a law against selling legal products ?
 
Mountkeen said:
Nothing about it being grey import. As stated earlier this was and is advertised as being "dispatched and sold by Amazon". I note that in the last two weeks there have been two reviews stating that the buyers received grey imports...........which was a bit late for me to find out as mine was purchased between Christmas and New Year.
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Mountkeen said:
Yes, I use Camerapricebuster quite a bit to check on prices so I was a bit surprised at this myself. Looks like I'll be sending this back to Amazon tomorrow.
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I would be miffed too as you would think it would be legit UK stock from Amazon UK. It's lucky there was the flash offer as otherwise you wouldn't have known. Just get a refund and make sure they know you won't be buying this stuff from them again. Perhaps a new thread in the shopping Section to warn others Amazon UK are now not official sigma UK stockist may help people who miss this thread.
 
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If you missed the offer because Amazon UK sold you a grey import make sure you tell them when sending it back. Whilst Amazon doesn't say UK or grey import there is question about that in the Q&A section, interestingly all answers say UK stocked so that could imply it should have been UK stock.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003A6NU...de=asn&creative=22206&creativeASIN=B003A6NU3U

Question:
Is this a UK model or grey import that amazon is selling?
Answer:
I recieved the UK model... Fantastic lens for the money.
By Tommo on 14 May 2015
Who is your seller? Got mine from Carmarthen Cameras. UK model and got 3 year warranty when I registered with Sigma.
By john burke on 14 May 2015
Sigma Three year warranty
By Dragonfly Optical on 15 May 2015
If direct from Amazon uk stock
By Em on 15 May 2015
Collapse all answers
 
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snerkler said:
Just send it back for a full refund, job done. I'd be pretty miffed about the flashgun tbh unless the offer's still running and you reorder from elsewhere.

Out of interest if you check your account and look at your orders does the listing say anywhere that they're grey imports? If no that's VERY poor from Amazon to say the least and surely there should be some law against this?
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Maybe think carefully about it, there is a law, it regulates a free market across the EU and Amazon will often move stock around between the various EU Amazon depots, so a UK customer could end up with a DE product and vice versa. It's all still usually EU stock though, so from a warranty perspective the UK arm of a manufacturer would be on shaky legal ground to refuse warranty.

Cash back is a different thing, and they can legally only offer it on certain stock.
 
Amazon are cheap and cheerful. You have to be careful buying from them, more so now than in the past. I was going to buy a Samsung Galaxy S5 phone from an ebay seller only to find out it was a grey import from Hong Kong, I purchased from Amazon instead. I received my phone from Amazon and it has a button on the keyboard that says "EN" for English. If I press that key it changes to "HK" for Hong Kong and I get Chinese style lettering instead of English. I tried to register my warranty on the Samsung website and it wouldn't let me. I contacted Amazon and they said they would provide a one year warranty themselves. I settled for this in the end though basically I had cancelled one HK import and purchased another.
 
mrgubby said:
How can there be a law against selling legal products ?
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It was kind of a rhetorical question tbh, and more that they should state it's non-UK rather than not being able to sell it. It's just a bug bear of mine that there is not some LAW that they should make it absolutely clear that it's not a UK product. There are many websites and products that make it very difficult (imo) to find out whether a product is grey or not. I've learnt how to try and decipher it but there's a lot of online users that buy in good faith and get stung. So whilst I have no objection to selling grey in the slightest and I will probably buy grey at some stage, it should be made clear on the product page that it's grey especially in cases like the OP's where the price doesn't instantly scream grey.


Dave1 said:
Maybe think carefully about it, there is a law, it regulates a free market across the EU and Amazon will often move stock around between the various EU Amazon depots, so a UK customer could end up with a DE product and vice versa. It's all still usually EU stock though, so from a warranty perspective the UK arm of a manufacturer would be on shaky legal ground to refuse warranty.

Cash back is a different thing, and they can legally only offer it on certain stock.
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Granted I did make the assumption it was grey rather than EU. That being said I once contacted Sigma regarding warranty in the UK if bought the stock from the EU and they said that the first 12 months is covered but extended warranty is not. So again, in my ideal world, they should make it clear where a product is from as people may buy items expecting a 3 year warranty and find out they only have 12 months. Unfortunately we don't live in my ideal world ;)
 
I mentioned it in another thread, but I recently bought two Olympus lenses direct from Amazon and they were labelled up with Spanish import labels and came with a Spanish warranty card. I just sent them back as I didn't want to risk any cashback issues.
 
If they are selling EU stock, then I don't see it as strictly grey - after all, Tamron will honour a 5yr warranty on any EU purchased stock.

It just seems to be in this case, that Sigma are only interested in dealing with UK stock for cashback etc.
 
stumeech said:
If they are selling EU stock, then I don't see it as strictly grey - after all, Tamron will honour a 5yr warranty on any EU purchased stock.

It just seems to be in this case, that Sigma are only interested in dealing with UK stock for cashback etc.
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Yep, Tamron honour extended warranty as long as they are EU, Sigma don't, I emailed both companies asking this question last year when I was looking at their respective 150-600mm lenses.
 
Very interesting post. I won't be buying sigma from Amazon again. I don't even want to know if the 150-500 I bought from them is a grey. Although I've had it nearly 2 years now.
 
Interesting as I was about to buy a Brother laser printer few weeks ago and found out that was ineligible for cashback as they send you a French supplied one. Wouldn't have been important if it wasn't for the cashback offer. Also bought the Mrs some perfume before Christmas. It's fake and there are now a number of reviews suggesting other buyers had the same problem. Both were officially supplied by Amazon UK.
 
I have to say I have decided not to use amazon anymore unless there is a really good reason. The final straw was their amazon logistics delivery service. Day of delivery appears to change randomly until the actual day and then it turns up anytime up to 9.30pm, including sundays. Note to amazon: Some of us have a life and will not cancel all our plans for the next week just in case!

Plus most other online stores have now caught up with amazon wrt returns and customer service so there is less and less reason to use amazon in the first place.
 
so it obviously the line is drawn between u.k models which sigma know are overpriced but offer freebies to keep there suppliers sweet ,i.e free flashguns as in this case ,or on most lenses a 3 year warranty which when i registered mine was in the shape of a bar code on the outer wrapping ,however i can't see that a u.k sourced euro model will be denied a statutory 1 year warranty as that is via the seller in this case amazon .i it was me in this case i would scream blue murder at amazon and demand re-imbursement to cover the loss of the promotional flash gun and loss of two years extended warranty .
simply getting your money back is not really the answer as you will still have to replace the lens with an identical one at a higher price .it seems that amazon now are aware of whats happening and should hopefully bend over backwards to calm things down ,just mention watchdog and fake britain and they should be willing to play ball
 
Sigma UK accepted the 150-600S I bought from Amazon for the extended warranty. I got 2 emails. One saying application received and the other about a week later stating the lens was accepted so they must have checked something.
 
I've bought a couple of Nikon lenses and had no problems registering them for UK warranty.
 
Picking up on this old thread, I bought a lens from Amazon earlier in the year and was invoiced from the UK branch of Amazon EU SARL. Vat was charged.

I tried to register with Sigma for the extended warranty and was told the lens didn't qualify as it was not a UK serial no.

Perhaps this means sales from the UK branch of Amazon EU SARL are not necessarily UK stock.
 
Archie747 said:
Picking up on this old thread, I bought a lens from Amazon earlier in the year and was invoiced from the UK branch of Amazon EU SARL. Vat was charged.

I tried to register with Sigma for the extended warranty and was told the lens didn't qualify as it was not a UK serial no.

Perhaps this means sales from the UK branch of Amazon EU SARL are not necessarily UK stock.
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The L in SARL is Luxembourg which is where Amazon UK (haha!) is based.


Typo
 
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Archie747 said:
Picking up on this old thread, I bought a lens from Amazon earlier in the year and was invoiced from the UK branch of Amazon EU SARL. Vat was charged.

I tried to register with Sigma for the extended warranty and was told the lens didn't qualify as it was not a UK serial no.

Perhaps this means sales from the UK branch of Amazon EU SARL are not necessarily UK stock.
Click to expand...

sphexx said:
The L ins SARL is Luxembourg which is where Amazon UK (haha!) is based.
Click to expand...

Were I in your shoes?

I would use their online chat and tell them of the issue asking how they will remedy it!

Why online chat, well there is a written transcript record ;)

Hopefully any remedy will be to your satisfaction .........do please post updates to let the TPers know the outcome:)
 
Archie747 said:
Picking up on this old thread, I bought a lens from Amazon earlier in the year and was invoiced from the UK branch of Amazon EU SARL. Vat was charged.

I tried to register with Sigma for the extended warranty and was told the lens didn't qualify as it was not a UK serial no.

Perhaps this means sales from the UK branch of Amazon EU SARL are not necessarily UK stock.
Click to expand...

I think Sigma said about a year or so that they wouldn't allow any registrations from products bought from Amazon due to previous issues with grey imports. It is on there website somewhere.
 
f/2.8 said:
I think Sigma said about a year or so that they wouldn't allow any registrations from products bought from Amazon due to previous issues with grey imports. It is on there website somewhere.
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In which case don't Amazon have a duty of care/obligation to state on the item purchase page that for UK buyers is non UK stock i.e. a grey import?
 
Thanks to the other posters in this thread for the headsup. I've instructed my dad to check the serial no. on his Samyang lens as they've already been mentioned.
 
Plenty of bricks and mortar stores that have as good or better prices than Amazon ... is all I can say. Send the stuff back.
 
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