Heads up on Canon Products and service

[cliff williams]

I am a newbie here, I own lots of Canon gear including an EOS 300D, EX1 hi8 and a DM XL1-S and felt it appropriate to share my current problem with Canon UK Ltd and Canon Inc.

I have a Canon DM XL1-S - a "professional" mini digital camcorder which retails now at £2600.00 and features 3CCD broadcast quality imaging.
http://www.jessops.com/images/products/canvdmxl1s.jpg

I got one in September 2001 for £3000.00
I have recorded a trifling amount of footage - 11 one hour tapes.
The camera decides to start chewing up tapes Easter 2004.
I contact Jessops who advise I return it to Canon UK Ltd.
I write an angry letter stating that I am (or was!) a loyal Canon customer with over £6500.00 spent in last few years. I tell them that this has broken with such light usage.
Canon UK Ltd tell me that it needs a new tape mechanism at £264.00.
Reluctantly I pay the money.

The Camera is returned to me on 30th April 2004.
Tape mechanism is repaired.
However FIVE of the function buttons are now broken including the important MENU button. Cant even programme the date or change any settings.......So the camera is now no better than a £200.00 equivalent....Even though the technician has carried out a "full test" before returning it!!

Write to The President of Canon Inc in Japan 30th April registering my complete and utter disgust. I also tell him that I will not accept any further repairs to the camera and as it has been broken while in the care of his company I want a full refund of the original purchase price.
I get a phone call 11th May 2004 from Canon UK Ltd Service Dept saying that they would like me to return the camera to Canon UK Ltd for assessment but that it would be highly unlikely that they would offer a replacement camera. I told them categorically that I will not accept any further repair to the camera as I do not know what other damage has been done in the process of the repair.

So no written reply as yet from The President or any Canon Dept.
POOR!
Have spoken to my lawyer yesterday and am keeping him posted on developments.
Asked for a written reply again yesterday by email.
Also told them that I own the predecessor to this camera the EX1-hi8 and that this too was "repaired" by Canon UK Ltd only for the same fault to return within a year so I have no confidence in the camera, Canon or its technicians.
Period.
Thought that digital would be better.....talk about hindsight being a wonderful thing.

My lawyer has supplied the following information:
Under Sale and Supply of Goods to Consumers Regulations 2002 a consumer now has up to six years (5 in Scotland) to bring a claim. Consumers are entitled to goods of satisfactory quality, taking account of any description, the price and the relevant circumstances. If an item has a fault that is present at the time of sale ('latent') the consumer can
complain once it is discovered. - a camera costing £3,000 that has only
been used for 11 hours would seem to fall under this category!

I have kept Jessops in the picture all along and since receiving this info I have told them that I am left with no alternative but to exercise my full consumer rights.

Will I buy any more Canon? I will leave that for you to decide.
Will keep you all posted.

Now I have found you all I will be checking in regularly.
Good to see the exchange of info here. At least I now know my EOS 300D is running the correct update..............

[Penguin_101_1]

I would still buy Canon. Its your fault because you didn't return it and it was most likely not under warrenty anymore. Everyone makes mistakes.

[stopbath]

Do you realize that as humans we make mistakes?

You've made several mistakes in this issue too. In the future, try to localize your impact to the people actually involved. Calling out the lawyer is pretty excessive at this point. Calling on the president of the whole company is also excessive. Do you think the president actually gets concerned with trivial matters of day to day stuff? He's doing his work looking into the future and guiding Canon to his vision of where it should be in 10 years... Day to day stuff is handled on the front lines. The very people you overstepped in your zealousness.

Why demand a refund for a camera that had a possible defect in the repair. So the camera had to go back. No big deal...

The reasonable course for this would be: Send the camera back pointing out the flaws you noted. Wait two weeks. Get it back.

Now you've wasted lawers time (at your cost) the presidents time (at Canons cost) and will likely get exactly the same outcome of getting the camera repaired, but it will take much longer due to the wasted time and effort.

Perhaps next time you'll buy Nikon... (but then again, they'll likely just ask you to buy Canon... No company wants or deserves customers over reacting over minor glitches.)

[belmondo]

Sorry Cliff. You're way out of line on this one. You've said nothing that means anything except that Canon appears to have botched the initial repair. They should definitely make it right for you, and they should do it quickly and correctly. To that end, you certainly are entitled to preferential treatement.

On the other hand, they have absolutely no obligation to replace a 2 1/2 year old camera; the bulk of your inconvenience since the repair has been self-induced. If you had just shipped it back instead of becoming emotionally invested in your hopeless crusade, you would have gotten it back and be using it by now.

As to the light useage (11 hours in 2 1/2 years), there are other factors that can contribute to a transport mechanism failure....climate, rough handling, bad tape/cassette, and so forth. Sometime I'll tell you about my $300 repair on a 4-month old lens. Now that's a sad story.

[RichardtheSane]

My lawyer has supplied the following information:
Under Sale and Supply of Goods to Consumers Regulations 2002 a consumer now has up to six years (5 in Scotland) to bring a claim. Consumers are entitled to goods of satisfactory quality, taking account of any description, the price and the relevant circumstances. If an item has a fault that is present at the time of sale ('latent') the consumer can
complain once it is discovered. - a camera costing £3,000 that has only
been used for 11 hours would seem to fall under this category!

If you take this to court then it will cost you a lot of money to get the product repaired. And all you are entitled to even under the sale of goods act is a repair - you may be able to get it free of charge but in your situation I doubt court costs would be awarded.
Also, the Sale of goods act doesn't cover you for a specific 6 year period, but for up to six years, depending on the product and component that failed. Mechanical components are much more likely to fail and can easily be affected by environmental conditions, so you would have a harder time in court because of that.

I understand your frustration about having sent your camera away for repair and it being returned with a different fault, did you contact the repair centre as soon as you found the new fault?

[vvizard]

I understand your frustration of failure in such expensive equipment, but as mentioned, you've made several mistakes here, and the most obvious to me, is that you say you write an "angry" letter to them the first time. Why? Things break, it's no big deal. Beeing angry at the service-center will yield you absolutely no good! It's not their fault! When it came back (more) broken, then it's the service-centers fault, and you might have reason to be a little angry then, but at least, that (angry) letter should go to the service-center, and not to the president of Canon! At least not in Japan! I'm sorry to say this, but I back up all the other replyers here.

[cliff williams]

Thanks for all your comments guys.

The issue is still ongoing.
But I have discovered that the initial problem is not unique to my DM XL1-S.
In fact just about every Canon Mini DV camcorder is at high risk of the same failure as mine had initially.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=f00a134d888786e4c24670db05721f2d& threadid=21441&perpage=15&pagenumber=1

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/bbs/showthread.php?s=&threadid=38981&perpage=15&pagenu mber=1

gives an indication of how wide spread the failure is.
There is another chap raising a petition to send to Canon about it.
Canon knows it has a problem with its tape transport mechanism but is unwilling to do a recall on it..........

So bottom line if you have a Canon mini DV camcorder and you get an unexpected EJECT TAPE message you are about to experience the same failure as mine.....
One of the joys of owning Canon I suppose :?