Well ... just because someone sells "grey market" merchandise does not necessarily make them "crooks"

If you know what you are getting into when you purchase an item ... you can save a lot of money .. of course .. the problem arises when/if you ever need service that would have been covered under warranty.

Fully investigating a seller is always a good idea. I would *never* buy a major piece of equipment from someone just because they had the lowest price.

My "go to" store on the 'net is BH Photo Video in NYC. Second up is Amazon.

the whole gray mkt thing is weird,, where do the cams come from,, who are they made for.... Stay away from any net bargain store is the lesson here., do your research,, check out the companys ..... there are tons of them working out of moms garage, mostly in brooklyn but also pa looks like
hope you get your cam fixed.

The FotoSpirit says they are an authorized Sony dealer and Sony called me today and said this would all be hashed out tomorrow and they would notify me round noon. I'll post it.

Grey merchandise is stuff which has been shipped to other countries and has made its way back into the US under suspicious circumstances. I'm positive I did not buy grey merhandise.

To me, this is another case of a corporation trying to squeeze every last dollar out of their end users. Pure and simple.

i wouldn't say suspicious... i'd say cheap. I could buy camera X for $4000 in US, I could get it for $2000 grey market. Nothing illegal, I just loose the warranty. I've very very very rarely had things fixed in warranty (my car, once?). some grey market dealers offer their own warranty too.

This is NOT grey market! Go to www.fotospirit.com.

For additional sony repair complaints go to http://davefaq.com/Opinions/Sony-Sucks/

Sony repair sucks. They try to charge for things under warranty. They lose items, don't repair cams well, and are very slow. In short. They suck. Stay on top of them if you have to use them. They'll actually lose a cam if they have to.

Otherwise, use Armatos in NY if you can. They are great in all ways.

How's Canon Service in the U.S? I am looking to buy a 7D and wonder if it's any better than Sony's pro service...

hmmm, I've never had a problem with a Sony repair facility. YMMV

If FotoSpirit is an authorized Sony dealer, I will be REALLY surprised. I can't find anything on their site where it claims they are authorized dealers for anything. They are, however, a "2006-2007 e-Commerce Award Winner", a member of the "Imperial Merchants Association", a "JKMedia Certified Seller" and they're an "XRamp SSL Secure Site." All of this is total BS. There should be a GIANT red flag on the opening page of this site.

I've had occasion to have two repairs done under warranty by a Sony repair center. I received satisfactory service both times.

The issue of gray market is pretty directly determined by the unit's serial number...

We but most of our kit from B&H, technically we are buying grey market.
Sony's spare parts system was changed recently which created a nightmare for every Sony broadcast repair centre. The pricing for the same part is now determined by which unit it is used in, go figure that one out. One of the reasons we've gone to buying grey is because of this. It's cheaper to buy two camera grey than one white and hope that somehow someone will be able to find a part to fix it under warranty.

Bob.

How's Canon Service in the U.S?

Recently dropped a GL2 about a foot onto hard ground. Unit still worked but made funny sounds (like a motor "hunting")

Sent it in .. and they fixed it .. for minimum price of $400 .. OUCH

(at least I *think* it was $400 ... I'm trying to block it out of my memory)

have a good story on canon repair (no good on sony) years ago the firewire went out on my xl1, sent it in and canon repaired it for x amount ,don't remember.. got the cam back all was well for a couple days then the cam would not record without noise ...like dirty heads.. sent it back got new heads for free.. still under the all is well with the cam from the firewire. fix... cool

Years ago I had a Sony 8 video cam that was eating batteries like crazy but still under warranty. I bought one of the 10amp hour gel cell belt packs and the camera would drain it in about 5 minutes. I sent it to Sony repair and they called and wanted all the batteries. I sent the 11 batteries I had for the camera and after a month I called because I hadn't heard from them.
They said it was "in the mail" and sure enough, a few days later, I received the 11 batteries but no camera. After a few weeks of haggling, they decided they would send me a new Hi-8 camera for $100 dollars, which was actually a good deal, but they never found my original camera.

If your camera drained a 10 amp/hour battery in 5 minutes, the problem should have been pretty easy to find, just look for the fire.

There was no fire - the battery reached the voltage level where the camera simply cut off long before smoke and fire.

"To me, this is another case of a corporation trying to squeeze every last dollar out of their end users. Pure and simple."

Fotospirit.com is a bait and switch operation. Did you look at the link I gave you?

And it doesn't matter what some person tells you on the phone. They are not an authorized dealer. If they were, they'd have this logo image on their site. They don't have that for Sony, or for any other brand.

I can't find anything on their site where it claims they are authorized dealers for anything. They are, however, a "2006-2007 e-Commerce Award Winner", a member of the "Imperial Merchants Association", a "JKMedia Certified Seller" and they're an "XRamp SSL Secure Site." All of this is total BS. There should be a GIANT red flag on the opening page of this site.

Indeed. All of that is made up crap that's supposed mimic REAL certifications. It's totally laughable.

Fotospirit also has an F rating with the BBB:

http://www.dc.bbb.org/report.html?national=y&compid=204038783

I don't know how much more proof the guy needs that he made an unwise purchase.

Burt,

DGates is right, you got screwed and if you had done your homework, you could have easily avoided it. You could have posted a message here before you bought the camera asking about FotoSpirit and saved yourself a lot of trouble.

There is no way that this is Sony's fault. Just suck it up and spend the $500 to have the camera repaired. (That particular part doesn't usually fail without some sort of abuse, so an argument could be made that it might not be covered under warranty anyway.) In the end, you'll find that you'll end up paying about the same as you would have had you bought the camera from an actual Sony dealer. Just hope nothing else goes wrong with it.

John

I should add that I don't mean to come off as harsh towards Burt. Repair bills can really be a PITA, and I feel bad that he's in this situation.

He just needs to redirect his scorn towards the retailer. Unfortunately, that probably won't rectify the situation. He's in a bad spot.

Well, some high mucky-muck at Sony called me last Thursday and told me he would rectify the matter and call me without fail on Friday around noon--1:00 PM. Guess what. He didn't call. Now I have to go through more stress (I'm 77) on Monday trying to straighten the whole thing out. Right or wrong, Sony could just say yes or no and get it over with.

I have a C:32-11 error which I understand is a transport problem. The first time I opened the gate, it would not close. I have a guy here who can fix it but he said he couldn't if it was still under warranty! If Sony does not fix it free, I'll get my camera back and take it to him. Pary $500 to have that fixed? No way.

You're right. I should have checked with this list and I will from now on. What bugs me is that I have bought 2 Sony Vaio desktops, 2 Sony DVR's, A sony digital audio recorder, Vegas Video from #3 on to #9 which didn't work when I bought it, a Sony VX-1000, a Sony videocassette deck and scads of tape and cards. You'd think they'd cut me some slack!

There's quite possibly nothing wrong with the camera!
Make Google your friend:

http://www.camerahacker.com/Forums/DisplayComments.php?file=Video%20Camera/Sony/DCR-TRV350_tape_wont_eject_C.32.11

Bob.

Thanks Bob. I've tried a few of those already. The first thing I did was enter C:32-11 into Google and read about it. Not much on it for the V1U and, in any event, my gate is open and won't close. No tape involved. Won't close with or without tape. I'll re-visit this when I get my camera back, but there's a local tech who used to work under me and he can fix it in 5 min.--just didn't want to work on a camera under warranty. (!)