Bessa 3 // I am so over Cosina!

Eddie90723

Eddie90723

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Apr 14, 2010
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So, has anyone here ever had to deal with Cosina for repairs directly? I had to send my Bessa 3 to Japan to get the alignment square fixed as it never completely lined up when set to infinity and even when it did images would come out blurred.
Long story short, it is such a pain in life to deal with them! First they said no worries just pay 3600¥ for shipping. Then they blamed me. Had to ask Will at Photovillage to help me because aside from it still being under warranty I had that problem since day 1, I just didn't know it was a problem. I blamed it on learning to use a new camera. Then to make payment they only accept wire transfers. Well, Bank of America charges 35$ to send it in ¥. Or 45$ to send it in US. Extra 25$ if they do it for you. I paid the yen version of this. I used all the info Cosina provided to make payment, my bank said it went through successfully. Now guess what? Cosina says they can't get my payment because according to their bank I didn't do it right. If i was wrong and they can't get the money, how can Cosina tell me the money is there?!
This is such a headache!!!
I'm so regretting that I ever purchased my Bessa 3 and now my Zeiss Ikon because if it ever has an issues, I'm going to have to go through with this again.
Alright, just had to vent. I can only hope this is just me it's happening to, because...if this is how they deal with every repair and collecting payment, I would have never purchased anything by them in the first place.
Thank you
 
Sorry to hear of your trouble :(
Doesn't the R3A have alignment adjustment screws under the hotshoe, though?
Maybe next time, try to fix it yourself or see if a local repair shop can do it for cheap?
Just don't hate on the R3A itself... It's not the poor things fault! :)
 
I have the medium format Voigt BIII folding one and couldn't find anyone local to do it. I love my camera! It's my go everywhere, attached at the hand camera. Its just, the experience of dealing with its parents, is tarnishing the happiness.
 
I sent an R2m to a local UK repairer once - Newton Ellis - and they did a great job, turning it round in two weeks and invoicing at the end of the process.

IO also sent my Ikon to Zeiss in germany when I dropped it and they were also excellent to deal with, so you should have no concerns there.


I am surprised at your Bessa experience, but perhaps it is jsut a hiccup?

Mike
 
Couldn't the retailer in the US fix it for you?

Unfortunately for people in the US and UK bank transfers are a pretty common means of payment in some countries, and maybe Cosina in Japan are expecting to deal with Japanese customers only, and so don't take credit cards?
 
I've dealt with Cosina service here in Japan many times. Their repair service is good, and they've even optimised to f/1.5 a few Sonnars for me - for free!

But the only type of payment they accept is bank wire transfer, which is very common in Japan, and simple and cheap if done between domestic banks. Doing that from overseas is a PITA.

Edited to add: Japan is still very much a cash based society. Many stores still don't accept credit cards (or tack on an extra 3% if they do), and almost no-one has heard of PayPal. I've run into many foreigners almost out of cash frantically searching for an ATM where they can withdraw money. They're usually in a panic because they've already discovered that their cashcards from home won't work in most ATMs here (hint: go to the post offices! they have ATMs that accept international credit cards).
 
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Eddie,

Find someone at the branch who can look into the wire transfer. They are a pain but the best way to send money over seas securely. Take the printouts of the emails with the numbers as without them you are in deep doo doo. Take your receipts of what was done.

If you had issues with Photo Village I would have suggested you go with CameraQuest and vis versa. I've never had problems with either of them.

Sorry to hear about your problems.

B2 (;->
 
I'd imagine that if you got the camera new at Popflash - they would take care of all this for you as long as it's under warranty. I have heard many stories here when they(Popflash) did this kind of thing with thier customers that had M8 issues, ZM issues, etc. Why would you have to send it to Japan yourself ?
 
Well I had contacted Photo Village and they said yes they would accept the camera but that it would be faster if I sent it to japan myself. This because they would have to wait until they had enough products to send to Japan in a shipment. Being that im never afraid of doing things myself especially to achieve faster results I said sure why not.
Ha! Well I learned a lesson.
I talked to my bank and they said everything was fine. It was paid to Cosina and no fees were coming back.
Who would have thought gettig a camera fixed would be such a frustrating experience?
I am happy with Photo Village that they were able to ge Cosina to drop the charges from 17400 back to 3600 when Co said it was my fault the camera had issues.
Im trying to be positive and think that these companies mean well, but its getting a little too stressful.
 
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I have experience with Zeiss, when I sent them my ZI, it's overwhelmingly positive, best customer service I've ever had in fact, don't worry about Zeiss.

As for your Bessa, I'd leave it with Photo Village, it's their responsibility, if you truly cannot wait, try Japan Exposures. I sent them my Fujifilm Klasse for repair, and they were pretty good about it, took PayPal etc. Japan Exposures have a handling fee of course, it's maybe a tad on the high side, but I was happy with the service overall.

Sounds like Cosina are not really set up for dealing with individuals, maybe it's best left to a company more accustomed to dealing with them.
 
Finally!
I got an email from Cosina with an Ems tracking number.
Yeay!
I cant wait to start shooting again.
Thank you everyone for listening to my rants
I will never deal with something like this again on my own.
 
BillBingham2 said:
Ask for guidance, experience, ideas and all. RFF has a wealth of all of them, including opinions.
B2 (;->
Click to expand...

Well (tongue firmly in cheek) I'd like to think this post contains all of the above.

Whilst it's disappointing to hear of what may have been a less than stellar response, I feel that maybe the OP's sense of urgency in the matter may have contributed to the situation. Dealers do have a function.
A while back I discovered a fault in the flash circuitry of my R4A. I took the camera to my Voigtlander dealer (Mainline Photographic) who had their techie look at it free of charge, even though I had not bought the camera from them - it was second hand. His conclusion was that it was a problem with the PCB that he could not fix and that it needed to go back to Japan. I prevaricated and continued to use it for a while but eventually concluded that the repair ought to be done. I asked about the time and cost involved. Very simply, Mainline send stuff back to Cosina via a courier service to ensure it gets there OK but to make the process affordable they wait until they have a minimum quantity of gear to send in a "batch". I was probably lucky with the timing but within three weeks I had my camera back, fitted with a new PCB and at a cost of about $130AUD which I thought pretty reasonable, and a little less than I had been quoted.
How I would have got on trying to organise it all myself is anybody's guess, but going through the Voigtlander dealer was, in this case, a very easy and satisfactory experience. My feeling is that Eddie might have had a happier experience had he first gone to Photo Village or Camera Quest instead of trying to deal direct with the factory himself. Anyway, glad it all worked out in the end.
 
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